Interactional governing activities: A novel perspective on how actors co‐develop field governance

Abstract

We advance a novel perspective to study how field actors co‐develop field governance through continuous interactions. Field governance determines the formal and informal rules of a field, defining membership boundaries and core practices. Prior research has mostly studied the establishment of top‐down regulations or the work of advocacy and social movement organisations to influence or overthrow existing regimes. We review 147 previously disconnected articles on field governance and institutional work and identify interactional governing activities (IGAs), the concept we advance and define as the strategic and interactional activities actors deploy to develop, disrupt and maintain field governance. Depending on field conditions, we propose that actors combine IGAs in various interaction modes to either oppose the existing order, lobby for change or collaborate to jointly develop field governance. We contribute to the scholarly understanding of field governance development by proposing a continuous process that extends beyond influencing regulatory decision‐making to include knowledge‐building and interactional infrastructure‐development activities. Our study provides novel insights on collaborative institutional work for field governance co‐development by heterogeneous actors. By defining and categorising IGAs, we contribute to both a more integrative theoretical understanding of field governance as well as a playbook for practitioners, collective interest organisations and regulators engaged in field‐building work.