Business Administration, Management, and Operations Commons^™

When Institutional Work Backfires: Organizational Control Of Professional Work In The Pharmaceutical Industry, Jagdip Singh, Rama K. Jayanti

Business Faculty Publications

Integrating institutional and role theories, this paper develops a Logics–Roles– Action (LRA) framework for understanding how for-profit organizations structure institutional work to managerially control the work of professionals they employ. Structurally, this institutional work involves three elements: (1) internalizing pluralistic logics (logics); (2) institutionalizing distinct roles embedded in these logics (roles); and (3) scripting goal-oriented role enactment plans (action). An empirical examination of the LRA framework in the pharmaceutical industry evidences four distinct organizational strategies that script role enactments of sales professionals in their interactions with physicians. Each strategy is intended to reaffirm prevailing institutional logics, but eventually backfires by …