The Role of Analogy in the Institutionalization of Sustainability Reporting

We study institutional entrepreneurship in an emergent field by analyzing the case of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and its efforts to purposefully institutionalize the practice of sustainability reporting. We suggest that analogies affect institutionalization processes through two mechanisms. In the early stages of institutionalization, analogy operates primarily as a normative mechanism, and adoption is driven mainly by an instrumental logic. This emphasis on similarity to existing institutions stresses conformity and promotes legitimacy. Yet analogies can also have a cognitive effect on institutional design, especially once initial acceptance from the environment has been secured, by directing attention toward incongruences between the emergent institution and its analogical source. Institutional entrepreneurship can spur innovation and departure from existing institutions by highlighting limitations of the analogical source and providing a compelling value-rational argument that underscores the worth of the new institution. This theoretical contribution helps explain how analogies to existing institutional practices can both provide legitimacy to novel institutions and constitute the basis for a creative process of institutional design.