Cognitive Underpinnings of Institutional Persistence and Change: A Framing Perspective

Abstract

We integrate the predictions of prospect theory, the threat-rigidity hypothesis, and institutional theory to suggest how patterns of institutional persistence and change depend on whether decision makers view environmental shifts as potential opportunities for or threats to gaining legitimacy. We argue that in the event that decision makers face ambiguity in their reading of the environment, they initiate decoupled substantive and symbolic actions that simultaneously accommodate the predictions of prospect theory and the threat-rigidity hypothesis.