Organization Studies Article

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Organization Studies
DOI: 10.1177/0170840606067991
2006; 27; 1843 originally published online Oct 30, 2006;Organization Studies
Frank Blackler and Suzanne Regan
Institutional Reform and the Reorganization of Family Support Services
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Institutional Reform and the Reorganization
of Family Support Services
Frank Blackler and Suzanne Regan
Abstract
Accounts of institutional change developed from structuration theory (Barley and
Tolbert, 1997; Greenwood et al., 2002) are compared with an account developed from
Foucauldian theory (Hasselbladh and Kallinikos, 2000). They are considered in the con-
text of a project that was intended to pioneer a new, integrated approach to child and
family support services in a deprived area in the North of England. It was undertaken at
a time when the British government was pursuing an ambitious programme of reform
across the public sector. The project challenged entrenched practices in the statutory
agencies (social services, health, education and the police) and also those within inde-
pendent, voluntary organizations providing services to children and families in the area.
None of the theories of institutional change considered here anticipated the muddles,
misunderstandings, false starts and loose ends that were a feature of the case. While both
structuration theory and Foucauldian theory stress the significance of the internalization
of new ideas, problems in this case developed because of the difficulties participants had
in externalizing new approaches into new practices. This overlooked aspect of institu-
tional change is conceptualized as a ‘contested ascent’ from the abstract to the concrete.
Keywords: ascent from the abstract to the concrete; institutional reform; collaboration;
neo-institutionalism; the Third Way
Introduction
Institutional theory views organizations as social entities embedded in ‘fields’
of beliefs and conventions (Scott, 2001). Much of the work in this tradition has
followed the pioneering studies of Meyer and Rowan (1977) and DiMaggio and
Powell (1983) in focusing on the impact on organizations of established insti-
tutional frameworks. A series of commentators, however, have repeatedly
argued that study is needed also of the processes through which institutional-
ization takes place and the way institutional frameworks change (e.g.
DiMaggio, 1988; Zucker, 1991; Greenwood and Hinings, 1996; Hirsch and
Lounsbury, 1997; Hoffman, 1999). The growing literature on this topic now
includes detailed case reports in specific organizations as well as industry-level
reviews (e.g. Zilber, 2002; Thornton, 2002), and accounts of changes occurring
over relatively short periods of time as well as studies extending over decades
(e.g. Reay and Hinings, 2005; Scott et al., 2000).
Organization
Studies
27(12): 1843–1861
ISSN 0170–8406
Copyright © 2006
SAGE Publications
(London,
Thousand Oaks,
CA & New Delhi)
Frank Blackler
The Management
School, Lancaster
University, UK
Suzanne Regan
The Management
School, Lancaster
University, UK
www.egosnet.org/os DOI: 10.1177/0170840606067991

Two approaches to theorizing institutionalization as a process are prominent
in this literature. While both are influenced by Berger and Luckmann (1967),
one leans heavily on Giddens’ (1984) structuration theory while the other draws
from Foucault and critical discourse theory.
Work in the structuration tradition includes Tolbert and Zucker (1996), Barley
and Tolbert (1997), Phillips et al. (2000), Scott et al. (2000) and Greenwood
et al. (2002). Barley and Tolbert (1997) were outspoken in their suggestion that
a new approach was needed. They noted that the definition of institutions as
‘shared rules and typifications that identify categories of social actors and their
appropriate activities and relationships’(p. 96) resembles Giddens’(1984) notion
of structure; while the definition of ‘scripts’ as ‘observable, recurrent activities
and patterns of social interaction characteristic of a particular setting’ (p. 98)
resembles his notion of modalities. They endeavoured to develop Giddens’some-
what static portrayal of structuration by postulating a linear sequence: after insti-
tutional principles have been ‘encoded’ (a process they suggested is often
associated with socialization) and ‘enacted’(one, they suggested, which need not
require awareness or intentionality), institutional change involves the revision of
scripts, perhaps as a result of their breakdown or failure. Later, revised scripts
may be objectified into new shared rules and typifications. Barley and Tolbert
emphasized the central place of detailed observations over time to chart transi-
tions in scripts, pointing out how ethnographic research can demonstrate that
general claims that scripts have changed may, in fact, be mistaken.
Greenwood et al. (2002) developed a model which extended Barley and
Tolbert’s formulation by considering what might prompt breakdowns in
scripts and, especially, how changed scripts might be objectified. After conven-
tions have been challenged by ‘precipitating jolts’ (perhaps caused by social,
technological and regulatory factors) they suggested that a process of ‘de-
institutionalization’ (involving new players and ‘institutional entrepreneurship’)
might be triggered, perhaps leading to a ‘pre-institutional’ stage of experimen-
tation and innovation. Central to Greenwood et al.’s account was the next stage,
‘theorization’, when failings in familiar scripts are articulated and new solutions
are proposed and justified. They define theorization as ‘the process whereby
localized deviations from prevailing conventions become abstracted and thus
made available in simplified form for wider adoption’ (p. 60). Successful theo-
rization, they suggested, leads to the further stages of ‘diffusion’ and ‘re-insti-
tutionalization’ (see also Munir, 2005).
Writers associated with the introduction to organizational institutionalism of
Foucauldian ideas include Townley (1995), Lawrence et al. (1999), Hasselbladh
and Kallinicos (2000) and Phillips et al. (2004). Of their works, Hasselbladh and
Kallinicos (2000) is the most radical. Criticizing neo-institutional theory for
relying too heavily on notions of adaptation and diffusion and failing to explain
the underlining links between specific forms of organizing and wider beliefs and
practices, they began their analysis with the question: what makes actors, pat-
terns of action, and formal organizations possible at all? Using Foucault, their
aim was to illuminate ‘the social and cognitive means and procedures underly-
ing rationalised beliefs and schemes of action’ (p. 70). Collective activity
depends, they suggested, on the cultural, social and material infrastructure
1844 Organization Studies 27(12)

which (simultaneously) delineates activity, makes actions possible, and shapes
identities; studies of institutionalization therefore need to be rooted in an under-
standing of how domains of action are delimited, how relevant performance
principles are developed, and how ‘actorhood’ is constituted. Institutions, they
suggested, comprise ‘basic ideals that are developed into distinctive ways of
defining and acting upon reality (i.e. discourses) supported by elaborate systems
of measurement and documentation for controlling action outcomes’ (p. 74).
They place particular emphasis on the role of writing and formal codification:
the process of institutionalization progresses, they suggested, from ideals
expressed in narratives, to discourse expressed in writings, to control systems
managed through codification.
Ideals differ from discourses and both differ from techniques of control in the degree of
detail and precision by which they describe the social items and relations to which they
refer. At one extreme, ideals express themselves vaguely and in wholesale fashion, while
at the other, control techniques specify rather precisely the relationships which they seek
to regulate. (p. 704)
The ways in which ideas are objectified, Hasselbladh and Kallinicos argue,
shape the way actors define both their roles and themselves.
The various writers reviewed here all share a wish to avoid a ‘bird’s eye view
of the field’ and move closer to taken-for-granted practices and the ways they
develop. Barley and Tolbert envisaged a simple linear sequence, from encoding
and enacting to revising and objectifying. Greenwood et al. commented a little
more on the uncertainties associated with initial ‘precipitating jolts’; nonethe-
less, their model too envisages linear progression through various stages
supported by the theorization, and subsequent diffusion, of new solutions.
Hasselbladh and Kallinicos are explicit also in their assumption about the
driving power of ideals and a progression from narrative, through discourse, to
systems of control. The strength of the first two of these models lies in the clar-
ity of developments that they each envisage over time; they describe clear stages
through which they envisage successful institutionalization must progress. The
strength of the third lies in its analysis of what it describes as the ‘carriers’ of
rationalzsed patterns and their relation to specific organizations. Yet, in our
opinion, all these approaches fail to move beyond a ‘bird’s eye view’ in one
important respect. They show little attention to the tensions both within and
between each of the stages they envisage. The formulations they suggest appear,
indeed, to owe more to detached, retrospective rationalizations than to detailed
studies of emergent practices. Thus, while a heavy emphasis is placed on the
guiding power of scripts and ideas or ideals and discourses, little is said by these
authors about the relevance of muddles, misunderstandings, false starts, con-
flicts and loose ends that are likely also to be attendant features of processes of
institutional change.
This paper considers such points in the light of a detailed case study. Against
a background of a reformist government’s urgent attempts to modernize public
services and to empower local social welfare initiatives, we explore how a new
approach to child and family support services was articulated and developed in
a deprived town in the North of England and how the initiative began to fail. We
comment on the relevance to the case of key theories of institutional change and,
Blackler & Regan: Institutional Reform and the Reorganization 1845

drawing from our data, we suggest an alternative way of conceptualizing the
processes we observed.
Changing Approaches to the Organization
of the UK Public Sector
Since the 1980s the organization of public sector services in Britain has been
subjected to a series of competing policy revisions. In the 1980s it became widely
believed that the state had overreached its capacity to provide ‘cradle to grave’wel-
fare for everyone. The ‘new public management’(Ferlie et al., 1996) was based on
the belief that major reforms to the ‘welfare state’ were necessary; it was argued
that government need only be concerned with specifying what public services
ought to be provided, while market forces could be mobilized to secure their deliv-
ery. Inspired by a vision of a consumer-led ‘mixed economy of care’, efforts were
made to dismantle the large welfare bureaucracies that, in the post-World War II
years, had been developed to deliver ‘mainstream’ programmes of social welfare
in the UK, replacing them by separate ‘purchaser’ and ‘provider’ bodies.
Following the election of the New Labour government in 1997, a new set of
policies for the organization of the public sector began to drive developments.
Underpinned by the ideology of the ‘Third Way’(Giddens, 1998) the government
began to institute policies that were based on a belief, on the one hand, in the
value of community and, on the other, in the value of individual responsibility and
consumer choice. Some of the collectivist principles of the post-World War II era
remained an important part of New Labour’s ideology (as exemplified by
increases in child benefit and generous family tax credits); but New Labour was
not committed to the provision of public services by welfare bureaucracies. By,
for example, promoting private finance initiatives, New Labour extended some of
the reforms pioneered under Thatcher’s Tory government of the 1980s.
However, in its wish to promote the principle of ‘equality of opportunity for
all’as championed by the ‘Third Way’, New Labour has, resolutely, endeavoured
to use the offices of the state to broaden the concept of social democracy. The
primary difference between ‘Third Way’ policies and earlier welfare state
reforms lies in their emphasis on the capacities of empowered, engaged and
responsible ‘communities’ to address social problems (Clarke et al., 2000).
Public sector managers are now expected to build networks and co-operative
projects. Voluntary organizations, community groups and private companies are
contracted to provide services. As a direct result of such policies a range of
collaborative inter-organizational projects are being attempted across Britain,
under titles such as ‘Community Planning’, ‘Local Strategic Partnership’, ‘Local
Preventative Strategic Partnership’ and ‘Community Cohesion Pathfinders’.
The government’s agenda for community development and democratic
renewal has been matched by its agenda for modernization and performance
improvement (Lowndes and Wilson, 2003). New Labour has been highly criti-
cal of the track record and ability of public sector agencies to reform themselves
and the government developed an extensive, and very detailed, system of target
setting and review. It also developed special funding schemes to bypass

established systems and to support particular innovations. Once the viability of
such innovations has been demonstrated, the government’s expectation was that
they should be ‘mainstreamed’; that is, that the new practices they have
pioneered should, in due course, be supported by money channelled from
longer-established funding streams.
The specific changes studied in this case concerned the provision of services
to vulnerable children and families. In the period leading up to the study
reported here, across most of the UK responsibility for providing services for
vulnerable families had been sharply divided across relevant statutory agencies
(health, education, social services and the police). The lack of shared responsi-
bility meant that children and families could be passed from one agency to the
next. In particular, family problems noticed by health or educational profes-
sionals or by the police could quickly be labelled as ‘the concern of social
services’ – a tendency supported by the dominant professional discourses of the
time which featured notions of ‘child protection’ and ‘risk assessment’ (rather
than ‘client needs’ or ‘family support’). Indeed, a tendency had developed for
public sector professionals to adopt a guarded approach towards the problems
of children and families and, as a result, children labelled ‘at risk’ could
prematurely be pushed into the care system (Thorpe, 1994).
Around the time of the project described here, driven by an enquiry into the
tragic death of a child (the Climbié Inquiry), considerable public debate had
taken place about the need to develop new, integrated approaches to child and
family support. Aware of government’s changing orientation, local politicians in
the town we studied were keen to be ‘ahead of the game’. They had been
encouraged in this ambition by their local member of parliament, himself a
senior member of the cabinet.
Milltown and the Early Intervention Service (EIS)
Milltown (a pseudonym) is home for just over 138,000 people. Around 19% of
its residents are from Indian and Pakistani backgrounds. According to govern-
ment statistics Milltown ranks amongst the most deprived areas in the country.
The housing stock is very old and much is in very poor condition; 40% of
private sector housing has been deemed unfit for dwelling. Many people are
on low incomes; one-third of households in Milltown are dependent on state
benefits. The need for inpatient mental health services is higher than the
nation’s average, and the misuse of opiate drugs is at a high level.
The ‘Early Intervention Service’ (EIS) that we describe in this paper
was established locally using funds that had been earmarked by the UK
Government’s 2000 Spending Review. In line with the broad government policies
outlined above, this review noted that the way ‘core’ public sector services have
been funded in health, education, housing and social care had precluded a focus
on disadvantaged neighbourhoods and that little flexibility had been allowed in
how such programmes were planned and resourced. To tackle deprivation ‘wher-
ever it occurs in England’ the Spending Review promised ‘Neighbourhood
Renewal’ funds (NRF) to support locally organized, multi-agency initiatives.

Funds were allocated to local councils on the basis of indicators of deprivation,
and the NRF money was to be directed to projects which could deliver improve-
ments on neighbourhood renewal targets designed to improve the lives of people
living in the most deprived wards in the country. The plan was to allocate such
funds on a three-year cycle rather than the usual year-on-year allocation thus
avoiding some of the short-termism that, it was recognized, had been a feature of
past policies. It was also assumed that successful innovations would later be
‘mainstreamed’.
Research Method
Together with two colleagues, the authors undertook a participatory action
research project in Milltown, reporting both to the originator of the project and
to the EIS Steering Group. Participatory action research as a methodology has
been reviewed comprehensively by Kemmis and McTaggart (2001) who,
describing it as a practical and transformative endeavour as well as a descrip-
tive and analytical one, associate the orientation with theories of practice. In the
context of the efforts being made in Milltown to address urgent problems of
social exclusion, such an approach was welcomed by the people we worked
with who seemed pleased to accept us, not as the observers of ‘objectively’
defined phenomena, but as participants in a process of dialectical review. (We
were well known to the people we worked with having been involved in
research work in Milltown over the three years prior to the study reported here.)
The research strategies we adopted involved the following activities.
a) Acting as participant observers in the quarterly meetings
of the Early Intervention Service (EIS) Steering Group
Organizationally, collaborative activity between statutory and voluntary sectors
in the UK primarily takes place in meetings like those of the EIS Steering
Group that we observed. Members of voluntary sector organizations pay a great
deal of attention to who gets invited to such meetings, the status of the repre-
sentatives from the statutory agencies who attend, and what information is
presented. They scrutinize decisions about the allocation of funds with particu-
lar vigilance. The meetings we observed followed a recognizable order of inter-
action: a chair was appointed, roles were allocated and, in subsequent meetings,
agendas and minutes were used to delimit the content of discussions. Meetings
of the EIS steering group were attended by nominees of the voluntary organi-
zations funded through the project and were normally chaired by the senior
representative from the local authority (described here as William). Excepting
one meeting (late in the project) which was attended by someone from social
services, representatives from the statutory agencies did not attend any of the
meetings during the period of our study. All meetings of the EIS were video-
recorded (eight in total, resulting in the production of twenty hours of video-
recorded data for analysis) and our observations were used as the basis for our
reviews with the group at various intervals. We also attended (and video-recorded)

a small number of subsidiary meetings, including inter-agency meetings organized
by the voluntary agencies themselves.
Two analytical devices proved particularly helpful in analyzing the video-
recordings. First, we characterized the recurring ‘scripts’ being enacted at the
meetings we recorded. We noted the issues that regularly arose in the meetings of
the Steering Committee and the ways in which participants contributed to relevant
discussions. Second, we paid special attention to episodes where recurring scripts
were called into question. Three meetings were of especial interest in this respect:
one where we showed the Steering Committee video clips of their earlier meet-
ings to help them reflect on the way they were collaborating; a second where cut-
backs were announced in government funding for the project; and a third where
the Committee was presented with detailed statistical information about the way
in which the new system they were creating was performing.
b) Interviews were undertaken with eight of the key participants
Some participants were interviewed on several occasions. Interviews were
audio-recorded and transcribed. The interviews introduced us to the work of the
individual project partners and, supported by our studies of the EIS meetings,
they helped us understand how project members conceived of the project and its
benefits to them and their clients.
c) The main organizer of the project we were studying
requested informal discussions with us, individually or with
a trusted colleague, on seven occasions
These meetings typically followed the formal meetings of the EIS steering
group, or were arranged on a University site. They took the form of ‘behind the
scenes’ conversations which meant that much of what was being said was ‘off
the record’. These conversations drew our attention to the peculiarities of the
evolving political–institutional context in which the project was located.
d) A ‘file study’ on the outcomes of referrals entering the EIS
during the first six months of its operation was undertaken by
two colleagues in our research team
They collected detailed data on the nature of referrals to the EIS, how they were
dealt with, and what was known about any subsequent outcomes to help those
involved better understand how the EIS project was performing. While, as we
describe, the results of this file study were fed back to the EIS steering
committee they are not reported in any detail in this paper.
e) Formal review sessions with the steering group
On four occasions we offered feedback on our observations on how the EIS
project was working. Our conduct as researchers also featured as an object of
study in these meetings.

In addition, we were able to draw on various source materials accumulated over
the period of the study as well as from our previous involvement in Milltown over
the preceding three years. Such information proved invaluable in situating the EIS
project within wider reform measures focusing on poverty and social exclusion.
The Milltown Case
Developments in the case were as follows.
1. A strong agenda for change had been initiated by the
director of Children and Young Peoples’ Services in Milltown
and those around him.
The manager concerned, referred to here as William, was well known for his
reformist intentions and for his ability as a ‘fixer’. He had been requested by
Milltown’s Deputy Chief Executive to organize the spending of the NRF allo-
cation made available by government (nearly £800,000 pounds in the 2002/03
financial year) as a matter of urgency. Although he had to move quickly William
did not regard the urgency of the issue as a problem; he had been aware of the
imminent availability of the NRF monies and had a plan for how they might be
used. He believed that Social Workers working in Milltown were failing to
intervene at an early stage before difficulties in families had become acute, and
when they did intervene their activities were based entirely on ‘reducing risk’
by placing large numbers of children into care.
This strategy was, in his view, expensive in terms of the costs of maintaining
children in care, and potentially calamitous in its consequences for the life
chances of the children concerned. His intention was to use the grant made
available by government to develop an early intervention service (EIS), to be
provided by members of voluntary organizations already operating in Milltown.
The support they would provide might, he hoped, help prevent children later
being placed on the child protection register, removed to care homes, excluded
from schools, or becoming nuisances and attracting the attention of the police
and would, he hoped, provide the foundation for a reconfigured and expanded,
preventative approach to social services in Milltown.
William explained his approach in an early interview:
Coming from [a large city] to work in Milltown Social Services in 1998 I was shocked
at how old fashioned the culture was, in terms of, the Social Work culture, in terms of
the way in which the way the Department seemed to want to ‘resolve’, in inverted com-
mas, difficulties of children and families in Milltown (clears throat). It was heavily
dependent on residential placements and heavy use of intervention and heavy use of
child protection systems etc. etc. etc.
Yes it was dreadful and err we had started to, err, to put some systems in place really, in
terms of trying to stop social workers finding kids and firing them into the Residential
system, which was reasonably big for a town the size of Milltown. But also they had a
substantial number of young people in placements [in a neighbouring area], they were
actually agency placements that we had to pay for. So there were substantial amounts of
money going into those, and there were also substantial amounts of other kids further

afield, um, and the most depressing thing I have ever done is to spend three days with
two colleagues going through the files of each child asking why they were placed where
they were, how long they had been there, and what the plans were. With the individual
social workers we reviewed every kid and it took three days. It was ... [pause] dreadful.
William’s agenda for reform was consistent over the period of our study:
• He had an urgent impatience to improve services to vulnerable children and
their families in Milltown.
• He was not optimistic about the chances of changing attitudes or cultures either
in the local statutory agencies or in most voluntary agencies. He believed that
the only effective way of introducing change in local government organizations
was by building a small network of like-minded people, and taking opportuni-
ties to introduce change when and where they presented themselves.
• Others who did not share the vision could, he explained, be enrolled by
presenting the project as being in their interests for other reasons.
• He anticipated the need to manoeuvre over a long period to make progress
in introducing a new system. He had recruited our research team as part of
this process. During the 15 months reported here he was working actively on
plans to reorganize the Social Services department to encourage greater
emphasis on supportive, rather than crisis, interventions.
2. William’s plans faced opposition.
William’s agenda resonated with government policies and his, somewhat mav-
erick, style was legitimated by government’s encouragement of experimental
projects to ‘bend the mainstream’ (see Audit Commission, 2002). Nonetheless,
at an early stage the idea for the EIS project had been challenged by a compet-
ing proposal (from a local politician) for an ‘Intensive Family Support’ project
which would have provided intensive help only for those people identified as
the most ‘difficult’ families living in the area. As a consequence William’s pro-
ject suffered a setback and was delayed by a few months. Even though the alter-
native plan was to be abandoned, echoes of it remained associated with the EIS,
most clearly in an ongoing confusion associated with its name.
The ongoing importance of the politics of the project was evident from the way
William ‘talked it up’ in both the meetings of the EIS steering committee and pri-
vate discussions. For example, some months before evaluation data about the (lim-
ited) effectiveness of the early EIS activity were, in fact, available he said to us:
Joan is now the co-ordinator of ... what is turning out to be a ... very successful project,
because it has started to hit those targets we had wanted to in terms of referrals from
Intake and Assessment being made to that team at an early point and the cases being
closed here. And that is cutting down the amount of work that is moving through the
[social services] system.
3. Although William’s plan was to overcome a competing proposal
it was not developed in the way he had originally hoped.
After his plan was authorized William successfully encouraged six voluntary
agencies that he thought would be suitable partners to submit bids for

Milltown’s NRF allocation. He also appointed a co-ordinator (referred to here
as Joan) on a short-term contract. (Her role was to publicize the service and to
refer families to one of the collaborating voluntary organizations.)
However, integral to William’s plans to begin to reshape services was the idea
that the new ‘first tier’ of services to be provided by the voluntary agencies
would be supported by a ‘second tier’ (operated collaboratively by other volun-
taries, Social Services and other statutory agencies as appropriate). The idea
was for the second tier to provide more intensive support over a longer term.
‘Third tier’ interventions, for the most serious cases, would remain the respon-
sibility of the Department of Social Services. In the event, however, primarily
because of difficulties in quickly reorienting the priorities of the Social Services
Department, plans to develop the second level of services were shelved.
Although she was disappointed by this setback the newly appointed co-
ordinator, Joan, proceeded with her own interpretation of what the new EIS
would entail. As she explained in one of the regular meetings of the EIS
steering group:
The objective changed, it just changed and I’m not able to say why ... [pause]. From what
it was originally meant to be its not. I think it was because at two meetings ... [pause]
there was too many people involved ... [pause]. I knew it would just get down to me ...
[pause]. But [the intended second tier allocation system] has not happened and social
services haven’t organised their bit of it, we can’t organise that for them so that’s why
Mary [her colleague] and I took the decision to ‘sod it’ basically. We are not going to
take it back and say this is how ... [pause]. We are just going to do it ... [pause] book the
rooms, make our own referral forms and we are going to go for it.
4. Despite the expectation that the voluntary agencies would
begin to work in partnership with social services, the way the
project was run evolved along familiar lines.
Throughout the period of our research it appeared that conventional, and prob-
ably long-established, relationships between the Local Authority and the
Voluntary Organizations were being re-enacted in the meetings of the EIS steer-
ing committee. Officials from the Local Authority were the dominant partner,
not working in partnership with the voluntary sector, but commissioning them
to provide specific services. The voluntaries themselves appeared to regard the
EIS project as a source of funds rather than a partnership project signalling a
new role for them in the organization of child and family support services in the
town. There was some effort made to overcome previous rivalries between some
of the voluntary organizations involved in the project (who held meetings
among themselves to share information and develop joint approaches).
However, at the meetings of the EIS steering group there was very little debate
about how the EIS might develop its philosophy and organization. Meetings
followed a consistent pattern:
• William would chair the meetings and discussion would generally centre on
politics around the project and related developments. William would outline
issues being discussed locally or nationally, hinting at decisions already
made or likely to be made soon. In early meetings he referred to funding

issues in an optimistic way (although a year into the project government
funding was unexpectedly cut significantly, see below). He would, typically,
voice severe criticisms of Social Services.
• Joan, the co-ordinator of the project, reported on the progress of the project,
typically emphasising the numbers of children or families being referred to
it for help. She reported also on which agencies the referrals had been passed
on to, and she might mention client groups that were not currently covered
by services on offer from Voluntary Organizations. Her wish to involve
people in an amicable fashion was clear.
• Most of those present from the voluntary sector contributed very little to the
discussions, some remaining silent throughout a whole meeting. People’s
views were not actively sought by William. However a couple of Voluntary
Organization representatives were very active at the meetings, tending to
dominate the conversations, often sitting next to Joan, and talking quite
loudly, and sometimes apparently flirtatiously to William. They, like
William, were vocal in their criticisms of Social Services.
• There was talk about gaps in priorities, people falling through nets, and apoc-
ryphal stories about families being visited by numerous different professionals.
The theme of such talk seemed to be: ‘outside of the EIS and the participating
Voluntary Agencies, services are organised very badly at present’.
5. The context in which this development was taking place
was itself subject to change.
In December 2003, about nine months into the project, central government
reviewed expenditure on its Neighbourhood Renewal scheme and, across the
country, cut back the funds it was providing. In Milltown this required a review
of grants being allocated to local Voluntary Organizations participating in the
EIS and a reduction in the organizations involved. Decisions were made by
local politicians and senior managers including William. Their decisions about
which of the Voluntaries would not continue to receive money were announced
by William at a specially convened meeting of the EIS. The announcements
were received very badly by those denied further funds. They talked bitterly
about the workers they would no longer be able to employ.
6. As the project progressed it emerged that sharply differing
views on how best to proceed had developed.
As we have already noted, the project had been championed by a powerful ral-
lying call for the development of a preventative service, although exactly how
the rallying call would be translated into effective practical action had remained
somewhat vague and those involved in its operational management had had to
improvise. It was to emerge late in the project that, perhaps partly because of
these early experiences, those involved in its day-to-day organization had
become focused on the development of an independent, ‘stand alone’ service.
Key developments were as follows. Twelve months into the project the results
of a case-file study into the outcomes of EIS activity undertaken by colleagues

on our research team were presented to the steering committee. This data challenged
the prevailing narrative that the project ‘was meeting its targets’; statistics from
the outcome study suggested that the EIS might not have been working with the
most appropriate client groups and that this had probably happened partly
because of the organizer’s preoccupation with increasing the numbers of clients
the EIS was handling (and therefore, Joan hoped, making an obvious case for the
continued funding of the EIS), and partly because the agencies referring clients
to the EIS had not been clear about the criteria they should use.
In the weeks following the meeting, William arranged a series of meetings to
discuss the implications of the research findings and to consider how best to
reorganize relations between the EIS and Social Services. He had been pursu-
ing a plan to reorganize the Social Services Department in a way that would
support the EIS project. In particular, the idea of refocusing the EIS and reor-
ganizing the overall system of care in Milltown around ‘Level 1’, ‘Level 2’ and
‘Level 3’ services had once again become current. One of the meetings he orga-
nized was with Joan and her colleague who helped run the EIS, and a represen-
tative of Social Services. Field notes of what happened at this meeting were as
follows:
Joan and her assistant became visibly upset by what they saw as a change of direction in
the EIS project and reiterated the project’s achievements particularly those in relation to
increasing numbers of self referrals. William and the researchers pointed to the difficul-
ties involved in continuing to run the service along these lines, i.e. such an approach
threatened to swamp the resources of the project. In addition, the researchers pointed out
that it was impossible to demonstrate how such a strategy might be contributing to gov-
ernment priorities for improving the life chances of people living in deprived wards in
Milltown. (As the project had a little less than one year to demonstrate success before a
funding review, all agreed this was considered to be a significant point). A manager from
Social Services, who was at the meeting, acknowledged that referrals would have to be
made to the EIS in new ways. The researchers pointed to the importance of routinely
collecting information that would show how clients were passing through the system of
services and the outcomes of any help they were given.
The two workers responsible for the day-to-day operation of the project remained, how-
ever, clearly unhappy about what was being asked of them. They claimed that the orig-
inal aim of the project had been to provide a ‘stand alone’ service. It was clear that they
enjoyed undertaking direct interventions with families experiencing problems and very
much disliked the idea of working more closely with Social Services or involving the
partners in making decisions over allocations, saying the Voluntaries would ‘cherry-
pick’. William also spoke of the capacities of the Voluntary Organizations to change in
jaundiced terms ‘they need to be force-fed new values’.
By the end of the meeting however it was decided that the EIS should halt its expansion
into ‘self-referral’ cases, although not stop them entirely at this stage, as William indi-
cated it was an overall priority for Council-run projects to be ‘visible’ in the various
regions of the town.
Very soon after the meeting Joan and her colleague circulated a ‘response’ to
what had been decided, questioning the decisions that had been agreed and say-
ing they felt they had been rushed into a major change of direction of the ser-
vice. They explained that what they described as a ‘radical change in direction’
would ‘inevitably lose them credibility with families, professionals and our

Partner Projects’. They identified a number of important operational issues that
would need to be resolved if the refocusing of the EIS was, indeed, to go ahead.
Discussion: Institutional Change as a Contested Ascent
from the Abstract to the Concrete
The events reported here invite analysis from a number of perspectives. They
invite comments, for example, about dilemmas associated with the UK govern-
ment’s approach to managing the integration of public services, the difficulties
of keeping locally organized reforms in tune with national reform agendas, and
the opportunities and limitations of steering innovations through small, poten-
tially subversive networks. They also invite further discussion of the dilemmas
of social work and of the unproductive meetings we observed. Our specific
focus here, however, will be on what the Milltown case suggests for neo-
institutional theory as discussed in the papers considered earlier by Barley and
Tolbert, Greenwood et al., and Hasselbladh and Kallincos.
As outlined earlier, each of these papers sketches out a sequence of phases in
institutionalization. Considered against these stages it might be said that events
in Milltown were stuck at one phase or another. Perhaps (given the cautious and
unadventurous dynamics at the EIS steering group) they were stuck at Barley
and Tolbert’s ‘enacting’ phase; perhaps (given the limited debate about
William’s vision of an early preventative service) at Greenwood et al.’s ‘pre-
institutional’stage; or perhaps (as a result of the hurried way in which the devel-
opment had been launched and with no common language or appropriate
control systems later being established) at Hasselbladh and Kallinicos’ ‘narra-
tive’ stage.
However it does not appear to us that the change process in Milltown was
following a sequence of clearly defined phases. The neat, tightly delineated,
stages that Barley and Tolbert and Greenwood et al. suggested appear remote
from the inward-looking dynamics of the Milltown project. Nor did events in
the town seem to be following the sequence of increased specificity and control
envisaged by Hasselbladh and Kallinicos. The case suggests that an alternative
imagery would be helpful to explain why developments in Milltown were
apparently grinding to a halt.
Both Greenwood’s and Hasselbladh’s models emphasize the necessity of
a growing convergence between founding ideas and actual practices:
Greenwood’s as a result of convincing theorization; Hasselbladh’s as a result of
the growing specificity of domains, principles and ‘actorhood’. Importantly,
however, at the start of the events reported here (although the situation had
changed by the end) participants appeared convinced by the general rationale of
what they were doing. Their internalization of the driving ideals was not the pri-
mary issue affecting the actors we studied in this case. The key finding of this
study was the complex and uneasy nature of the relations between, on the one
hand, the aims and ideals of the new system and the discourse associated with
them and, on the other, the practices that emerged as efforts were made to
change the status quo. Past practices had shaped the context in which William,

Joan and the others were working, and the prevailing order of interaction
between them remained unchallenged even when members said they wanted to
find new ways of co-operating together. Rather than there being a problem with
the internalization of key ideas, problems developed with their externalization
into new ways of thinking, relating and working.
In their paper entitled ‘Discourse as a Strategic Resource’, Hardy et al.
(2000) drew attention to the problem of how talk produces action. Noting
Mintzberg’s (1994: 281) comment that it would be absurd to think that an
organization can transform itself simply by thinking up a new strategy, they
observed that ‘questions concerning how thinking up or, to be more precise–
talking up – a new strategy translates into organisational actions remain unan-
swered’ (Hardy et al., 2000: 1231). Subsequent attempts by organizational
scholars to consider how strategic intentions can be translated into actual prac-
tices have emphasized the process of ‘talking up’. Thus, Green (2004) dis-
cussed how different forms of rhetoric may influence the speed and extent of
diffusion of new ideas; Suddaby and Greenwood (2005) developed a typology
of rhetorical strategies and explored how they were used in a fiercely adver-
sarial debate about a proposed institutional change; and Sillince (2005) analysed
rhetorical strategies associated with a policy of structural differentiation on the
one hand and structural integration on the other.
While such accounts have provided important insights into the ways new
approaches can acquire legitimacy, they are much less helpful in analysing sit-
uations where participants are attracted to new ideas but are either unfamiliar
with their practical implications or are frustrated by setbacks. In such situations
the issue is less how to talk up ideas and more how to act them out. Images to
capture this aspect of institutional change are few. One that fits quite well is the
idea that the establishment of new ideas in practice occurs through ‘an ascent
from the abstract to the concrete’. Ilyenkov (1982) discussed how this phrase
describes the method that Marx followed in developing his insights into capi-
talism from his recognition that commodities embody a contradiction between
use value and exchange value. Developing the approach Ilyenkov argued that
the objects of human cognition are complex, organic wholes that emerge from
the inevitable tensions (or dialectical contradictions) within and between their
constituent parts. Abstractions should not be thought of as the pinnacle of
human understanding; rather, they illuminate the foundational dynamics of
concrete experience (see also Backhurst, 1995).
Engström (1987) demonstrated the significance of this orientation to the
theory of practice. Insights into the inherent dilemmas of a human activity can,
he suggested, inspire enquiry into relevant problems and a search for new
approaches. The ideas which result, however, do not constitute a blueprint for
action; rather they act as a kernel, or germ-cell, which provides a basis for ongo-
ing effort and experimentation. This ‘ascent’ from new idea to new practice is
inevitably an emergent process, involving a range of associated procedural,
social, technological, linguistic and cultural developments. Indeed, as interven-
tion consultants working with systems theory ideas have long been aware (see,
for example, Miller, 1979), such changes cannot fully be anticipated in advance
but need to be addressed as they emerge.

The EIS steering group provided an important forum in which a crucial
aspect of the new system for delivering services for vulnerable children and
families could have been discursively designed and monitored. However, the
muddle, misunderstanding, false starts and loose ends associated with its meet-
ings indicated how difficult it was for participants to extricate themselves from
established approaches and develop a new order of interaction to address
emerging issues.
Evidently, the new system that William was promoting needed to be con-
structed discursively in the first instance but, as noted above, dialogue within
the meetings of the EIS was restricted with participants generally avoiding dis-
cussion of difficult issues. Overall, there was a distinct failure to focus on new
priorities. Joan regularly reported the number of cases being handled by partic-
ipating voluntary agencies, but very little discussion took place about how the
clients’ problems were regarded, exactly what services were being offered to
them, what new approaches to service provision needed to be developed, and
how such changes might impact on the agencies involved. Evidently too, given
the novelty of the project, its procedures and practices needed to be reviewed
critically. Yet, critical as they were of the services being provided by the statu-
tory agencies, members of the EIS group were consistently unreflective about
the procedures which they themselves were developing. Crucially, there was
very little discussion about the potentially contentious issue of how the EIS
could organize itself to work with families for whom an ‘early intervention’
might help prevent decline into further difficulties. Further, the new system of
service provision that William wanted to see introduced in Milltown could not
be developed in isolation from the statutory agencies. Yet relations with them
were largely unchanged and members of the statutory agencies consistently
failed to attend EIS meetings. Although it was generally felt by Joan that, to
lighten their own work load, Social Services were inappropriately referring
clients to the new service, members of the EIS committee never discussed what
they might do themselves to encourage people from the statutory agencies to
attend meetings and discuss the overall project.
The failure of those involved with the EIS project to focus on key issues,
debate difficulties, review progress realistically, and consider the need to reform
their own traditional practices, helps explain why the transition from good ideas
to practical achievements was not accomplished in this case. In retrospect it is
clear that the process of moving from the abstract to the concrete was fraught
with problems. The origins of the specific reform lay in William’s concern
about the quality of services that deprived children and families were receiving
in Milltown, and his wish to develop an alternative. His ideas resonated with
government policies but had, in the early stages, to confront a rival plan. In the
event his proposal was favoured, yet it had proved impossible at that stage to
begin to initiate reforms in the ways Social Services and other statutory agen-
cies approached their work. Nonetheless voluntary organizations were recruited
by William to get the broader project off the ground. Subsequently, however,
there was very little discussion about what the client group needed from the EIS
service. There was no discussion about the implications of Joan’s decision to
‘go it alone’ and to concentrate on increasing the numbers of people using the

EIS. Whilst he endeavoured to rally participants with a strong narrative William
was not always consistent in his dealings with key participants: publicly in the
EIS steering group he was disparaging about Social Services, privately he was
highly critical of the motives of most of the Voluntary Organizations participat-
ing in the project. By the time funds to support the project were cut back Joan
had became frustrated and was enacting her own (poorly thought through) idea
of the EIS as a ‘stand-alone’ service. Finally, even when (as a result of the file
study) serious questions about the effectiveness of the way the new service was
operating were brought to the attention of the Committee, there was little to sug-
gest that she and the others most directly involved found it easy to reconsider their
approaches.
Developing the imagery of an ascent from the abstract to the concrete, we
suggest that that institutional change in instances such as the one described in
this paper should be analysed as a contested ascent from the abstract to
the concrete. In this case the contest was firstly, between alternative images
of what kind of practices might be desirable. Secondly, it was between the
established institutional arrangements of the past and the social and cultural
infrastructure associated with them, and the tentative, possible institutions
of the future. The case invites speculation about why such conflicts were not
addressed more clearly in the EIS meetings. Perhaps participants were aware
of internal contradictions and a lack of clarity in the project, with each of
them fearing to mention such matters in case the whole endeavour might
collapse. Whatever the reasons, participants manifestly failed to theorize ‘the
abstract’ adequately, and to address the inevitable tensions of an ‘ascent to the
concrete’.
Conclusion
Applied to the study of institutionalization the image of an ascent from the
abstract to the concrete suggests that conventional assumptions about how
abstract ideas drive developments are limited. As noted at the start of the paper,
neo-institutional theory has conceived of organizations as social entities embed-
ded in ‘fields’ of beliefs and conventions. This orientation, so clearly reflected
in Greenwood et al.’s approach, does little to illuminate the ways in which
systems of meaning in general, and new ideas in particular, become ‘objecti-
fied’. Hasselbladh and Kallinicos’ critique of neo-institutionalization theory
recognizes this point, although their theory concentrated on the consequences
of successful externalization (as manifest in discourse and codification), not on
what makes this possible in the first place. Highlighting as it does both the prag-
matic and the political nature of the process, the Milltown case points to the
importance of enquiry into the conditions under which objectification becomes
possible.
Further study of the nature of ‘contested ascents’ should, we suggest, be a
priority for future research on institutionalization. The complex set of relations
we observed in the Milltown case were consistent with an issue recognized by
practice theorists; as summarized by Mohr (1998: 353):

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Frank Blackler is Professor of Organisational Behaviour at Lancaster University
Management School, UK. He is director of the School’s Centre for Collaborative
Intervention in the Public Sector. In recent years he has studied the reorganization of the
English National Health Service and attempts to reconfigure services for vulnerable
children and families. He has a particular interest in theories of practice and in the
management of changes to practices. Current research includes study of the work of
‘street-level bureaucrats’.
Address: Department of Organisation, Work and Technology, Lancaster University,
Lancaster LA1 4YX, UK.
Email: F.Blackler@lancaster.ac.uk
Suzanne Regan is a Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Collaborative Intervention
in the Public Sector, the Management School, Lancaster University. She is an organiza-
tion analyst with many years experience in the use of video-graphic techniques and
methods for analysing work practices in the public sector. Recent work includes con-
sultant research activity in UK local authorities in the field of service integration and
collaborative intervention.
Address: Department of Organisation, Work and Technology, Lancaster University,
Lancaster LA1 4YX, UK.
Email: S.Regan@lancaster.ac.uk
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Frank Blackler
Suzanne Regan

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