Overview of the three articles

This doctoral research addresses the overarching research question how actors construct and legitimize new ideas and practices at the nascent stages of potential institutional change. Grounded in the case study of how Novo Nordisk realizes corporate responsibility, the articles theorize three distinct yet interdependent positioning and framing processes. Table 5.1 summarizes each article by presenting the research question, theoretical motivation, empirical focus and key findings.

The first article, titled Beyond center and periphery: The role of relational work in institutional change, uses the positioning concept to advance our understanding of how relational dynamics distribute agency among field actors. The article starts by noting that the commonly-evoked dichotomy of center and periphery may mask how a variety of actors in different positions shape change. To address this concern, my analysis explicates how Novo Nordisk’s subsidiary positioned itself in the field of diabetes care in Indonesia to overcome legitimacy problems and gain influence. The findings show that the organization attained a position that allowed it to influence institutional change by building, cultivating and maintaining relationships with central actors. Through such relational work, field actors co-constructed common interests and mutual dependencies, which in turn facilitated new collaborative practices and enabled them to change institutions together. As the article shows, paying attention to subtle and complex positioning processes may advance our understanding of the distributed co-construction of new practices.

Yet the performance of a new position and new practices need not imply their legitimacy, and may in fact prompt struggles over positions and meaning. The second article, titled Silent struggles: Framing a new understanding of business in society, is motivated by the observation that Novo Nordisk’s new position and the newly emerging collaboration gave rise to framing conflicts and contestation. The article hence asks how actors overcome such conflicts to strengthen and legitimize collaboration. To explain how actors reduce framing conflicts when overt contestation is not a viable option, the article presents how Novo Nordisk members, in interaction with stakeholders, constructed a country report on the Indonesian subsidiary’s activities—and thereby successfully promoted a new understanding of the subsidiary’s position and its

Table 5.1: Overview of the three articles Research question Theoretical

motivation

Empirical focus Key findings 1 How do organizations

attain influence to contribute to institutional change when they are not considered legitimate actors in an organizational field?

To understand how relational dynamics distribute agency among field actors

The efforts of Novo Nordisk’s subsidiary to gain influence and contribute to improving diabetes care in Indonesia

Develops the notion of relational work to shed light on how an organization may attain a more influential position by

constructing common interests and mutual dependencies.

2 How do organizational members reduce framing conflicts to strengthen and legitimize inter-organizational collaboration?

To explain how actors can negotiate meaning and construct frame alignment when overt contestation is not a viable option.

The construction process of the Blueprint for Change report on Novo Nordisk’s activities in Indonesia

Develops a model of frame alignment that explicates three non-confrontational moves through which actors recast meanings and positions.

3 How do organizational members construct a framing that appeals not only to external stakeholders but also to internal members?

To understand how actors interactively construct a framing that aligns external actors and their own organization.

The development of the framing of Novo Nordisk’s

responsibilities through the series of Blueprint for Change country reports.

Develops a model of frame alignment which highlights the potential of value- and identity-based amplifications for consociating various actors and inspiring new lines of action.

emerging collaborative practices. The findings explicate three non-confrontational elements of frame alignment processes that were crucial to gaining field actors’ support:

reconstructing the field interactively, manufacturing a common construction, and manufacturing a collective identity. In conjunction, these three moves constitute mechanisms through which actors may recast meaning and positions to mitigate the relentless tensions between people’s own understandings and emerging common ground as well as between their own identity and their positioning within a collective, and thereby move a field toward a new consensus and effective collaboration.

Consequently, the article shows that frame alignment may legitimate and thereby strengthen newly emerging positions and practices.

The third and final article, titled Shared responsibility for wicked problems:

Reframing corporate responsibility, continues the exploration of frame alignment

processes. Motivated by the observed sophistication and social skill with which Novo Nordisk members engage in interactive framing, the article addresses how they developed a framing over time and increasingly attempted to strengthen its appeal not only to external stakeholders but also to managers within their own organization. To this end, the article moves beyond the Indonesia case and traces the emerging framing of the company’s responsibilities throughout the series of Blueprint for Change country reports. The findings show that alignment was driven by recurring interactions through which actors became increasingly familiar with other field actors’ value propositions and intra-organizational politics, and increasingly skilled at mediating between the two.

The challenges and successes that feature in these interactions drove the development of a framing that proposes and operationalizes a value-based intervention and constructs synergies between organizational and broader societal objectives. By exploring frame alignment process at the intersection of intra- and inter-organizational processes, the article points at the role of intra-organizational processes for the construction and legitimation of new positions and practices.

By focusing on three processes in which Novo Nordisk performs and negotiates the meaning of corporate responsibility, the three articles unfold dynamics of positioning and framing that constitute the construction and legitimation of new ideas and practices at the nascent stages of institutional change. Before I present the three articles in their entirety in Part II of this dissertation, I conclude Part I by developing theoretical contributions, implications for practices, and avenues for further research.