The Evolution of an Organizational Field: The Okanagan Valley Wine Industry
C.R. (Bob) Hinings and Trish Reay
Department of Strategic Management and Organization
School of Business, University of Alberta
Edmonton, Alberta
We locate our approach in the evolution of an organizational field. Within institutional
theory (cf. Scott, 2001) the idea of a field has become more and more central. DiMaggio
and Powell (1983; 143) defined an organizational field as “those organizations that, in the
aggregate, constitute a recognized area of institutional life: key suppliers, resource and
product consumers, regulatory agencies, and other organizations that produce similar
services or products”. Scott (1994) added the aspects of shared cognitive or normative
frameworks and a common regulatory system. However, in spite of the widespread
acceptance of the importance of the field concept (in particular see the AMJ special issue
on institutional theory, Dacin, Goodstein and Scott (2002)), there has been little or no
work that systematically tracks the evolution of a field taking account of all the actors in
the definition. Rather there has been a concentration on the ‘major actors’ (Suddaby,
Greenwood and Hinings, 2002; Thornton, 2002; Lee and Pennings, 2002). In this paper
we examine the several and joint roles and actions of all of the institutional actors.
Second, we examine 'institutional work' as the purposive action of individuals and
organizations aimed at creating, maintaining and disrupting institutions (Lawrence &
Suddaby, 2006). The emphasis has been on institutional entrepreneurs rather than the
continuing work of actors, both organizational and individual, to maintain and disrupt
institutions on an ongoing basis. By taking account of all actors in a field we start from
the possibility of both collaboration and competition between them, deriving from
different interests, values and institutional resources. Thus, institutional work takes place
both to maintain the field and also to disrupt it, at the same time. Our aim is to depict the
ways in which a variety of actors, both organizational and individual, act in the ongoing
work of institutional operation.
Third, we examine institutional work within a field that has evolved rapidly over the
recent past, something that allows a clearer view of the role of different actors. In the
past 20 years, and, in particular over the past 10 years, the wine industry in the Okanagan
Valley, British Columbia, Canada has been such a field. This is an ‘immature’ field in
which institutionalized practices are still being established. In such a field it is possible
to see active agency at work in creating, maintaining and challenging emerging practices.
This possibility is also enhanced through the presence of strong regulators (e.g., the
provincial government, the BC Wine Authority), a wide variety of producers (e.g., small,
family owned wineries, large, international, wine companies, medium-sized corporate
players, grape growers), industry associations, a wide variety of suppliers and customers,
and a strong role for both educational institutions (e.g., UBC, Brock University,
Okanagan College) and tourism associations and wine writers. We examine the roles of
the various actors and the activities they engage in to create and resist emerging
institutional practices.
References
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