Street-Level Workers as Institutional Entrepreneurs [electronic resource] : Agents of Change in the Implementation of Public Policy / by Olivia Mettang.

Chapter 1. Introduction: Can Street-Level Workers Be Institutional Entrepreneurs? -- Chapter 2. Conceptualizing Street-Level Workers as Institutional Entrepreneurs -- Chapter 3. Institutional Logics as an Approach to Embedded vs. Free Agency -- Chapter 4. Morality Policy as a Most-likely Case for Institutional Entrepreneurship -- Chapter 5. Capturing Institutional Entrepreneurship in Discourse: A Qualitative Approach -- Chapter 6. Three Case Studies on Street-Level Agency in Institutional Contexts -- Chapter 7. Conclusion.

Introducing the institutional logics perspective to street-level analysis, this book examines how street-level workers deal with the institutional logics that guide their organization - whether they follow or challenge them. While doing so, the book develops a theoretical framework to study street-level workers' institutional agency within organizations from different institutional backgrounds. The book conceptualizes street-level workers as institutional entrepreneurs and presents an original process model to capture deinstitutionalization efforts in street-level discourse. This ordinal model accounts for embedded agency and institutional entrepreneurship as well as for more gradual moves towards deinstitutionalization through the hybridization of institutional logics. The author tests the model empirically using interview data and discusses how street-level workers diverge from the institutional logic of their organization in almost two thirds of their statements, indicating a tendency towards institutional entrepreneurship. The book finally combines two literature strands: institutionalism and implementation research, showing how street-level workers may be perceived as institutional entrepreneurs. This book will appeal to students, scholars, and researchers of political science, public policy, public administration, and organizational studies, as well as to practitioners and policy-makers interested in a better understanding of institutional entrepreneurs, street work, and the institutional logics perspective. .