Hybrid Forms and Institutional Change in the Early California Thrift Industry: 1865-1928

This chapter is concerned with institutional change. We focus on organizations as the means by which institutions are created, transformed, and extinguished because organizations are, arguably, the most powerful and pervasive elements of modern society. Accordingly, we undertake here a study of how institutions and the organizational forms that embody them coevolve; i.e., we assess how institutional definitions, rules, and expectations unfold in tandem with organizational structures.