David Chandler
Academy of Management Review, Volume 39 Issue 3, July 2014, Pages 396-406.

Institutional theory tells us that institutions “matter”(Powell, 1996: 297). They matter because they are powerful predictors of action, both enabling and constraining actors within socially constructed ranges of acceptable behavior (Greenwood, Oliver, Sahlin-Andersson, & Suddaby, 2008). In spite of the importance of demonstrating that institutions matter, however, institutional theory can be less helpful in terms of explaining why institutions are so influential. In particular, there is still much work to be done to investigate the values on …