74 4: Public Institutional Th eory
the primary work on the distinctions between the two is done by a sociolo-
gist. W. Richard Scott, the eminent Stanford sociologist, is the author of the
defi nitive work on the subject, Institutions and Organizations (1995). In highly
sociological language, he defi nes institutions as “cognitive, normative, and reg-
ulatory structures and activities that provide stability and meaning to social
behavior. Institutions are transported by various carriers—cultures, structures,
and routines—and they operate at multiple levels of jurisdiction” (33). Th ere
are, Scott contends, three pillars of institutions: regulative, normative, and cog-
nitive (35–62). Th e regulative pillar of institutions includes common elements
of organization theory, such as rules, laws, sanctions, a distinct inclination to-
ward performance or results, a workforce defi ned by experience, forms of coer-
cion, routines resting on protocols, standard operating procedures, governance
systems, and systems allocating power and its exercise. Public administration
embodies one especially important feature of Scott’s regulative pillar: the consti-
tutional and legal basis of authority and power. Virtually all the features of Scott’s
regulative pillar are essentially the same as those in modern organization theory,
and particularly the applications of that theory found in public administration
(Rainey 1997; Denhardt 1993; Gortner, Mahler, and Nicholson 1997).
Scott’s normative pillar of institutions includes the logic of appropriateness as
against rational goal-driven choice making, social expectations and obligations
based on these expectations, patterns of certifi cation and accreditation, and an
emphasis on conformity and the performance of duty. Especially important to
public administration are values and legitimacy of the public service in carrying
out the democratic moral order, or, put another way, democratic regime values.
Virtually all aspects of Scott’s normative pillar of institutional theory would be
easily recognized by students of public administration.
Scott’s cognitive pillar of institutional theory includes patterns of behavior
based on established categories and routines, patterns of institutional adapta-
tion, innovation based on mimicking, a decided tendency toward institutional
isomorphism, and tendencies to risk-aversion and orthodoxy. Th e legitimacy of
cognitive patterns in public administration traces to broad-based political and
even cultural support. Again, there appears to be little signifi cant distinction
between organization theory, as that phrase is generally understood in public
administration, and Scott’s conception of the cognitive aspects of institutional
theory.
Th e bigger point here is that in public administration as well as in other ap-
plications of modern organization theory, such as business or education adminis-
tration, organization theory has become institutional theory. Th e diff erences have
to do with the comparative emphasis on formal structure and on management in
organization theory, the emphasis in institutional theory on patterns of collec-
tive behavior that are better understood as exogenous to the formal organization,
and on patterns of interaction between institutions and their broader social, eco-
nomic, and political contexts.