Discourse, Field-Configuring Events, and Change in Organizations and Institutional Fields: Narratives of DDT and the Stockholm Convention

Abstract

We explore the discursive processes through which a field-configuring event can change an institutional field and organizations. Our case study is of the United Nations conference leading to the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, which established new global regulations for several dangerous chemicals but excepted the insecticide DDT. Our study highlights how the production, distribution, and consumption of texts in the multiple discursive spaces generated by a field-configuring event allow new narratives to be told, and how, in turn, these narratives can lead to change in an institutional field and in organizations through three mechanisms: domination, interpretation, and translation.