Summarize the article - Research Paper Example

Article Summary and Response In this article, Hardy and Maguire explore the discursive processes that can be used to change an organization and institutional field with the help of field-configuring event. This article is based on the case study of the UN conference which served as a platform of the Stockholm Convention on the Persistent Organic Pollutants. This Convention formulated new regulations for a range of harmful chemicals except insecticide DDT. This research elaborates the way textual production, consumption, and distribution in the diverse discursive spaces made by events that configure fields enable the telling of new narratives and the way, these narratives can cause a change in organizations as well as institutional fields through domination, translation, and interpretation.

Field-configuring events are such temporary social organizations that provide platforms for people to periodically assemble from diverse organizations and purposes to realize their common concerns and develop coordination among themselves. To achieve the objectives of the study, the authors collected documents on the POPs issue and a range of texts from different INC meetings. They also gathered major texts related to the Stockholm meetings as well as the DDT issue made and distributed outside meetings.

This study was conducted using an exploratory case study to gather a holistic and elaborating understanding of the field-level organizational change. The rationale behind selection of this case is that it is well-documented with major texts created and distributed by the participants being mostly in the public domain. In addition to that, the conference format is useful because it represents a range of multilateral meetings conducted by many international agencies including the UN. The specific focus of the authors was upon the struggle over the practices of using DDT during this conference.

DDT was selected for consideration because this chemical’s discussion was a major element of the conference that was also different from the discussions of the rest of the POPs. It seemed at the conference’s beginning that DDT would be deal with in a similar way to other POPs, but agreement upon the legal text established DDT as the only chemical that was intentionally produced with its use being restricted subject rather than eliminated to certain conditions. This is a very useful and informative article that touches upon very important topics of national as well as international concern.

In spite of the fact that various limitations apply on this study, the narratives presented by the authors are quite useful in elaborating important changes in POPs which surpass new regulations about changes in the revised understanding and positions of DDT. The narratives draw upon the field-level impacts of the measures taken by the different kinds of nonstate actors that are passively engaged in the official UN negotiations thus complementing researches directed at bargaining among the different state actors.

They also elaborate the way changes in a certain field may happen during the field-configuring events. This study also provides valuable in-sight into the factors that caused the use of DDT to double from the year 2000 to the year 2006. References:Hardy, C., and Maguire, S. (2010). Discourse, field-configuring events, and change in organizations and institutional fields: narratives of DDT and the Stockholm Convention. Academy of Management Journal. 53(6), 1365–1392.