The article analyses the introduction and use of an IT platform in two Swedish schools. The aim is to examine the role of information systems in shaping institutional complexity, and the research questions addressed are: what logics are manifested through the use of the system and how do they interact with each other in relation to teachers’ emerging work practices? The article is based on a qualitative case study of how teachers and principals perceive and use the system, and it combines theoretical thinking on institutional logics and complexity with ideas on materiality and its role in organisational change. An analysis of three teacher practices that are emerging with use of the system enables a discussion of the presence and, notably, interplay of three primary logics. Logics of professionalism, bureaucracy and management are shown to interrelate in competitive but, primarily, cooperative ways. The very materiality of the IT system is shown to attenuate experiences of incompatibilities between logics and facilitate the management of different logics when they are actually perceived to be incompatible. Contrary to what much previous literature on institutional complexity in the field of education suggests, we therefore argue that institutional complexity may facilitate and enrich teachers’ practices instead of merely constituting a hindrance.

Purpose: Policy change is frequently framed as resulting from governmental strategy based on explicit preferences, rational decision making and consecutive and aligned implementation. The purpose of this paper is to explore the theoretical perspective of institutional work as an alternative approach to understanding policy change, and investigates the construction of resources needed to perform such work.

Design/methodology/approach: The paper is based on a case study of the process wherein the idea of cultural and creative industries was introduced into Lithuanian cultural policy. The main data generating methods are document studies and qualitative interviews.

Findings: The analysis demonstrates the ways in which the resources needed to perform institutional work are created through the enactment of practice, and through the application of resourcing techniques. Three such techniques are identified in the empirical material: the application of experiences from other fields of practice, the elicitation of external support, and the borrowing of legitimacy.

Originality/value: The study offers an alternative approach to studies of policy change by demonstrating the value of institutional work in such change. Further, it contributes to the literature on institutional work by highlighting how instances of such work, drawing on a distributed agency, interlink and connect to each other in a process to produce policy change. Finally, it proposes three interrelated resourcing techniques underlying institutional work.

The aim of the article is to analyse and comprehend the interplay of institutional logics in the realisation of Stockholm's House of Culture, Kulturhuset, hereby beginning to answer the question of what role cultural logics play in cultural development projects. Based on an in-depth case study of the process leading up to the creation of Kulturhuset, the article explores the interplay of a politico-bureaucratic logic and a cultural–professional logic governing the evolution of the project. Following a Scandinavian tradition of interpretative studies of complex development projects, the making of Kulturhuset is framed as an extraordinary project involving a complicated development process. The process dynamics are explored and analysed through the lens of institutional complexity. The article's main contribution lies in its highlighting the interplay of – and nuancing the relation between – institutional logics. It also serves as a reminder of the power of bureaucratic ordering in urban development projects.