The purpose of our study is to answer the following research question:
how can marginal actors with limited resources and
power achieve institutional change by creating and
promoting their logic? Drawing on a historical-longitudinal case study
of one of the most intense environmental
controversy between an Indigenous Nation, and Hydro-Québec, in James
Bay, northern
Quebec, this paper makes three contributions to
current discussions of institutional change and logics. First, we
identify
three strategic mechanisms - capacity-building,
field expansion and changing own logic - through which marginalized
actors
are able to initiate and maintain the need for
change despite continuous pressure from a strong, resourceful and
legitimate
competing logic. Second, responding to several
calls for research on the unintended outcomes of the institutional work
achieved,
our research advances the conceptualization of
institutional work accumulation. Third, our study shows that actors and
the
logics they convey are not static; rather, they are
dynamic and evolve during the process while actors negotiate issues of
competing logics and complexity.