This dissertation investigates the topic of organizational continuity and change as it occurred throughout General Motors, most specifically its Lansing Delta Township (LDT) manufacturing plant, in order to better understand processes of institutionalization and the implications of both continuity and change on organizations and society. The research and analysis rests on new institutional theory and privileges the “...field rather than the organization” as a focus of analysis (Davis and Marquis 2005: 332). So although my ethnographic data was collected at LDT—my focus is on the larger institutional field in which LDT is a part. The institutional field is inclusive of the General Motors Corporation, the auto-industry as a whole, in addition to the local Lansing, Michigan community and individual social agents within it. The work of Bourdieu (1993) and his notion of the field, as well as, the broader discipline of anthropology support this theoretical grounding with its interest in rules, norms, behaviors, and cognitive schema. Most significant regarding this notion of the field is the fact that is serves as the location of contestation where power relations play out—the power relations being defined by the specific field, the habitus, and the social capital possessed by the actors. Bourdieu’s (1993) notion of a field presents a required construct when analyzing processes of continuity and change. This dissertation aims to demonstrate how large scale social and economic changes in the auto industry have impact on the local level and offers insight to anthropologists and other socials scientists interested in understanding how particular institutions change over time (Davis and Marquis 2005:333). By focusing on the field as opposed to the organization our understanding of how institutional continuity and change occur is strengthened. This focus overcomes the weaknesses of previous research that drew lines of demarcation around particular organizations and attempted to analyze them independent of the larger global context. This dissertation does not attempt to build a general theory of organizations; in fact, quite the opposite, this dissertation aims to elucidate changes as they occurred in a specific time and place in direct reference to LDT’s unique context. This pursuit is in accord with what Davis and Marquis championed as the next step in organizational theory the attempt to understand more deeply mechanism-based conceptions of how change occurs (2005:335). This research relies on Scott (1995, 2013) for its working definition of institutions and grounds its understanding of observable stability within GM in concepts put forth by Scott. Institutions according to Scott “consist of cognitive, normative, and regulative structures and activities that provide stability and meaning to social behavior. Institutions are transported by various carriers—culture, structure, and routines—and they operate at multiple levels of jurisdiction” (1995:33). The construct of routines as established within the sub-field of evolutionary economics and theories of evolutionary change will be employed to help explain observations of how continuity and change occurred at LDT. By relying on a field level approach this dissertation contributes to the discipline of anthropology by advancing understanding of how institutional continuity and change occur—both LDT’s recent lean manufacturing initiatives, GM’s bankruptcy, as well as the impact and influence that bankruptcy had on the lean initiative which was underway throughout the corporation all contribute to an unprecedented context in which to examine processes of institutionalization.
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