Struggles for Meaning and Struggles for Control: The Diffusion of Bandwagon Technology in Two Institutional Environments

Using comparative case studies, this paper shows how institutional contexts influence the process of diffusion of a complex technology by determining the pattern of material resources and authority available to actors in their struggles to control the technology, and by constituting the discursive resources that may be mobilized in their struggles to shape its meaning in preferred ways. The paper also reveals how governance structures may be contested and realigned when they conflict with interests legitimized by dominant institutional logics. This form of contestation and adjustment constitutes one mechanism by which institutional frameworks are tested, stretched and reproduced or redefined. 1 We thank Jean-Philippe Bonardi, Peer Fiss, Robin Gustafson, Mariann Jelinek, John Meyer, Tammar Zilber and participants in the 2008 Academy of Management symposium on the “Travel of Health Care Ideas: International Perspectives” as well as participants in the 2007 EGOS subtheme on Innovation and Institutions for their helpful comments on earlier renderings of the data and ideas in this paper. The authors are also grateful to the “Fondation du 450 anniversaire” of the University of Lausanne, to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and to the Fonds québécois pour la recherche sur la société et la culture for their financial support of this research.