09 January, 2020, Bengaluru: A paper titled: ‘A multi-institution discursive model of institutional entrepreneurship: The case of the Kinnar Akhara in India’, authored by Anupama Kondayya, doctoral scholar from the Organizational Behavior & Human Resources Management (OBHRM) area at IIMB, has won the Best Paper Award under the Organization & Management Theory track, at the Sixth Biennial Indian Academy of Management (INDAM) Conference 2020, conducted by IIM Tiruchirappalli, from January 02 to 04, 2020.
This paper looks at the formation and recognition of the Kinnar Akhara (transgender monastic order) to study institutional entrepreneurship in the institutional field of Akharas (monastic orders of warrior saints) that had primarily male membership for more than 500 years. The paper examines competing discourses emerging in the process, and marginal actors (as opposed to central actors in the institutional field) shaping the dominant discourse. It proposes a multi-level multi-institution discursive model of institutional entrepreneurship and identifies two categories of institutions that emerge during the process: legitimizing institutions (passive) that actors use for sensemaking to craft the discourse, and enabling institutions (active) which the actors engage in sensegiving through the created discourse.