Reimagining agency: Subjectivity as a radical lens on institutional work

Institutional theory has long been concerned with the relationship between agency and structure in explaining how institutions are created, maintained and transformed. While early formulations emphasized the constraining power of institutional structures, subsequent work – most notably the institutional work literature – has sought to recuperate agency by foregrounding the purposive actions of individuals and collective actors. Despite these advances, institutional theory continues to grapple with a persistent paradox: agency is treated as structurally constrained when explaining institutional reproduction, yet as relatively autonomous and intentional when accounting for institutional change. We argue that this paradox stems from an implicit assumption shared across much of institutional theory: the view that agency and structure are analytically and ontologically separable. Drawing on Judith Butler’s philosophical work on the formation of subjectivities, we challenge existing theoretical accounts of institutional reproduction and change by reconceptualizing agency and structures as intersubjective relational accomplishments that co-constitute institutionalization. To this end, we developed a psychosocial approach to institutional work that views embodied performativity and affective relationality as central to the enactment, maintenance and disruption of institutions, offering a novel and provocative intervention into ongoing debates on microfoundations of institutional processes.