Cooperation beyond Institutions. The Case of the Lodi Model.
Marco M. Daprà, Louvain Research Institute in Management and Organizations
Desirée Del Chiaro, Independent Researcher Pursey Heugens, Rotterdam School of Management
Summary
Institutions underpin the taken-for-granted norms and belief systems that enable cooperation in everyday organizational life. However, what fosters cooperation when institutional frameworks collapse remains insufficiently understood while sustaining cooperation is essential to forming new normative frameworks. This is particularly true in extreme contexts where collective action toward a shared goal becomes imperative. This study investigates these dynamics through an in-depth empirical analysis of Lodi Hospital, the first healthcare institution in the Western world to confront the COVID-19 emergency. Our findings reveal that a shared commitment to an overarching interpretive framework and persistent ethics of care were foundational to enabling cooperation and facilitating a broader organizational paradigm shift. We contribute to the literature on institutional collapse and extreme contexts by showing (1) that cooperation can precede and underpin the reconstruction of institutional norms and (2) that institutional collapse and emergence are heterogeneous processes across institutional orders.
Keywords: Crisis Management, Institutional Theory
