Additional resources - Institutions

Increasing institutional diversity

Further reading and guides for anyone interested in learning more about this topic.

1. The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields (Paul DiMaggio and Walter Powell, American Sociological Review, 1983): A foundational paper behind the institutional monoculture thesis, identifying coercive, mimetic and normative forces that drive bureaucratic homogeneity: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2095101

2. Reinventing Organizations (Frédéric Laloux): A widely read taxonomy of alternative organisational forms among senior leaders, including its open-access wiki: https://www.reinventingorganizations.com/

3. The Human Handbrake: How Whitehall Culture Holds Back Public Service Reform (Amy Gandon and Anna Garrod, Demos): A recent UK report on civil service culture as an obstacle to institutional change: https://demos.co.uk/research/the-human-handbrake-how-whitehall-culture-holds-back-public-service-reform/

4. Free, Fair and Alive: The Insurgent Power of the Commons (David Bollier and Silke Helfrich, New Society): A practical, readable manual for understanding commons institutions: https://freefairandalive.org/

5. Organising #BeyondtheRules (Dark Matter Labs, four-part Medium series): A first-person account of building a non-isomorphic institution, and an articulation of the idea of "hidden wiring": https://provocations.darkmatterlabs.org/organising-beyondtherules-at-dark-matter-labs-e59e4f5dd32f

6. The Decelerator: Helps British Nonprofits With Closures, Mergers, and Transitions (Iona Lawrence and Frances Armstrong, Stanford Social Innovation Review): The accessible introduction to better endings as institutional practice. https://ssir.org/articles/entry/decelerator-organization-endings

7. The Community Paradigm (Adam Lent and Jessica Studdert, New Local): A manifesto for community-powered institutional reform: https://www.newlocal.org.uk/research/the-community-paradigm/

8. Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES): The home of community wealth building in the UK, including the Preston model and the international Centre of Excellence. https://cles.org.uk/

9. The Institutional Architecture Lab (TIAL): A hub for institutional design as a discipline: https://www.tial.world/

10. OECD Observatory of Public Sector Innovation (OPSI): An international gateway to experiments in institutional innovation across OECD governments: https://oecd-opsi.org/