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CONFLICTING LOGICS, MECHANISMS OF DIFFUSION, ANDMULTILEVEL DYNAMICS IN EMERGING

INSTITUTIONAL FIELDS

JILL M. PURDYUniversity of Washington, Tacoma

BARBARA GRAYPennsylvania State University

We examine the evolution of a new population of organizations (state offices of disputeresolution) in an emerging institutional field, focusing on how actions at multiplelevels interact recursively to enable multiple logics to diffuse. Logics became institu-tionalized as organizational practices within the field of alternative dispute resolutionthrough four diffusion mechanisms: transformation, grafting, bridging, and exit. Bydescribing the interplay among entrepreneurial efforts, strategic responses to resourcedependencies, and mechanisms of institutionalization over 22 years, we identify theconditions that enabled multiple practices supported by conflicting logics, rather thana single, dominant organizational form, to be institutionalized.

How new institutional fields and new types oforganizations emerge in the face of existing institu-tional constraints is a persistent and intriguingquestion for institutional scholars. Both structuralinfluences and individual agency affect the devel-opment of organizational fields. Structural expla-nations suggest the evolution of a new institutionalfield is contingent on the nature of the field itself(Dorado, 2005); for example, whether a field is frag-mented, hierarchical, or interstitial influences thetype of social movement needed to generate newinstitutionalized forms (Rao, Morrill, & Zald, 2000).Alternately, agency-based explanations of fieldemergence emphasize the work of institutional en-trepreneurs who enact new visions, cultivate andcapitalize on opportunities for change, and exertpolitical clout to legitimize new institutional ar-rangements (e.g., DiMaggio, 1988; Garud, Jain, &Kumaraswamy, 2002; Maguire, Hardy, & Lawrence,2004). Tension between these explanations is par-ticularly evident when one is considering anemerging field marked by conflicting logics where anew population of organizations is struggling tobecome institutionalized.

Although many scholars have noted that conflictand negotiation mark the emergence of new insti-tutional fields (Brint & Karabel, 1991; Hargrave &Van de Ven, 2006; Hoffman, 1999), empirical re-search on conflicting logics has largely focused onchange within mature fields (Greenwood et al.,2002; Greenwood & Suddaby, 2006; Lounsbury,2002, 2007) where a dominant logic has ultimatelyprevailed. In some emerging fields, conditions such

as urgency and goal similarity foster swift consensuson a single organizing logic, making rapid institution-alization possible (Maguire et al., 2004). However,other scholars have noted that institutional innova-tions may remain contested (Fligstein, 1996; Marquis& Lounsbury, 2007; Scott, Ruef, Mendel, & Caronna,2000), that diffusion of innovations does not alwaysresult in institutionalization (Abrahamson, 1991),and that emerging fields may not always mature to-ward stability and equilibrium (Greenwood & Sud-daby, 2006). Thus, under some conditions, institu-tionalization of a single new organizational form maynot be a foregone conclusion.

Extant models of institutionalization describe adiffusion stage in which a dominant logic emergeswithin a field (Greenwood et al., 2002: Strang &Meyer, 2003). Stage models of field evolution char-acterize the final stage of institutionalization as“structuration,” when practices acquire legitimacy(Morrill, 2007), or as reinstitutionalization, whennew logics become “taken for granted . . . as appro-priate arrangements for all organizations withinthe field” (Hinings, Greenwood, Reay, & Suddaby,2004:315). These models leave open the prospectthat institutionalization may be weak (Hinings etal., 2004) or that “contradictory patterns of humanactivity” may “be organized, made sense of, andnavigated” (Morrill, 2007: 5–6), yet the processesby which this might occur remain underspecified.Some evidence suggests that geographic variationsinduce different diffusion rates and changes inwhat gets diffused (Hays, 1996; Marquis &Lounsbury, 2007; Schneiberg & Soule, 2005). Yet

� Academy of Management Journal2009, Vol. 52, No. 2, 355–380.

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scholars have called for a fuller understanding ofthe mechanisms by which multiple logics may bediffused and the conditions supporting the persis-tence of multiple logics within a field (Davis & Mar-quis, 2005; Strang & Soule, 1998). This gap in under-standing motivates two research questions our studyis poised to answer: What mechanisms enable diverseinstitutional practices to coexist as emerging fieldsdevelop? and What conditions sustain the diffusionof multiple logics in emerging fields?

To address the first research question, we pro-vide an account of how an emerging field was bornand moved toward the (provisional) institutional-ization of two conflicting logics. We identify fourmechanisms that contributed to the diffusion ofdifferent logics and eventually enabled multiplesets of diverse institutional practices to coexistwithin the field. To address the second question,regarding conditions that sustain the diffusion ofmultiple logics in emerging fields, a multilevel inves-tigation of field development and diffusion dynamicsis required (Davis & Marquis, 2005; Thornton & Oca-sio, 2008). Such a multilevel investigation enablessimultaneous consideration of the impact of humanagency and institutional constraints on field evolu-tion. That is, it examines the actions of institutionalentrepreneurs who theorize new fields and launchnew organizations (Maguire et al., 2004; Suddaby &Greenwood, 2005) and examines how structuralaspects of the field enhance or constrain entrepre-neurial action. Few studies have integrated an un-derstanding of microprocesses and field-level dy-namics of institutional change (see Holm [1995] foran exception), but to answer our research ques-tions, we agree with Rao and his colleagues that itis necessary “to join the macro and micro analysisof the politics of organizational change as a singleendeavor with multiple layers and integrated levelsof analysis” (2000: 278). Thus, we consider howactions at individual and organization levels recur-sively interact with field-level dynamics to shapediffusion mechanisms and the process of institu-tionalization in emerging fields.

Our study offers a multilevel analysis of the evo-lution of a new population of organizations, stateoffices of dispute resolution,1 within the emerging

field of alternative dispute resolution.2 State officesof dispute resolution are organizations sanctionedto provide alternative dispute resolution serviceswithin a U.S. state. As have others (Morrill, 2007;Rao et al., 2000), we view alternative dispute reso-lution as an institutional field—that is, “an array oforganizations that are joined by a common interest,problem or service” (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992:97)—that grew out of two different social move-ments seeking judicial reform in the 1970s. Re-formers within the judiciary supported alterna-tive dispute resolution as a means of removingemotionality from (McEwan, Mather, & Maiman,1984) and improving the quality and efficiency ofthe U.S. justice system (Hedeen & Coy, 2000;Sander, 1976). Social change advocates criticizedthe courts for their lack of transparency and theineffectiveness of their solutions to policy prob-lems (Laue, 1988; Wondolleck, 1985) and advo-cated alternative dispute resolution as a means ofimproving decision quality and empowering dispu-tants by involving them directly in the decisionprocess (Haygood, 1988). Each group advanced adifferent logic (Morrill, 2007; Rao et al., 2000) toexplain how and why dispute resolution processesshould be changed.

Our data describe the interplay between entre-preneurial efforts to promote different logics andinstitutional pressures that created instabilitywithin this field and forced the state offices ofdispute resolution to adopt different mechanismsof diffusion as the field evolved. The varying localcontexts of 32 different states added to the com-plexity of institutionalization. In response, eachstate office adopted one of four diffusion mecha-nisms in an effort to match its chosen logic with theunique pattern of institutional forces in its state.The result was creation of a complex field in whichcompeting logics moved toward institutionaliza-tion through different diffusion mechanisms. Ourresearch describes how actions by individual entre-preneurs and emerging organizations shaped theorganizational population and the emerging field,and how population- and field-level dynamics re-verberated back to affect the new organizations.Thus, we elaborate on existing models of institu-tionalization in emerging fields (Hinings et al.,

1 Collectively, state offices of dispute resolution maybe considered an organizational population, defined as“alike . . . in the technical core” (Scott, 1992: 127), or anorganizational community, defined as “a bounded set offorms with related identities” (Ruef, 2000: 658). In select-ing the term “population,” we follow the convention ofScott (2001: 56) who refers to a “focal population” withinan organizational field.

2 The field is organized around nonjudicial disputeresolution practices such as mediation and arbitration.Many types of organizations (courts, community justicecenters, state agencies, law firms, universities, and pri-vate consultancies) provided and/or promoted alterna-tive dispute resolution in the United States during thisperiod. We focus exclusively on state offices of disputeresolution in this analysis.

356 AprilAcademy of Management Journal

2004; Morrill, 2007) by delineating conditions thatenable competing logics to persist and by identify-ing the mechanisms through which these logicsdifferentially diffuse. Rather than viewing diffu-sion as a dissemination process driven by isomor-phic pressures (Hinings et al., 2004), we highlightthe interplay between agency and structure duringdiffusion (Barley & Tolbert, 1997), acknowledgemultilevel effects, including the role of resourceacquisition, and identify various mechanisms thatorganizations can use to position themselves aslogics and their attendant practices diffuse. Thisframing allows us to examine how multiple logicsmay diffuse and how varying degrees of institution-alization may occur in emerging fields.

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

Emerging Fields and the Need for a MultilevelUnderstanding of Institutionalization

Although scholars agree that fields vary in theirextent of institutionalization (Dorado, 2005; Rao etal., 2000; Tolbert & Zucker, 1996), there is littleagreement about what constitutes institutionaliza-tion (Hinings et al., 2004; Thornton & Ocasio,2008). Fields that have collectively agreed uponrules, norms, and practices to which their membersadhere are considered highly institutionalized (Os-trom, 1998; Rao et al., 2000). Hinings and his coau-thors noted that when fields change, reinstitution-alization reflects “a shift from one archetype toanother” (2004: 316), but they argued that such ashift requires powerful actors to adopt new beliefsand practices. In the context of newly emergingfields, we support the view that institutionalizationrequires both the establishment of an archetype orshared logic that becomes taken for granted as thenatural and appropriate arrangement (Greenwoodet al., 2002: 61) and the establishment and persis-tence of practices that are manifested in materialform (Davis & Marquis, 2005). Because emergingfields require logics and practices to be translatedinto organizational forms, mere cognitive agree-ment around a logic is insufficient to establishinstitutionalization.

Efforts to institutionalize emerging fields can betumultuous and conflictual (Anand & Watson,2004; Dezalay & Garth, 1996; Hoffman, 1999).When fields are underorganized, pluralistic, or in-consistent, organizational norms and practices arelikely to be poorly specified, because the knowl-edge base for practice is uncertain (Goodrick &Salancik, 1996), new practices have not yet gainedlegitimacy, and no dominant logic has emerged.Instead, institutional entrepreneurs borrow new

logics from existing institutions, create them organ-ically from uncertainty, or import them from extantinstitutions that are affected by the new field (Good-rick & Salancik, 1996). The resultant uncertaintyprompts debate over competing theorizations abouthow the field should develop (Greenwood et al.,2002).

Emerging fields have been described as evolvingthrough three stages (Morrill, 2007). In the innova-tion stage, new logics are introduced and debated.In the mobilization stage, in the absence of clearinstitutional mandates, field development is oftenfraught with complex power dynamics as actorscompete to gain adherents for their logics. In thestructuration stage, logics are translated into con-crete practices (Reay, Golden-Biddle, & GermAnn,2006), and standardized, taken-for-granted normsand structures (Covaleski & Dirsmith, 1988; DiMag-gio, 1991) emerge at the organizational and fieldlevels. In emerging fields, in particular, resolvingthe conflicts that ensue is difficult since “thegreater the range and intensity of schisms, the moredifficult will be the task of developing acceptablenorms” (Greenwood et al., 2002: 75–76). To buildacceptance of new institutional arrangements, in-stitutional entrepreneurs cultivate opportunitiesfor change, seek to fit into prevailing systems, mo-bilize support from institutionalized actors (Beck-ert, 1999), and strive to prove the value of the newforms (Reay et al., 2006). Institutional change even-tually occurs when an alternative logic replaces aprevailing logic (Garud et al., 2002; Lounsbury,2002; Thornton, 2002). However, the mechanismsinstitutional entrepreneurs use to diffuse new log-ics in emerging fields may differ from those theyuse in established fields. As multiple new ideasbegin to diffuse, actors may draw selectively fromthem, exploiting some and ignoring others to ad-vance their own interests; thus, variations emergeto suit local needs (Hays, 1996; Lounsbury, 2007;Scott et al., 2000). Also, social learning, politics,and contextual factors can result in reinvention ofinnovations (Hays, 1996). If no dominant logicemerges and common standards do not diffuse, or-ganizations may deviate from their initial missionsin order to secure needed resources (Oliver, 1991)and seek the legitimacy (Suchman, 1995) they needto survive.

Established fields are hierarchically distributed,with some actors exercising influence over normsgoverning legitimate behavior; by contrast, inemerging fields “structures of domination” (Gid-dens, 1979) have not yet been established. Still,organizations in newly emerging fields must con-tend with existing institutions (Dacin, 1997; Deza-lay & Garth, 1996; Holm, 1995) that are likely to

2009 357Purdy and Gray

resist their efforts to garner resources and legiti-macy (Rao et al., 2000) and challenge them “toprotect their jurisdictions and established rou-tines” (Marquis & Lounsbury, 2007: 799). As Holmnoted, “New institutions are not created fromscratch but are built upon older institutions andmust replace or push back preexisting institutionalforms” (1995: 400). New organizations must de-velop sufficient resources and legitimacy to surviveby establishing resonance between their activitiesand the logics of existing institutions (Bacharach,Bamberger, & Sonnenstuhl, 1996; Thornton, 2002).Thus, existing institutions can play a significantrole in legitimating or thwarting the establishmentof organizations in an emerging field and ulti-mately in whether a fledgling population coalescesaround a single dominant logic.

As a result of this complexity, a multilevel viewis needed to understand how organizations attemptto navigate the conflicts and uncertainty presentduring the emergence of a field. Friedland and Al-ford suggested that the creation of new organiza-tional forms unfolds at three levels of analysis, with“individuals competing and negotiating, organiza-tions in conflict and coordination, and institutionsin contradiction and interdependency” (1991: 240–242). Further, a longitudinal view is needed to show“how macro-states at one point in time influence thebehavior of individual actors, and how these actionsadd up to new macro-states at a later time” (Hedstrom& Swedberg, 1996: 296). In the analysis that follows,we trace the development of a new population oforganizations in an emerging field, documenting theactions of actors at the level of individual organiza-tions, the population of organizations, the emergingfield, and existing institutional fields. We examineentrepreneurial attempts to promulgate the two pri-mary logics driving these new organizations and re-sponses from the field to which they belonged, aninterplay resulting in a prolonged contest for domi-nance among the logics and the eventual at leastprovisional institutionalization of several differentlogics to varying degrees. In particular, we investigatethe mechanisms actors used to diffuse their preferredlogics and the conditions that eventually contributedto the institutionalization of multiple logics withinthe focal field.

METHODS

Our research context is the emerging field ofalternative dispute resolution. Within this field, westudied state offices of dispute resolution, state-government-sanctioned organizations that resolvedisputes via alternative dispute resolution tech-niques such as negotiation, mediation, and facilita-

tion rather than through traditional litigation orregulation. As “incarnations of beliefs and values,”state dispute resolution offices constitute a neworganizational form (Haveman & Rao, 1997: 1611).By tracking all 42 state offices of dispute resolutionfrom the birth of the first one in 1982, through2004, when 36 of these remained in operation, ourresearch responds to requests for comparative stud-ies of diffusion dynamics over time (Strang &Soule, 1997), consideration of the nested effects ofmacro and micro forces (Hedstrom & Swedberg,1996; Holm, 1995), and attention to political dy-namics (Rao et al., 2000).

Data Collection

Interviews. In 1992–93, 34 interviews were con-ducted with the directors, staff members, clients,and stakeholders of the existing population of 13state offices of dispute resolution. The interviewsaddressed the mission, goals, staffing, fundingsources, and political and community support foreach state office of dispute resolution and providedinsight into interviewees’ subjective experiences ofthe field and the ongoing negotiations within it.Interviews were structured to ensure that compre-hensive data that passed the test of credibility werecollected (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). We did memberchecking to validate the trustworthiness of data(ensuring that the interviewer’s interpretations ac-curately captured the subjects’ perspectives) bypresenting summaries and follow-up questions tointerviewees (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). In 1998–99,additional interviews were conducted with the di-rectors of the original 13 offices and the 24 newoffices founded since 1993. These interviews uti-lized the original interview protocol plus newquestions about changes in strategy, informationexchange among state offices of dispute resolution,changing environmental pressures and expecta-tions, and evaluation efforts and also provided lon-gitudinal data on the field’s evolution. We con-ducted additional selected interviews in 2007 tofurther develop one case in detail.

Surveys. Survey data were used to confirm andsupplement interview data and to counteract anydistortion of data through memory loss (Golden,1992). In 1998, surveys were sent to all 35 then-active state offices of dispute resolution inquiringabout mission and activities, staffing and funding,types and number of clients served, and relationswith state government and professional associa-tions. Updates on births, deaths, activities, andchanges to the status or missions of these officeswere provided by the Policy Consensus Initiative(PCI), an alternative dispute resolution advocacy


group that adopted the format we developed in1998 to survey the offices annually thereafter.

Archival data. Extensive archival data from thefoundings of the state offices of dispute resolutionin the 1980s through 2004 were also gathered. Asnew offices were added, we amassed archivalrecords about their foundings and subsequent strat-egies. Archives from PCI and the National Institutefor Dispute Resolution (NIDR) and analyses of thealternative dispute resolution field were also col-lected.3 Both authors also tracked field-levelchanges and the academic discourse about alterna-tive dispute resolution during the study, includingunsuccessful efforts within our own states tolaunch and sustain such offices. One author alsoperiodically attended PCI’s annual meeting of thestate dispute resolution offices to observe interac-tions and document concerns as the field devel-oped. The archival data revealed initial and ongo-ing evidence of the divergent logics that evolvedamong these offices as well as specific actions byinstitutional entrepreneurs; the data also enabledus to link the development of these offices to that ofthe larger field of alternative dispute resolution.

Data Analysis

Using all our data, we constructed a chronology ofthe major events within the alternative dispute reso-lution field that affected the formation and evolutionof the state offices. We then analyzed the pattern of

state office of dispute resolution foundings. Figure 1documents this population’s growth, incorporatingbirths, deaths, and mission changes for the periodstudied. The designations “judicial,” “public policy,”and “comprehensive” (serving all branches of govern-ment) reflect the offices’ stated missions.

We then content-analyzed the interview data us-ing an open coding approach (Strauss & Corbin,1990) in which one asks who, when, where, what,how, and why questions of the data and begins toidentify constructs that arise from the data, docu-ments their properties, and notes recurrent themes.This process involved noting actions taken by (1)institutional entrepreneurs working at the nationallevel to advance alternative dispute resolution, (2)state-level players who supported individual stateoffices of dispute resolution, (3) judges and stategovernment officials, and (4) state office of disputeresolution directors; the process also involved not-ing distinctions in the logics and practices sub-scribed to by different state offices of dispute reso-lution. Using constant comparative analysis (Glaser& Strauss, 1967) of these offices’ experiences, weidentified categories and recurrent themes withinthe data. As Scott noted, to capture institutionallogics “institutional analysts . . . must pay closeattention to content, examining the specific beliefsystems as they are understood and interpreted byfield members” (2001: 139). We did this by cata-loguing key events, identifying conflicting logicsand their promoters, observing similarities and dif-ferences in the practices of the state offices, andnoting responses from their institutional environ-ments at the field and state levels.

3 A complete list of the archival records is availablefrom the authors.

FIGURE 1Growth of State Offices of Dispute Resolution by Mission

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We then completed axial coding, which involvesidentifying the context in which a phenomenon isembedded, the conditions giving rise to it, the ac-tions and interactional strategies by which it ishandled, and the consequences of these actions(Strauss & Corbin, 1990). We began to see patternsin how the state offices of dispute resolution situ-ated themselves within the field to gain and main-tain legitimacy and to note the interplay betweenorganization-, population-, and field-level actions.In response to Barley and Tolbert’s call for “inves-tigating how actions and institutions are recur-sively related” (1997: 94), we emphasized ac-tions—in particular, how conflicts emerged andwere sustained among the state offices of disputeresolution, efforts to reconcile these conflicts, theoffices’ clashes with existing institutions, and thestrategies they adopted to cope with institutionalresistance to their initiatives. We “iterated be-tween” our data categories and theory (Eisenhardt,1989; Yin, 1994) to answer our research questions,search for anomalous results, and discover how ourfindings contributed to extant theory.

Next, we returned to the data to conduct a morefocused and detailed search for answers to our re-search questions using selective coding—that is,reassembling data that were fractured during openand axial coding (Strauss & Corbin, 1990). For ex-ample, to better understand the interplay of organi-zational agency and institutional constraint, we iden-tified textual evidence of conflicts among divergentlogics, reasons why state offices of dispute resolutionsituated themselves differently vis-a-vis the field, andexamined how their actions were supported or re-sisted within states. Concurrently we utilized ourarchival data to track developments over time in thefield to examine their effects on the local (state-level)context for state offices of dispute resolution and con-tinually iterated between data and theory.

Case Study

Siggelkow (2007) suggested that illustrative casestudies are particularly valuable in longitudinal re-search to enable readers to focus in on the concep-tual relationships proposed within an empiricalsetting. We compiled a more detailed case study ofone state office of dispute resolution to illustratemore concretely the multilevel recursive dynamicswe observed and to detail one of the strategies suchoffices enacted to situate themselves with respectto the alternative dispute resolution field.

We present our results as follows: First we pro-vide a broad overview of the history of the stateoffices of dispute resolution, emphasizing keymacro-level events in their evolution over time,

data about their foundings, and the general natureof the political conflicts that emerged as the fieldevolved. Then we introduce our case study to ex-emplify the interplay of micro and macro dynamicsin one office’s evolution. Returning to the fieldlevel, we examine how the population of organiza-tions evolved as a whole. Like Maguire et al. (2004),we present our results by interspersing data withtheorizing, to help capture how our findingsemerged.

A MULTILEVEL ANALYSIS OFPOPULATION EVOLUTION

Conflicting Logics and the Founding of anOrganizational Population

To understand how new organizations facilitateor exacerbate the resolution of conflicting logics inemerging fields and shape field evolution, we firstreview the source of those logics in the field westudied. The alternative dispute resolution fieldemerged at the intersection of the legal and socialservices fields and was characterized by two pri-mary logics: a judicial logic, rooted in framing sit-uations in terms of disputes, rights, and justice, anda social services logic, rooted in notions of har-mony and satisfaction of needs (Morrill, 2007).Both these logics are embedded in larger societallogics that extend over multiple fields and institu-tions (Friedland & Alford, 1991). Bureaucratic logic,which construes the individual as an abstract legalsubject with rights before the law, is premised on“rationalization and the regulation of human activityby legal and bureaucratic hierarchies” (Friedland &Alford, 1991: 248). In contrast, democratic logic seeksto maximize individual participation in social struc-tures and extend “popular control over human activ-ity” (Friedland & Alford, 1991: 248). The purpose andlocation of each state office of dispute resolution weredetermined by which of these two logics was domi-nant within its local state context.

Judicial state offices of dispute resolution wererooted in bureaucratic logic. These offices werecreated as part of the “multidoor courthouse”model developed in response to the failings of thejudiciary identified at the 1976 Pound Conference(Sander, 1976) and subsequently supported by theAmerican Bar Association (ABA).4 Proponents be-

4 The ABA established the Special Committee on Al-ternative Means of Dispute Resolution in 1981, “with theaim of developing sound alternative methods of disputeresolution complementary to the court system” (Ameri-can Bar Association Section of Dispute Resolution,1998). This group became the Standing Committee on


lieved that alternative dispute resolution would di-minish backlogs and delay and save disputantstime and expense (Hedeen & Coy, 2000). Judicialalternative dispute resolution, imbedded in thenormal operations of the courts, diverted certaincases to mediators sanctioned by a state office ofdispute resolution; these were primarily attorneystrained in mediation during law school or by theABA. Although offering a faster route to justice,unlike traditional court cases, alternative disputeresolution cases did not set legal precedents forfuture decisions (Menkel-Meadow, 1984; Merry,1992).

Public policy state offices of dispute resolutionwere new organizations created within the execu-tive and legislative branches of state governmentsto address policy issues collaboratively rather thanthrough the courts (Drake, 1989; Haygood, 1988).These offices supported alternative dispute resolu-tion that included parties other than governmentearly in the policy-making process (McKinney &Spears, 1993). The underlying logic was democrat-ic: alternative dispute resolution enabled citizensto participate more fully in creating the policiesthat governed them, presumably resulting in better-quality, more widely accepted outcomes, and lesslitigation. Advocates of public policy state disputeresolution offices envisioned them as solutions tothe growing complexity of social policy makingrelated to population growth, transportation, waterrights, public housing, environmental controls, andland use (Bingham, 1986; Susskind, 1986). As partof the “reinventing government movement,” theseoffices represented efforts to increase the respon-siveness and effectiveness of government. Lackingthe autonomy and resources of the state judiciaryand the ABA, their advocates promoted public pol-icy alternative dispute resolution through the Na-tional Institute for Dispute Resolution (NIDR).NIDR offered grants to create “statewide offices ofmediation” (NIDR, 1987) to foster the use of alter-native dispute resolution during public policy cre-ation or revision. Alternative dispute resolutionpractitioners in the public policy offices were typ-ically educated in the social sciences or in peacestudies and belonged to nonjudicial professionalsocieties such as the Society of Professionals inDispute Resolution (SPIDR) or the Academy ofFamily Mediators (AFM).

A third type of state office of dispute resolution,the comprehensive type, embraced both logics andoffered both judicial and public policy services.

The emerging practice of alternative dispute reso-lution was posed as a common solution to the field-level problems identified in various branches ofstate government, despite the fundamental differ-ences in the logics underlying the judicial and pub-lic policy dispute resolution offices.

The first judicial state office of dispute resolutionwas established in 1982, and the first public policystate office of dispute resolution was launched in1984. Table 1 provides data for all 42 state offices ofdispute resolution launched between 1982 and2004, including founding date, mission, location,supporters, and enabling legislation, if any. Eigh-teen of these offices had state legislation that for-malized their missions. However, legislation didnot guarantee a secure resource stream, and manyof the offices operated without either the guaranteeof long-term funds or the legitimacy of state autho-rization. Since alternative dispute resolution wasan emerging field lacking clear institutional expec-tations, each dispute resolution office’s formationwas dependent upon local conditions within itsstate. Alternative dispute resolution supporterswithin each state (e.g., judges, attorneys, law fac-ulty, state governors, legislators, state agency ad-ministrators, mediators, and academics) sought toidentify resources and create organizations to pro-vide or oversee alternative dispute resolution atthe state level. As Table 1 illustrates, the initialmission of each office was strongly linked to thetypes of advocates who were instrumental in itscreation. Generally, judicial dispute resolutionoffices formed in states where primary advocateswere judges, attorneys, court administrators, andlaw faculty; public policy dispute resolution officesformed in states where primary advocates weregovernors, legislators, state agency staff, and stateuniversity faculty or administrators; and compre-hensive dispute resolution offices formed in stateshaving diverse coalitions of alternative dispute res-olution supporters. Most advocates of state officesof dispute resolution were embedded in either thejudicial or the executive branches and were notthemselves mediators. Four states (Florida, Ohio,Delaware, and New York) initiated both a judicialand a public policy dispute resolution office withinthe same one- or two-year period.

The conflicting logics upon which the state of-fices of dispute resolution were founded had directrepercussions for their operations and their legiti-macy with peers, state supporters, and nationalconstituents. Previous research has shown that infields with conflicting logics, one dominant logiceventually prevails and is diffused throughout thefield (Garud et al., 2002; Greenwood et al., 2002;Lounsbury, 2002; Thornton, 2002, 2004). In the

Dispute Resolution in 1986 and a full-fledged section ofthe ABA in 1993.


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population studied here, however, three distinctfactors inhibited this kind of resolution. First, thestate offices of dispute resolution drew supportfrom different institutional entrepreneurs who dis-agreed about the purpose of alternative dispute res-olution. Judicial advocates like law professor FrankSander saw alternative dispute resolution as ameans of handling large volumes of routine cases,in order to “save the courts for cases at the heart ofliberal political order, namely constitutional dis-putes” (Sander, 1976: 133). In contrast, the profes-sor Lawrence Susskind and advocates at NIDR sawalternative dispute resolution as a tool to “to re-solve a variety of complex conflicts arising in thecourse of policymaking . . . to help state policymak-ers make and implement tough decisions” (Dillon,1993: ii) and ultimately, to “change a paradigm ofhundreds of years which has stressed going tocourt” (Dillon, 1993: 11).

Second, the two conflicting logics led the stateoffices of dispute resolution to adopt vastly differ-ent practices and actions. The bureaucratic, rightsorientation of judicial logic was translated into con-cern for procedural rules and standardization ofmediation training and practice among the judicialoffices. Conversely, the public policy offices, re-flecting the democratic logic’s emphasis on equal-ity and needs satisfaction, tried to instill processintegrity through careful mediator selection andcustom process design (PCI, 1999) instead of pro-cedural rules.5 State offices of dispute resolutionalso implemented alternative dispute resolutionprinciples differently depending upon whetherthey were operating in a judicial or administrativecontext. Judicial dispute resolution offices typi-cally relied on a traditional mediation process inwhich the two parties presented their concerns andattempted to reach agreement with the assistance ofan appointed mediator. The public policy disputeresolution offices used a broad range of alternativedispute resolution techniques, including negotia-tion, facilitation, mediation, collaborative problemsolving, and consensus building (PCI, 1998) to“bring diverse stakeholders together to seek con-sensus or agreement in an open, informal setting,enabling parties to craft solutions in which allgain” (Dillon, 1993: ii).

Third, each state office of dispute resolution faceddifferent expectations and requirements from itsstate. Such differences required organizational prac-tices to be tailored to the idiosyncrasies of the local

institutional environment, illustrating the impor-tance of local environments for how new organiza-tional forms develop (Hays, 1996; Lounsbury, 2007).These factors prevented a single dominant logic fromemerging for the population during the period stud-ied. Below, we describe in chronological order howactions promoting and contesting the two logics forstate offices of dispute resolution were played outacross levels and in varying arenas over time.

Population-Level Responses to Field-InitiatedConflicts, 1985–94

In 1985, NIDR began sponsoring annual meet-ings of the state offices of dispute resolutionaimed at sharing knowledge about the challengesthey faced (e.g., limited staffing, uncertain fund-ing, and the enormous task of educating theirconstituents about alternative dispute resolution)(Drake & Fee, 1990). The meetings highlightedfour tensions between the public policy and ju-dicial state offices of dispute resolution. The firstcentered on whether these offices should inform pol-icy or adjudicate disputes. Staff in public policy dis-pute resolution offices suggested judicial alternativedispute resolution did little to improve dispute reso-lution because the judiciary retained its authority andlegitimacy in resolving disputes. One of our inter-viewees noted this:

I believe for the future of the practice of disputeresolution, it’s very important that it not be viewedas a judicial process. I mean it isn’t. It is outside ofthe purview of the court . . . if you start to be viewedas a tool of any particular agency or government,your effectiveness is so damaged that it wouldn’t bea good thing.

Other staff members whom we interviewed sawjudicial alternative dispute resolution as an expan-sion of the judicial profession: “They [the attor-neys] are trying to create a new area of practice.” Inreturn, interviewees at judicial programs critiquedthe public policy state offices, noting “those pro-grams are risky. . . . [They are] without any of thesafeguards built into the court system.” They criti-cized the public policy state offices of dispute res-olution for haphazard selection and handling ofdisputes and a lack of governance by either profes-sional standards or legal rules.

A second tension focused on whether state of-fices of dispute resolution should resolve disputesthemselves, train and certify private alternative dis-pute resolution practitioners to resolve disputes, orsimply provide case management. As one of the“doors” of the multidoor courthouse, all judicialdispute resolution offices offered case manage-

5 This approach was reinforced by NIDR’s 1995 publi-cation, Performance-Based Assessment: A Methodologyfor Use in Selecting, Training, and Evaluating Mediators.


ment, but some also offered mediator certificationand/or training. In contrast, the staff members ofpublic policy dispute resolution offices usually un-dertook all three tasks. Many favored personal in-volvement in resolving disputes, as doing so wasconsistent with their training and also afforded pro-fessional legitimacy, which was based primarily onindividual mediator experience and ethics ratherthan on alternative dispute resolution systems (Si-mon, 2002).

A third source of tension, especially for publicpolicy state offices of dispute resolution, stemmedfrom resistance to their mission from state govern-ments. Proponents hoped the state offices of dis-pute resolution would build a pipeline for alterna-tive dispute resolution services by creating demandfor them within government. However, elected of-ficials evaluated the public policy offices in termsof their success in resolving difficult, high-profileconflicts. In response, these offices targeted stateagencies that often generated high-profile disputes(e.g., housing, education, disability, or environ-mental issues) for their programs and raised aware-ness about alternative dispute resolution and gar-nered needed resources by training stateemployees. Judicial state offices of dispute resolu-tion also incurred some tensions over missionwhen they set up dispute resolution systems toevaluate and select cases for mediation. Court ad-ministrators seeking expedience in case resolutionand some attorneys who viewed mediators asusurping their practice often resisted the establish-ment of the dispute resolution systems (Ray,1982a).

A final source of tension was the dispute reso-lution offices’ attempts to measure their own ef-fectiveness. Lacking uniform measures withwhich to evaluate the effectiveness of alternativedispute resolution, these offices struggled to jus-tify their work. The judicial offices utilized eval-uation criteria that stressed technical efficiencyby reporting the number of cases settled via al-ternative dispute resolution and estimates of directand indirect cost savings gained with use of alterna-tive versus traditional dispute resolution. For exam-ple, Alabama’s program maintained “statistical dataand other information necessary to evaluate on a con-tinuing basis the effectiveness of alternative disputeresolution . . . including . . . at what stage in the res-olution process matters or causes are settled” (Ala-bama Supreme Court, 1994: 2). In contrast, the publicpolicy dispute resolution offices faced considerablymore difficulty developing concrete measures to doc-ument their success in transforming state-level dis-puting procedures. Most felt that “producing accurate

cost-benefit studies was a goal plagued with theoret-ical and practical pitfalls” (PCI, 1999: 6).

Population-Level Efforts to Impose a DominantLogic, 1994–97)

In 1991, NIDR stopped funding the state office ofdispute resolution annual meetings and, after pro-viding eight million dollars to start ten state officesof dispute resolution, discontinued supportingsuch offices completely in 1994. Despite this, thestate dispute resolution offices continued to meetand, in 1992, they created a governing body, theNational Council of State Dispute Resolution Pro-grams (hereafter, the Council), whose mission wasto “promote the design and use of collaborativedispute resolution processes for the prevention,management and resolution of disputes involvingall branches of government” and “to encourage andsupport the creation and growth of regional andstatewide offices of dispute resolution” (NIDR,1994: 2). Membership was open to all state officesof dispute resolution, but few judicial offices choseto participate, focusing instead on managing theirincreasing caseloads.

The Council became the primary source of in-formation and norms for the state offices of dis-pute resolution, for example, sharing models ofsuccessful state-level alternative dispute resolu-tion legislation passed in Oregon and Massachu-setts. The older, more established dispute resolu-tion offices with comprehensive missions and thehuman and financial resources to organize, con-vene, and attend national meetings dominatedthe Council. As one interviewee acknowledged in1994, “These offices are or have the potential ofbeing fairly significant forces in terms of the man-ner in which dispute resolution gets developed inany particular state.” The Council began to im-pose a dominant logic for state offices of disputeresolution, an “ideal model” that dictated “bestpractices” for their operations. The director of anewer public policy dispute resolution officesaid, “There definitely is a preferred model, to-ward a more systematic way of doing things, andless . . . dictated by individual personnel. It’s asubtle thing.”

Three tenets of the ideal model reinforced thelogical schism between the public policy and judi-cial state offices of dispute resolution. First, follow-ing democratic logic, the model advocated that theybe located in a neutral agency within the state thatprovided strong access to all branches of govern-ment. For example, the director of another statedispute resolution office criticized the location ofNew Jersey’s office within that state’s Office of the


Public Advocate (perceived as an internal watch-dog): “One of the things that New Jersey is anillustration of, is maybe where not to put an officein government.” Facing similar disapproval, theMinnesota dispute resolution office moved from aminor state agency into the state’s Bureau of Medi-ation Services. And the situation of Hawaii’s dis-pute resolution office in the judiciary was viewedas “very distressing” by advocates of the idealmodel.

Second, the ideal model also dictated that ed-ucating about alternative dispute resolution, de-veloping capacity for it, and designing alternativedispute resolution systems should take priorityover directly resolving disputes, so as to stimu-late widespread knowledge of and demand foralternative dispute resolution. Some state officesof dispute resolution objected to this tenet, as thefollowing interviewee statement exemplifies:“There’s the state office model where they’re say-ing, ‘Well, we won’t necessarily do the cases,we’ll farm it out or import it.’ But the feeling hereis that [staff] people really want to get involvedthemselves.” Third, the ideal model urged stateoffices of dispute resolution to secure their sur-vival, success, and legitimacy by creating advi-sory boards of influential government leaders andpromoting the passage of state legislation man-dating alternative dispute resolution and an of-fice dedicated to it. The director of the Ohiopublic policy state office of dispute resolutionnoted that “legislation requiring alternative dis-pute resolution provides a concrete incentive forpeople in government to use mediation. In theabsence of the legislation, there is so much elseon people’s plates that they don’t get to media-tion.” Finally, program activities could be used tobuild support; as an NIDR staff member said,“Ohio’s growth links directly to the fact theyhave a school mediation program, and that’s whatlegislators wanted for their constituents.”

In addition to introducing norms for the popula-tion of state offices of dispute resolution, the Coun-cil spearheaded field-level professionalization ofalternative dispute resolution by working withother professional bodies (e.g., ABA, AAA, SPIDR)to create national qualifications for mediators.These national self-regulatory standards reinforcedthe Council’s emphasis on systems design by en-abling state offices of dispute resolution to use ros-ters of qualified mediators to resolve disputes andhelped to stave off judiciary criticism of the ques-tionable quality of public policy alternative disputeresolution—thereby enhancing the offices’ legiti-macy. Nonetheless, certification continued toplague the dispute resolution office population,

which remained divided through 2004, mirroringfield-level schisms among the main professionalalternative dispute resolution practitioner organi-zations (the National Association for CommunityMediation, the Association for Conflict Resolution[ACR], and the ABA), each of which separately setnational certification standards for mediators in2003. Ironically, the ACR report appealed for unitywhile extolling its own model as the field standard:“It is hoped that other groups may endorse thedesign of the proposed Mediator Certification Pro-gram. . . . A certification program must be em-braced by, and representative of, the wider media-tion field if is to become truly national in scope andwidely accepted both by mediators and the publicas a valuable credential” (ACR Task Force, 2004:5–6).

Further evidence of the lack of a dominant logicamong the state offices of dispute resolution is thefact that all new public policy dispute resolutionoffices founded after 1994 were located in univer-sities, and two others subsequently moved fromagency to university homes. At the same time thatthe Council was promoting the ideal model andseeking national credibility for the state offices ofdispute resolution, state universities were facingpressures from their legislatures to demonstrategreater community responsiveness (Kellogg Com-mission on the Future of State and Land-Grant Uni-versities, 1999; Lounsbury & Pollack, 2001). A sym-biosis emerged because faculty viewed the stateoffices as an opportunity to link research and prac-tice, while the offices themselves viewed state uni-versities as more hospitable institutional hosts thatcould buffer them from the increasing accountabil-ity pressures and vicissitudes of state government.As one staff member of California’s state office ofdispute resolution commented in 2003, “You wantto be in a home that’s as neutral as possible. InCalifornia, partisan politics are so intense. If wewere linked to the executive branch, we wouldhave been in trouble.”

The university-located offices enjoyed relativelystable funding and in-kind contributions of officespace from their host universities and were lessdependent upon the whims of their state legisla-tures or court administrators than those in execu-tive agencies; yet, as forms of public outreach, thesestate offices of dispute resolution could stilladeptly serve these branches of government. Thepublic university context, with its emphases oneducational access for students and academic free-dom, was also a good fit with the democratic logicdominant in the public policy dispute resolutionoffices. However, the entry of universities as an-other institutional home for state offices of dispute


resolution further diversified the population. Fig-ure 2 illustrates this diversity.

Case Study: The Massachusetts Office ofDispute Resolution

We now trace the evolution of one state office ofdispute resolution with a comprehensive mission,the Massachusetts Office of Dispute Resolution(MODR). This case highlights the multilevel inter-play between entrepreneurial efforts to launchindividual state offices of dispute resolution,population-level pressures for conformity, andresistance from existing institutions as the alterna-tive dispute resolution field evolved. After enjoy-ing financial incentives and support from both theadministrative and judicial sectors in the state,MODR appeared to be successfully institutionaliz-ing. However, suppressed contradictions in thenew field (Seo & Creed, 2002) eventually surfacedand invoked institutional resistance from bothbranches of government, forcing this office to shiftto a university home while perpetuating multiplelogics and field fragmentation.

MODR (originally the Massachusetts MediationOffice) began in 1984 as one of the first four stateoffices of dispute resolution funded by NIDR; it wasfunded in part because of Massachusetts Instituteof Technology professor Lawrence Susskind’s ad-vocacy of alternative dispute resolution for publicpolicy disputes. Initially housed in the state’s Ex-

ecutive Office for Administration and Finance,MODR offered mediation of statewide public pol-icy disputes referred to it by the governor, the at-torney general, or a cabinet officer. In 1986, at therequest of the state’s chief justice, Robert Stedd-man, MODR began to offer mediation in the SuffolkSuperior Court to relieve the court’s backlogof cases. Spurred by success in the Superior Courtand a positive NIDR-sponsored evaluation, MODRshifted its emphasis to creating dispute resolutionprograms to systematically “identify and managethe flow of cases to carefully selected and trainedmediators” (MODR, 1993: 10). MODR also pro-vided public policy mediation and training forhousing, environmental, and public utility agen-cies. In 1990, legislation established MODR as thestate’s dispute resolution agency (MassachusettsGeneral Law, chapter 7, section 51), and it soonexpanded its court mediation program to two othercounties. A key to its success was its formal proce-dure for channeling cases from a court docket intomediation. A 1997 evaluation noted high levels ofsatisfaction with MODR’s mediation programsamong attorneys and disputants (Maiman, 1997),which inspired the state’s chief justice to note thatthe evaluation offered “strong encouragement notonly for the need to support existing programs butfor seeking funding to create mediation programssystemwide” (Adams, 2004: 37).

Although the state reformed its procurementprocess and systemized the hiring of mediators in

FIGURE 2Institutional Context for State Offices of Dispute Resolution, 2004

University

Democratic Logic:Public Service and Academic Freedom

Alternative Dispute Resolution

Bureaucratic Logic:Multidoor Courthouse

Judiciary

Judicial offices: 15

Government

Democratic Logic:Reinventing Government

Public policy office: 1

Independent public policy office: 1

Public policy offices: 14Comprehensive offices: 5


the mid 1990s, MODR, which was prequalified tohandle alternative dispute resolution workthrough a professional services contract, was ex-empt from this change. However, this exclusivearrangement (with the state’s Land Court in par-ticular) produced resentment from private alter-native dispute resolution contractors, who wereeffectively shut out of these opportunities, andfrom judges who, despite the backlog, preferredtrials over mediation for civil cases. The passageof the Uniform Rules on Dispute Resolution bythe Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court inMay 1998 solidified MODR’s hold on mediationservices in the judiciary. Intended to ensure qual-ity in and consistent standards for alternativedispute resolution services and to stimulate the use ofmediation in the courts, these rules allowed thechief justice of the Massachusetts Superior Court toselect MODR as the single provider of alternativedispute resolution services in the three counties itserved (Adams, 2004). The passage of the uniformrules in Massachusetts mirrored a federal executiveorder at the field level and reflected the efforts ofthe broader alternative dispute resolution field toestablish practice standards for judiciary-basedwork. However, when a new chief justice, SuzanneDelveccio, took over in 1999, she objected to MODR’sexclusive arrangement and to the qualificationstandards set out by the Superior Court’s StandingCommittee on Dispute Resolution. She switched toa multiple-provider arrangement and argued for re-laxed criteria. Private alternative dispute resolutionproviders also objected to MODR’s subsidization (itreceived a yearly state allocation rather than fees forits work) and to the precedent it set for keeping feeslow. In the Superior Court, the situation becameespecially contentious because retired judges andlawyers were barred from doing alternative disputeresolution. Consequently, “The outside providers be-came unified around the issue of court-connectedADR [alternative dispute resolution] interfering withtheir financial interests” (Adams, 2004: 41), and agroup of private providers challenged MODR’s exclu-sive hold on alternative dispute resolution servicesand its state funding. MODR’s director, Susan Jeghe-lian, characterized this as a “fight over market share.”The minority leader of the Massachusetts Housejoined the fight against MODR, temporarily cutting itslegislative allocation in 2002. The Senate restoredMODR’s funding, but with an 80 percent budget cutin 2003 and migration of its training and systemsdesign projects to contractual funding because of in-coming governor Mitt Romney’s preference for pri-vatization. Nonetheless, MODR retained its line itemin the state budget.

The backing that MODR received from Governor

Dukakis, a Democrat, and Governors Weld, Cel-lucci, and Swift, moderate Republicans, from theoffice’s early years through 2003, disappearedwhen Governor Romney took office. In 2004, argu-ing that MODR’s educational efforts provided apublic service, Director Jeghelian averted a Rom-ney-inspired veto with the promise that MODRwould seek a new institutional home at the Uni-versity of Massachusetts–Boston. Consequently,MODR retained its line item appropriation butmoved its administrative home from state govern-ment to the university in August 2004. There, itcontinued its training and public policy facilitationunder a 1999 executive order “to facilitate the useof alternative dispute resolution and consensusbuilding by government agencies on public policyissues important to the Commonwealth” (MODR,2000: 24) and embarked on dispute system designwith a number of state agencies. When MODRceased running the court-based programs in 2002,the result was an erosion of the careful case-screen-ing procedures it had established (Adams, 2004)and a restriction of its judicial work to consultationwith the Superior Court’s Standing Committee onDispute Resolution, which regulated alternativedispute resolution in the Trial Court.

What appeared to be a successful effort to insti-tutionalize MODR in the state government andcourts ultimately created significant challenges forit by surfacing suppressed contradictions in thenew field (Seo & Creed, 2002) and invoking resis-tance from other institutional players (Holm, 1995;Rao et al., 2000). The very occasion of institution-alization—MODR’s victory in getting uniform rulespassed and winning a sole provider contract—con-tained the seeds of its demise by causing otherinstitutional stakeholders to challenge the legiti-macy of the rules and MODR’s exclusive controlover the provision of these services. A third, mar-ket, logic then surfaced within the emerging field,with attorneys insisting they were entitled to ashare of the alternative dispute resolution work.This claim reflected a larger debate in the judiciaryabout whether or not alternative dispute resolutionconstituted the practice of law (cf. Menkel-Meadow, 1984; Welsh, 2001), but by this time theABA had condoned dispute resolution as a legiti-mate domain of legal practice, pressured in part bythe oversupply of attorneys looking for work (Potts,1996). Thus, MODR’s apparent institutionalizationwas short-lived. Resistance from institutions withinthe alternative dispute resolution field forced theagency to search for legitimacy in yet another institu-tional field—universities.


TOWARD A MULTILEVEL MODEL OFDIFFUSION IN EMERGING FIELDS

In this section, we draw together our data onfield-level events and the specific state-level eventsillustrated in the Massachusetts Office of DisputeResolution case to theorize about the mechanismsof diffusion and the conditions that account for theevolution of the population of state offices of dis-pute resolution. These agencies illustrate a popula-tion of new organizations in an emerging field that,after 22 years, has yet to converge around a singledominant logic. To answer our first research ques-tion, we consider the mechanisms the state officesof dispute resolution adopted to situate themselveswith respect to existing institutions in the emergingfield as the practice of alternative dispute resolu-tion diffused, borne by multiple logics.

Multiple Strategies for Situating NewOrganizations vis-a-vis Existing Institutions

Organizations need to determine from which in-stitution(s) they want to seek legitimacy (Tolbert,1988). This task is difficult in a complex andemerging field with multiple sources of legitimiza-tion. Our data revealed four distinct mechanismsthrough which the state dispute resolution officessituated themselves and garnered legitimacy fromexisting institutions: transformation, grafting, bridg-ing, and exit. These mechanisms differed by the fieldthey targeted for legitimacy and the intended natureof the relationship between a state office of disputeresolution and the targeted field.

Transformation. In keeping with their goal ofempowering disputants and changing how publicdisputes were handled, some dispute resolutionoffices situated themselves within state govern-ment and attempted transformation of the govern-ment field. These organizations tried to replace ex-isting practices for resolving public policy conflictswith approaches that democratized dispute resolu-tion. Although several of the public policy statedispute resolution offices initially achieved suchtransformations, their efforts to reform practicewere difficult to sustain, as the case of Minnesota’sdispute resolution office illustrates. After years ofsuccess, in 1994 this public policy office wasforced to move into the Bureau of Labor Mediationto ensure its survival. However, dominated by itshost agency’s focus, the public policy aspects of itsmission narrowed to labor disputes, and by 2000 itwas completely subsumed into the traditional labormediation activities of that agency. On the otherhand, a few public policy state offices of disputeresolution appeared to have successfully transformed

the way public policy disputes were handled, “bring-ing ADR into the mainstream of government consen-sus building and conflict resolution” (CPR Institutefor Dispute Resolution, 2000). Montana’s initially in-dependent dispute resolution office gained statutorylegitimacy in 2003 and moved to new quarters withinthe Office of the Governor.6 North Dakota’s state of-fice of dispute resolution, a nonprofit corporation,enjoys continuing pan-partisan support from politi-cal, private, and nonprofit leaders. Overall, eight stateoffices of dispute resolution started with this strategy,of which six had died and two retained the strategy asof 2004.

Grafting. Other state offices of dispute resolutionalso sought to change an institutional field (thejudiciary) from within; however, they tried to inte-grate alternative dispute resolution with existingpractices rather than to replace them. We label theirstrategy grafting. Housed within court administra-tive structures, judicial state offices of dispute res-olution served the bureaucratic logic of the judi-ciary by establishing a direct conduit for casereferrals, ensuring that mediators were certifiedand administrative rules for court-connected medi-ation were followed, and adopting standards forevaluation that were strongly influenced by thejudiciary. This close affiliation with the courts en-sured that the integrity of the judicial system interms of due process was maintained, but it alsomeant that such dispute resolution offices weresubordinate to state- and field-level dynamics. Staffat Maine’s judicial office of dispute resolutionclearly recognized this position: “Our mission is tocreate and maintain mediation rosters . . . providedirect mediation and other ADR services as autho-rized.” Essentially, alternative dispute resolutionpractices had to coexist with traditional judicialproceedings (Virginia Judiciary Futures Commis-sion, 1989). The Florida Office of Dispute Resolu-tion, a judicial organization, exemplifies a success-ful graft (Press, 1997). Sixteen state offices ofdispute resolution began with this strategy, and 15retained it as of 2004.

Bridging. The few state offices of dispute resolu-tion that adopted a comprehensive mission at-tempted to satisfy the expectations of both the ju-diciary and the government fields—a strategy werefer to as bridging. Alternative dispute resolutionas an identity was the top priority for these organ-izations, and it allowed them to operate credibly inboth the judicial and policy fields. As the directorof the New Jersey office of dispute resolution

6 In light of Minnesota’s experience, however, it still maybe too soon to argue that Montana has institutionalized.


stated, “Our goal is to become the clearinghouseand the prime provider of alternative dispute reso-lution services for the state. . . . [The state office ofdispute resolution] has been appointed a specialmaster-mediator by both the state and federalcourts, trained hundreds of public officials andcommunity volunteers in mediation, [and] facili-tated policy dialogues and executive councils andcommissions.” A staff member from Hawaii’s officeof dispute resolution described a similarly broadmission linking the branches of government: “Ouroffice assists with the design and implementationof dispute resolution systems in the judicial, legis-lative and executive branches. We also work on alimited number of complex policy or litigation is-sues referred by public officials.”

Organizations adopted the bridging strategy togarner legitimacy from a wide array of governmentbranches whose constituents valued the sorts ofexchanges the dispute resolution offices could pro-vide (Ashforth & Gibbs, 1990; Suchman, 1995)while disengaging from other institutional pres-sures that could disrupt them. Seven state offices ofdispute resolution started with this strategy, andfive still embraced it in 2004. These organizationsappear to have straddled the administrative andjudicial arenas of their states and successfully ne-gotiated change in both fields. In many cases, how-ever, this straddling required a state dispute reso-lution office to decouple its informal practices fromformally sanctioned policies (Westphal & Zajac,2001), as in the case of Hawaii, which defied theideal model advanced by the public policy disputeresolution offices. We note that, as of 1999, wewould have labeled MODR as successfully bridg-ing; however, by 2004 its influence in bothbranches of government had eroded, along with thepractices it sought to instantiate.

Exit. The exit strategy describes state offices ofdispute resolution that abandoned the institutionalfield they initially tried to influence to align withanother. Suchman argued that “managers may at-tempt to locate a more amicable venue, in whichotherwise dubious activities appear unusually de-sirable, proper, or appropriate” (1995: 589). Dis-pute resolution offices that adopted the exit strat-egy avoided the institutional pressures of both stateagencies and the judiciary, and instead found fer-tile institutional homes within public universitiesthat already had templates for hosting centers andacquiring external support, as well as an overallpublic policy mission. However, for university-based dispute resolution organizations, the label of“state office” was problematic, as one directornoted: “I was told by someone in Virginia that theydo not consider themselves a state office, and the

New Hampshire office considers itself a service cen-ter.” While retaining statewide policy missions, theuniversity-based dispute resolution offices were usu-ally named “centers” or “programs” to better alignthem with their university contexts. For example,Alaska’s office, named “Resource Solutions,” wasfounded with an emphasis on environmental issuesbased on both state need and faculty researchinterests.

In states where “small government” was favored,such as New Hampshire (Dillon, 1993: 7), support-ers recognized the need to situate state offices ofdispute resolution outside the government ratherthan within it. Twelve state offices of dispute res-olution were founded in universities with the mis-sion of transforming their states’ policy-makingprocesses through alternative dispute resolution.Toward the end of the period studied, the disputeresolution offices in Massachusetts and Oregon leftthe increasingly hostile field of state government toseek legitimacy in a university. Ironically, theseprograms had been among the first and most suc-cessful state offices of dispute resolution funded byNIDR in the 1980s. As of 2004, 14 of the studiedoffices had employed the exit strategy.

Unlike organizations conforming to other modelsof diffusion, in which institutionalization involvesreplication of a dominant theorization (Garud et al.,2002; Morrill, 2007; Strang & Meyer, 1993), thestate offices of dispute resolution adopted severalmechanisms that enabled them to garner legitimacyin different niches from different institutionalhomes as the alternative dispute resolution fieldevolved. Although some mimetic diffusion pro-cesses were at work (e.g., new state offices of dis-pute resolution were modeled after existing ones),the four mechanisms used by our focal organiza-tions reflected different ways of situating their or-ganizations with respect to both the emerging insti-tutional field and existing ones (see Figure 2).These strategies were fueled by a need for bothlegitimacy and for resources, as the state offices ofdispute resolution sought to respond strategically(Oliver, 1991) to the resource demands of embed-ding alternative dispute resolution practices in ex-isting institutional fields.

Our data extend Morrill’s (2007) model of thestructuration stage of field emergence. According toMorrill, the structuration stage of institutionaliza-tion “occurs to the extent that alternative practitio-ners are able to carve out legitimated social spacesfor their practices through the establishment of pro-fessional organizations and various symbolic, cul-tural, and normative boundaries” (2007: 8). Wedemonstrate how multiple logics were institution-alized among the population of state offices of


TABLE 2Field-, Population- and Organization-Level Influences on

the Evolution of State Offices of Dispute Resolution

Item Date Level(s) Event Supporting Data

1 1976 Field—Judiciary The Pound Conference identifiesalternative dispute resolution as asolution to problems in judiciary.

Alternative dispute resolution was proposed to reducecourt backlogs and delay, save time and expense(Hedeen & Coy, 2000), and improve the quality ofagreements (Sander, 1976).

2 1982 Organization First state office of dispute resolutioncreated in Maine.

“Legislation encouraging alternative dispute resolutionhad been in place since 1975, but time was neededto figure out how best to implement it within thestate courts.” (Maine state office of disputeresolution staff)

3 1981 Field—Alternativedisputeresolution

NIDR founded. “The National Institute for Dispute Resolution wasestablished by a consortium of foundations (Ford,Hewlett, MacArthur, et al.) in 1981 in order to fosterdispute resolution experimentation across thenation.” (McGillis, 1997: 36)

4 1983 Field—Judiciary Rule 16 of the Federal Rules of CivilProcedure.

Granted judges the explicit authority to facilitatesettlement decisions.


NIDR creates a grant program to initiatenonjudicial state offices of disputeresolution.

“The NIDR committee set several goals for its programto establish statewide offices of mediation: toincrease the capacity within each state for theprovision of mediation services; to make thoseservices more readily available; to provide a stableand neutral source of funding for mediation ofpublic disputes . . . and to increase both the supplyof and demand for mediation services” (Haygood,1988: 1).

6 1984 Population First public policy state offices ofdispute resolution created.

NIDR’s funding initiative resulted in attempts to createsix state dispute resolution programs in 1984 and1985, four of which succeed.

7 1986 Field—Judiciary ABA forms its Standing Committee onDispute Resolution.

“The Committee grew out of the Special Committee onResolution of Minor Disputes . . . the breadth of itstopic coverage began to mirror the growing range ofapplications of dispute resolution.” (McGillis, 1997:36)

8 1992 Population National Council of State DisputeResolution programs formed.

“These offices are or have the potential of being fairlysignificant forces in terms of the manner in whichdispute resolution gets developed in any particularstate.” (Minnesota state office of dispute resolutionstaff, 1993)

9 1993 Organization Enabling legislation sought. “Legislation requiring alternative dispute resolutionprovides a concrete incentive for people ingovernment to use mediation. In the absence of thelegislation, there is so much else on people’s platesthat they don’t get to mediation.” (Ohio state officeof dispute resolution staff, 1993)

10 1993 Field—Judiciary ABA forms its Section of DisputeResolution.

Among the section’s first activities is to create modelstandards of conduct for mediators.

11 1994 Population Ideal model for state offices of disputeresolution promoted.

“There definitely is a preferred model, toward a moresystematic way of doing things, and less . . . dictatedby individual personnel. It’s a subtle thing.” (NewJersey state office of dispute resolution staff, 1994)


dispute resolution and how their diffusion processwas not at all uniform. We identified a variety ofmechanisms the new organizations used to gain

legitimacy within the emerging field resulting fromfield-level dynamics that supported the diffusion ofmultiple logics.

TABLE 2(Continued)

Item Date Level(s) Event Supporting Data


NIDR ceases to support state office ofdispute resolutions.

NIDR’s influence as the “center of a network ofalternative dispute resolution funders, users, expertpractitioners, teachers and commentators” quicklydeclined. (Szanton Associates, 1988: 11)


Model Standards of Conduct forMediators created.

Jointly created by the American Bar Association, theSociety for Professionals in Dispute Resolution, andthe American Arbitration Association.

14 1996 Field—Government Administrative Dispute Resolution Actpassed.

Federal law requires federal agencies to promote theuse of alternative dispute resolution for a variety ofadministrative purposes.

15 1997 Population State offices of dispute resolution searchfor evidence of effectiveness toestablish legitimacy.

“We need research which establishes the direct cost-effectiveness of Alternative dispute resolution forcourts and disputes (how alternative disputeresolution will save money for the state and for thelegislators’ constituents) . . . . and creates increasedcredibility for state government in general andjudicial branch in particular.” (Colorado state officeof dispute resolution staff, 1997)


Policy Consensus Initiative created. PCI is funded by the Hewlett Foundation to supportcollaborative governance and advise stategovernments on alternative dispute resolution.

17 2000 Field—Government Alternative dispute resolution in stategovernment agencies growingcommon.

Twenty-four states have formal programs for usingalternative dispute resolution to resolveenvironmental disputes. (O’Leary & Yandle, 2000).


Association for Conflict Resolution(ACR) created.

Unites three smaller alternative dispute resolutionassociations, including the Academy of FamilyMediators, Society for Professionals in DisputeResolution, and Conflict Resolution EducationNetwork. ACR’s mission is to “better serve all itsmembers and offer greater leadership in the publicpolicy, legislative, and public awareness arenas.”

19 2001 Field—Judiciary Uniform Mediation Act created. Developed by the American Bar Association andNational Conference of Commissioners on UniformState Laws, these standards could be enacted ineach state to create nationwide similarity inalternative dispute resolution laws.


ACR attempts to establish nationalmediator certification standards.

“As the task force convened, other national alternativedispute resolution groups had already begun toconsider the increasing demands for quality of practiceand credentialing of practitioners. . . . Not wanting tospeak for other groups, and in light of different pathschosen by others, the task force continued to carry outits task of recommending a plan of action for ACR.Simultaneously, the ABA Credentialing Task Forcefocused on proposals for accreditation of mediatortraining programs, and NAFCM focused on initiativeswithin community programs for its own cadre ofmediators.” (ACR Task Force, 2004: 5)


Conditions SupportingDiffusion/Institutionalization of Multiple Logics

Our second research question asks what condi-tions encourage the diffusion of multiple logicsrather than the institutionalization of a single dom-inant logic. We identify five conditions that en-couraged multiple logics to persist. First, field char-acteristics, including the emerging nature of thealternative dispute resolution field, its relativelylow degree of urgency, and its lack of unified goals,helped perpetuate multiple logics. The contrast be-tween the latter two attributes and the attributes ofanother studied emerging institutional field, HIV/AIDS advocacy, is particularly notable: The at-tributes of urgency and goal singularity helped thelatter field quickly coalesce around a dominantlogic (Maguire et al., 2004). Second, the organiza-tional population we studied had multiple localcontexts into which practices had to diffuse. Dur-ing the diffusion stage, state offices of dispute res-olution had to be translated to fit the local environ-ment of each state to gain legitimacy, creating localvariation (Lounsbury, 2007; Zilber, 2006). Givenvariation in the logics and receptivity existing indifferent branches of different state governments,as well as state politics, dispute resolution officeswere created in judicial, administrative, and later,public university settings. Hays (1996) called thisadaptation to local environment during diffusion“reinvention.” Third, the presence of multiple re-source pools associated with different institutionalactors enabled a wide range of funding schemes toemerge and persist for the population as a whole.This diversity limited the ability of elites in anyone established institution to coerce organization-level actions by withholding resources, as Green-wood and Suddaby (2006) suggested occurred inthe field of accounting. Fourth, despite concertedefforts to promote uniform funding formulas, en-abling legislation, and agreed-upon technical prac-tices in the alternative dispute resolution field, re-sistance from various institutional actors at thestate and field levels impeded traditional diffusionprocesses. Finally, the emerging field lacked adominant, overarching regulatory or professionalframework that could impose field-level standards.Instead, competing attempts by existing profes-sional associations to create standards for the prac-tice of alternative dispute resolution and for pro-fessionals marked this field. We describe theseconditions in greater detail below.

To fully explain these conditions and determinewhether the field as a whole and the population ofstate offices of dispute resolution in particular havesuccessfully institutionalized, we must examine

the interplay of actions at multiple levels over time.We argue that actions at the individual and organ-ization levels recursively interact with field-leveldynamics to affect field evolution. Because actorsin emerging fields are navigating among multipleinstitutional pressures, our theorizing must be ro-bust enough to capture how institutional changesin one part of an emerging field may prompt pop-ulation- or organization-level reactions from otherparts of the field. Capturing this dynamic interplayis difficult because it requires simultaneous atten-tion to longitudinal developments and to multiplelevels of analysis: the field level (including estab-lished fields and the emerging field); the popula-tion level; and the organization level (where state-level influences are in play) (Thornton & Ocasio,2008). Thus, to answer our second research ques-tion, we arrayed our data in two ways: Table 2summarizes key institutionalization processes rel-evant to the emergence of state offices of disputeresolution across the field, population, and organ-ization levels, and Figure 3 illustrates the interplayof these levels over time. We refer to these data aswe discuss the five contextual conditions that en-courage the diffusion of multiple logics.

Field characteristics. Emerging fields representa different context for diffusion processes than ex-isting institutional fields undergoing change forseveral reasons. First, in contrast to existing fieldsundergoing change, where old practices have to bedeinstitutionalized (Oliver, 1992), emerging fieldsprovide “green fields” for creating new practicesand organizations that didn’t exist before. Second,imitation is a less likely diffusion mechanism giventhe relative paucity of examples to follow and in-dicators for evaluating whether new forms havegarnered sufficient resources and legitimacy to beworthy of duplication. Third, diffusion in fieldswhere normative innovations are introduced maydiffer from that in fields with economic innova-tions because garnering pragmatic legitimacy fornormative innovations rests on acceptance of theirnormative prescriptions rather than on their antic-ipated economic benefits (Greenwood et al., 2002).

Finally, emerging fields are more susceptiblethan mature fields to the influence of myriad insti-tutional entrepreneurs—ideological activists whocombine hitherto unconnected beliefs and normsinto an organizational solution to a problem(Becker, 1963)—who try to import logics from otherinstitutional fields (Oliver, 1992). In the emergingfield of alternative dispute resolution, different log-ics were advanced by institutional entrepreneurs(such as Lawrence Susskind and Frank Sander)who promoted alternative dispute resolution’s pub-lic policy and judicial logics, respectively, at the


field level. As these logics attracted adherents, neworganizational forms, such as the state offices ofdispute resolution, were proposed. Absent a senseof urgency and goal similarity among alternativedispute resolution proponents, the state officesgrew out of a combination of beliefs about the in-effectiveness of existing institutions in handlingsocietal problems (field level) and the actions offield- and local-level entrepreneurs who advocateda variety of principles and specific practices tosolve these problems. We depict these dynamics inthe first column of Figure 3, which corresponds toMorrill’s (2007) innovation stage for emergingfields. We label the activities of institutional entre-preneurs by the organizations or institutions theyrepresent and the level at which their efforts aretargeted. Concurrently with promotion of new log-ics at the field level, institutional entrepreneursfrom extant institutions (such as state judiciaries,executive offices, and legislative agencies) began totailor these national logics to the needs of theirstates, as illustrated by judges who advocated thelaunch of the first judicial state office of disputeresolution in Maine.

Multiple local contexts. As other scholars havenoted, uncertainty at the field level creates greaterdiscretion for organizations in their local contextsto modify practices (Goodrick & Salancik, 1996),and misalignment of field boundaries creates open-ness to alternative logics and ripeness for entrepre-

neurial activities (Greenwood & Suddaby, 2006).As the state offices of dispute resolution movedinto the mobilization stage (Morrill, 2007), inwhich alternative logics gain critical masses of ad-herents, their pattern does not reflect the type ofuniform diffusion path articulated by Strang andMeyer (1993) or Morrill (2007). As the number ofstate offices of dispute resolution grew, they beganto constitute a new population of organizationswithin the emerging field of alternative disputeresolution—albeit a population with clear subdivi-sions. The second column of Figure 3 depicts theseactivities.

The bifurcated logics undergirding the evolutionof state offices of dispute resolution began to beinstitutionalized in the alternative dispute resolu-tion practices they sought to instill, and two clearlydistinct normative templates for these organiza-tions (and a third, hybrid, one) emerged. As Table 1reflects, the field affiliations of state supportersaligned closely with the dispute resolution offices’initial locations. At least three different patterns ofinstitutional support emerged to differentiate thejudicial, the public policy, and the comprehensiveorganizations. Thus, the evolution of each state of-fice of dispute resolution depended on the patternof the institutional support it could garner fromlocal champions. These differences correlate withthe two logics adopted by local institutional entre-preneurs. For example, Florida faced catastrophic

FIGURE 3Multilevel Model of the Development of the Emerging Alternative Dispute Resolution Field

Innovation Stage Mobilization Stage Structuration Stage

Situating via transforming, grafting, bridging, or exit; some fail.

Council promotes field norms and ideal model.

New practices proposed to overcome field-level failings and address local needs.

Openness to new logics.

Multiple new organizational forms emerge.

Field-level failings.

Resistance from other fields.

New practices accepted. Resource pools emerge.

Multiple forms gain legitimacy.

Neworganizational forms proposed and promoted.

Field fails to coalesce.

Efforts to align with resource pools.

Multiple logics and organizational forms persist.

Legislation promoted and enacted.

Multiple logics and expectations.

Organization Level

Field Level

Population Level


degradation of the Everglades and the demands of arapidly growing population in the mid 1980s, prob-lems that the director of Florida’s public policydispute resolution office specifically positioned itto address, while other institutional entrepreneurswere promoting the need for a judicial dispute res-olution office in the state both in response to field-wide initiatives and local pressure for case resolu-tion. In Massachusetts, national and local advocacyconverged to launch MODR as a public policy of-fice in 1984, and within two years, at the urging ofthe state’s chief justice, its mission expanded toinclude judicial alternative dispute resolution.Thus, the state offices of dispute resolution didnot follow a traditional or uniform trajectoryof diffusion.

Limited resource pools. The establishment ofnew institutional logics requires the attraction ofresources to support and provide legitimacy forthe attendant new practices (Greenwood & Sud-daby, 2006; Oliver, 1991) and to enable structu-ration within a field (Morrill, 2007). The avail-ability of material resources influences whichlogics are advanced and which are constrained.For example, central actors from extant fields caninfluence the development of a field by fundingpractices that align with their interests (Hiningset al., 2004). Within the alternative dispute reso-lution field, contests over logics persisted amongthe state offices of dispute resolution throughoutthe 22-year period we examined, and these oftenmanifested as contests for operational resources.None of the resource pools secured by the stateoffices of dispute resolution (e.g., lines in statebudgets, contracts with specific court administra-tors) afforded certain and stable funding. Eventhose state offices of dispute resolution initiallyfunded by NIDR (see entry 6 in Table 2) werelaunched with a clear expectation that theywould eventually migrate to other fundingsources. To survive financially, the dispute reso-lution offices needed to remain flexible, oppor-tunistic, and creative about how to garner re-sources. Some, such as Florida’s public policydispute resolution office, adopted self-fundingstrategies in which its personnel justified its ex-istence by aligning with specific state-level rhet-oric that already had legitimacy, as Suddaby andGreenwood (2005) recommended. Others, likeMODR, encountered institutional challenges totheir sources of funding and were forced to exitthe field to remain viable.

Attracting resources for the state offices of dis-pute resolution centered on legitimizing alternativedispute resolution as a practice and signifying theoffices’ value as service providers. The Council pro-

moted a normative template as voluntary standards,essentially establishing legitimacy via self-regulation(see entry 11 in Table 2). At the organizational level,institutional entrepreneurs mobilized around alter-native dispute resolution as a new logic by securinglegislation (entry 9 in Table 2) and by framing theiraccomplishments to match local expectations toensure a continuing flow of resources (entry 15 inTable 2). This interplay between logics and re-sources differs from that described by Greenwoodand Suddaby, who contended that organizationsbridging institutional fields have greater awarenessof and openness to alternate logics and that anabundance of resources provides motivation toadopt alternate logics and allows elite organiza-tions to overcome regulatory pressures (2006:42).The nature of the emerging alternative disputeresolution field created conditions of awarenessand openness for most state offices of dispute res-olution; however, for them the motivation to adoptalternate logics was linked to resource scarcityrather than plenty. In an effort to ensure survival,many state dispute resolution offices sought re-sources from multiple institutional fields, resultingin an array of accountability pressures from a vari-ety of institutions. The multiplicity of logics in thefield was re-created within the population of dis-pute resolution offices because no single institu-tional field appeared to offer sufficient resourcesand legitimacy for their long-term survival. Thesefactors contributed to the fragmentation of the pop-ulation, perpetuating conflicting logics and hinder-ing coalescence around a single organizationalform. Figure 3 depicts these dynamics as occurringin the structuration (Morrill, 2007) stage of fieldemergence.

Resistance from existing institutions. As thestate office of dispute resolution population grew,its presence in the emerging field of alternativedispute resolution proved to be a threat to existinginstitutions. This generated resistance from groupssuch as attorneys, who saw the state dispute reso-lution organizations as challenging the existing or-der between the judicial and legislative fields (Ray,1982b). The MODR case is illustrative. Althoughnew state-level standards for alternative disputeresolution practitioners gave MODR a virtual mo-nopoly on court mediation, the standards also pre-cipitated resistance from the bar and spurred othermediation practitioners to challenge MODR’s ex-clusive mediation contract. Withdrawal of supportby a central institutional figure (the incoming su-preme court justice), resistance due to shifts instate-level politics from Democratic to Republicandominance, and a concomitant move toward lessrather than more government, all helped to unravel


MODR’s earlier institutional gains and forced it toreconsider its institutional home.

Lack of field-level regulation. A final conditionsupporting the perpetuation of multiple logics wasongoing competition among professional associa-tions to establish normative conditions for the focalfield. Despite a collective effort among fields todevelop uniform standards for the practice of me-diation (entry 13 in Table 2), professional associa-tions in the judicial and social services fields con-tinued separate efforts to impose their norms andrequirements on the alternative dispute resolutionfield as a whole. For example, the ABA drafted theUniform Mediation Act (entry 19 in Table 2) thatwas finalized in 2001 but didn’t allow non-ABAmembers to have input in drafting it. It was adoptedin eight states, but at the same time, several smallernonjudicial alternative dispute resolution associa-tions merged to create the Association for ConflictResolution (entry 18 in Table 2), which then devel-oped its own national standards for certifying me-diators (entry 20 in Table 2).

These conditions enabled diverse logics and dif-ferent practices to persist across the state office ofdispute resolution population, but not every indi-vidual office institutionalized to the same degree.Although the logic of the judicial state dispute res-olution offices was accepted, and their practicesbecame standardized within the courts (Morrill,2007), the stability of some public policy andcomprehensive state dispute resolution officescan still be questioned. Some, like those in Flor-ida and Hawaii, have accepted roles and estab-lished practices within their state government oruniversity homes. Others, like MODR and somemore recently established offices, may best bedescribed as semi-institutionalized (Tolbert &Zucker, 1996), since their practices are not yetuncritically accepted as the definitive methods(Tolbert & Zucker, 1996) for resolving disputeswithin their states, and their survival is not yetassured.

CONCLUSION

Our study provides insight into the conditionsthat contributed to continued fragmentation of anorganizational population and supported the diffu-sion and institutionalization of multiple logicswithin it. For the state offices of dispute resolution,structuration unfolded in a considerably more frag-mented way than implied by the usual mimetic,normative, and coercive processes (DiMaggio &Powell, 1983) that lead to objectification and a so-

cial consensus (Greenwood et al., 2002). Our find-ings suggest that standard institutional diffusionmodels may be inadequate to account for hownew populations of organizations establish them-selves in emerging institutional fields. In contrastto reports of how conflicting alternative logicsgradually give way to one dominant logic that isdiffused, particularly in mature fields (Green-wood & Suddaby, 2006; Lounsbury, 2002; Strang& Meyer, 1993), our data provide evidence of thediffusion of conflicting logics, in that the popu-lation of state dispute resolution offices neithercoalesced nor collapsed in the 22-year span ofour study. Our model illustrates that in somecontexts, diffusion can follow different mecha-nisms (Strang & Soule, 1998) that enable multiplelogics to persist within a field— challenging theassumption that a single dominant logic musteventually prevail.

Our study also suggests that understanding theinstitutionalization of logics in emerging fields re-quires a multilevel model of the forces working forand against institutionalization. Constructing legit-imacy for a new organizational form is particularlychallenging because it means crafting both the in-stitutional and the material environments in whichthe new form seeks to embed itself by wrestlingwith multiple (and often competing) logics (Di-Maggio, 1991; Lounsbury, 2007) and performingboth micro- and macro-level political action (Rao etal., 2000; Thornton & Ocasio, 2008). New organiza-tional populations must find champions and dis-suade detractors embedded in established institu-tions at multiple levels of society (Holm, 1995),attract diverse resource pools as means of legitima-tion (Oliver, 1991), and locate hospitable institu-tional homes. Thus, institutional fields are not cre-ated in isolation. Instead, they must coevolve withrelated fields that can provide both material andsymbolic support, as illustrated by the state officesof dispute resolution that exited to the public uni-versity domain, which offered resources and sup-ported the logic in which their practices wereembedded.

Finally, our work helps to illuminate how in-stitutions both enable and constrain the advent ofnew populations and new organizational formsand cautions against assigning too much credit toinstitutional entrepreneurs. Others have consid-ered how field characteristics shape institution-alization processes (Dorado, 2005; Rao et al.,2000); our work reveals how field structure andfield dynamics shape the diffusion stage, high-lighting the interplay of entrepreneurial actionsand institutional forces. Although acknowledg-ing a role for institutional entrepreneurs, we also


emphasize the “institutional” part of institu-tional entrepreneurship by demonstrating thatinstitutional entrepreneurs do not have carteblanche to launch new organizational forms. Forexample, entrepreneurial efforts at theorizationby one group may be contested by other institu-tional actors promoting alternative new logics, bythose striving to preserve existing institutions(institutional resistors), or by those trying to cor-ral new resources to serve their own extant insti-tutional ends. In the case of the state offices ofdispute resolution, these contests were magnifiedbecause the offices attempted to diffuse newalternative dispute resolution practices across aplethora of different state-level environmentsthat offered higher-order levels of constraint andopportunity for individual action (Holm, 1995).Field-level conflict among the state dispute resolu-tion offices’ different alternative dispute resolutionfactions was exacerbated by the actions of otherprofessional organizations, interest groups, and ed-ucational institutions all trying to affect how dis-putes were resolved within state government. Ourapproach recognizes both the structural impact andsocial fact quality of institutions (Goodrick & Salan-cik, 1995) and their influence on the “sensemak-ing” of individual actors, while simultaneously rec-ognizing the collective impact of actors and actionsat the lower-order levels that create disruption andchange at the field level (Holm, 1995). Thus, newlogics are transmitted by individuals (institutionalentrepreneurs), enacted as new organizationalpractices or as new organizations, but ultimatelyratified by existing institutions. Instead of suggest-ing a linear trajectory, our data suggest that modelsof institutionalization need to reflect the complexpattern of political moves and countermovesacross levels of action that comprise these pro-cesses. For MODR, for example, the effort to gainlegitimacy by centralizing and controlling alter-native dispute resolution services statewide ulti-mately proved untenable for a state agency in acontext where over time, a market for alternativedispute resolution services developed. Our find-ings reinforce Holm’s observation that “diffusionefforts need to account for actions guided by ex-isting institutions and action aimed at changinginstitutions” (1995: 417– 418).

Our finding of differing levels of institutionaliza-tion among the state offices of dispute resolutioncontrasts with Morrill’s (2007) finding that alterna-tive dispute resolution has fully institutionalized.An explanation for this apparent conflict is that ouranalyses focus on different levels. Thornton andOcasio (2008) noted that the stability of logics mayvary by level of analysis; we consider cross-level

dynamics as they impact institutionalization at thepopulation level, while Morrill’s (2007) focus wason the field level. Another explanation concernsthe definition of institutionalization and the ques-tion of how long a practice needs to persist to beconsidered institutionalized as opposed to a fad(Hinings et al., 2004). Scholars have framed insti-tutionalization in terms of the pace of archetypeadoption (Hinings et al., 2004), the number anddensity of actors who adopt structures and actions(Barley & Tolbert, 1997), whether or not logics be-come taken for granted (Greenwood et al., 2002),and historical continuity (Tolbert & Zucker, 1996).For emerging fields, however, since social move-ments need to be translated into ongoing enterprises,we argue that both the “taken-for-grantedness” oflogics and the operationalization of practices asviable and persistent organizational forms areneeded. Still, the question remains, Just how longis long enough? As others have suggested, ourlongitudinal study supports the view that institu-tionalization may be constantly in flux (Hinings etal., 2004; Thornton & Ocasio, 2008). Particularly inemerging fields characterized by the five condi-tions we have described, the degree of institution-alization may vary more widely in both densityand continuity than when change occurs in maturefields. This is a question for future research toanswer.

Future researchers should also consider hownew organizations can gain legitimacy in emergingfields. Institutional changes in traditional fieldsmay have a greater chance of acquiring moral legit-imacy, while new practices in emerging fields mayonly achieve pragmatic legitimacy. To acquiremoral legitimacy, organizations must secure posi-tive normative evaluations of their actions; othersmust judge them as doing the right things (Such-man, 1995). For example, the introduction of awider mission for accountants secured moral le-gitimacy by emphasizing the value basis of thisinnovation, which played a greater role in legit-imizing it than pragmatic legitimacy (Greenwoodet al., 2002). Pragmatic legitimacy, on the otherhand, accrues to organizations when their poli-cies are deemed to have the expected value fortheir constituents (Suchman, 1995). In our study,the state offices of dispute resolution developedmultiple pragmatic solutions to address localproblems but never achieved the status of morallegitimacy. As long as multiple conflicting logicspersist in emerging contexts, satisfying the valuesimbedded in these institutional logics may beimpossible.


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Jill M. Purdy ([email protected]) is an associ-ate professor of management and Academic Director ofthe Center for Leadership and Social Responsibility at theMilgard School of Business at the University of Washing-ton, Tacoma. She holds a Ph.D. in management and or-ganization from the Smeal College of Business at ThePennsylvania State University. Her research focuses onthe tension between structures and human agency at mul-tiple levels of analysis. Her current research interests in-clude studying the impact institutional influences onbusiness social practices, political processes, and collab-orative governance.

Barbara Gray ([email protected]) is a professor of organ-izational behavior and Director of the Center for Re-search in Conflict and Negotiation at The PennsylvaniaState University. She holds a Ph.D. in organizationalbehavior from Case Western Reserve University. Herresearch interests include multiparty collaborative al-liances and partnerships, organizational and interor-ganizational conflict, intercultural and interdiscipli-nary team dynamics, and sensemaking.


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