Structure-agency dualism in institutional theory: An investigation on industrialists and businesspeople's associations and their members in Turkey

This study, under the framework of "structure-agency" dualism constituting an old tension in social thought, attempts to examine institutional theory arisen as a prominent theoretical approach in organization theory in the last quarter of the century. The study, specifically aims to understand the features of agency, which have hardly been investigated not only in institutional theory but also almost in all fields of the social sciences. In this regard, based on Emirbayer and Mische's approaches on agentic dimensions, agency intentions of collective and individual actors in production/reproduction processes at different levels and in different relational contexts have become an issue of concern. In relation to this concern, an investigation was conducted on the concept "ideology" across two distinct voluntary-based associations and their members in Turkey, TÜSİAD (Turkish Industrialists' and Businessmen's Association)/TÜRKONFED (Turkish Enterprise and Business Confederation) and MÜSİAD (Independent Industrialists' and Businessmen's Association). As part of the investigation, the data were obtained from periodicals and social media for organizational-level actors and from social media and interviews for individual-level actors. The data obtained were analyzed using content analysis. Findings of the investigation support Emirbayer and Mische's suggestions that different contexts conduce to different agentic intentions. Accordingly, ideology production and reproduction of collective and individual actors noticeably varied among periodicals, social media and interviews, in another word, in different relational contexts. Research findings were discussed from the perspectives of institutional theory, structure-agency dualism, and Turkish context.