Sociology and the New Institutionalism

In sociology, new institutionalists led the revival in interest in institutions in organizational theory and economic sociology by shifting the focus of causal reasoning from agent-centric studies of economic and organizational actors to the relationship connecting the firm with its institutional environment. We suggest a multilevel causal model incorporating the connection between the subinstitutional domain of social action and concrete social relationships, and the meso- and macroinstitutional environment of customs, conventions, law, organizations, ideology, and the state as the key elements explaining the rise and demise of institutions. In this model, norms bridge the microworld of individual actors and social groups, and the broader institutional environment.