Deinstitutionalization, Reinstitutionalization, Social Change and the Origins and Purposes of Internal Communication in the 1960s and 1970s
Deinstitutionalization is the process through which institutions that structure and legitimate social behaviour and practice are undermined, critiqued and ultimately revoked. Deinstitutionalization is an important way of historically explaining change, as the process ‘unfreezes’ history, so to speak, and enables new practices and structures to replace the deinstitutionalized ones, a process known as reinstitutionalization. Numerous studies have looked at the deinstitutionalization of a range of practices which include the use of the pesticide DDT (Maguire & Hardy, 2009), organizational environmental harm (Hoffman, 1999), radio broadcasting (Leblebici et al., 1991), paternalism in American universities (Rojas, 2010), French cuisine (Rao et al., 2003), university bonfires (Dacin & Dacin, 2008), religious reform (Gutierrez et al., 2010), education segregation (Aissaoui, 2022) and even trout fishing (Crawford et al., 2024)! An important question which has concerned deinstitutionalization in relation to organizations is that of causation. Opinion is divided between exogenous causation where change comes from outside the organization, usually in the form of external jolts from the macroenvironment, and endogenous causation where change is triggered within the organization, often with the aim of reform and organizational efficiency.
Two studies are of particular interest in relation to what appears to be an intractable problem. The first is Christine Oliver’s (1992) classic paper, ‘The Antecedents of Deinstitutionalization’. In the paper, Oliver argues that deinstitutionalization can be predicted according to three antecedents in the organizations macroenvironment: social, functional (technical) and political. Change in these areas will trigger transformation in an organization’s institutions, including potential deinstitutionalization. This can be moderated by organizational entropy whereby failing organizational institutions speed up the process of change, and organizational inertia through which change is resisted by organizations, and institutional transformation is slowed down. The second paper is Tolbert and Zucker’s (1983) analysis of the diffusion of institutional change in their historical study of municipal civil service reform in the USA between 1880 and 1935. While not a study of deinstitutionalization per se, Tolbert and Zucker do ask why organizational institutions change. They argue that in its initial stage institutional change is triggered internally by endogenous technical factors as organizations strive to improve their performance. However, as these changes diffuse over time and become increasingly normative, appropriation by late adopters is initiated by institutional pressures to conform. In this latter case change is caused by exogeneous factors in an organization’s social and institutional environment, as predicted by Meyer and Rowan (1977), rather than by technical and functional concerns.
In our source of the month for September we examine two sources from the Postal Office Museum and Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation’s (HSBC) Global Archives. Both are housed in London. Our two sources concern the emergence of internal communication (IC) in the 1970s in the UK, a key decade for its diffusion and institutionalisation. We first detected the use of the term IC in the archives of the BBC. This was dated to 1959. A second early dating was at the Midland Bank (now HSBC UK), where we found references to IC in 1960. However, IC spread slowly throughout Britain in the 1960s, and it is not until the 1970s that we begin to find sustained archival records that relate to the practice. Both of our sources of the month point to the importance of exogenous factors in deinstitutionalizing the old method of communicating to staff via company magazines and the institutionalization of the new practice of IC.
To understand this process we have to turn more broadly to the 1960s and 1970s which were periods of major socio-economic change in Britain. The 1960s ushered in a social and cultural revolution which has left its mark in collective memory in the UK as the ‘Swinging Sixties’. The era was famed for changes in youth culture, pop music, fashion, sexual liberation and of course England winning the World Cup in 1966. Yet what lay behind this was the culmination of an affluent society, based on disposable income, secure employment, higher levels of education, social mobility and increased consumption which had been growing since the 1950s in Britain. This had led to the emergence of a new generation, the Baby Boomers, who were characterised by their independent lifestyles, expressiveness, hyper individualism and a refusal to be tethered to the traditions of the past. The result of this was an end of deferential society in the UK, which for decades had been based on social class, religion, tradition and the passive acceptance of the right of the upper class to control Britain. In its place came a permissive society whose most extreme expressions were the student revolts of the late sixties and drugs, sex and rock and roll, but whose lasting legacies were the embedding of individualism, identity and popular culture in the UK.
The second major change was economic. The period was marked by inflation, worsening industrial relations and mass strike action, particularly in the 1970s. This culminated in the three-day week in Britain in late 1973 and 1974, when industrial action by coal miners and railway workers, forced the government to restrict employment to three working days to conserve electricity, and the ‘Winter of Discontent’ of 1978-1979 which witnessed major national industrial action, power black-outs and the collapse of many public services, including litter collection (Addison, 2010). Underlying this was the emergence of a far more assertive working class. Like the baby boomers these had benefitted from post-war affluence which had led to full-employment, higher incomes and increased consumption. Britain’s working class of the 1960s and 1970s were determined to hold on to their post-war economic gains which were threatened by rising prices, particularly in the 1970s. They were increasingly unwilling to be swayed by management and centralised trade unions, who together with the government had managed the economy since the Second World War. In the 1960s and 1970s work-based trade unionism and local shop stewards became much more prominent. This combined with full employment and the high inflation of the 1970s led to a rapid increase in industrial action and strikes. The number of strike days per 1,000 employees in the UK rocketed from 156 in 1965-69 to 585 in 1970-75 (Addison, 2010: 192).
The Postal Museum. Internal Communication Study Group, 1972. Report of the Internal Communication Study Group July 1972 (POST 151/55). Reproduced with kind permission of the Postal Museum. © Royal Mail Group 2025.
Our first source is an extract from the report of the Internal Communication Study Group (ICSG) at the British Post Office from 1972. The ICSG was set up following a national strike, the first in the three hundred year history of Royal Mail. The report of the ICSG and its associated files and memos, housed in the archives of the Post Office at The Postal Museum, is one of the most comprehensive historical sources we have on the creation of IC in Britain in the 1960s and 1970s. Its work and research led to the establishment of an Internal Communication Unit at the Post Office in 1979 and The Quality of Service Campaign, one of the first IC campaigns that we have comprehensive records on, from 1978 to the mid-1980s.
This source clearly tells us that a major motivation for establishing IC was a breakdown in labour and industrial relations at the Post Office. Since the Second World War communication with workers had been delegated to trade unions. The collapse in harmonious industrial relations and the rise in industrial action at the Post Office created a managerial need to communicate directly with employees. This was particularly the case as the 1970s was a period of major reorganisation and modernisation at the national mail and telecoms provider. The Post Office went on to create a highly sophisticated national system of IC that consisted of briefing groups, video, telex, CCTV, company magazines, bulletins, conferences, posters, staff reports, ephemera such as badges and t-shirts and later on media kits. This was cascaded down the different levels of the organization through briefing groups and then re-amplified back up through mass systems of communication. What this source clearly tells us is that this complex system of IC was developed to enhance managerial power and acted as an anti-union device.
HSBC Global Archives. Group Internal Communications Committee 1974-1976. Final report redrafted 30 April 1975, UK 0200-0333. Reproduced with kind permission of HSBC Global Archives.
Our second source is an extract from a report from the Global Internal Communication Committee of the Midland Banking Group from 1975. In the 1960s and early 1970s the Midland Bank (now HSBC UK) transformed itself from a British clearing bank into an integrated provider of financial and retail products. The Midland, for example, took over the merchant bank Samuel Montagu & Co. in 1967 and the travel agent Thomas Cook in 1972. The Midland Banking Group was now faced with integrating these different businesses into a single coherent organisation. IC was seen as a potential solution to this organisational dilemma. In 1974 the Group Internal Communications Committee was formed and tasked with creating an internal communication system for the whole group in order to keep its separate business units informed of what was happening in the organization as a whole. Its reports, minutes and documents have been preserved at HSBC Global Archives in London.
What this fascinating paragraph clearly tells us is that the Midland had a generation problem. The new baby boomer staff were not behaving the same as previous generations of banking clerical staff who submitted to the hierarchical and paternalist structure and culture of the bank and obediently did what they were told. They were too affluent, too educated and far too opinionated to be bossed around. Whilst this was a potential problem for the new Midland Banking Group, its group internal communications committee also saw in this conundrum a potential opportunity. Employees were now ready to be brought into the running of the Group. They were capable of taking on responsibilities and not simply carry out repetitive tasks, the corporate object of which most previous employees had had no idea of. And most importantly this new generation were ready to be spoken to and able to speak back and give their opinions. This would create valuable feedback for the bank and create a more motivated workforce. What we are seeing here is another vital element of IC that differentiated it from the older editorial and written form of communicating with staff which was based on company magazines. IC was a system of oral and two-way communication that was designed to speak and listen to employees in order to generate ideas, provide employee feedback and create a more integrated and engaged workforce. Its purpose was not simply communicative, but was premised on a managerial strategy of creating human resources for the organisation.
What these two sources clearly tell us is that the processes of deinstitutionalization and reinstitutionalization are clearly triggered by seismic changes in an organization’s macroenvironment (Oliver, 1992). In our case, the 1960s and 1970s created deep, structural changes in the social, cultural and economic environments of UK companies and organizations which forced them to turn to and adopt IC to deal with these shifts and ensuing challenges from their workforce. Yet what these sources also tell us is that this communicative turn was not motivated purely by negative factors such as the need to deal with striking employees or rowdy office workers. It was also initiated by the positive intent of integrating employees into the organisation through talking and listening to them and sharing responsibility. In this respect, to come back to our discussion at the beginning of this case-study, we see a pattern of institutional change. Transformation in institutions are triggered by external jolts which lead pioneering organisation to adopt new institutions to enhance organisational efficiency. These over time becomes accepted as the new institutional norm that late adopters are forced to conform to. We thus have an institutional dance, as evidenced by IC, from the external to the internal and then back to the external again.
References
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Crawford, B., Toubiana, M. & Coslor, E. (2024). From catch-and-harvest to catch-and-release: Trout Unlimited and repair-focused deinstitutionalization. Organization Studies 45(1), 109-136.
Dacin, T.M. & Dacin, P.A. (2008). Traditions as institutional practice: Implications for deinstitutionalization. In R. Greenwood, C. Oliver, K. Sahlin & R. Suddaby (Eds.). The SAGE handbook of organizational institutionalism (pp. 327-351). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
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Rojas, F. (2010). Power through institutional work: Acquiring academic authority in the 1969 third world strike. Academy of Management Journal 53(6), 1263-1280.
Tolbert, P.S. & Zucker, L.G. (1983). Institutional sources of change in the formal structure of organizations: The diffusion of civil service reform, 1880-1935. Administrative Science Quarterly 28(1), 22-39.