Going cashless: change in institutional logic and consumption practices in the face of institutional disruption

Abstract

This study explores how sudden disruptive changes lead to changes in institutional logic and associated consumption practices. The empirical context is provided by the demonetization of high-denomination currency in India in 2016. The findings reveal that micro-level consumption practices are embedded within macro-level social structures and institutions. Therefore, institutional changes lead to corresponding changes in the material, competence, and meaning dimensions of consumption practices. This study examines the neglected dimension of the delegitimation of consumption practices and markets. The study points to artifactual spatialization and indirect identification as important mechanisms of change in materiality, and sheds light on the microfoundations of institutions. It explores the sensemaking work of adjusting, adapting, adopting, and advocating by microactors and the sensegiving work of problematizing, enrolling, and facilitating by macro-actors. Thus, sensemaking and sensegiving enactments are conceptualized as institutional work.