This article seeks to articulate the concept of the transformational organization, an organization with the capacity to transform its institutional environment with discontinuous changes in normative patterns or institutional rules. The possibility of an organization successfully departing from the contours of the institutional environment seems doubtful given our understanding of institutional processes, such as institutional isomorphism and path dependency. Drawing on the historical case of the Institut Pasteur, we identify the primary institutional mechanisms that allowed the Institut...

This article seeks to articulate the concept of the transformational organization, an organization with the capacity to transform its institutional environment with discontinuous changes in normative patterns or institutional rules. The possibility of an organization successfully departing from the contours of the institutional environment seems doubtful given our understanding of institutional processes, such as institutional isomorphism and path dependency. Drawing on the historical case of the Institut Pasteur, we identify the primary institutional mechanisms that allowed the Institut Pasteur to successfully alter the French scientific environment with the creation of the discipline of biomedicine.