Harnessing multiple voices: What mechanisms support judgment under institutional complexity?

Previous research has largely considered institutional complexity as a condition that organizations need to mitigate. In the present work, we explore instead whether there are certain mechanisms that allow individuals to harness such complexity productively. To address this, we focus on a pan-European business incubation program, engaged in technology transfer, and identify three primary logics that guide its decision process, namely state, market and technology. We find that during the project evaluations, there are three key mechanisms, which support the tender evaluation board in selecting new ventures. These are the presence of sequential interdependence among the criteria informed by different logics; non-compensatory decision rules; and the use of spatially demarcated discussion playgrounds with a fixed membership structure for every evaluation meeting. We also observe individual-level variation in the granularity of members' understanding of the different logics, based on their tenure in the program and type of prior experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]