Commitment to an Emerging Organizational Field, Institutional Entrepreneurship, and the Perception of Opportunity: An Enactment Theory

Given an indifferent institutional environment, ongoing commitment to an emerging organizational field is critical. We build and test an enactment theory of commitment that holds that commitment is driven by institutional entrepreneurship, specifically actions to educate stakeholders, but that this factor is mediated by perception of an opportunity that rests on beliefs in industry attractiveness, superior products and services, and the likelihood of disruptive exogenous change. We illustrate this theory with findings from surveys of energy efficiency and renewable energy businesses. The results highlight the central role of actions to educate stakeholders. When an institutional domain is not yet fully established, the effect of entrepreneurs' actions to educate stakeholders is not just external, but has an important inward function of bolstering the entrepreneurs' ongoing commitment to the emerging field.