IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/mes/jeciss/v45y2011i4p805-818.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Identifying Institutional Vulnerability: The Importance of Language, and System Boundaries

Author

Listed:
  • Wilfred Dolfsma
  • John Finch
  • Robert McMaster

Abstract

Taking the idea that institutional reproduction is not obvious and that institutions are vulnerable has significant conceptual implications. Institutional vulnerability can arise through communication between actors in a common language. To apprehend this requires an elaboration of John Searle's (1995, 2005) argument that language is the fundamental institution. Ontologically, language delineates and circumscribes a community. A community cannot function without a common language, and language at the same time constitutes a community's boundaries, allowing for focused and effective communication within a community. Communication through language introduces ambiguity as well, however, and so institutional reproduction, mediated by language, is a deeply contentious process. Communication across boundaries may particularly "irritate" a system, as Niklas Luhmann has argued. How can institutions then be re-identified through change? Searle's general form for institutions is in need of elaboration. We develop arguments by drawing upon Luhmann's (1995) systems analysis and notion of communication.

Suggested Citation

  • Wilfred Dolfsma & John Finch & Robert McMaster, 2011. "Identifying Institutional Vulnerability: The Importance of Language, and System Boundaries," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(4), pages 805-818.
    • Handle: RePEc:mes:jeciss:v:45:y:2011:i:4:p:805-818
    DOI: 10.2753/JEI0021-3624450403
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.2753/JEI0021-3624450403
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.2753/JEI0021-3624450403?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Juan Monserrat-Gauchi & Manuel Novo-Domínguez & Rosa Torres-Valdés, 2019. "Interrelations between the Media and Architecture: Contribution to Sustainable Development and the Conservation of Urban Spaces," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(20), pages 1-21, October.
    2. Deirdre Shaw & Robert McMaster & Terry Newholm, 2016. "Care and Commitment in Ethical Consumption: An Exploration of the ‘Attitude–Behaviour Gap’," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 136(2), pages 251-265, June.
    3. Welter, Friederike & Smallbone, David, 2015. "Creative forces for entrepreneurship: The role of institutional change agents," Working Papers 01/15, Institut für Mittelstandsforschung (IfM) Bonn.
    4. Carole Heather Walker & Sophie Thunus, 2020. "Meeting Boundaries: Exploring the Faces of Social Inclusion beyond Mental Health Systems," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(1), pages 214-224.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:mes:jeciss:v:45:y:2011:i:4:p:805-818. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/MJEI20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.