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In the Land of Sand and Oil: How the Macrofoundations of a Tribal Society Shape the Implementation of Public–Private Partnerships

Macrofoundations: Exploring the Institutionally Situated Nature of Activity

ISBN: 978-1-83909-160-5, eISBN: 978-1-83909-159-9

Publication date: 26 November 2020

Abstract

Research on institutional logics has missed the opportunity to understand how and why societies may fundamentally differ in their material and symbolic systems. In this chapter, the authors offer a qualitative examination of the implementation of infrastructure public–private partnership (PPP) projects in the Arab state of Qatar. The authors illustrate how the macrofoundations of Qatari society are rooted in the notion of tribe, an inter-institutional system under which the intertwined institutional orders of the state, the market, and the family have historically developed and operated. Their study sheds light on how these macrofoundations shape the processes and mechanisms that underpin the resistance to the introduction of innovative organizational forms. The chapter makes two contributions. First, it identifies how “foreign” organizational forms rooted in Western institutional orders trigger adverse reactions from societies characterized by different institutional orders. Second, it demonstrates the challenge of implementing PPPs in an institutional context that is unfavorable to them and where actors seek to preserve the supremacy of the extant inter-institutional system.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Renate Meyer, Markus Höllerer, Leanne Cutcher, and Stewart Clegg for their excellent comments and feedback on this paper, and all the other participants at the Paper Development Workshop in Organization and Management Studies at the UNSW Business School, Sydney, Australia.

Citation

Biygautane, M., Micelotta, E., Gabbioneta, C. and Cappellaro, G. (2020), "In the Land of Sand and Oil: How the Macrofoundations of a Tribal Society Shape the Implementation of Public–Private Partnerships", Steele, C.W.J., Hannigan, T.R., Glaser, V.L., Toubiana, M. and Gehman, J. (Ed.) Macrofoundations: Exploring the Institutionally Situated Nature of Activity (Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol. 68), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 67-96. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X20200000068006

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

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