The Complexity and Centrality of Professional Schemas: Understanding the Dispersibility and Influence of Institutional Logics
Why has the market logic infiltrated so many professional domains that originally emerged to counteract market guile? Why are some institutional logics more influential than others in spreading to new domains? In this paper, we theorize that scholars can examine these questions by studying differences in the cognitive schemas associated with different institutional logics. We argue that professions more associated with the market logic have higher dispersibility because their cognitive schemas exhibit less complexity and more centrality than cognitive schemas of professions less associated with the market logic. We find support for our propositions through a comparative topic-model analysis of the foundational texts used to educate finance and nursing professionals. This research has implications for understanding the micro-level mechanisms of institutional logics and opens us possibilities for new research on institutional diffusion and the invasion of professional domains by the influences of alternative institutional orders.