From a 'Cultural Dope' to a 'Heroic Entrepreneur' - Tracing the Origin of Institutional Entrepreneurs' Skills by Means of Reflection-in-Action

Institutional entrepreneurs are said to possess social skills, which enable them to initiate institutional change. These skills can be divided into analytical, empathic and strategic skills. Although these findings bring us a step closer in decoding the paradox of the embedded agency, some questions remain unanswered. It remains unclear why some actors possess these skills, while others do not. The paper assumes that a reflection-in-action process, which is initiated by institutional pluralism, causes the emergence of institutional entrepreneurs’ skills. This process consists of four phases: (i) ‘Problem framing’ (the setting of an unfamiliar situation); (ii) ‘Analysing repertoire-knowledge’ (learning from similar situations); (iii) ‘Considering fundamental methods of inquiry and overarching theories’ (applying alien techniques on challenging situations); (iv) ‘Analysing the process of reflection-in-action’ (experimenting on challenging situations). By studying a Swiss spatial planner from a middle-sized town, who is in regular interactions with stakeholders from different logic backgrounds, preliminary findings indicate that institutional pluralism causes a reflection-in-action process. However, further studies on other spatial planners are needed to examine whether reflection-in-action leads to the acquisition of institutional entrepreneurs’ skills.