RHETORIC THAT WINS CLIENTS:
ENTREPRENEURIAL FIRMS USE
OF INSTITUTIONAL LOGICS WHEN
COMPETING FOR RESOURCES
Candace Jones, Reut Livne-Tarandach and
Lakshmi Balachandra
ABSTRACT
Entrepreneurial firms such as professional service firms (PSFs) face
constant challenges to acquire resources, one of the greatest of which is
the challenge to win client engagements. Although rhetoric is at the center
of the challenge to win client engagements, scholars have not identified
what rhetorical strategies are the most persuasive to potential clients. By
exploring one type of PSF, architecture firms, we argue that PSFs can
compete for and legitimate themselves with clients by deploying
institutional logics that provide symbolic frameworks and meaning. Since
multiple institutional logics exist in society, a critical question for a PSF
is which logic is most persuasive to clients. We analyze architecture firms’
written pitches to predict which rhetoric strategies win the valuable
resource of a client engagement for a multiclient state project. Our results
identify that rhetoric deploying a ‘‘profession’’ logic was most effective
Institutions and Entrepreneurship
Research in the Sociology of Work, Volume 21, 183–218
Copyright r 2010 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved
ISSN: 0277-2833/doi:10.1108/S0277-2833(2010)0000021011
183
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CANDACE JONES ET AL.
whereas a ‘‘business’’ logic was counter-productive in obtaining client
engagements and securing resources for the firm.
A central challenge for entrepreneurial firms is how to increase the chances
of acquiring resources from external stakeholders (Aldrich, 1999; Schoonhoven & Romanelli, 2001; Zimmerman & Zeitz, 2002). In order to compete
effectively, entrepreneurial firms, which in our case are professional service
firms (PSFs), must develop legitimacy with clients while distinguishing
themselves from the competition (Aldrich & Fiol, 1994; Zimmerman &
Zeitz, 2002). We explore this challenge by analyzing the rhetoric they select
to use when competing for clients. Our focus is a critical question for
entrepreneurial research: which cultural and symbolic resources signal
legitimacy in entrepreneurial rhetoric and enhance the likelihood of securing
client engagements?
For PSFs, whose assets are their knowledge and creative problem-solving
skills (Jones & Thornton, 2005; Teece, 2003; Winch & Schneider, 1993), the
challenge of winning clients over their competition is particularly difficult as
the quality of a solution is not known before the exchange, and it cannot
even be reliably assessed after service delivery (Brush & Artz, 1999; Darby &
Karni, 1973). This condition is known as causal ambiguity, where the
transformation process of inputs into desired outcomes is socially complex,
tacit, and specific to a firm, and provides the basis for competitive advantage
over rivals (Reed & DeFillippi, 1990; Collis & Montgomery, 1995). We focus
on the condition of causal ambiguity concerning the development processes
and the desired outcomes that permeates professional and creative services
firms in their efforts to secure client resources (Alvesson, 1993; Caves, 2000;
Schon, 1983), requiring professional service providers to reassure clients that
they are legitimate in their creative skills (Bielby & Bielby, 1994; Elsbach &
Kramer, 2003; Lounsbury & Glynn, 2001). To signal their legitimacy, PSFs
need a ‘‘well-articulated and persuasive language’’ (Alvesson, 1993). Thus,
cultural and symbolic resources are central to how PSFs frame their creative
problem-solving skills in their rhetoric in order to compete for resources like
projects and clients (Zott & Huy, 2007).
Although rhetoric is recognized as a critical cultural resource for knowledge
intensive, creative, and professional service firms (Alvesson, 1993; Sillince,
2006; Suddaby & Greenwood, 2005), scholars have not identified what
rhetorical strategies are most persuasive to clients, allowing one PSF rather
than its rival to secure client business. Rhetoric is instrumental discourse
with a focus on persuasion. Rhetoric is comprised of words that create a
Use of Institutional Logics by Entrepreneurial Firms
185
vocabulary and signal one’s motives and competencies (Burke, 1950/1969;
Jones & Livne-Tarandach, 2008; Mills, 1940; Ocasio & Joseph, 2005). A PSF
uses a vocabulary of motives and competencies to justify itself and persuade
others (Fine, 1996) to gain legitimacy and material resources from clients
(McLean, 1998). One such vocabulary that PSFs deploy is the use of
institutional logics to persuade clients of their legitimacy. Institutional logics
are widely understood values, identities, and assumptions that define ‘‘which
issues and problems deserve attention and what solutions and answers are
appropriate’’ (Thornton, 2004, pp. 13–14). Thus, institutional logics supply
PSFs with their cultural materials and symbolic resources for persuasion –
vocabularies of motives and competencies for social actors (Mills, 1940; Jones
& Livne-Tarandach, 2008; Ocasio & Joseph, 2005). In essence, logics form a
‘‘toolkit’’ (Friedland & Alford, 1991; Swidler, 1986) within which a PSF crafts
its rhetoric to frame its messages for clients, engaging in sense giving and
sense making (Fiss & Hirsch, 2005). Institutional logics legitimate social
actors by linking their ‘‘strategic agency to cultural meaning or culturally
valued ends’’ (McLean, 1998, p. 52).
We focus on architecture firms’ rhetoric for winning client engagements for
three reasons. First, architects are entrepreneurial and creative, providing
customized solutions to clients. They design logos, images, and buildings for
private and public clients (Gutman, 1988/1996). To survive, architects
compete to secure client engagements. Second, architecture firms reside at the
intersection of multiple institutional arenas: as professionals with a shared
training and set of principles, as business people running entrepreneurial
firms, and as entities licensed and regulated by the state. Thus, architects have
a variety of institutional logics with which they may try and gain legitimacy
from clients. The critical question is which logic is most effective in doing so?
Third, although architects are known to use images to communicate their
vision to clients, architects also move between images and words in their
architectural practice (Cuff & Robertson, 1982) to communicate their competencies. All PSFs hear or read words from potential clients about what clients’
desire, and then translate these words into solutions such as legal and
financial instruments, consulting and marketing plans, and architectural and
engineering designs; thus, by examining rhetoric in the architecture context,
we may provide meaningful insights into rhetoric’s role in a wide array of
PSFs contexts specifically, and for entrepreneurship in general.
Next, we provide our theoretical framing and hypotheses as well as
describe our research methods that allow us to understand whether the
cultural and symbolic resources in architecture firms’ rhetorical strategies
persuade clients and win client engagements.
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CANDACE JONES ET AL.
WHICH INSTITUTIONAL LOGICS
CRAFT WINNING MESSAGES?
A PSF persuades a client when it moves the client to accept its definition of
the situation, which is critical for decision-making under conditions of causal
ambiguity (Ball-Rokeach, 1973). Framing is the strategic rhetorical process by
which one actor seeks to define a situation for another, engaging in sense
giving and sense making (Fiss & Hirsch, 2005; Gusfield, 1989). Frames that
resonate – that is, they are perceived as congruent with the client’s lives and
experiences – are persuasive (Benford & Snow, 2000; Burke, 1950/1969;
Cheney, 1983; Diani, 1996; Gusfield, 1989). Since professional services firms
reside at the interstices of societal sectors (i.e., are licensed and regulated to
varying degrees by government, are entrepreneurial firms, and are trained as
professionals) a PSF may deploy different logics to frame itself and persuade
their clients.
Institutional logics emanate from distinct social institutions; thus, there are
multiple, potentially contradictory logics available to social actors (Friedland
& Alford, 1991; Thornton, 2004). This condition of possible multiple logics
corresponds to institutional pluralism with multiple identities possible for
social actors (Kraatz & Block, 2008). Although the symbolic and cultural
materials of logics with which PSFs frame themselves can be manipulated,
they do not have infinite meanings because they are historically anchored and
reproduced (Kane, 1997). Thus, a PSF may effectively use one or perhaps
two institutional logics as frames to trigger resonance with clients, forming
an unconscious code or system of categories and institutional rules of the
game (Gonos, 1977). Jones and Livne-Tarandach (2008) identified three
distinct logics in architecture: state, business, and profession, which are
elaborated more fully in the following text.
Persuasion through a State Logic
A PSF can strategically attempt to trigger resonance with potential clients
by deploying rhetoric using a state logic. A state logic highlights a PSF’s
compliance with state processes and compliance with regulatory codes such
as building requirements during design and construction. For example, an
architecture firm frames the client’s problem as an unsafe building and
frames itself with the ability to enact solutions that ensure the public’s safety
by implementing code requirements. State and local government agencies
are significant clients and revenue resources for architecture firms,
Use of Institutional Logics by Entrepreneurial Firms
187
comprising 26% of all architecture firm billing revenues (American Institute
of Architects [AIA], 2006) as well as a key client base for architecture firms
when building their practices (Mintzberg, Otis, Shamsie, & Waters, 1988;
Winch & Schneider, 1993). They are the ‘‘client of choice’’ for architecture
firms, because public buildings have more visible projects and larger
construction budgets, which in turn generate more publicity and firm
revenue (Larson, 1993). Government agencies are also more predictable in
their reimbursement for services (e.g., governments rarely file for bankruptcy unlike real estate developers) (Larson, 1993, p. 124). When
organizations are dependent upon and hope to gain key resources from
another actor, they are more likely to conform and adopt the practices
promulgated by that actor (George, Chattopadhyay, Sitkin & Barden,
2006). In this type of framing, the PSF will highlight its conformity to
regulations, codes, and an understanding of the state processes.
Hypothesis 1. A PSF that uses more state logic rhetoric in its framing
enhances its likelihood of winning a client engagement.
Persuasion through a Business Logic
A PSF may also attempt to convince its clients by deploying a business logic.
Here, PSFs choose to deploy rhetoric that highlights their business
competencies. For example, a ‘‘business’’ logic frames the client’s problem
as concern for the careful management of cost and time and frames itself
as highly efficient in service delivery. This logic showcases efficient completion
skills, effective processes for managing key resources such as the possession of
an MBA by entrepreneurs in new ventures, and past organizational
achievements, all of which signal legitimacy to key stakeholders (Zott &
Huy, 2007). The legitimacy of business processes has been shown to be
pervasive not only in for-profit but also in not-for-profit arenas. For example,
business planning process were implemented by Alberta’s Cultural Facilities
and Historical Resources division to oversee its museums, and shifted the
focus from cultural heritage to efficient use of resources (Oakes, Townley, &
Cooper, 1998; Townley, 2002; Townley, Cooper, & Oakes, 2003). Such
business logics are also seen in the medical profession, where the focus on
evidence-based medicine strives to cut costs, increase efficiency, and enhance
effectiveness of medical treatments (Leonhardt, 2009).
Hypothesis 2. A PSF that uses more business logic rhetoric in its framing
enhances its likelihood of winning a client engagement.
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CANDACE JONES ET AL.
Persuasion through a Professional Logic
A PSF may also create persuasive messages by using a ‘‘professional’’ logic.
To do so, PSFs may deploy rhetoric that highlights its unique qualities as a
firm and competent skills as fellow professionals. For example, an
architecture firm would frame the client’s problem as a building that is an
aesthetic eyesore and frame itself as the consummate designer who can create
a beautiful yet functional building. The American architectural profession
has focused on beauty with designers as the ideal professional (Brain, 1991;
Cuff, 1992; Fisher, 2000). The AIA and scholars of the architectural
profession highlight the profession’s logic as one of the aesthetics where the
identity of the architect is that of a solo practitioner who uses the design
skills of his or her small boutique firm to enhance the beauty of the built
environment (e.g., Blau, 1984; Brain, 1991; Cuff, 1992; Gutman, 1988/1996).
Architects’ legitimacy stems from their reputations as artists and the visibility
of their buildings within communities and throughout history. For example,
the first ‘‘celebrity’’ architect was H. H. Richardson, who helped to establish
architecture as an American profession in the 1850s (Woods, 1999, p. 110).
The architect as a professional strives to build his or her firm’s prestige and
reputation, primarily through design and project competitions juried by
fellow professionals (Thornton, Jones, & Kury, 2005). Thus, we argue:
Hypothesis 3. A PSF that uses more professional logic rhetoric in its
framing enhances its likelihood of winning a client engagement.
RESEARCH METHODS
Research Context and Data
To understand the role of rhetoric for securing resources from clients, we
focus on government architectural projects where architecture firms, as PSFs,
compete on credibility and qualifications. Currently, state and public
agencies represent 26% of architecture firms’ revenues (AIA, 2006), rendering
state project competitions crucial to their resource acquisition activities.
These competitions are widely used in federal, state, and local agencies
for awarding projects to professionals such as architecture, engineering
(Gutman, 1988/1996), medicine, and academe (e.g., NIH and NSF grant
awards) (Dunn & Jones, 2010). These competitions are highly institutionalized and reveal insights into how professionals, like architects, use rhetoric to
manage the causal ambiguity about their creative problem-solving abilities
Use of Institutional Logics by Entrepreneurial Firms
189
(Bielby & Bielby, 1994). Qualification competitions assess a creative field: the
‘‘network of interlocking roles between creative producers, whose creative
problems solving skills are being assessed, and the gatekeepers who control
access to funding and opportunities’’ (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996; Elsbach &
Kramer, 2003, p. 285).
The state competition process was comprised of three phases: the state
issues a request for proposal (RFP); architecture firms respond with a
statement of qualification (SOQ); and a selection committee meets, reviews
the SOQs, and votes on the competing PSFs for whom is awarded the project.
State Project Competitions: Request for Proposals
In our study, state projects with budgets of over $500,000 triggered a
competitive proposal process that started when the state agency released an
RFP (an example is in Appendix A) outlining the project scope, goals, and
budget. Competitive bids, therefore, were not part of the SOQ process in
these state projects. In the RFP, the state agency requested services of master
planning, feasibility studies, programming, and design for state building
projects. All project competitions were qualification based, where architects
competed on experience and skills rather than a specific design, sketch, or
model for the building under consideration, which are typically required
for design competitions. Thus, design skills rather than a specific design were
a key evaluation criterion for an architecture firm in the RFP process. The
Assistant Director of the state agency advised us to eliminate construction
projects from our analysis as state law required selection of such projects by
the lowest cost bids rather than expertise, and such projects were led by
construction firms rather than architecture firms. The population of project
competitions during 1993–1995 was 29 projects. The total budget for the
state agency varied between years: 1993 was $244 million, 1994 was $94
million, and 1995 $134 million. The total budget appropriated by the
legislature varied by year depending on what projects were undertaken by the
State agency. For instance, the state legislature approved court complexes
and prisons in 1993 (($82 million and $50 million respectively) versus
university libraries and state office buildings in 1994, which are less expensive
($10–$15 million each).
Architecture Firms’ Statements of Qualification
Architecture firms respond to an RFP by submitting a SOQ, which outlines
their qualifications for the project on which they are competing. An example
of an SOQ statement is presented in Appendix B. Architecture firms’ SOQs
are proprietary data and capture the framing strategies the firms used to sell
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CANDACE JONES ET AL.
their services to clients. Architecture firms’ SOQs consisted of: (1) an
introductory letter and summary statement for why the clients should
choose the firm; (2) specific firm project experiences that qualified the firm
for the RFP’s project; (3) resumes for all professionals proposed to work on
the project; and (4) firm capacity, including the number of licensed
professionals. Thus, data from the introductory letter and summary statement in section 1 of the Statement of Qualification revealed firms’ framing
and rhetorical strategies, highlighting their past achievements and experiences to qualify them for the project while capturing their legitimacy claims.
The letter from the lead partner on the SOQ proposal was analyzed; this
letter framed the firm’s qualifications for the selection committee.
Architectural firms in our sample had on average 23 employees. In the
United States three-fourths of architecture firms range in size from 2 to 49
employees and 81% of architects practice in architecture firms (AIA, 2006).
Although mid-size architecture firms are the central players in project
competitions, ‘‘[f]irms with 50 or more employees constitute just 4% of firms,
but account for over 50% of gross firm billings’’ (AIA, 2006, survey results
on website). Thus, we control for firm size by using the number of licensed
architects. All firms in our sample relied on private and public clients for
their projects and income sources.
Selection Committee
The SOQs or written pitches by the architecture firms were judged by
multiclient committees, which averaged 6 people and ranged from 5 to 12.
The committee was comprised of licensed architects from the state agency,
the user group organization (e.g., members of a building committee of a
university, corrections, or transportation department), and the regulatory
building board. The population of 29 project competitions from 1993 to 1995
involved 35 agencies (e.g., corrections, human services, transportation,
various universities, administration, etc.) and 110 different selection committee members. Client selection committee members rarely overlapped on
project competitions. Of the 5,995 potential dyadic relations ((110 109)/2),
only three committee members co-occurred as selection committee members
on three projects. Given the sheer number of evaluators, it would be difficult
for an architecture firm to unduly influence selection committee members to
gain a desired outcome. In an interview, the Assistant Director of the state
agency defined the agency’s selection criteria and goals as: ‘‘historical value,
appropriateness of building for intended usage, functionality, ability of
building to last 50 years, quality of structure, aesthetics and ease of
maintenance.’’
Use of Institutional Logics by Entrepreneurial Firms
191
Sample for Study
As noted above, the population of project competitions during 1993–1995
was 29 projects. For these 29 projects, 49 architecture firms submitted 282
SOQs. For this study, we used only those project competitions for which we
had the state’s RFP, the winning SOQ, and 30% or more of the competing
architecture firms’ SOQs, resulting in 19 state projects and 137 SOQs from
32 architecture firms. An architecture firm, on average, submitted 3.96
SOQs for these 19 projects (minimum 1, maximum 13).
We used the selection committees’ evaluation scores for 273 of the 282
SOQs for 28 projects, comparing scores for firms for whom we used SOQ
data (N ¼ 137) against those for whom we did not use SOQ data (N ¼ 145).
Our sample of 32 architecture firms was more positively evaluated by the
client committees, using the standardized scores, T (271) ¼ 6.180, po.0001.
Our data captured both the repeat and the few peripheral architecture firms
in competitions for state projects. Entrepreneurial firms have high failures
rates; thus, our finding is not surprising. Since we compared 19 winning
SOQs with 118 losing SOQs for 32 architecture firms competing for the same
projects, we believe that our data bias toward more established and central
players has minimal impact on our analyses of and inferences from the data.
Most studies of organizations, like our study, focus on the repeat and central
players that comprise a market.
Research Approach
We used multiple data sources and multimethod triangulation for our study.
We began with interviews of 31 architecture firm partners, their marketing
directors, and clients to ensure our understanding of the context. Interviews
were on average one and half hours in length, recorded and then transcribed.
We content analyzed architecture firms’ SOQs, as these proposals correspond
to Goffman’s (1974/1986) idea of analyzing ‘‘strips of activity’’ be it verbal
interactions, written texts, or other forms of communication in order to
capture and analyze frames. We focused on words – the ‘‘smallest, and as far
as reliability is concerned, the safest recording unit for written documents’’
(Krippendorff, 2004, p. 104). We employed content analysis, an appropriate
methodology, because ‘‘institutions are constituted, constructed and
reconstructed in language use’’ (Berger & Luckmann, 1967; Krippendorff,
2004, p. 74). We then used logistic regression to identify the aspects of a
PSF’s rhetoric and framing to explain who won or lost project competitions.
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CANDACE JONES ET AL.
Measures
Our dependent variable is the result of a project competition, where 1 equals
won and 0 equals lost. Winning a competition is akin to message acceptance,
which is how persuasion is operationalized (Rieh & Danielson, 2007, p. 314).
Our independent constructs of interest are a PSF’s institutional logics of
State, Business, and Profession. Jones and Livne-Tarandach (2008) identified
30 words that captured distinct institutional logics and multivalent words in
the architecture profession by using widely disseminated texts published
between 1973 and 1997, including practice texts taught in architecture
schools, books of interviews with influential modern architects, and RFPs
from a state agency in a western state (see Table 1). As Jones and LivneTarandach (2008) found that practitioners tended to mix and match words
whereas professional exemplars, state bureaucrats, and professors of
architecture tended to use purer combination of words, we sought to verify
how architecture firms used the 30 words representing State, Business, and
Profession logics. We also sought to identify multivalent words that
cut across one or more of these logics. To do so, we used a multistep
process. A summary of the measurement process is provided in Fig. 1.
First, we ran word frequency using MAXQDA 2007 to identify all the
words and their frequencies in our sample of SOQs. We next identified all the
words associated with 1 of the 30 words, which generated a list of 82 words
(e.g., design, designs, designing, designers, built, build, builds, building, etc.).
We used the autocode function in MAXQDA 2007 to code each one of these
82 words in each SOQ and then extracted the sentence in which the word
occurred. We focused on the sentence that modified the word because
‘‘meanings do not reside in words but rather in how words relate to their
linguistic environment – that is how words relate to other words’’
(Krippendorff, 2004, p. 290). The sentence is a word’s most immediate
environment.
Second, we reran the word frequency function on the extracted files of
word sentences, creating a matrix of 82 words by 5620 words that modified
the words. This set of words included nouns, verbs, adverbs, and adjectives
that described our words.
Third, we ran factor analysis on a matrix of relative frequency of all the
82 words and their 5,620 modifier words. Factor analysis results revealed
that these 82 words generated 20 factors and explained 58% of the variance.
We eliminated words based on the following criteria: (1) loaded 0.3 or less
on multiple factors, (2) loaded below 0.5 on a single factor, and (3) had low
communality score (e.g., below 0.55). We then reran the factor analysis.
193
Use of Institutional Logics by Entrepreneurial Firms
Table 1.
Logics
Business
Client
Practice
Profession
Relative Frequency of Words in Architects’
Cultural Register.
Business Practice
(N ¼ 13)
Professional Exemplars
(N ¼ 16)
0.0041
0.0036
0.0061
Profession
Build
Form
Great
House
New
People
Structure
Time
Use
0.0030
0.0018
0.0021
0.0025
0.0019
0.0020
0.0028
0.0019
0.0026
State
Experience
Facility
Program
Qualification
Room
Statement
Submit
Multivalent
Architect
Architecture
Building
Construction
Design
Firm
Office
Project
Space
Service
Work
State Bureaucrats
(N ¼ 14)
0.0064
0.0086
0.0069
0.0072
0.0048
0.0073
0.0065
0.0093
0.0075
0.0065
0.0027
0.0057
0.0068
0.0030
0.0042
0.0022
0.0063
0.0083
0.0022
0.0033
0.0034
0.0034
0.0087
0.0070
0.0086
0.0050
0.0178
0.0049
0.0054
0.0026
Source: Adapted from Jones and Livne-Tarandach (2008). Copyright 2008 Wiley.
194
Summary of Measurement Process.
CANDACE JONES ET AL.
Fig. 1.
Use of Institutional Logics by Entrepreneurial Firms
195
Table 2 depicts the reduced word factor analysis of the 82 words, which
results in 34 words that created 11 factors and explained 70.40% of the
variance.
To assess the meaning associated with every factor, we turned to the list of
modifiers of words that loaded 0.5 or higher on a factor. By examining the
modifying words for each factor, we were able to discern which factors
captured State, Business, or Profession logics. From this analysis, we
identified three factors associated with a State logic and revealed by 12
words: architects, experience, experienced, participating, projects, qualified,
qualification, qualifications, submit, submits, submittal, and years. We
identified six factors associated with a Business logic and revealed by 13
words: build, client, client’s, designed, designs, programmed, room, rooms,
spatial, spacial,1 user, using, and works. We identified two factors associated
with a Profession logic and represented by three words: firm’s, practiced, and
practices. In Appendix C, we provide a dictionary of the words and their
modifiers. Using the dictionary, we assigned each of the 11 factors the
appropriate institutional logic meaning. Factors 1, 2, and 8 were labeled as
State logic. Factors 3, 4, 5, 7, 10, and 11 were labeled as Business logic.
Factors 6 and 9 were labeled as Profession logic.
To ensure that the words associated with the factors listed above
represented a logic scale, we calculated Cronbach’s alpha to establish
reliability. The coefficients were 0.786 for State (12 words), 0.733 for Business
(13 words), and 0.718 for Profession (3 words). Since alpha coefficients were
greater than 0.70, an acceptable measure of scale reliability (Devellis, 2003),
we summed the frequency of words of each logic and standardized the logic
by the total words in an SOQ to create scales for State, Business, and
Profession logics. We centered State, Business, and Profession logics
measures for use in logistic regression (Aiken & West, 1991). The words
that comprise a logic, examples of their use, and the Cronbach’s alpha
reliabilities for each logic are in Table 3.
Control Variables
We used eight control variables to capture and eliminate alternative
explanations that may shape perceptions of an architecture firm’s status or
legitimacy.
(1) Firm age – we included firm age as a control variable for three reasons.
First, entrepreneurship literature suggests that firm age is a form of symbolic
management called organizational achievement (Zott & Huy, 2007) as such;
age can also serve as an indicator of competency. Second, firm age predicts
similarity in service marks (Semadeni, 2006) and thereby affects legitimacy
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CANDACE JONES ET AL.
Table 2. Factor Analysis of 34 Words and Assignment of Logics and
Multivalent Words.
Factor Loadings:
Business
Word
3
Business
Build
Client
Client’s
Designed
Designs
Programmed
Room
Rooms
Spacial
Spatial
User
Using
Works
Profession
Firm’s
Practiced
Practices
State
Architects
Experience
Experienced
Practicing
Projects
Qualification
Qualifications
Qualified
Submit
Submits
Submittal
Years
Multivalent words
Architectural
Architecture
Design
Facilities
Firm
Project
Profession
4
5
7
10
0.09
0.85
0.69
0.1
0.13
0.09
0.05
0.03
0.11
0.11
0.65
0.1
0.73
0.02
0.05
0.06
0.84
0.08
0.83
0
0.19
0.06
0.05
0.07
0.1
0.09
0.08
0.07
0.07
0.04
0.09
0.05
0.04
0.01
0.96
0.96
0.05
0.04
0.06
0.83
0.1
0.09
0.09
0.01
0.03
0.02
0.03
0.07
0.08
0.23
0.82
0.08
0.03
0.01
0.04
0.15
0.06
0.01
0.85
0.83
0.03
0.03
0.03
0.01
0.01
0.08
0.01
0.13
0.16
0.01
0.07
0.08
0.05
0.04
0.05
0.03
0.09
0.14
0.18
0.23
0.04
0.07
0.08
0.1
0.24
0.07
0.05
0.09
0.08
0.21
0.16
0.16
0.06
0.35
0.06
0.07
0.07
0.07
0.03
0.03
0.18
0.11
0.16
0.03
0
0.11
0
0.06
0.05
0.05
0.02
0.02
0.05
0.13
0.11
0.37
0.18
0.23
0.32
0.07
0.02
0.15
0.48
0.15
0.12
0.02
0.03
0.1
0.04
0.02
0.15
11
State
6
9
1
0
0.01
0.16
0.06
0.81
0
0.03
0.05
0.07
0.05
0.02
0.03
0.04
0.04
0.07
0
0.14
0.02
0.13
0.04
0.03
0.05
0.05
0.02
0.07
0.29
0.04
0.09
0.09
0.05
0.19
0.04
0.01
0.01
0.06
0.04
0.08
0.03
0.07
0.1
0.18
0.13
0.17
0.02
0.21
0.05
0.08
0.1
0.11
0.21
0.08
0.04
0.06
0.18
0.05
0.12
0.06
0.13
0.02
0.02
0.07
0.08
0.12
0.08
0.02
0.01
0.12
0
0.04
0.05
0.03
0
0.01
0.02
0.03
0.1
0.1
0.01
0.06
0.01
0
0.04
0.02
0.14
0.79
0.31
0.03
0.24
0.75
0.78
0.08
0.01
0.13
0.07
0.02
0.12
0.06
0.05
0.01
0.04
0.21
0.1
0.06
0.12
0.15
0.03
0.07
0.03
0.04
0.06
0.13
0.01
0.08
0.05
0.06
0
0
0.03
0.03
0.02
0
0.01
0
0.08
0.12
0.03
0.04
0.22
0.2
0.04
0.09
0.01
0.06
0
0.33
0.03
0.08
0.08
0.25
0.2
0.07
0.09
0.03
0.09
0.07
0.02
0.28
0.19
0.06
0.23
0
0.09
0.01
0.03
0.18
0.02
0.01
0.03
0.09
0.26
0.61
0.56
0.73
0.59
0.1
0.18
0.68
0.13
0.03
0.15
0.55
0.62
0.19
0.26
0.01
0.12
0.77
0.79
0.3
0.9
0.05
0.24
0.09
0.05
0.12
0.15
0.07
0.05
0.02
0.3
0.16
0.14
0.86
0.82
0.03
0.19
0.14
0.49
0.13
0.1
0.07
0.07
0.04
0.1
0.21
0.01
0.02
0.52
0.1
0.21
0.23
0.13
0.07
0.26
0.52
0.16
0.03
0.7
0.04
0.04
0.41
0.05
0.07
0.02
0.29
0.31
0.38
0.38
0.4
0.35
0.5
0.4
0.13
0.3
0.13
0.2
0.31
0.02
0.06
0.01
0.02
0.11
0.29
Note: Bolded numbers represent factor(s) on which the word loads highest.
2
8
197
Use of Institutional Logics by Entrepreneurial Firms
Table 3.
Words and Dictionary for Logics, Cronbach’s Alpha
Reliability.
Logic
Words
Examples
Cronbach’s
Alpha
State
Experience, experienced
projects, practicing,
qualified, years,
architects,
qualifications,
qualification, submit,
submittal, submits
It is with a great deal of interest and
enthusiasm that we submit the
qualifications of [A3] Architects for
consideration as architects for the
above referenced project.
[A7] proudly submits the requested
information, and is prepared to
supplement our submittal with
additional project data to support
the Selection Committee in assessing
our capabilities.
0.786
Business
Client, client’s, user,
works, designed
programmed, spatial,
spaciala, build, using,
room, rooms, designs
Our team approach for design and
programming is based on a proven
concept: that a unified relationship
with the client, various user groups,
and project consultants promotes
communication, cooperation, and
mutual understanding.
We specialize in a wide variety of
delivery systems including fast track,
construction management, program
management, design build systems,
fee bid systems and traditional
design, bid, build systems.
[Principal architect] has over sixteen
years of criminal justice architectural
experience in [State] and brings an
extraordinary talent for working
with owners and translating their
needs into workable and costeffective designs.
0.733
Profession
Firm’s, practices,
practiced
The firm’s dedication to quality,
lasting architecture is practiced with
careful detailing and sensitivity to
the context into which a project is to
be placed.
0.718
Multivalent
words
Architectural,
Italicized and bolded above
architecture, design,
facilities, firm, project
0.736
Note: Bolded and underlined words are associated with logics. Bolded and italicized words are
multivalent words (see Table 2).
a
Firm used ‘‘spacial’’ rather than spatial.
198
CANDACE JONES ET AL.
assessment through communication of reliability of PSFs deliverables.
Lastly, institutional scholars argue that older firms are more legitimate
(Ruef & Scott, 1998) therefore reducing the older PSFs’ need to legitimate
themselves through their competencies.
(2) Firm size is measured as the number of the firm’s licensed
professionals. It was included as control variable because human capital is
a primary source of PSF advantage (Sherer, 1995). Larger firms are seen as
more qualified (Hitt, Bierman, Shimizu, & Kochhar, 2000) and as noted
earlier, larger architecture firms garner proportionately more revenues.
Furthermore, as mentioned earlier, the entrepreneurship literature identifies
firm size as a form of symbolic management called organizational
achievement (Zott & Huy, 2007) that therefore signals legitimacy.
(3) A firm’s status from elite education has been used in prior research
(Phillips & Zuckerman, 2001). We calculated elite education as the proportion
of an architecture firm’s project team who graduated from top 15 architecture
schools (masters and undergraduate programs identified by US News and
World Report). We tested for curvilinearity but found a linear relationship
with winning a project competition (results available from authors).
(4) Since status may also come through affiliation of an architecture firm
with a high status partner, we controlled for a firm’s status through partner
affiliation by coding as one when the local architecture firm partnered on the
project submittal with a nationally known architecture firm, which
specialized in a building area and zero otherwise. We tested for curvilinearity but found a linear relationship with winning a project competition
(results available from authors).
(5) We controlled for a firm’s building type concentration capturing how
concentrated an architecture firm’s building experience is across types of
buildings. The measure ranged from 0 to 1. Concentration and breadth of
experience has been found to influence an audience’s ability to categorize
others and also opportunities in project based work (Hsu, 2006; Zuckerman,
Kim, Ukanawa, & von Rittman, 2003). Based on eight building types in the
American Institute of Architects (AIA) list of buildings and Architectural
Record special issues between 2000 andP
2007, we operationalized concentration using a Herfindahl measure, H ¼ ni¼1 s2i where Si is the share of firm i
in building types and n is the number of projects in that building type listed
by an architecture firm as project specific experience in its SOQ.
(6) We controlled for client experience representing the number of prior
projects that an architecture firm listed with the state agency, which ranged
from 0 to 10. This experience may allow a firm to better craft its rhetoric to
client needs and preferences based on knowledge of the client.
Use of Institutional Logics by Entrepreneurial Firms
199
(7) We controlled for a firm’s propensity to participate in an architecture
competition that captures its learning about how to compete effectively. We
used data we collected about all architecture competitions led by the state
between 1991 and 1995. For each firm, we coded the number of proposals
submitted prior to the current competition.
(8) As the state’s yearly budget allocated to the architectural projects
explored in our study varied by year ($224 million in 1993, $94 million in
1994, and $134 million in 1995), we controlled for these fluctuations by
adding two dummy variables representing the three levels of yearly state
budgets. The 1993 projects are captured when both dummy variables equal
to zero, 1994 projects are captured when year 1994 variable is equal to 1 and
year 1995 is equal to 0, and 1995 projects are captured when year 1994
variable is equal to 0 and year 1995 is equal to 1.
(9) Multivalent words reflect ‘‘the structure of subcultures in society’’
(Fiske, 1986, p. 392), having multiple meanings (Jones & Livne-Tarandach,
2008; McLean, 1998; Williams, 1983). As we sought to identify which logic is
more persuasive to clients, we controlled for multivalent words to assure that
‘‘pure’’ use of logics rather than ambiguous use of words that cut across a
number of logics was the most persuasive rhetoric to clients. We considered a
word to be multivalent when it loaded at least 0.45 on a factor representing
one logic as well as at least 0.3 on a factor that represented a second or third
logic (see Table 2). We identified six words that loaded across multiple
factors, indicating different logics: architectural, architecture, design,
facilities, firm, and project. To ensure that these words could be aggregated
to create a single-scale-reflecting multivalency, we calculated the Cronbach’s
alpha to establish reliability. The coefficient for the multivalent scale
including all six words was 0.736 (see Table 4). Since the alpha coefficients
were greater than 0.70, an acceptable measure of scale reliability (Devellis,
2003), we summed the frequency of the six words and divided it by the SOQ’s
total number of words to create a ratio measure. We centered the multivalent
words’ measure for use in logistic regression (Aiken & West, 1991).
Analytical Approach
We used logistic regression to identify which variables predict an architecture
firm would win or lose a project competition. Since our data have repeated
observations of the same firms (mean 3.96, range 1–13 SOQs per firm) over a
three-year period (1993–1995), we used a generalized estimating equations
(GEE) approach in Stata 10. We controlled for nonindependence of the
200
Descriptive Statistics and Correlationsa.
Table 4.
Mean Std Dev.
a
2
3
4
5
6
25.976
9.635
23.827
6.847
1.000
0.494
1.000
0.112
0.158
0.067
0.076
0.556
0.296
0.218
0.184 0.087
1.000
2.880
2.214
0.162
0.179 0.012
0.336
1.000
0.079
0.041
0.213
0.176
0.131
0.319
0.148
1.000
11.701
8.023
0.002
0.266 0.086
0.166
0.216
0.138
7
8
9
10
1.000
1.000
0.000
0.000
0.011 0.041 0.071 0.074 0.009 0.026 0.090
0.011
0.010 0.031 0.083
0.015
0.009 0.042 0.087 0.146
0.073
0.034 0.076
0.073 0.027 0.091
0.160
0.075
0.171 0.160 0.035 1.00
0.867
0.827
0.378
0.161
0.154
0.233 0.107 0.065 0.130
0.268
11
0.050
0.270
Correlations with absolute value of 0.173 or above are statistically significant at po0.05.
1.00
0.120
1.00
1.00
CANDACE JONES ET AL.
1. Firm age
2. Firm size: no. of
licensed
professionals
3. Firm status: elite
school
4. Firm status: partner
affiliation
5. Firm: building
experience
6. Firm: state client
experience
7. Firm: propensity to
participate
8. Multivalent words
9. Legitimacy: State
logic
10. Legitimacy: Business
logic
11. Legitimacy:
Profession logic
1
Use of Institutional Logics by Entrepreneurial Firms
201
observations by adjusting the correlation structure of the error terms (Liang
& Zeger, 1986). As the dependent variable is binary, we applied a logit
estimation. We specified robust standard errors as White (1980) recommends
when the correlation structure is unknown. Since we are interested in the
extent to which the rhetoric of winners differs from that of losers within a
single architecture project competition, we grouped the data by project.
As our data included repeated measures of firms that participated in a
number of project competitions, these data may have suffered from state
dependence (Crouchley & Davies, 2001), where the conditions in the
environment affecting all variables shifts and thus may decrease the reliability
of the GEE analysis result, which assumes fixed effects, and thus may not be
appropriate. To verify that the use of GEE fixed effects model actually maps
the underlying phenomena evident in our data, we tested the difference
between the estimated coefficients of our full models generated from GEE
modeling with those generated by random effects modeling using a Hausman
test as recommended by Stock and Watson (2003). The Hausman test tests
the null hypothesis that the coefficients estimated by the efficient random
effects estimator are the same as the ones estimated by the consistent fixed
effects estimator. Therefore, when a Hausman test shows significance,
fixed effects modeling represents a better fit to the data whereas insignificance
in the Hausman indicates that random effects modeling represents a better fit.
Our analysis showed that the Hausman test was significant, w2 (12) ¼ 31.10,
po0.05, suggesting that the use of GEE modeling is more efficient and more
consistent with our data.
RESULTS
We present the logistic regression results, which indicate the variables that
predict who wins a project competition while controlling for the effects of all
other variables. The regression analysis sheds insight into the key framing
and rhetoric that influences project selection in competitions.
Logistic Regression Results
Zero-order correlations are shown in Table 4. The low correlations across
factors demonstrate discriminant validity for state, business, and profession
logics. Table 5 reports the results of GEE on the likelihood of winning a
202
Table 5.
CANDACE JONES ET AL.
GEE Logistic Regression of Winning Project Competitions.
Controls
Firm age
Firm size: no. of licensed
professionals
Firm status: elite school
Firm status: partner
affiliation
Firm: building experience
Firm: state client
experience
Firm: propensity to
participate
Year 1994
Year 1995
Multivalent words
Model
1
Model
2
Model
3
Model
4
Model 5
0.025w
(0.012)
0.031
(0.051)
2.41
(1.17)
2.16
(0.918)
2.17
(0.153)
7.40
(6.36)
0.027
(0.029)
0.663
(0.516)
0.914
(0.577)
0.157
(2.54)
0.026w
(0.014)
0.060
(0.057)
2.73
(1.10)
2.09
(0.853)
0.198
(0.156)
7.26
(0.658)
0.039
(0.040)
0.805
(0.543)
0.779
(0.604)
7.45
(6.02)
0.024w
(0.012)
0.030
(0.051)
2.64
(1.25)
2.16
(0.901)
0.184
(0.156)
5.00
(6.25)
0.023
(0.028)
0.591
(0.537)
0.789
(0.582)
1.70
(3.89)
0.024w
(0.013)
0.031
(0.051)
2.56
(1.22)
2.18
(0.896)
0.182
(0.155)
4.68
(5.83)
0.020
(0.029)
0.611
(0.540)
0.813
(0.588)
1.37
(3.55)
0.026w
(0.014)
0.063
(0.056)
2.66
(1.16)
2.11
(0.846)
0.198
(0.154)
7.50
(7.51)
0.034
(0.041)
0.841
(0.552)
0.802
(0.633)
10.96
(11.76)
19.97
(5.23)
21.88
(20.72)
15.78
(6.86)
29.70
(5.52)
Independent variables: institutional logics
State logic
19.38
(18.08)
Business logic
38.63
(12.08)
Profession logic
Constant
Wald w2
Wald test of change from
base model
Wald test of change from
previous model
44.42
49.92
13.15
66.44
53.39
100.98
85.41
133.03
110.65
49.35
73.37
87.41
No. of observations ¼ 137, No. of groups ¼ 19, wpo.1, po.05, po.01, po0.001.
Robust standard errors are in parentheses.
project competition. We computed Wald w2-tests of change from Model 1 as
well as Wald w2-test from the previous model.
Of the 10 control variables we tested, 7 were not significant in any of the
models specified. Within the remaining three variables: firm age had a
Use of Institutional Logics by Entrepreneurial Firms
203
marginally significant negative effect in all our models and firm status
achieved through education and affiliation both had positive significant
effects in all our models. Although status is significant in all models, our
results show that even controlling for status, rhetorical strategies add
explained variance beyond the control model and control variables.
Hypothesis 1 proposed that a PSF that used more State logic rhetoric in its
framing enhanced its likelihood of winning a client engagement. Hypothesis
1 was not supported. Hypothesis 2 argued that a PSF that used more
Business logic rhetoric in its framing enhanced its likelihood of winning a
client engagement. Hypothesis 2 was not supported. In both the individual
(Model 3) and the full model (Model 5), the use of Business logic rhetoric,
has a negative significant effect on likelihood of winning a client engagement
in both the individual (Model 3) and the full model (Model 5) indicating that
greater use of a Business logic undermined a PSF’s likelihood of winning a
client engagement. Hypothesis 3 posited that a PSF that used more
Profession logic rhetoric in its framing enhanced its likelihood of winning
a client engagement. Hypothesis 3 was supported in both the individual
(Model 4) and full models (Model 5) indicating that greater use of a
Profession logic enhanced a PSF’s likelihood of winning a client engagement.
Our logistic regression provides empirical evidence as to which rhetorical
strategy and specific cultural and symbolic resources enhanced a PSF’s
likelihood of winning a project competition with multiple clients. First, our
results revealed that a PSF’s deployment of a professional logic enhances its
legitimacy with clients who are fellow professionals. In contrast, we found
that a PSF’s use of a Business logic undercuts its legitimacy and impeded its
likelihood of winning a client engagement with clients who were
professionals, even though they had budget responsibilities and restrictions
that may have warranted a cost effectiveness and efficiency approach.
DISCUSSION
In this study, we explored the ways in which entrepreneurial firms craft
persuasive rhetoric in order to be viewed as legitimate by clients, when by
definition, the creativity demanded by professional services firms to
transform given inputs into desired outcomes is permeated with causal
ambiguity. Our empirical investigation explored the rhetorical strategies and
framing that signaled legitimacy and identified which were most effective for
winning clients. Prior theory has highlighted the importance of symbolic
management for entrepreneurial firms to signal their legitimacy and garner
204
CANDACE JONES ET AL.
critical resources (Aldrich & Fiol, 1994; Lounsbury & Glynn, 2001);
however, few studies have empirically explored which symbols in
symbolic management matter and how entrepreneurial firms use these
symbols to secure valuable resources. Zott and Huy’s (2007) analysis of
business school graduates who go on to become entrepreneurs provides
qualitative insight on the symbolic actions entrepreneurs can take to develop
legitimacy and the impact these actions have on resource acquisition.
We extend prior theory and test insights on which explicit cultural and
symbolic management techniques entrepreneurial firms use to generate
legitimacy and garner resources from stakeholders by examining firms that
are in direct competition with one another. Such a context more closely
mirrors reality for entrepreneurial firms, and this study identifies which
symbols had an effect on a given competition for resources. Our study found
that contrary to Zott and Huy (2007), firm age and size, which they label as
organizational achievement, had a negative and marginally negative effect
when firms were competing head to head with one another. Since we
compare a large number of firms that compete with one another for the
same client rather than entrepreneurial firms that graduated from the same
school but compete in different arenas, we provide a more systematic
analysis of which symbolic resources provide greater advantages and
disadvantages to firms.
We identified three possible rhetorical strategies used by entrepreneurial
firms in architecture to garner legitimacy and secure resources of prestigious
and lucrative client engagements: a State, Business, or Profession logic.
Surprisingly, a State logic was irrelevant for architecture firms, whereas a
Business logic triggered a negative reaction and a Profession logic triggered
a positive reaction from state bureaucrat decision-makers (who were also
architects). This result was puzzling given that the architect has been and
still is primarily an entrepreneurial business person (Woods, 1999). Scholars
have long espoused the ideal of a ‘‘professional’’ as self-employed and
governed by professional peer reviews (Abbott, 1988; Freidson, 2001). Our
interviews revealed insight into our empirical results for the varying effects
of logics on acquiring resources. Several architecture firm partners derided
state architects as those who ‘‘had not made it in practice.’’ Thus, an
architecture firm’s emphasis on clients as ‘‘business people’’ rather than as
fellow professionals may have triggered strong negative reactions in those
potential clients. Thus, the logics capture a simmering tension between the
architects who were responsible for deciding which firm would get the state
engagements and the architecture firms. Some architecture firms appear to
regard state architects as bureaucrats rather than as fellow professionals.
Use of Institutional Logics by Entrepreneurial Firms
205
In addition, a focus on cost minimization by an architecture firm may
have been a warning signal to the decision-makers that it had a short-term
focus whereas state agencies and their myriad public agencies (e.g.,
universities, corrections, transportation, etc.) have responsibility for the
building over the long term. In our interview with the assistant director of
the state agency, he identified the durability and maintenance costs of a
building as critical. These costs depend on effective designs such as site
planning to take advantage of the sun for natural heating and cooling and
knowledge of materials that weather well. Since institutional buildings are
used long term, the state and its myriad user client agencies must live with
the resulting building; they must fix leaks, mold, and other problems that
can arise years after the building is erected. These insights help to explain
what appears at first to be a puzzling result. Our findings suggest that the use
of logics to attract clients can be challenging: a logic can legitimate as well as
delegitimate an entrepreneur at the same time, depending on the audience
and the context.
Our study makes three contributions to theory. First, we contribute to the
understanding of the use of rhetoric by entrepreneurial firms, specifically
professional services firms. Although rhetoric is recognized as a critical
cultural and symbolic resource for creative and professional service firms
(Alvesson, 1993; Sillince, 2006; Suddaby & Greenwood, 2005), scholars have
not identified which specific rhetorical and framing strategies are most
persuasive to clients. Our data provided the opportunity to empirically
examine entrepreneurial firms, in this case architects, their written pitches,
and the potential clients’ responses to these pitches. Future research may
examine specifically which cultural and symbolic resources are important for
different professions, as well as a mass-market audience versus professional
peers.
Second, we contribute to the literature on institutions and frames that are
used by entrepreneurial firms, revealing the unwritten institutional rules for
various rhetorical strategies a PSF may use to present itself (Gonos, 1977).
In our context, a Business logic delegitimated the firm whereas a Profession
logic legitimated a PSF. We address a frequent criticism of framing research
that says scholars rarely show how culture influences social actors’ framing
(Benford & Snow, 2000). We examined the underlying cultural materials of
logics and their influence by identifying which logics architectural firms
deployed and how clients responded to these logics. Our findings show that
depending on the logic deployed, different logics have different effects on
the outcomes of symbolic management: an architectural firm’s ability to win
client engagements.
206
CANDACE JONES ET AL.
Third, we extend the findings of Jones and Livne-Tarandach (2008), who
identified three different types of logics in architecture – Profession, Business,
and State – but not their effects on clients. In addition, Thornton et al. (2005)
identified an aesthetic and efficiency logic that both permeated and oscillated
as dominant logics within the building industry. An aesthetic logic was
primarily enacted by architects and an efficiency logic by engineers. An
efficiency logic corresponds to a business logic, where efficient and effective
uses of resources and processes are highlighted. Our results not only verified
these logics for practicing architects, but also identified the effects of these
logics and which were most persuasive for state clients.
Our study, like most studies, has several limitations. First, we focused on
the cultural and symbolic resources inherent in the written words of the firm;
it may be that other symbolic materials such as images are important
persuasion techniques for client engagements and resource acquisitions. The
role of images and the interplay between word and image provide avenues
for future research, in particular with creative fields like architecture studied
here. Second, we focus on public clients, and although they are critical clients
for architecture firms, these public clients may have different dynamics than
private clients in terms of their decision-making processes. We speculate that
given conflict of interest laws that constrain public employees, relationship
building may be more restricted and less relevant in the public domain, but
more important with private clients. Third, we examined professionals who
already have a great deal of legitimacy based on credentialing processes.
It may be that these dynamics differ for pure market contexts or other
contexts where legitimacy is not as well established. Thus, while our
context is inherently entrepreneurial, the rhetoric and framing strategies of
an entrepreneur may change depending on how institutionalized and
legitimated the profession or industry in which the entrepreneur competes.
Our research also points to two future avenues. One important avenue for
future research is to examine the effectiveness of rhetorical strategies where
the position of entrepreneurial PSFs is ambiguous due to interaction effects
among logics. Our analysis held each logic constant while examining the
effect of a target logic. It may be that a PSF deploys more than one logic
simultaneously. Does the presence of multiple logics create ambiguity
about who a PSF is and what they will do? This direction links to the
insights of Padgett and Ansell (1993) on the capacity to be ‘‘inscrutable.’’
A second avenue for future research is to move beyond the additive models
of regression, which control for all variables while examining the effect
of a target variable. What is the effect of multiple logics on clients? Do
some logics work more effectively in conjunction? By using Qualitative
Use of Institutional Logics by Entrepreneurial Firms
207
Comparative Analysis (QCA), scholars may examine how the combinations
of logics within a text shape audiences’ reactions and perceptions (Ragin,
2000).
In conclusion, we married insights from rhetoric, institutional logics, and
entrepreneurship to reveal how PSFs frame themselves as legitimate when
competing for client engagements. Our study contributes to an important
but understudied arena: how a PSF’s use of rhetoric – its symbolic and
cultural resources – allows it to prevail over its competitors and win a client.
NOTE
1. Spacial is a misspelling of spatial that a firm consistently used in its submittals.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank Warren Boeker, Joe Broschak, Grégoire Croidieu, Tina Dacin,
Fabio Fonti, Simona Giorgi, Philippe Monin, Denise Rousseau, and Klaus
Weber for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this chapter. We
specifically thank Greogoire and Philippe for the suggestion to test random
versus fixed effects in specifying our model. We thank the insight and input
of the Organization Studies department colloquium, EGOS Creativity
subtheme, Clifford Chance Professional Service Firm, Academy of
Management conference participants in 2007, and McGill-Cornell Entrepreneurs and Institutions Conference 2008.
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APPENDIX A. EXAMPLE OF A REQUEST
FOR PROPOSAL
Patient Services Facility: Specific Project Information
Introduction
The information provided herein is intended to assist prospective
consultants in the preparation of proposals necessary to properly respond
to this SOQ. The University of ABC Health Sciences Center and the
Department of Health have proposed the joint construction of a new
ambulatory health care and public health clinic facility with supporting
parking space. It is anticipated that the building will encompass
approximately 250,000 gross square feet and consolidate a number of
public health and patient care clinics, ambulatory surgery suites, ancillary
support services, physician offices, patient and community education,
administrative support services, other tenants, parking structure, and site
improvements. The study area is located on the attached map (map included
in original RFP but not reproduced here). The total project budget is
estimated at approximately $50 million.
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Project Scope
The successful firm will be required to do the following:
Provide total consulting services to adequately meet the needs of the
University Health Science Center and the ABC Department of Health.
Prepare a planning program document and detailed cost estimate for the
project to determine the following:
Types of practice, numbers of physicians and allied care providers,
staffing requirements, patient encounters, hours of operation, equipment requirement, and projected future changes in utilization and
resource needs.
Space requirements by user, functional relationships, and desired
adjacencies. Information must be tabulated by number and type of
spaces, their sizes, number of occupants, related furnishings and
equipment, and general environment.
Accommodate, at a minimum, the items listed in appendices A & B
attached.
Parking requirements.
Adequacy of proposed site including space and budget limitations.
Projected growth assumptions and evaluation of site expansion
potential.
Identification and application of significant master plan impacts that
apply to the project.
Identification and application of the significant building, fire and life
safety codes, Americans with Disabilities Act requirements, and all
requirements of the State of ABC licensure for a hospital-based facility
and Medicare/Medicaid eligible building requirements.
Study feasibility of combining the ABC Department of Health and the
University Health Sciences Center within the facility with a purpose of
sharing common support services.
Attend meetings and/or provide any other services incident to the
successful completion of the work.
APPENDIX B. EXAMPLE OF SOQ
Dear Ms. XXX and Mr. YYYY,
HSX Associates; ACLX Division; XXX Associates, Architecture, Interior
Design and Planning; XXX Associates Inc., Architects and Planners; and
BAX Associates, Inc. are very pleased to be associated for this project and
Use of Institutional Logics by Entrepreneurial Firms
213
to present our combined expertise in programming and planning public
teaching health care facilities, clinics, ambulatory care facilities, and faculty
offices. In this regard, we would like to briefly introduce our respective
firms.
The Eastern Offices of HSX Associates/ACLX, health care consultants,
have provided planning services for health care facilities in the Eastern
Western States for 22 years. Our national office has provided services since
1947. We provide health care consulting exclusively in the areas of:
Strategic Planning and Marketing
Functional Facilities and Equipment Planning
Management and Organizational Development
Operations Improvement.
Approximately 48% of our practice is in facilities programming and
planning. Our client base stretches from small community hospitals to some
of the country’s largest Health Science Centers.
XXX Associates has been active in the design of ambulatory health care
facilities since 1974 when it designed one of the first free-standing
ambulatory surgical centers in the nation. Since that time HSX Associates
has been actively engaged in the design of other ambulatory health services
facilities States including women’s centers, birthing centers, MRI and CT
Scan imaging centers, rehab facilities, hospital day surgeries, clinics, and
physicians offices.
Health care facilities programmed and designed by XXX Associates have
received regional and national design awards and been published by the
American Institute’ of Architects. The firm is a strong proponent of
the collaborative process with active involvement of client as well as the
programming and planning professionals.
XXX Associates, Inc. has provided an extensive array of architectural and
engineering design services for University Medical Centers, as well as
community and governmental health care facilities.
In the past 20 years, XXX has established long-term working relationships with several University Medical Facilities, including the University of
Maryland Medical System, the Johns Hopkins Hospital and a few other
major medical systems.
BAX Associates, Inc. is a traffic engineering and transportation planning
firm. Nearly 300 trained and experienced men and women provide the broad
range of disciplines and is essential for producing thorough and reliable
solutions to a wide range of urban and regional problems.
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CANDACE JONES ET AL.
We have associated together to specifically provide the full complement of
services we perceive as being required for adequately programming and
planning your project. We believe that the following categories need to be
covered by our combined expertise:
Health Care Programming and Planning
Health Care Facility Planning
Site Evaluation and Planning
Traffic and Parking Planning
In general, our team is organized with HSX/CLX as the lead consultant
firm and as the co-manager of the project. Our associate’s co-manager is
John X Associates of XXX City. HSX Associates/CLX will be responsible
for overall health care programming and planning, including departmental
functional relationship diagrams, and will assist the architects in the
development of departmental block diagrams. John X Associates will serve
as our key liaison contact for the project. XXX Architects will provide
health facility and site planning expertise for evaluation of existing, to-bevacated facilities for reuse, new site potential, and new facility requirements
and departmental; block diagrammatic, in association with John X
Associates. Specialty engineering will also provide the consulting team with
expertise in the evaluation of the existing systems and determine future site,
landscaping, and facility system requirements. Cost estimating will be
provided by YYY.
Additionally, since traffic and parking issues and needs are very
important to the general success of the project, we have included BAX
Associates, Inc. as part of our project team to provide this needed expertise.
Parking facility consultation will be provided by The W. Group, whose
parking structures have received wide acclaim in Massachusetts and New
Jersey and won numerous design honors.
In general, we perceive that there may be more space needed than can be
accommodated with the scope of the project’s total space or parking
availability. Therefore, we believe that the project’s scope of services will
need to include a process to establish the project’s agreed-upon size and
magnitude in keeping with agency needs.
For this end we have developed a proposed scope of services that are
grouped in the following three phases:
1. Define the need and desires of all parties included in the project;
2. Explore the range of needs and reach consensus regarding a conceptual
master plan which defines the project’s scope; and
Use of Institutional Logics by Entrepreneurial Firms
215
3. Develop and gain approval of the detailed programming requirements
(space and functional requirements, functional relationship diagrams,
and block diagrams by floor).
We understand the complexity of the decision-making process in this
environment and believe that we have developed a process which
provides for all interested parties to be heard, their cases to be
presented and evaluated, consensus achieved regarding the magnitude
of participation and, finally, review and achieve an understanding of
the detailed program requirements. We further believe that the entire
process could be conducted in six (6) months time, if interim decisionmaking by the University of ABC/ Department of Health is timely.
We are convinced that our proposed team is the most appropriate for
your project’s scope, and that our approach and scope of services will
meet your needs in a quality, timely, and cost-effective manner.
Sincerely,
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APPENDIX C. WORDS (UNDERLINED), MODIFIERS (BOLDED),
AND FACTOR LOADINGS
Words
Most Freq. Modifiers
Examples
Logic
[State name], building, qualification,
our, we, project, submit, architects,
team, university, experience, design,
center, programming, services,
facilities
It would be an honor to work with the State (Factor 1)
[State agency] to provide
architectural design services for the
[project name] Center. [Firm name]
Architects is pleased to offer the
combined talents of the most
qualified professional team to
provide services for this project.
Architects,
qualifications,
qualification,
submit
Qualification, qualifications, services,
submit, architects, pleased,
programming, design, project, our,
we
It is with a great deal of interest and
enthusiasm that we submit the
qualifications of [A3] Architects for
consideration as architects for the
above referenced project.
State (Factor 2)
Submittal, submits
Project, our, information, data,
committee, submittal, qualifications,
requested, we
[A7] proudly submits the requested
information, and is prepared to
supplement our submittal with
additional project data to support
the Selection Committee in assessing
our capabilities.
State (Factor 8)
Client, client’s, user,
works
Design, project, user, client, needs,
team, our, we
Our team approach for design and
programming is based on a proven
concept: that a unified relationship
with the client, various user groups,
Business (Factor 3)
CANDACE JONES ET AL.
Experience,
experienced
projects, practicing,
qualified, years
Designed programmed
Facility, facilities, we, center,
university, design, projects, project,
our
Business (Factor 4)
[A26] Architects has designed or
programmed over 30 major
university facilities on six campuses
in [State] and [different state] with a
construction value of over $120
million.
Spatial, spaciala
Needs, design, project, our, we,
experience, building , renovation,
relationships
Our renovation design will incorporate
specialized knowledge about
appropriate materials, special floor
finishes (for spikes and for safety),
spatial relationships and sizes,
building systems, golfer flow and
control issues, all based upon
experience from previous similar
projects.
Build, using,
Design, management, we, our, delivery, We specialize in a wide variety of
Business (Factor 7)
experience
delivery systems including fast track,
construction management, program
management, design build systems,
fee bid systems and traditional
design, bid, build systems.
Room, rooms
Building, facility, design, room,
computer, use, dining, centers, area,
university, training
Business (Factor 10)
217
Our experience includes all of the
components of your project: game
rooms, dining areas, ballrooms,
storage and maintenance facilities,
Business (Factor 5)
Use of Institutional Logics by Entrepreneurial Firms
and project consultants promotes
communication, cooperation, and
mutual understanding.
218
APPENDIX C. (Continued )
Words
Most Freq. Modifiers
Examples
Logic
disability resource centers, student
computer labs and computer retail
spaces, bookstores, bridge entries,
and student office and conference
facilities, as well as the range of
general union building spaces that
may be involved in future
renovations.
Needs, architectural, office, work, our,
center
[Principal architect] has over sixteen
Business (Factor 11)
years of criminal justice architectural
experience in [State] and brings an
extraordinary talent for working
with owners and translating their
needs into workable and costeffective designs.
Firm’s
Firm, building, architecture, quality,
dedication, facility
Practices, practiced
Building, architecture, quality,
dedication ,quality, sensitivity,
detailing, lasting
The firm’s dedication to quality, lasting
architecture is practiced with careful
detailing and sensitivity to the
context into which a project is to be
placed.
Words underlined; modifiers italicized; multivalent words italicized and bolded.
Note: A3, A7 and A26 are code names for architectural firms and used to maintain confidentiality.
a
Firm used ‘‘spacial’’ rather than spatial.
Profession (Factor 6)
Profession (Factor 9)
CANDACE JONES ET AL.
Designs