Protect to damage? Purposive action, unintended consequences and institutional dynamics

Drawing on an in-depth field analysis of rhetorics and practices developing the first bird-protection organization in the United States, I examine how processes involving unintended consequences affect institutional maintenance and change. To address this question, I investigate institutional work congruent with extant social norms, beliefs, and values (purposive action) and its unforeseen, unexpected outcomes of the work (unintended consequences) to understand processes. Findings of this research reveal three processes: 1) contradictions to intended action, 2) paradoxical returns to institutions in which actors are embedded, and 3) cascading effects of the action on the original intention. This study suggests that extant institutions could be reproduced due to unexpected outcomes of intended action to create a new institution. It also suggests that existing institutions could be challenged because of unintended consequences of intended action embedded in the institutions. The main findings extend current understanding of the intentionality of individual action, institutional change through embedded agency as well as the reproduction of multiple institutions.