Abstract
Keywords
Introduction
Institutional and organisational scholars have devoted considerable attention to explaining why individuals react differently to change. Researchers have searched for explanations from reflexivity – the ability of individuals to distance themselves from the ongoing action to assess themselves in relation to their social context and to formulate action strategies (Archer, 2003; Bouzanis and Kemp, 2020; Elster, 2017). These studies have suggested that reflexive tendencies and processes differ depending on both past and current situations and relations (Delbridge and Edwards, 2013; Maier and Simsa, 2021; Suddaby et al., 2016). This results in variances in individuals’ awareness of situational constraints, opportunities or inequalities (Maier and Simsa, 2021; Ruebottom and Auster, 2017; Suddaby et al., 2016) as well as how they relate to opportunities and make decisions (Delbridge and Edwards, 2013).
Thus, an analysis of reflexivity is an important addition to the studies of institutional work, that is, the ‘purposive actions of individuals and organizations aimed at creating, maintaining, and disrupting institutions’ (Lawrence and Suddaby, 2006: 215; Seo and Creed, 2002). In fact, institutional work is often associated with reflexive agency (Cardinale, 2018; Goldenstein and Walgenbach, 2019; Lawrence and Suddaby, 2006; Maier and Simsa, 2021). Despite the explanatory power of the concept, reflexivity is defined and understood in different ways – sometimes as an either/or quality of action (e.g. Cardinale, 2018; Ruebottom and Auster, 2017) and sometimes as a process that varies qualitatively (Delbridge and Edwards, 2013; Mutch, 2007). This ambiguity has complicated the development of cumulative knowledge about how reflexivity contributes to institutional work. For example, it remains unclear whether reflexivity always supports institutional work or whether there are distinct types of reflexive processes that more likely lead to institutional work. Furthermore, it is unclear whether reflexivity explains the differences between maintenance- and change-oriented institutional work. Thus, instead of treating reflexivity as a simple response to the paradox of embedded agency, in-depth empirical analyses are needed to develop a more rigorous understanding of what drives individuals to affect institutions.
To contribute to closing this knowledge gap, this study investigated how different forms of reflexivity impact actors’ engagement in institutional work. First, previous empirical studies of reflexivity in institutional processes were analysed to determine how reflexivity is defined and associated with institutional work. Next, reflexivity was analysed within the context of an empirical case of institutional change in a city organisation where the reflexive evaluation processes and institutional work of 31 organisational members were investigated to identify and explain the variations in their commitment to institutional work.
This study makes three contributions to the current understanding of reflexivity and institutional work. First, by identifying and discussing three dimensions of reflexive evaluation processes – scope, openness and relationality – the study provides the means to empirically investigate reflexivity using a rich, multidimensional view. Second, by identifying how the three dimensions influence institutional work, it advances the understanding of the relations between reflexivity and institutional work in organisational contexts. Third, by identifying how employees’ key concerns at work shape the three dimensions of reflexivity, the study advances knowledge related to the role of individual concerns and intentions in institutional processes (Burkitt, 2012; Creed et al., 2022; Li, 2023). This article begins with a review of the extant studies on reflexivity in institutional work and institutional change. Then, the empirical research design and results are presented, and the findings are discussed. The article ends with an evaluation of the implications and limitations of the study.
Reflexivity in studies of institutional work
The concept of reflexivity offers a theoretical explanation for the paradox of embedded agency (Seo and Creed, 2002), specifically how individuals can challenge institutions in which they are embedded. Institutional scholars generally draw on sociology when defining reflexivity as actors’ ability to assess their social situations – by considering themselves in relation to the context and vice versa – in order to formulate an action strategy that is appropriate for a given situation (Archer, 2003; Bouzanis and Kemp, 2020). Therefore, reflexivity is often contrasted with pre-reflexive (Cardinale, 2018), habitual (Modell, 2022) or primary agency (Maier and Simsa, 2021) and is seen to operate at the level of linguistic consciousness in contrast to practical consciousness (Goldenstein and Walgenbach, 2019). In institutional studies of organisations, reflexivity is often associated with an awareness of social positions, inequalities and vulnerabilities (Creed et al., 2022; Maier and Simsa, 2021) and of how institutional norms constrain and enable actions (Seo and Creed, 2002; Suddaby et al., 2016) and affect well-being (Creed et al., 2022). Reflexivity may be actualised as a sudden awakening (Ruebottom and Auster, 2017) or as a continual evaluation of institutional arrangements (Creed et al., 2022).
Because reflexivity challenges taken-for-granted beliefs (Ruebottom and Auster, 2017; Suddaby et al., 2016; Vincent and Pagan, 2018), it is typically seen to motivate institutional agency and institutional work – purposive actions directed at the creation, maintenance or disruption of institutions (Lawrence and Suddaby, 2006; Seo and Creed, 2002). Indeed, ‘reflective purposefulness’ has been discussed as a defining characteristic of institutional work (Lawrence et al., 2013: 1029; see also Li, 2023). However, researchers have noted that reflexive evaluations may be fallible (Archer, 2003), actions might create unintended outcomes (Zilber, 2013) and institutional change and stability can be produced without reflexive action (Cardinale, 2018; Goldenstein and Walgenbach, 2019). Therefore, researchers have suggested that reflexive and non-reflexive actions co-influence institutions: reflexivity enables purposive institutional work, whereas habits contribute to change or stability by limiting the scope of reflexive awareness (Cardinale, 2018) or through the aggregate effects of habitual actions on institutions (Goldenstein and Walgenbach, 2019; Maier and Simsa, 2021).
Moreover, the studies of reflexivity suggest how social relations shape – although they do not determine – individual evaluation and action. Reflexivity is seen as an emergent and relational human property (Archer, 2003) that develops alongside an individual’s life experiences and positions. It is affected by the people with whom one identifies and interacts (Creed et al., 2022), the continuity of social relations and structures (Archer, 2003) and one’s positions, knowledge and other resources within and across institutional fields (Decoteau, 2016; Elster, 2017; Meliou and Edwards, 2017; Mutch, 2004; Suddaby et al., 2016). In addition, although reflexive evaluation may be continual (Creed et al., 2022), it may be triggered in novel interactions (Correia, 2016; Maier and Simsa, 2021), interstitial events (Ruebottom and Auster, 2017) and crises (Archer, 2003; Mrozowicki, 2010; Seo and Creed, 2002; Wimalasena and Marks, 2019). All of these factors contribute to how people assess future situations and their own possibilities of influencing them.
Towards multidimensional operationalisations of reflexivity
Despite its explanatory power, scholars have only recently empirically analysed reflexivity in relation to institutional change and institutional work (Lawrence et al., 2013). The online-only Appendix 1 summarises relevant recent studies. A comparison of these studies reveals notable differences in how reflexivity is approached. For example, some studies have treated reflexivity as a unidimensional feature by assuming that action is either reflexive or habitual, or that the level of reflexivity varies. These studies suggest that reflexivity, in general, contributes to institutional work (Modell, 2022; Ruebottom and Auster, 2017; Vincent and Pagan, 2018). Other studies have treated reflexivity as a multidimensional concept and argued that individuals have different reflexive tendencies that may or may not support institutional work (Delbridge and Edwards, 2013; Dobson et al., 2013; Mutch, 2007).
Furthermore, these studies differ in terms of the attributes or dimensions associated with reflexivity in empirical investigations. Several studies have associated reflexivity with an ‘awareness of institutions’ (Maier and Simsa, 2021; Suddaby et al., 2016) and viewed it as ‘articulate understanding of institutions, of their positions towards and within them, and of how they would like to change or maintain them’ (Maier and Simsa, 2021: 556), thus indicating that reflexive awareness ranges from low to high. These studies have analysed reflexivity in the context of individuals disembedding from (Ruebottom and Auster, 2017) or becoming aware of their embeddedness in institutional structures (Maier and Simsa, 2021) and indicated that individuals who are more aware of institutions are more likely to partake in institutional work. For example, Suddaby et al. (2016) suggested that social position and social skills interact to shape an individual’s degree of reflexive awareness, thereby affecting individual social mobility and participation in institutional processes.
Second, several studies have viewed the autonomy of reflexive deliberations as a precondition for institutional change. Autonomous thinking is often equated with the ability to distance oneself from institutional norms or reference groups. Several empirical studies (Delbridge and Edwards, 2013; Dobson et al., 2013; Mutch, 2007) have associated institutional change with Archer’s (2003) understanding of autonomous reflexives, defined as self-sufficient individuals who live in discontinuous contexts and pursue personally useful projects even when they contradict institutions. In contrast, conversational reflexives make decisions collectively and nurture close social relationships and continuity (Archer, 2003; Dobson et al., 2013). However, how autonomous thinking affects institutions remains ambiguous. While collective action has been emphasised in institutional studies (Bridwell-Mitchell, 2016; Dorado, 2013; Maier and Simsa, 2021), Archer’s autonomous reflexives are not necessarily committed to collective projects (Mutch, 2007). Meanwhile, Porpora and Shumar (2010) suggested that ‘fully reflexives’ reflect both communicatively and internally (see also Caetano, 2017), which resonates with the notion that collective processes trigger reflexivity and institutional work (Maier and Simsa, 2021; Nilsson, 2015; Ruebottom and Auster, 2017).
In addition to reflexive awareness and autonomous thinking, some empirical studies have addressed qualitative differences in reflexive evaluation (Aleksandrov, 2020; Aleksandrov et al., 2018; Correia, 2016; Suddaby et al., 2016). Several sociologists have suggested that key concerns in life shape reflexive processes, thereby leading to different perceptions and decisions (Archer, 2003, 2007, 2012; Caetano, 2017; Donati and Archer, 2015; Elster, 2017). Archer (2003, 2007, 2012) demonstrated how experiences and relationships lead to different reflexive modes, which are distinguished by concerns regarding close personal relationships (conversational reflexives), high social positions (autonomous reflexives) and social justice (meta-reflexives). In institutional studies, Creed et al. (2022) called for research on how concerns motivate institutional work by suggesting that reflexivity entails continual evaluation of how institutions affect well-being and that this evaluation intensifies when institutions fail to support individual concerns.
In terms of empirical studies, Aleksandrov (2020) and Aleksandrov et al. (2018) approached reflexivity as a motivation or stance in planning processes, and Correia (2016) analysed this concept as doctors’ situated rationales that explain their action strategies in a change process. Furthermore, Suddaby et al. (2016) associated reflexivity with a desire to maintain or gain a high social position, and Ruebottom and Auster (2017) associated it with intentions to alleviate social injustice. Although these studies have started capturing the qualitative differences in reflexive evaluation processes, the motivations underlying institutional work need to be further researched (Creed et al., 2022).
This brief overview demonstrates multiple ways of approaching reflexivity empirically, which complicates the evaluation of whether these analyses capture the same or different empirical phenomena. It concretises the fact that existing theories define reflexivity at a very general level and provides little guidance for empirical analyses. In addition, these differences may originate from the uncertainties in capturing people’s internal conversations and intentions (e.g. Zilber, 2013). These reasons can explain why, despite being generally defined as a human property or capability realised as evaluative activity, reflexivity is often characterised using its antecedents and outcomes, such as positions, skills, awareness and motivations. This diversity in the operationalisations of reflexivity challenges the creation of a cumulative understanding of the relations between reflexivity and institutional work. It is unclear whether ‘more’ reflexivity increases the likelihood of engaging in institutional work or whether there are different ways of exercising reflexivity that explain differences in institutional work. Furthermore, it is unclear whether some concerns inspire institutional work despite the level of reflexive awareness. It is also not yet understood whether autonomous thinking increases reflexive awareness or decreases individuals’ interest in collective change processes.
To address these challenges and ambiguities, the present study suggests that empirical analyses of reflexivity should concurrently assess several attributes or dimensions of the concept to more accurately define whether and how it shapes institutional work. Therefore, in this study, reflexivity is defined as a human property realised as a reflexive evaluation process (Archer, 2003) that can vary along several dimensions. The study empirically analyses variations in reflexive evaluation processes in the context of institutional change – in an organisation struggling to align its processes with new institutional norms and ideals – to shed light on the issues described above. While previous research has already applied Archer’s typologies (e.g. Delbridge and Edwards, 2013; Dobson et al., 2013; Edwards and Meliou, 2015; Mutch, 2007), these typologies are directly borrowed from studies of life choices (see Chimezie, 1989; Oswick et al., 2011 for more about concept borrowing) rather than critically evaluated in the context of organisations, where the decision-making dynamics may be different (e.g. Gorli et al., 2015; Meier and Carroll, 2023). Therefore, two empirical research questions are established. First, how do organisational members reflexively evaluate institutional change? Second, how does this evaluation impact their engagement in institutional work?
Empirical study: Reflexivity and institutional change in a city organisation
This study analysed public sector employees in a Finnish city who experienced an institutional shift from professional and traditional public administration norms and practices to more efficient and measurable service delivery models that concurred with the new public management (NPM) trend (e.g. Olakivi and Niska, 2017; Stout, 2013). While NPM has long influenced public administration and impacted the studied organisation, the current change more deeply reshaped employees’ core work practices. Supported by recruits from business fields and opportunities created by digitalisation, the change challenged the employees’ traditional norms and practices, provoking varied reactions and making it an ideal case for exploring reflexivity and institutional work. The employees engaged in purposive institutional work to influence the adoption and implementation of the change within the organisation; some also contributed to changes at the broader field level. This study applied a qualitative embedded case study design (Stake, 2005) in which several employees were interviewed between 2018 and 2021 to compare their reflexive processes and institutional work.
The case context: A city organisation addressing efficiency, transparency and digitalisation
The studied organisation, hereafter ‘City Organisation’, was recently formed by bringing together services that contributed to the urban environment and infrastructure processes within the studied city. It comprised six service groups, each including several units representing different areas of expertise from landscape architecture to waste management. It employed approximately 300 employees, and while it was known for innovative and ambitious projects, it was characterised by long traditions and employee tenures of 20–30 years. The institutional change was manifested through several parallel changes that, according to the informants, were associated with increasing levels of managerialism, transparency, efficiency and customer orientation – all of which have been associated with the NPM trend (Olakivi and Niska, 2017; Stout, 2013). For the employees, this meant increasing requirements related to agility, transparency, cross-disciplinary expertise and digitalisation.
The largest change project aimed to streamline and digitalise processes across the organisation to increase efficiency and information flow and to reduce redundant tasks. The project was the first centrally organised development project in City Organisation, unique in its breadth. Owing to its scope and visibility, it concretised ongoing institutional change for employees. The project aimed to renew and integrate several key information technology (IT) systems and streamline service processes using new digital tools and LEAN approaches that focus on increasing the efficiency and value of work processes. Previously, the service units had worked independently, but now the aim was to identify cross-organisational opportunities to boost efficiency. A novel development structure was created, new personnel – some from the business fields – were hired and line employees were invited to join the project. The project began after the establishment of City Organisation and continued after the data collection ended. In addition to this project, the organisation underwent several changes for cost-cutting purposes. Work spaces became more crowded, rules and equipment were standardised and some employment benefits were reduced.
The change forced the employees to reconsider several established norms and practices, including their tendency to cherish unit-level professional autonomy. Tensions emerged between employees who had an official mandate to pursue change and those who defended their traditional practices and influenced their colleagues. Within this range of extremes, the employees took various stances towards the change. By the end of the data collection, several sub-projects had been implemented, but the developers had to downgrade their objectives partly because organisational support was lacking. Furthermore, several strong advocates and resisters of the change exited the organisation, partly owing to the tensions that emerged during the change implementation.
Empirical material
Interviewing was selected as the primary data collection method because it enabled informants to deliberate on their views on the institutional change and explain if, how and why they sought to influence it, offering insights into their reflexive processes and institutional work. To understand individual differences, the informants were selected from units representing different professional practices – town planning, city surveying and construction management – and the unit leaders recommended informants with varying positions, tenures and attitudes towards the change. The interviewees recommended additional informants, including two from the infrastructure design unit who collaborated with the construction management unit. Nine informants resigned from the organisation during the study. They were interviewed once after their resignation, and some new informants were included. Table 1 shows the final sample of 31 informants, including supervisors with managerial responsibilities, professionals who conducted core tasks in their professional areas and experts who supported the core processes.
Empirical data.
Positions are reported as they were at the beginning of the study.
Because interviews differ from internal deliberations and informants may not openly discuss their motivations in interviews, the informants were interviewed several times between 2018 and 2021, and their reflexivity was addressed using different themes (Archer, 2003; Caetano, 2015). The main data were collected through two face-to-face interview rounds in 2018 and 2019, which yielded 58 interviews. The interviews were semi-structured to enable comparisons while allowing the informants to raise new topics. These interviews addressed the informants’ work and professional histories, their key concerns at work, their viewpoints on the institutional change and other developments at work, how these changes influenced their work/position, whether and how they aimed to influence the change and whether and how they planned their careers. The interviews were recorded and transcribed, resulting in 610 pages of transcripts. A total of 21 informants were reached for a third interview round, which was conducted via Microsoft Teams and telephone in 2021, to revisit central themes and discuss emerging interpretations. Memos were written after every interview to capture the initial observations. Additional data shown in Table 1 were collected to understand the research context. These data included management interviews, documents related to and observations of development meetings, which helped assess how changes were planned and communicated to employees; and observations in the units, which helped assess the internal dynamics and tensions.
The data were stored and treated confidentially, and the individual responses were completely anonymised. The informants were provided with the option to withdraw from the study at any time. Careful attention was also paid to non-biased treatment of the findings to encourage different perspectives in City Organisation. These aims and procedures were explained to the informants prior to data collection when they signed informed consent forms. In addition to preventing harmful consequences for the informants, these actions were taken to increase trust between the researcher and the informants, and thus, to yield better insights.
Empirical analysis
The analysis followed critical realist reasoning in that it sought the most plausible explanations for individual-level differences in institutional work from the perspective of reflexivity (Mingers and Standing, 2017; O’Mahoney and Vincent, 2014). Key issues were to understand variations in both institutional work and reflexivity, assess other issues that affect institutional work and evaluate the possible causal relations between the two concepts. The analysis began with identifying the variations in the informants’ institutional work and then evaluating which aspects in the reflexive evaluation processes contributed to this variation and why. This process captured the aspects of reflexivity pertinent to institutional work. Theoretical reflections iterated with the process of organising the data and identifying relations in the data in a manner characterised as abduction (O’Mahoney and Vincent, 2014) or systematic combining (Dubois and Gadde, 2002), including both inductive and deductive phases as necessary. Figure 1 outlines the main phases of the analysis, which are explained below.
The analysis process.
The first empirical challenge was to identify the manifestations of institutional work and reflexivity in the interview texts. Existing theories were used to identify these phenomena while remaining open to new empirical relations and themes. Based on initial iterations between the data and theories, reflexivity was conceptualised using Archer’s understanding of this concept as a human property that empirically manifests itself as a process in which individuals – when facing a change situation –
The process began with using Atlas.ti 24 Windows to identify texts where the informants discussed these issues during the first two interview rounds. Concerns were operationalised as issues or values that the interviewees embraced in their work. Stances were defined as the informants’ overall orientation, attitudes and positions towards the institutional change. Action strategies represented the informants’ institutional work (i.e. the purposive actions to affect the institutional change) (Lawrence and Suddaby, 2006). For simplicity, the term ‘institutional work’ refers to the action strategies discussed here. Institutional work was operationalised as the interviewees’ concrete actions (or lack thereof) that aimed to influence the change within or outside City Organisation, including failed actions. The informants’ elaboration and justification of their concerns, stances and institutional work exemplified their reflexive processes, which were thoroughly examined in the subsequent analysis.
The second task comprised an inductive thematic analysis of the concerns, stances and institutional work to organise the data. Three analysis rounds were conducted to facilitate the progression from empirical observations to general categories (Gioia et al., 2013). First, the data were coded using the informants’ terminology, which resulted in 35–102 first-order codes associated with each of the three concepts. Then, by evaluating these codes in relation to the research questions and theories, they were categorised into theoretically meaningful second-order themes, which resulted in six to 11 themes related to each concept. A third round was conducted to identify common denominators across the themes. This phase provided an overview of the different ways in which the informants reacted to the change, which helped identify differences among the informants. Figure 2 summarises these findings. Memos and tables were drafted to support further analysis.
Themes identified in the second analysis phase.
The third task involved drafting summaries of each informant’s institutional positioning to identify their general stance towards the change and the nature of their institutional work (if any). As each informant discussed several concerns, stances and types of institutional work, this task began with a code-document comparison: the codes in each interview were counted to evaluate which concerns, stances and institutional work types were emphasised. The outcomes were cross-checked with the post-interview memos and tables to understand the informants’ motives, correct the shortcomings and indicate possible changes between successive interviews. In addition, the informants’ professional histories (i.e. their educational backgrounds and work histories) were mapped. The summaries were reviewed with informants in the third interview and written as mini-narratives for the fourth task.
After establishing an overview of the informants’ institutional positioning, the analysis focused on addressing the research questions from a comparative perspective: how reflexivity varied between individuals and how it affected the observed differences in institutional work. These questions were addressed iteratively to identify differences in reflexivity that may have contributed to differences in institutional work. The analysis iterated between theory and data and between individuals and groups. This work was abductive in that the best possible explanations for the variations in institutional work were sought by extracting working propositions about the relations between reflexivity and institutional work from the data and evaluating and testing these propositions using broader empirical evidence (other observations and informants) and theories (Mingers and Standing, 2017; O’Mahoney and Vincent, 2014).
This analysis included two parallel tasks. In the fourth task, the original interviews and mini-narratives were revisited to identify and compare how the informants evaluated the change, the dimensions along which their reflexive processes varied and the possible connections between the reflexive processes and institutional positioning. The analysis sought to determine whether theory-driven dimensions, such as reflexive awareness and autonomy, or some other aspects of reflexivity explain the observed individual-level differences among the informants. The fifth task involved categorising the informants into groups based on the similarities and differences in their reflexivity and institutional work. Once a possible grouping principle was identified, the groupings were refined through careful individual-level comparisons. This exercise helped specify reflexivity dimensions that distinguished individuals from one another and that might have shaped their institutional work. Based on the testing of several possible principles to refine the dimensions and groupings, the analysis resulted in seven groups that differed from one another with respect to the three dimensions of reflexivity and in their stances and institutional work types.
A preliminary categorisation was presented in the informants’ unit meetings to initiate discussion. In general, the informants recognised these groups but suggested renaming some of them. Some informants identified with more than one group, which was noted in the analysis. Table 2 presents the three dimensions of reflexive evaluation processes – ‘scope’, ‘openness’ and ‘relationality’ – that were considered most relevant.
Key concepts, definitions and examples.
The final task was to identify explanations for the differences between individuals based on all available data. Drawing on the initial insights into the relations between reflexivity and institutional work and how the concerns shaped reflexivity, the aim was to understand how the current and past situations and relations affected these concerns, reflexivity and institutional work. Issues related to positions, professional histories, work practices and organisational and individual situations were considered. Again, comparisons were made between groups and individuals to finalise the responses to the research questions. This evaluation strengthened the understanding of the causalities between reflexivity and institutional work in the informants’ work contexts.
Findings
Two key insights emerged from this empirical analysis. First, the informants’ reflexive evaluation processes varied along three dimensions that somewhat specify the current understanding of reflexivity: (1) the scope of the reflexive evaluation, which was defined as the range and breadth of the processes/structures across which the informants identified causal relations and consequences when evaluating the institutional change; (2) the openness of the reflexive evaluation, defined as the degree to which an informant attempted to distance themselves from the current norms and beliefs to consider alternative perspectives when evaluating the institutional change; and (3) the relationality of the reflexive evaluation, defined as the degree to which an informant considered the perspectives of others when evaluating the change. Even though each informant’s reflexive deliberations varied as they evaluated the change from several perspectives, a typical pattern was identified – herein discussed as the informant’s reflexivity profile – which indicated the typical scope, openness and relationality of the reflexive evaluation.
Second, these reflexivity profiles contributed to different decisions regarding whether and how to undertake institutional work. As shown below, the 31 informants were categorised into seven groups that manifested these differences. Table 3 summarises these types and shows that the informants in each group represented a distinct reflexivity profile and positioning in relation to the institutional change. The informants’ institutional work is described here using general categories of change and maintenance orientation and the intensity of the institutional work. While this provides a simplified view of the informants’ diverse actions, it also enables discussion of the general patterns between reflexivity and institutional work. To provide richer information, illustrative examples are described below.
Concerns, reflexivity profiles and positions in institutional change.
Three reflexivity profiles connected to active engagement in institutional work
More than half of the informants (17 out of 31) expressed strong stances in favour of or against the ongoing change and actively aimed to affect it, either by joining change projects or in their own work. These informants comprehensively articulated their stances and concerns and had a broad scope of reflexive deliberations. What differentiated these individuals were the concerns they cherished, as well as the openness and relationality of their reflexive deliberations, which shaped the type of institutional work in which they engaged.
Informants representing the first group, labelled I’m eager to develop the field to make it more efficient and customer-oriented, wherever this path might lead us – it seems to lead to many alternative directions. And I aim to collaborate with universities, municipalities, the government and business life. (Professional #1)
The informant joined national development projects, networked with like-minded colleagues and explored and experimented with new ideas at work. As part of City Organisation’s digitalisation project, the informant experimented with new service process models that considerably accelerated the processing of customer requests in the unit. However, like other efficiency seekers, these experimentations were primarily conducted with like-minded colleagues, whereas engaging the broader organisation in change-oriented actions proved difficult. The following quotation exemplifies these relationships in institutional work: You note the pressures towards change all over the municipal field. The more you’ll find the right persons and ask the right questions, the more you will get [this] response, but they do not dare to speak out up-front. When I noticed that there are other like-minded persons, it helped a lot and I also want to encourage others, like, ‘do not give up, there are possibilities [for change]’. (Professional #1)
All efficiency seekers were relatively new recruits who seemed to have inhabited concerns related to continual development, high performance and efficiency in their previous jobs. Therefore, they perceived the ongoing institutional change to be in line with these personal concerns, which was probably the primary reason for their change orientation. In addition, the analysis suggests that their positions at City Organisation – where resistance to change was common – shaped their reflexive evaluation processes, which affected the type of institutional work in which they engaged.
Their reflexive evaluation processes were generally broad in scope; however, they were bounded rather than being open to varied ideas and selective in relationality. The boundedness was shown in that they sourced their ideas from previous work and networks – typically outside municipal organisations – but were reluctant to critically evaluate these ideas. This persistence in promoting efficiency, even if it faced fierce resistance at City Organisation, led them to be selective in terms of the relationality of their reflexive deliberations. For example, the professional discussed above limited the consideration of the concerns of change-resistant colleagues after conflicts between concerns occurred: They [the other colleagues] think that you cannot do things that are not stated in the law, but my interpretation is that if the law doesn’t forbid it, so . . . This has caused small – and big – conflicts, and our views began to diverge from one another . . . First, we created solutions for individual cases [to accelerate the customer process], but, after noticing several similar cases, we started wondering if there’s something wrong with our process. And we started to develop it with [a like-minded colleague]. It has been a rocky road but hopefully already a little brighter. (Professional #1)
This choice of proceeding with like-minded colleagues helped the informant to continue the development but likely limited the extent to which the informant understood the concerns of others. This was also noted in the interviews conducted with other efficiency seekers: while they cherished collaboration among varied actors, this collaboration was selective and focused on considering the views of like-minded actors.
This profile meant that efficiency seekers could push the change forward using their capability to evaluate, find supporters and relate the change project to the ongoing transformation towards digitalised and efficient services elsewhere. However, they had difficulties in understanding the other colleagues’ insistence on maintaining current practices. ‘I’m sorry, but sometimes I just don’t get it’, said one of them when discussing the change-resistant culture at City Organisation. This selectivity limited the effect of their institutional work within City Organisation because they had difficulty overcoming the resistance. Three of the five efficiency seekers resigned during the study, partly because they considered the resistance insurmountable and wanted to pursue their ideals in a better-suited environment and partly because they received tempting job offers elsewhere.
The
The way in which Professional #3 in the city surveying unit evaluated the change and engaged in maintenance-oriented institutional work exemplified this profile. Upon entering City Organisation, this informant had carefully studied and internalised its values, formed relationships with senior colleagues and cherished the quality and preciseness of the professional practice. Like other conventional professionals, the informant evaluated the implications of change at a broad societal level but leaned on like-minded colleagues (selective relationality) and consistently referred to the principles of the current professional practice when evaluating the change, rather than being open to questioning these practices (bounded rather than open evaluation). This caused the informant to consider the change a threat to the quality of the current practice: Our work culture is being developed toward speed and quantity at the expense of quality. I think they try to cut corners too much – this is alarming as we represent the administrative authority. Cutting corners will backfire on us in a couple of years. (Professional #3)
Another conventional professional bypassed the attempts to promote efficiency as irrelevant: They asked us who would be willing to join the development team. . . . Me, and other colleagues who have feet on the ground in their administrative duties, did not consider it relevant to invest work time in that: to be enthusiastic about something that, eventually, cannot be applied in this type of work. (Professional #4)
However, after noting that the efficiency seekers continued to promote the change anyway, Professional #4 commented on the plans to curb what he considered the wildest ideas. The following quotation shows this type of maintenance-oriented institutional work: I easily react to things that seem like, ‘you cannot do it that way’. . . . I am not, in my work role I cannot be, a free visionary. I am tied to my work role. Often we say that land surveyors are prisoners of the law. Too bad, you might have several [ideas], sure, but you need to obey the law. (Professional #4)
Overall, the maintenance-oriented institutional work of the conventional professionals included various means, such as voicing their concerns in internal meetings, writing a collective address for criticising internal decisions and supporting like-minded colleagues. Despite these actions, resisting the change was difficult. Four out of nine conventional professionals in the sample resigned and searched for jobs that suited them better in cities that remained untouched by the quest for efficiency and digitalisation.
The analysis of these two actor types indicated that strong, internalised concerns at work shaped their reflexivity profiles towards limited consideration of new ideas – which led to institutional work that aimed to defend the informants’ internalised ideals – and towards selective relationality, manifested in their way of seeking support from like-minded colleagues. While these informants were passionate about their work, their reflexive tendencies and institutional work efforts seemed to aggravate intra-organisational silos. The I was the one considering what [methods] we could experiment with and in which project, and then I persuaded [Professional #10] to join us, because I am not a technically-oriented person . . . and I knew that [Professional #10] has good expertise in that. (Professional #11)
The reflexive evaluation processes of the hybrid professionals were broad in scope, but unlike the first two actor types, these informants were open to alternative perspectives (open evaluation) and considered the concerns of a diversity of other actors (diverse relationality) when evaluating the change. For example, the professional quoted above evaluated the change from several perspectives by recalling previous experiences in an architect’s office and by evaluating various organisational, societal and environmental concerns in the current work community. The informant expressed empathy for change-resistant colleagues but differentiated one’s own stances from theirs. Unlike conventional professionals, the informant could also critically evaluate current practices to improve efficiency. Generally, the hybrid professionals’ stances were not as fixed and strong as was the case for the first two groups, but they seemed to navigate between views to concretise the change for the work community, for example, by testing and demonstrating new processes and IT tools in experimental customer projects. This suggested that the hybrid professionals’ broad scope and openness towards considering the different ideas and concerns of the various actors helped them commit to change-oriented institutional work, which potentially narrowed the silos within the work community.
Three reflexivity profiles associated with fluctuating engagement in institutional work
While the above-discussed informants were actively engaged in institutional work, the next 12 informants had fluctuating involvement in institutional work, albeit having a positive orientation towards the change in principle. Their work-related concerns were not as intense and broad as those of the previous groups, and the scope of their reflexive deliberations was moderate. However, the openness and relationality of their reflexive deliberations varied. Three reflexivity profiles were identified among these informants.
The first group, I am very curious; that’s probably why I was drawn into these [development tasks]. It is interesting, and I cannot imagine conducting the same process repeatedly. . . . [I prefer] having young colleagues, developing myself and, possibly, also sharing the knowledge that I have accumulated over my work life. (Expert #4)
The flexible actors were group players in the institutional change process in that they did not strongly advocate for their own concerns but were willing to contribute – hence the label ‘flexible’. They aimed to align their own work with the ongoing change and volunteered to participate in change projects, as explained by Expert #4: My team leader has the passion and plans and so on, but, change is slow, and I am waiting for it really. . . I have always liked to change – jobs, things and so on. It’s not like ‘this is how it’s done, I feel secure with this’ but I like to leave the comfort zone.
This flexible way of promoting change resembled the positioning of the hybrid professionals, but the flexible actors less often aimed to affect the direction of change. These differences in institutional work might have been derived from how they evaluated the change. The flexible actors resembled the hybrid professionals in their diverse relationality and openness to various ideas and ideals, but their evaluations had a narrower scope. For example, the expert quoted above considered the implications of change for the organisation and its direct stakeholders but did not address the rationales behind the broader field-level change.
The evaluation processes of the flexible actors manifested their concerns regarding nurturing good relationships within City Organisation and conducting interesting work in a supportive environment, whatever the direction of change might be. This open attitude reflected their positions: their tenures were long, spanning 10–30 years, but they collaborated with colleagues from different units and disciplines and occupied idiosyncratic job positions with only a few colleagues engaged in similar work. Such boundary positions could explain why they did not strongly push ideas associated with any single professional field.
The second group, It is typical for cities that plenty of meetings are organised, but no one does anything. I got many issues through by just making a concrete suggestion . . . it is always easier to criticise, develop or accept such suggestions. And if you do [a suggestion] to which others need to react, they may discover how it could be improved. (Professional #13)
The third group, You have enormous pressure to keep up with the change. The everyday work is not enough; you should complete hundreds of other tasks simultaneously. And this is an infeasible combination. It seems like people change things just because of the fun of it, but it’s not efficient from the perspective of the core process. (Supervisor #7)
These constraints pushed the informants into a reactive mode, where they assessed proposed changes through the lens of resource shortages. Consequently, the informants oscillated between attempts to engage in and withdraw from institutional work. However, the stressful work situations of several reactive individuals were resolved by the end of the study, which changed their profiles to those of flexible actors and hybrid professionals.
A reflexivity profile associated with the avoidance of institutional work
Two informants represented the seventh reflexivity profile, All these development things, I don’t want to hear about them because there are so many. I mean, how many will be implemented – all these digitalisation processes and paperless offices; I’d like to see the day when [they would materialise]. (Expert #9) This [digitalisation] is something new – again, and frightening almost, I might not be able to master it, or how could I ever learn? (Expert #9)
Owing to such stances, the two withdrawing individuals did not bother becoming involved in change debates and wanted to focus on their work in peace. The informant quoted above reported: ‘I don’t enjoy joining any development actions, but luckily, they don’t ask me often [laughing]’ (Expert #9).
In summary, the informants in all seven groups had their own impacts on how the institutional change proceeded at City Organisation. The process followed a typical narrative in which the incumbents (conventional professionals) aimed to maintain their traditions by resisting what the challengers (efficiency seekers) advocated (e.g. Riaz et al., 2016; Suddaby et al., 2016). Table 4 presents the informants’ professional histories, offering insights into how their current and previous positions may have influenced their reflexivity profiles, as discussed in previous studies (Delbridge and Edwards, 2013; Elster, 2017; Mutch, 2004). This shows that the efficiency seekers, hybrid professionals and learners were the most recent recruits to City Organisation and thus could source ideas from other contexts and networks, which might have helped them accept or champion the change. Conventional professionals, flexible actors, reactive individuals and withdrawing individuals were more deeply socialised into City Organisation, but the differences in their reactions can be explained by those in their professional background, workload and work experience.
The professional histories of the informants.
(x): very brief or temporally and occupationally distant experience (e.g. a summer job).
The changes observed in the informants’ reflexivity profiles and institutional work throughout the study suggested that these profiles were not static. In addition to the reactive individuals, some of the conventional professionals relaxed their attitudes towards change after their change-resistant colleagues had resigned.
Discussion
This study aimed to contribute to the existing literature on institutional change by analysing and assessing how differences in reflexivity impact actors’ engagement in institutional work. The results revealed seven different patterns related to reflexivity and institutional work, which indicated that variations within three dimensions of reflexivity – scope, openness and relationality – distinguished the informants’ reflexive processes from one another and contributed to their decisions regarding institutional work. Next, these findings are evaluated, and their implications and further research needs are discussed.
Refined dimensions of reflexivity
This empirical study supports the view of reflexivity as a multidimensional and relational human property that creates qualitatively differing individual-level stances and decisions. Overall, this supports previous understandings of reflexivity, but a distinction among the three dimensions provides clarity to the question of how reflexivity shapes institutional work. Figure 3 summarises how the findings relate to the two key dimensions of reflexivity identified previously: reflexive awareness and autonomy of reflexive deliberation.
Dimensions of reflexivity.
First, a distinction between the scope and openness of the reflexive evaluation process as two different dimensions provides a nuanced understanding of what reflexive awareness may entail. Previous studies have defined awareness as an articulate understanding of one’s positions and the underlying institutions (Maier and Simsa, 2021; Suddaby et al., 2016). The current findings indicate that the reflexive evaluation of change may be simultaneously broad in scope – in terms of evaluating opportunities and implications of change across different processes and structures in the organisation, professional community, society and the natural environment – but bounded in terms of staying true to one’s inhabited norms and beliefs. Reflexive evaluation may also be narrow in scope – in terms of acknowledging the implications of change for the work community only – but open in terms of distancing oneself from current norms and beliefs to consider alternative ideas and trajectories.
Second, the distinction between the openness and relationality of reflexive evaluation highlights the differences between whether individuals are bound to institutional norms or to other actors when evaluating change. Although these two types of relations are interrelated, they are also different (Burkitt, 2012, 2016). This study showed that individuals may apply the norms of their professional communities when evaluating change – in which case these two dimensions converge and create a ‘bounded’ and ‘selectively relational’ reflexivity profile. Alternatively, they may have personal reasons to cherish the present norms and evaluate the change individually, thus indicating a ‘bounded’ and ‘limitedly relational’ reflexivity profile. Individuals may also be open to alternative perspectives and ideals but source these perspectives either from other actors or through individual deliberations. All these variations are associated with different decisions made regarding institutional work.
Additionally, it is relevant to note that concerns played a key role in shaping all three dimensions of reflexivity. The motivating role of concerns for institutional work has been noted (Creed et al., 2022), but this study delves deeper into suggesting how they affect the different dimensions of reflexivity and thus shape institutional work. The informants’ concerns at work defined the scope of their reflexive evaluation by directing their attention to the causal relations between the entities and processes that were relevant to them, which may have enabled or limited the full consideration of the diverse and systemic implications of change. Moreover, concerns affected the openness of the reflexive evaluation by enabling or inhibiting the identification and/or appreciation of alternative perspectives. They also defined whose viewpoints were considered, which likely affected the acceptance of one’s institutional work within the work community. These findings suggest that to foster broad reflection and engagement with change, decision makers should explore employees’ key concerns beyond their verbal evaluations and stances. Change initiatives should then resonate with these concerns (e.g. Howard-Grenville, 2007).
Reflexivity and institutional work
Instead of identifying a form of reflexivity that contributes to institutional work, this study demonstrated that individuals with different reflexivity profiles are engaged in institutional work. Intensive engagement in institutional work was associated with two profiles: a profile that combined broad scope, bounded evaluation and selective relationality (efficiency seekers and conventional professionals) and a profile that combined broad scope, open evaluation and diverse relationality (hybrid professionals). In addition, institutional change was supported, albeit not initiated, by a reflexivity profile that combined moderate scope, open evaluation and diverse or limited relationality (flexible actors and learners). Informants with a profile that included moderate or narrow scope, bounded evaluation and limited relationality (such as withdrawing individuals) avoided institutional work.
Although the findings are specific to the studied context and their generalisability should be evaluated in further research, some assumptions can be drawn. First, the findings indicate that a tendency to engage in institutional work is associated with a broad scope of reflexive deliberation, which supports previous argumentation on the relations between high awareness and institutional work (Maier and Simsa, 2021; Ruebottom and Auster, 2017; Suddaby et al., 2016). The findings indicate that the scope of reflexivity is a function of individual concerns, meaning that the individuals who are concerned with collective and societal issues tend to evaluate the implications of change at those levels and are more likely to find the motivation to affect institutional change, whereas individuals who are primarily concerned about their own work–life balance tend to evaluate change at the level of their work and potentially fail to anticipate how such change may affect their work.
Second, the findings reveal that the reflexivity of individuals deeply engaged in institutional work can vary in both openness and relationality. The different reflexivity profiles likely played different and complementary roles within institutional processes at City Organisation. The drivers of the institutional processes – efficiency seekers and conventional professionals – were committed to their ideals (bounded evaluation) and supported by like-minded colleagues (selective relationality). This profile may have created a commitment to advance the institutional processes but also reluctance in these individuals to renounce their ideals. Thus, the individuals with a flexible mindset (characterised by open evaluation and diverse relationality) likely played key roles in integrating the change to current practices so that it could gain acceptance in the organisation. These findings encourage organisations to invite differently reflecting employees to change projects but emphasise facilitating a dialogue that can help them understand why they evaluate change so differently. Without such dialogue, collaboration may aggravate organisational silos, as was the case between efficiency seekers and hybrid professionals.
Finally, it should be noted that the profile that combined narrow scope, bounded evaluation and limited relationality of reflexive evaluation led to the avoidance of institutional work, although it did involve reflexivity. While such narrow evaluation may have led to the underestimation of the forthcoming institutional change in favour of the established beliefs (Strand and Lizardo, 2015), the studied informants made a reflexive choice to turn a blind eye towards the change (e.g. Goldenstein and Walgenbach, 2019). The interviews indicated that motivating such employees to contribute to institutional processes would require concrete evidence of both the progress of the change and its individual-level implications.
Research implications and limitations
This study includes insights and limitations that invite further research. First, the identified reflexivity profiles are specific to this case, and cannot be generalised beyond this study. However, the three dimensions of reflexivity may serve as useful analytical tools for further empirical studies. Future studies should verify whether these dimensions are identifiable in other organisational contexts, how they combine to form reflexivity profiles and how they relate to institutional work in other contexts, using both qualitative and quantitative methods. These studies may also reveal other types of reflexivity profiles that are emerging in other occupations and organisations and in relation to different institutional processes.
Second, while this study did not capture the entire institutionalisation process at City Organisation, it highlighted the complementary and conflicting interactions between individuals with varying reflexive tendencies in institutional processes. Further research is needed to understand how reflexivity plays out in collective institutional processes in which diverse individuals contribute to the outcome (Aleksandrov et al., 2018; Archer and Donati, 2015; Meier and Carroll, 2023; Tuominen and Lehtonen, 2018). Longitudinal studies would help in understanding the combinations of reflexives that can together advance institutional change or maintenance in different contexts.
In addition, previous studies have investigated how autonomous reflexivity, characterised by individuality and contextual discontinuity, can drive institutional change (Dobson et al., 2013; Mutch, 2007, 2010). This study, however, indicated a need to analyse different forms of relationality (Burkitt, 2016), instead of individuality, when assessing reflexivity and institutional work in organisations. Relationality has been evaluated in the context of collective reflexivity but without considering individual-level differences (Donati and Archer, 2015). Longitudinal analyses could reveal the collective dynamics in change processes – particularly how collective intentions emerge when individuals evaluate a change differently.
Third, the relations among concerns, reflexivity and institutional work deserve more attention to understand how individuals change themselves and influence each other in the process. These relationships are likely reciprocal (Li, 2023). For instance, societal concerns may drive evaluations that heighten awareness of the societal impacts of change, in turn shaping and reinforcing these concerns (Archer, 1995: 247). Future research could explore how such concerns evolve when individuals with varying concerns and reflexivity profiles collaborate.
Fourth, further research on concerns and reflexivity may contribute to studies of job dissatisfaction (Farrell, 1983) and change resistance (Oreg et al., 2018) and inspire interventions that alleviate dissatisfaction and help employees voice their concerns constructively. Such studies may shed light on how individuals with different concerns and reflexive tendencies can join change projects (Courpasson et al., 2012). For example, interventions that broaden the scope and relationality of employees’ reflexive evaluations may motivate them to generate collective solutions. Studies that emphasise the emotional aspects of change (Ruebottom and Auster, 2017) and approaches, such as social and collaborative inquiry (Carlsen and Kvalnes, 2023; Nilsson, 2015) and participatory action research (Gorli et al., 2015), could shed light on how employees can reciprocally understand the concerns of others to formulate impactful action strategies.
Finally, the findings support earlier notions that reflexive capabilities are diverse and evolving, and that their realisation depends on the situation (Archer, 2012; Emirbayer and Mische, 1998; see also Smets and Jarzabkowski, 2013). However, an in-depth analysis of the emergence of reflexivity over time is beyond the scope of this study. Future comparisons among different institutional spheres of an individual would help assess the durability of reflexive properties and the situatedness of reflexive evaluation (Archer, 2003; Caetano, 2015) – whether, and to what extent, reflexivity varies when an individual makes choices in relation to different social networks and institutions in their work life and family life.
Conclusions
Even though the concept of reflexivity is an important addition to institutional theory, in-depth empirical analyses are still lacking. This study argued for the importance of deepening the current knowledge of its role in institutional work. The study analysed reflexivity as a multidimensional human ability that actualises in different ways in different social situations and demonstrated how reflexive processes vary qualitatively and create diverse outcomes in terms of the decisions to undertake institutional work. It explicated how concerns shape the scope, openness and relationality of reflexive evaluation and subsequently affect the outcomes. In conclusion, there is still a need for rigorous empirical research to delve deeper into the nature of reflexivity in the creation, development and maintenance of institutions in – and outside of – different types of contemporary organisations.
Supplemental Material
sj-pdf-1-hum-10.1177_00187267241290637 – Supplemental material for Relations between reflexivity and institutional work: A case study in a public organisation
Supplemental material, sj-pdf-1-hum-10.1177_00187267241290637 for Relations between reflexivity and institutional work: A case study in a public organisation by Tiina Tuominen in Human Relations
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