Medicinal Cannabis in New Zealand: An Institutional Logics Perspective

Abstract

Language plays an important role in both the institutional logics and institutional entrepreneurship strands of research. The underlying institutional logic guiding an actor’s behaviour is reflected in the language and vocabulary they use while institutional entrepreneurs will use language strategically in order to convince others of the legitimacy of their solutions. This is particularly important in emerging fields where a lack of institutional norms provide entrepreneurs with the opportunity to shape the institutional environment in a way that benefits them. However, despite the important role of language in both strands of research, there is a surprising lack of literature investigating how institutional logics can be incorporated within an institutional entrepreneur’s rhetorical strategy to theorise alternative practices. This study aims to address this gap by investigating how stakeholder groups within the emerging New Zealand medicinal cannabis field incorporate institutional logics within their rhetorical strategies. This study utilises a qualitative case-study approach given the unique nature of the New Zealand healthcare system. A deductive directed qualitative content analysis of public written submissions made by organisations on the Misuse of Drugs (Medicinal Cannabis) Amendment Bill was conducted. These submissions were coded according to four key institutional logics identified in the literature: science, care, state, and market. The results showed that the state logic dominated the rhetorical strategies employed by all stakeholders. This was unsurprising given that submissions were directed to the New Zealand Parliament, the country’s ultimate regulatory authority. What was surprising was that all stakeholder groups, with the exception of industry members, shared a common goal of improving patient and community well-being, and that the utilisation of logics simply reflected differences in the means used to achieve these ends. This finding provides two main contributions to the literature. Firstly, that the ends of social actors within a field may be constrained by broader societal-level norms. Secondly, in emerging fields which are constituents of larger fields, the societal pressures of the wider field at large may also constrain the ends which actors may work towards, thus the rhetorical strategies of social actors are restricted to only influencing the means through which ends are achieved.