Abstract
This PhD thesis contains three distinct papers together with an overarching introductory chapter investigating the dynamics of emerging institutions at a multilevel. Institutions are rules, norms, and historically patterned behaviors, which are practiced in the setting of complex social systems, where multiple interconnected levels — individual, organization, field — exist. The interaction between and within these interconnected levels may result in the emergence of new organizational forms and institutions, which is the main subject of this PhD thesis. With this context, the introductory chapter conceptualizes the main framework of the thesis with regard to the complexity of institutions and emerging patterns. The first study, using an agent-based simulation method, explores the role of field structure — social positions, field connectedness, informal communities — on the emergence of new organizational forms. The second paper, relying on the qualitative analysis of a leading European academic organization, sheds lights on how organizations manage their internal tensions during transformation processes in the context of emerging institutions. The last paper, with the aid of an agent-based simulation model, and analyzing the case of French business schools, demonstrates how the adoption of new multiple institutionally in-line practices leads to the emergence of new organizational forms and isomorphism in institutional fields.