Multi-level Analysis of institutional formation and change: the case of the Paralympic Movement

The paper develops a multi-level, mechanism-based analysis of institutional formation and change at the organizational field level based on Wright & Zammuto (2013) theoretical framework. Specifically, the research question is how and why do institutions form and change through the interplay of multi-level mechanisms? We answer with a processual analysis of particular empirical context, the international governing bodies of sport for people with an impairment. The analysis shows how field logic moved from rehabilitation-sport logic to sport logic, through the interplay between disability conceptualization at the societal level, shifting logic at the field level carried by sport classifications systems and the organizational actions interpreting and reinterpreting field logic. The study 1) highlights how field logic shifted in moment of alignment between progression at the societal, field and organizational and individual levels; 2) exemplifies institutional change triggered by logic shifting on a continuum between two ideal-types and; 3) offers new point of departure to consider agency and hybridized logic.