Abstract

Inspired by Weber’s charismatic carrier groups, Eisenstadt coined the term institutional
entrepreneur to capture the rare but epochal collective capable of reorienting
a group’s value-orientations and transferring charisma, while making them an
evolutionary force of structural and cultural change. As a corrective to Parsons’
abstract, ‘top-down’ theory of change, Eisenstadt’s theory provided historical context
and agency to moments in which societies experienced qualitative transformation.
The concept has become central to new institutionalism, neo-functionalism,
and evolutionary-institutionalism. Drawing from the former two, a more robust
theory of institutional entrepreneurship from an evolutionary-institutionalist’s perspective
is posited. In essence, entrepreneurs formulate institutional projects with
dual logic: a collective side focused on innovation where efforts are directed
towards organizational symbolic mechanisms of integration and a self-interested side
directed towards resource independence, monopolization, mobility, and powerdependence.
While outcomes vary based on numerous environmental factors,
success leads to (1) greater structural/symbolic independence and (2) ability to
reconfigure physical-temporal-social-symbolic space.