Isomorphism, Isopraxism and Isonymism: Complementary or Competing Processes?

New institutional theory has been critizised, for describing institutionalization as a static qualitative state rather than a process. In this paper we provide an extended understanding of the process of institutionalization by replacing the mechanical concept of diffusion by the concept of translation and an analytical model of "trevel of ideas". Analyzing the field material from three cases of translation of ides in Swedish health care sector we have traced not only various homogenizing but also heterogenizing processes which reproduce organizational ideas, models, and practices. In the paper we suggest and discuss how name, form, and practice can be seen as different expressions of an idea through which organizations can be homogenized or heteroginized in an institutional process.