Julie Battilana

There are 3 articles for this faculty member.

Agency and Institutions: A Review of Institutional Entrepreneurship

Researchers' understanding of institutional entrepreneurship has evolved since the publication of Paul DiMaggio's seminal text "Interest and Agency in Institutional Theory" 20 years ago. In particular, researchers have begun to establish foundations for a theory of institutional entrepreneurship. They have also taken initial steps to capture the process of institutional entrepreneurship. This paper analyzes existing work, and proposes an ambitious research agenda that calls for a more systematic investigation of institutional entrepreneurship.

Published in 2007

Acting Globally but Thinking Locally? The Influence of Local Communities on Organizations

It is a paradox that in a globalizing and "boundaryless" economy, factors associated with local communities—such as interpersonal networks, laws, and tax rates, among others—remain important for understanding organizational behavior. As Marquis and Battilana argue, communities influence organizational behavior not only as local markets and resource environments, but also through a number of institutional pressures. Focusing on communities as institutional environments provides fresh theoretical insights into organizational behavior, in addition to offering a more unified perspective to the diverse set of research that is emerging on local communities.

Initiating Divergent Organizational Change: The Enabling Role of Actors' Social Position

Does social position influence the ability to launch groundbreaking organizational projects? This study investigates that question as well as whether workers' social position in their professional field affects their ability to begin such projects. Using data based on more than ninety clinical managers in the United Kingdom's National Health Service, Battilana studied initiatives such as the development of an alternative to hospitalization for older people and another that would shift role division by transferring decision-making power from physicians to nurses. Her results indicate that social position is an important condition at the heart of organizational change.

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