Transforming Via Mutability and Transposability: The Organizational Implications of Logics and Their Values

Institutional logics provide material practices and symbolic systems for organizing across different spheres of society. In doing so, they constitute different values, that is, conceptions of good, and present unique implications for organizing. Scholars have not yet theorized this constitution between logics and values, and this has inhibited our understanding of variations in logics’ susceptibility to transformation and capacity to transform other logics. The central concern of this paper is to address this lacuna by providing an explanatory theoretical framework and practical examples that elucidate the framework’s organizational implications. We argue that an institutional logic’s values are governed by the principles of justification it makes available. To explore these dynamics, we interact the seven institutional logics in Thornton et al.’s (2012) framework with the six worlds in Boltanski and Thévenot’s (2006) justifications of worth framework. On the basis of this interaction, we theorize two processes that drive logics’ possibilities for transformation.Mutability determines how readily a logic’s existing values configuration can be altered. Transposability determines whether a logic’s values can take flight across orders. Overall, we advance an understanding of institutional logics as complex, dynamic phenomena, and open new directions for thinking about the transformation of values, logics, and institutions.