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As part of the broader intellectual movement throughout the social sciences that is centered on new institutionalism, the institution-based view has emerged as a leading perspective in the strategic management literature. This article (1) traces the emergence of the institution-based view, (2) reviews its growth in the last two decades, and (3) responds to three of its major criticisms. We also identify four promising research directions—deglobalization and sanctions, competitive dynamics, hybrid organizations, and corporate social responsibility. Overall, we demonstrate that the thriving research on institutions has culminated in an institution-based paradigm, which has significant potential for future growth.

In order to understand how the environment influences business owner/managers' attitudes towards tax morale, we build a theoretical model based on a neo-institutionalist framework. Our model combines three complementary perspectives on institutions—normative, cultural-cognitive and regulatory-instrumental. This enables a broader understanding of factors that influence business owner-managers' attitudes towards tax evasion. We test the resulting hypotheses using regression analysis on survey data on business owner/managers in Latvia—a transition country, which has undergone massive institutional changes since it was part of the Soviet Union over 25 years ago. We find that legitimacy of the tax authorities and the government (normative dimension), feeling of belonging to the nation (cultural-cognitive dimension) and perceptions of the risk and severity of punishment (regulatory-instrumental dimension) are all associated with higher tax morale for business owners and managers.

This paper analyzes policy discussion regarding key developments in the national organization of the Swedish academic career during the period 1955–2020. In the 1950s, the academic career was highly regulated and state-planned with a few exclusive academic positions. In 2020, it has become essentially deregulated with universities themselves establishing employment positions. Four key developments are identified: the emergence of parallel careers, the expansion of external research funding, the dramatic increase in professors, and the deregulation of national policy on academic careers. The national policy discussions underpinning these developments are analysed with the help of a theoretical framework for explaining different types of institutional change. The paper shows that changes to the Swedish academic career were undertaken gradually over time, mainly by the layering of new rules over or alongside existing ones as a supplement. In addition, the paper shows that some problems with the academic career have been discussed repeatedly and that even where solutions have been set out, the problems seem to persist.

Recent research suggests that corporate social responsibility (CSR) is institutionalised amongst multinational corporations. Yet CSR scholarship faces considerable challenges. An agreed definition is lacking, even amongst researchers adopting aligned approaches. Studies remain heavily focused on making a business case for CSR, despite its widespread acceptance into business practice. Few studies examine CSR's on-ground implications for the communities it purports to help, favouring instead a macrolevel focus. And concerns about CSR's sincerity, motivations and ethics perpetuate questions about its integrity. This article argues that new institutionalism is well placed to respond to these core challenges for CSR, and that new institutionalist perspectives can complement and enrich other common theoretical approaches. It contributes a social mechanism-based framework for CSR, identifying and exploring the key social mechanisms that institutionalise it; namely, discourse, mimesis, normative learning and coercion. Understanding CSR as an institution facilitates new and different explorations of its causes and effects and opens new avenues for scholarly inquiry. Illustrative examples from a 3.5-year study of CSR in the global mining industry are presented to explore the implications of CSR as an institution and to suggest pathways for innovative research.

An entrepreneurship movement has advanced into higher education. There is a growing expectation that universities demonstrate an economic contribution to the public good by instilling students with entrepreneurialism and providing guidance for starting businesses. In China, the state has launched a ‘Mass Entrepreneurship and Innovation’ initiative as part of a national development strategy, which required universities to increase resources for entrepreneurial activities and for all students to complete an entrepreneurship education course. This article applies new institutionalism theory to illuminate how the mass entrepreneurship initiative filtered down to universities and students. Data were analysed from policy documents and interviews (n = 100) with final-year undergraduates in the social sciences and humanities at two public universities in Guangdong Province. The universities were found to conform ceremonially to the institutionally legitimated initiative, but entrepreneurship provisions for undergraduates remained limited. At the same time, mass entrepreneurship was found to be disconnected from student experiences. One group (the ‘avoiders’) perceived entrepreneurship as unfeasible or a remote possibility in their lives. A second group (the ‘venturers’) were unprepared for starting a business and described hardships resulting from their failures. The findings provide a counter-narrative to the entrepreneurship movement and raise ethical questions about the mass promotion of entrepreneurship to students without due consideration to the risks.

Social scientists have sketched four distinct theories to explain a phenomenon that appears to have ramped up in recent years, the diffusion of policies across countries. Constructivists trace policy norms to expert epistemic communities and international organizations, who define economic progress and human rights. Coercion theorists point to powerful nation-states, and international financial institutions, that threaten sanctions or promise aid in return for fiscal conservatism, free trade, etc. Competition theorists argue that countries compete to attract investment and to sell exports by lowering the cost of doing business, reducing constraints on investment, or reducing tariff barriers in the hope of reciprocity. Learning theorists suggest that countries learn from their own experiences and, as well, from the policy experiments of their peers. We review the large body of research from sociologists and political scientists, as well as the growing body of work from economists and psychologists, pointing to the diverse mechanisms that are theorized and to promising avenues for distinguishing among causal mechanisms.

The predominant responses to rising sea levels are in situ adaptations. However, increasing rates of sea-level rise will render ex situ adaptations—in the form of relocations—inevitable in some low-lying coastal zones. Particularly small island states like the Maldives face this significant adaptation challenge. Here, government action is necessary to move vulnerable communities out of flood-prone areas. Yet, little empirical knowledge exists about the governance of relocations. While the literature often highlights risks and benefits of relocations, it remains unclear how governments organized relocations and what drove relocation policy. Therefore, we examined Maldivian relocation policies from 1968 to 2018 to explain government support of relocations. For this, we used a qualitative research design and extended the multiple streams approach with the theoretical lens of historical institutionalism. To gather data, we conducted semi-structured interviews (n = 23) with relocation policy experts and locals affected by relocations. Interview data was complemented with a desk review of relevant laws, historical records, and policy documents. We find 29 completed and 25 failed cases of relocations in the 50-year period. Key drivers of relocation policies are focusing events, socioeconomic development, and institutionalized island autonomy. We find that relocations were predominantly initiated as means to facilitate economic development, not as a response to rising seas or coastal risk. With current rapid economic development and strengthened democratic institutions, relocations are not considered as a policy option anymore. We conclude that implementing relocations proactively will face significant barriers in the future, which highlights the urgency of successful in situ adaptations in the Maldives.

This paper analyzes policy discussion regarding key developments in the national organization of the Swedish academic career during the period 1955–2020. In the 1950s, the academic career was highly regulated and state-planned with a few exclusive academic positions. In 2020, it has become essentially deregulated with universities themselves establishing employment positions. Four key developments are identified: the emergence of parallel careers, the expansion of external research funding, the dramatic increase in professors, and the deregulation of national policy on academic careers. The national policy discussions underpinning these developments are analysed with the help of a theoretical framework for explaining different types of institutional change. The paper shows that changes to the Swedish academic career were undertaken gradually over time, mainly by the layering of new rules over or alongside existing ones as a supplement. In addition, the paper shows that some problems with the academic career have been discussed repeatedly and that even where solutions have been set out, the problems seem to persist.

Following their independence, the two Central Asian states of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan decided on similar water governance reforms: transfer of local irrigation management to water user associations, introduction of pricing mechanisms, and establishment of hydrographic management principles. In both states, however, proper implementation is lacking. This paper aims to explain this contradiction and focuses on agricultural water governance reforms at the local level as an interdependent part of a multilevel water governance structure. Based on empirical findings, four variables through which the neopatrimonial context in both countries impacts water governance are identified: the decision-making process, the agricultural sector, the local governance institutions, and internal water-institutional linkages. A historical-institutionalist perspective shows how path dependencies limit reform effectiveness: institutionalised Soviet and pre-Soviet patterns of behaviour still shape actors’ responses to new challenges. Consequently, rules and organisations established formally by the state or international donor organisations are undermined by informal institutions. Yet, informal institutions are not only an obstacle to reform, but can also support it. They are not static but dynamic. This is elucidated with the concept of 'institutional bricolage', which explains how local actors recombine elements of different institutional logics and thereby change their meaning.

This paper contributes to the literature on institutional change by creating a framework that both measures and explains policy change. The framework is then applied to UK energy policy from 2000 to 2011 and finds that a policy paradigm change has occurred. Contrary to expectations in the literature, however, the process of change has been informed by multiple narratives and the new governance system is complex and incoherent. The analysis also finds that there has been relatively little shift in how energy systems operate, suggesting shortcomings in a conceptual focus on institutional change over outcomes.