"The Interplay between Issue Arenas, Relational Structures, and Meaning Systems".

Scholars have studied organizational fields using three broad conceptual approaches- relational structures, meaning systems, and issue arenas- yet have tended to use the conceptualisations separately. Given that each conceptualisation offers a different perspective on the field - relational, cultural and political respectively - we argue that favouring one conceptualisation over another offers an incomplete understanding of the dynamics of field change processes. We examine the question of how issue arenas interact with field relational structures and meaning systems through a longitudinal qualitative case study of institutional change in the field of scientific research production in Australia. Our findings show how problem theorization and political action in the issue arena interplays with the field's meaning systems to enable new institutional logics to emerge and relational structures to shift. We offer a process model of how fields change when the issue arena is coherently aligned with the meaning system and enables peripheral actors to move to the centre of the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]