Sociocognitive Relationships for Innovation under Institutional Constraints

This article provides a theoretical framework that explains how organizational actors—persons, teams, and organizations—can attempt to be innovative under institutional constraints and elaborates the sociocognitive mechanisms via which innovation emerges. Recognizing that innovative work is often relationship-driven, this article develops relationship-focused theory by integrating individualistic approaches (where each organizational actor is assumed to be internally self-sufficient) and relational approaches (where innovative work happens through a process of relating among organizational actors). Propositions suggest that contradiction versus consistency between institutionalized task and socialization structures determine the optimal type of sociocognitive relationship, and that institutionalized climate moderates the association between the type of sociocognitive relationship and the performance of innovative outcomes.