'And what did you do about my emotions during Covid-19?' Making sense of negative emotions at work through institutional logics and Critical Systems Heuristics

The literature on Covid-19 has demonstrated that frontline workers use different coping strategies and engage in sense-making to address negative emotions. However, we know little about the underlying process of sense-making. Thus, this paper uses institutional logics to investigate how sense-making of negative emotions is enabled and constrained. This analysis draws on a diary written by a nurse at an Italian hospital, which represents an account of the emotions experienced by medical staff. The analysis identifies a set of enablers and disablers of sense-making, as well as, the patterns that alleviate and intensify frontline workers' emotions. Based on these findings and evidence of the Covid-task force at Papa Giovanni XXIII hospital in Bergamo, Italy, this paper illustrates Critical Systems Heuristics as a means to address the disablers of sense-making through participatory conversations that consider different institutional logics.

‘The Biggest Charity You've Never Heard of': Institutional Logics of Charity and the State in Public Fundraising in Scotland's NHS

The boundaries between state and charitable activities within the NHS are set out in regulations but are also enacted, blurred, and contested through local practices. This article reports research on NHS Charities– charitable funds set up within NHS organizations to enhance statutory provision – in Scotland. We analysed financial accounts and conducted qualitative interviews with staff in 12 of the 14 NHS Charities in Scotland, where they are generally known as endowments. Our findings suggest that Scotland's endowments are relatively wealthy in charitable terms, but that this wealth is unevenly distributed when population size and socio-economic deprivation are considered. We also identify two diverging organisational approaches to decisions, including those about appropriate and inappropriate fundraising. We argue that these approaches cohere with contrasting ‘state' and ‘charitable' institutional logics, which in turn imply different attitudes to potential inequalities, and to relationships with local publics.

Balanced centricity: a joint institutional logic within open collaborative ecosystems

Purpose: This paper aims to examine the change of institutional logics in actors' practices within crowdfunding platforms, seen as open collaborative ecosystems. Design/methodology/approach: The research follows an abductive approach, wherein data collection and analysis, and the search for complementary theories, constitute parallel iterative processes. A main case study was carried out, complemented by an expert panel. Findings: Balanced centricity (BC) as the main institutional logic in crowdfunding platforms delineates actors' practices (aims, resources and behaviors) into four issues: the development of an open and collaborative community;the overcoming of resource limitations;the changing roles of actors;and the co-creation of mutual (societal) value. Research limitations/implications: This study context limits the results. The COVID-19 crisis put all actors in the medical field into an extreme situation in which they had to maximize their potential to achieve a common aim. Once the crisis has passed, further research should address whether BC is maintained as actors' institutional logic. Originality/value: This paper offers a unique perspective on BC as an institutional logic that impacts actors in collaborative open ecosystems. © 2022, María José Quero and Cristina Mele.

Momentum lost or creating new constellations? Insights from an exercise-at-work project during the COVID-19 pandemic – a mixed methods approach

Exercise-at-work programmes have been identified as venues to decrease inequalities in physical activity and exercise between socioeconomic groups and to improve employees' health and wellbeing. Drawing on a multiple institutional logics perspective and adopting a mixed-methods approach, this paper investigates how employees, exercise-ambassadors and managers at five Danish workplaces experience Covid-19 induced changes to a 1-year exercise-at-work project, and how these changes impacted upon the workplace. Our results suggest that Covid-19 and the altered format of exercise and delivery polarized employees' opportunities for exercise at work. However, the generally positive experiences of exercise-at-work activities and their influence on social environment and collaboration (identified prior to Covid-19 lockdown) remained among those employees who continued with activities. Self-organized adaptions and models of employee exercise which emerged suggest that community logic endured despite the crisis. We show how Covid-19 induced organizational changes led to interplays between institutional logics, with family and state logics becoming more prominent. Specifically, the exercise-at-work programme changed from an aligned model, with complementary logics and minimal conflict, to a model where logics of profession and corporation became dominant at the expense of community logic (exercise-ambassadors activities), but constrained by a state and a family logic. © The Author(s) 2022.

An institutional analysis of the risk management process during the COVID-19 pandemic: evidence from an emerging market

Purpose: This study aims to investigate the institutional changes brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic on the Bahraini insurance sector. This study also examines how those changes affected the risk management practices. Design/methodology/approach: This study deploys a qualitative methodology with a case study design. The data are collected from multiple sources such as semi-structured interviews, documents and website analyses. Findings: The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in an institutional change in the Bahraini insurance sector. Pre-COVID-19, the professional logic was the dominant institutional logic. Then, the COVID-19 pandemic and its related uncertainties made the economic logic the most dominant logic. Accordingly, risk officers are currently responding to the crisis by being more risk-averse than risk managers. This study presents an inclusive institutional understanding of risk management as informed by the professional logic and socio-political and economic logics. Practical implications: This study has implications for regulators and insurance customers by giving a snapshot of how insurers' risk officers respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, which can help envisage their plans and actions. Originality/value: This study contributes to risk management and institutional logics literature by illustrating how changes in risk management practices in emerging markets are an operational manifestation of sustaining profits and maintaining the positions of risk officers. This extends the risk management literature by bringing early evidence from an emerging market regarding risk officers' behaviours and control plans during the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, this study extends the institutional logics literature by exploring the micro-level impacts of logics in an emerging insurance market. © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Coercive and mimetic isomorphic mechanisms for service provision: The creation of nonprofit organizations in Mexico before and during the COVID-19 pandemic

Nonprofit organizations represent diverse efforts of collective action and service provision, and have for some time been collaborators to public governance systems in developed and developing economies. In this article, we contribute to the limited empirical and analytical study in the field of public policy and administration about the operational environments that enable or constrain nonprofits in the provision of public goods and services. The operational environment for organized civil society, namely for nonprofits, includes the combination of their regulatory, political, and funding contexts. By analyzing the purposes of 296 new nonprofits registered between 2016 to 2020 in Mexico, the empirical context of our inquiry, we find that as resources have declined, new nonprofits adopt isomorphic mechanisms by resembling their purposes to the services the government intends to support. Nonprofits have also responded to the pandemic by focusing more than before on areas related to health, social assistance, and funeral services. The study contributes to bigger questions about the relationships between and balance across the responsibilities of governments and nonprofits, including during the COVID pandemic, and to the understanding of nonprofits as service providers in public governance.

An institutional logics perspective on salesperson responses to environmental disruptions

Drawing on the institutional logics perspective and evidence from 21 first wave and 11 second wave interviews with sales professionals, we offer a framework of salesperson responses to changes occurring in the sales field due to COVID-19. We find that salespeople acknowledge that the pandemic could lead to a new dominant logic (i.e., belief systems, principles, unwritten rules, and practices that guide behavior of sales professionals across the field) that differs from the previous logic. Consistent with the institutional logics perspective, we find support that salespeople choose to either (1) defy the new logic, (2) comply with the new logic, or (3) blend both new and old approaches. We find that the extent and nature to which salespeople change their behavior(s) to align with a new logic can be explained by whether they cast the disruption as a demand or an opportunity. However, factors including organizational support and salesperson perceptions of their own capabilities may serve as a buffer when disruptions are perceived as new job demands. We also find that early career salespeople are more likely to accept new logics.

Balanced centricity: a joint institutional logic within open collaborative ecosystems

Purpose: This paper aims to examine the change of institutional logics in actors’ practices within crowdfunding platforms, seen as open collaborative ecosystems. Design/methodology/approach: The research follows an abductive approach, wherein data collection and analysis, and the search for complementary theories, constitute parallel iterative processes. A main case study was carried out, complemented by an expert panel. Findings: Balanced centricity (BC) as the main institutional logic in crowdfunding platforms delineates actors’ practices (aims, resources and behaviors) into four issues: the development of an open and collaborative community;the overcoming of resource limitations;the changing roles of actors;and the co-creation of mutual (societal) value. Research limitations/implications: This study context limits the results. The COVID-19 crisis put all actors in the medical field into an extreme situation in which they had to maximize their potential to achieve a common aim. Once the crisis has passed, further research should address whether BC is maintained as actors’ institutional logic. Originality/value: This paper offers a unique perspective on BC as an institutional logic that impacts actors in collaborative open ecosystems. © 2022, María José Quero and Cristina Mele.

Redesigning global supply chains during compounding geopolitical disruptions: the role of supply chain logics

Purpose Why do managers redesign global supply chains in a particular manner when faced with compounding geopolitical disruptions? In answering this research question, this study identifies a constrained system of reasoning (decision-making logic) employed by managers when they redesign their supply chains in situations of heightened uncertainty. Design/methodology/approach The authors conducted 40 elite interviews with senior supply chain executives in 28 companies across nine industries from November 2019 to June 2020, when the UK was preparing to leave the European Union, the US-China trade war was escalating, and Covid-19 was spreading rapidly around the globe. Findings When redesigning global supply chains, the authors find that managerial decision-making logic is constrained by three distinct environmental ecosystem conditions: (1) the perceived intensity of institutional pressures;(2) the relative mobility of suppliers and supply chain assets;and (3) the perceived severity of the potential disruption risk. Intense government pressure and persistent geopolitical risk tend to impact firms in the same industry, resulting in similar approaches to decision-making regarding supply chain design. However, where suppliers are relatively immobile and supply chain assets are relatively fixed, a dominant logic is consistently present. Originality/value Building on an institutional logics perspective, this study finds that managerial decision-making under heightened uncertainty is not solely guided by institutional pressures but also by perceptions of the severity of risk related to potential supply chain disruption and the immobility of supply chain assets. These findings support the theoretical development of a novel construct that the authors term 'supply chain logics'. Finally, this study provides a decision-making framework for Senior Executives competing in an increasingly complex and unstable business environment.

An institutional analysis of the risk management process during the COVID-19 pandemic: evidence from an emerging market

Purpose This study aims to investigate the institutional changes brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic on the Bahraini insurance sector. This study also examines how those changes affected the risk management practices. Design/methodology/approach This study deploys a qualitative methodology with a case study design. The data are collected from multiple sources such as semi-structured interviews, documents and website analyses. Findings The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in an institutional change in the Bahraini insurance sector. Pre-COVID-19, the professional logic was the dominant institutional logic. Then, the COVID-19 pandemic and its related uncertainties made the economic logic the most dominant logic. Accordingly, risk officers are currently responding to the crisis by being more risk-averse than risk managers. This study presents an inclusive institutional understanding of risk management as informed by the professional logic and socio-political and economic logics. Practical implications This study has implications for regulators and insurance customers by giving a snapshot of how insurers' risk officers respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, which can help envisage their plans and actions. Originality/value This study contributes to risk management and institutional logics literature by illustrating how changes in risk management practices in emerging markets are an operational manifestation of sustaining profits and maintaining the positions of risk officers. This extends the risk management literature by bringing early evidence from an emerging market regarding risk officers' behaviours and control plans during the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, this study extends the institutional logics literature by exploring the micro-level impacts of logics in an emerging insurance market.

Institutional logics and risk management practices in government entities: evidence from Saudi Arabia

PurposeThis study aims to understand how institutional logics influence the adoption and implementation of risk management (RM) practices by government entities in a non-western, developing country.Design/methodology/approachThis study draws on the institutional logics perspective (ILP) to analyze a case study of a government entity in Saudi Arabia. Data were obtained from semi-structured interviews, observations and documentary evidence.FindingsFindings suggest that the adoption and implementation of RM projects by Saudi governmental agencies was rooted in a traditional logic, even though the catalyst of the government for adopting a RM culture across government agencies was framed within a reform program inspired by a modernization logic. In the entity under investigation, the RM project led to an unstable situation where actors were confronted with these two competing logics. Although the project used manifestations of a modernization logic, the actions of individuals within the organization were embedded in a traditional logic.Research limitations/implicationsThe study is based on a single case study in a specific country, limiting the generalizability of the findings.Originality/valueThis study provides novel evidence of the adoption and implementation of RM in governmental entities in a developing, non-western, country using ILP. Doing so enhances our knowledge about how managers struggle with competing institutional logics in an underexplored setting and enriches current accounts of key drivers and barriers of RM. It also addresses calls for a deeper understanding of the logics and managerial practices interplay in the public sector.

Diffusion of the Airport Health Accreditation Program in the COVID-19 period: An Assessment with Institutional Logic And Legitimacy Approach.

The purpose of this study is to reveal the reason for the diffusion of Airports Health Accreditation among airports. Institutional logic and legitimacy literature are used in the research. The research area consists of 56 airports from different parts of the world. In the research, a qualitative research method was used. Document analysis was used as a data collection method, and descriptive content analysis was used as a data analysis method. According to the results of the research, there are two basic logic and legitimacy seeking that lead airport to this certificate. The first of these is moral legitimacy and professional logic. Accordingly, airports want to be seen as legitimate by professional actors in their institutional environment by certifying that they have taken the necessary measures against COVID-19 threats. The second is pragmatic legitimacy and market logic. According to this remarkable result of the research, one of the important reasons for the airports to turn to this accreditation is to meet the expectations of the customers and gain legitimacy in their eyes. Airports use this accreditation to rebuild trust in the eyes of customers and passengers, to create an airport reputation that took the necessary measures during the pandemic period, to be preferred again, and to revitalize airports.