TY - GEN
T1 - Under their radar, under their noses: Confidence in deferential communities and the growth of opposition
AU - Song, Eun Young
PY - 2020/1/11
Y1 - 2020/1/11
N2 - Existing research on institutional change focuses on change as a result of conflicts between challengers and proponents of the dominant institutional logic. Although it helps us understand how challengers weaken the existing logic and succeed in change, the literature provides less insight into how opposition grows, especially when the survival chance of those who oppose the dominant logic is slim. In fact, we know little about how the development of challenges stays under the radar although the unnoticed development is fundamental to institutional change. In this paper, I explore this underexamined aspect of change by incorporating insights from studies on hidden transcripts and social categorization in the literature. Focusing on proponents of the dominant logic, I propose that their confidence in deferential communities makes it easier for them to miss potential challengers. They tend to focus on whether a community as a whole, rather than every single individual, comply with the logic. Observing public and easy-to-recall signs of compliance, they lump potential challengers in with the community that apparently upholds the logic. I test my thesis by drawing from a unique dataset of Korean neo-Confucian academies from 1327 to 1800 and using event history analysis of the grant of royal charters. Results show that potential challengers –academies teaching doctrines that are divergent from the dominant doctrine – are most likely to be chartered when they operate in a geographical area where there are public and easy-to-recall activities apparently supporting the existing governing logic of society. Proponents of the dominant logic, such as authorities, tend to lump together academies from the same area and overlook anomalies within an overall deferential community. As the chartered academies thrive, potential challengers gain strength. On the whole, this study constructs a novel framework to better understand the readiness for institutional change
AB - Existing research on institutional change focuses on change as a result of conflicts between challengers and proponents of the dominant institutional logic. Although it helps us understand how challengers weaken the existing logic and succeed in change, the literature provides less insight into how opposition grows, especially when the survival chance of those who oppose the dominant logic is slim. In fact, we know little about how the development of challenges stays under the radar although the unnoticed development is fundamental to institutional change. In this paper, I explore this underexamined aspect of change by incorporating insights from studies on hidden transcripts and social categorization in the literature. Focusing on proponents of the dominant logic, I propose that their confidence in deferential communities makes it easier for them to miss potential challengers. They tend to focus on whether a community as a whole, rather than every single individual, comply with the logic. Observing public and easy-to-recall signs of compliance, they lump potential challengers in with the community that apparently upholds the logic. I test my thesis by drawing from a unique dataset of Korean neo-Confucian academies from 1327 to 1800 and using event history analysis of the grant of royal charters. Results show that potential challengers –academies teaching doctrines that are divergent from the dominant doctrine – are most likely to be chartered when they operate in a geographical area where there are public and easy-to-recall activities apparently supporting the existing governing logic of society. Proponents of the dominant logic, such as authorities, tend to lump together academies from the same area and overlook anomalies within an overall deferential community. As the chartered academies thrive, potential challengers gain strength. On the whole, this study constructs a novel framework to better understand the readiness for institutional change
M3 - Conference contribution
BT - The ASQ-UofSC Globalizing Organization Theory Conference and Paper Development Workshop
T2 - The ASQ-UofSC Globalizing Organization Theory Conference and Paper Development Workshop
Y2 - 8 January 2020 through 11 January 2020
ER -