Made Crudely for success : investigating the Application of a new Governance Model as a Response to Institutional Multiplicity

Abstract: Logic multiplicity is a common condition in organizational environments. While sometimes persisting from the very emergence of a field, it more often represents the resulting outcome of the institutional transformation of an environment previously dominated by a single system of beliefs and rules. When such institutional change occurs, organizations originally grounded in the cognitive foundations of one logic, are faced with the necessity to tackle the co-existence of multiple institutional categories. While organizational agency aimed at reconciling logic multiplicity at the cognitive level has been widely investigated, with extensive research discussing the enactment of organizational processes such as that of hybridization or bricolage, less attention has been given to agency extending to the formal, structural level. This dissertation is devoted to discuss what happens when a new governance model is applied in conditions and as a response to field-level logic multiplicity. Using a comparative case study of two public museums operating in Italy, I show that logic multiplicity in a previously monolithic institutional field can effectively be tackled through the design and application of a novel governance model. I further suggest that such phenomenon implies cognitive hybridization, and that the effective implementation of the new model on the structure and practises of the organization can be facilitated by the composition of its main governing body.