Introduction Organizational members at workplaces become victims of meaninglessness when they gradually lose their ability to believe in the importance and usefulness of any action, and eventually consider work as a burden or a meaningless chore (Lips-Wiersma and Morris, 2013). Causes of meaninglessness can be multifarious. A concerted effort by the research community can help identify antecedents, outcomes, scope conditions, semantic relationships and mechanisms surrounding this construct. In this paper, we focus on one precursor of meaninglessness – institutional inconsistency. Institutional inconsistencies arise when competing institutional prescriptions clash, for example, during occasions of institutional change. Such occasions require organizational members to think of alternative ideas and values. Frequently, it becomes necessary to identify new means for resolving conflicts (Creed et al., 2010; Goodrick and Reay, 2011; Greenwood and Suddaby, 2006; Greenwood et al., 2011). Not all organizational members cope with the institutional demands in the same manner. Members of an organization differ in their mindsets (Kegan, 1982, 1994). Hence, there arises diversity in experiences of and reactions to institutional inconsistencies. The same situation may lead to certain organizational members developing a sense of meaninglessness, while others experience no such feeling. Extant research has thoroughly investigated the role of conflicting logics behind different institutions (Goodrick and Reay, 2011), the levels of conflict between them (Pache and Santos, 2010), the relative exposure of organizations and organizational members to the institutional inconsistencies (Greenwood and Suddaby, 2006; Reay et al., 2006) and the ways the institutional inconsistencies can be managed at the organizational and field levels (Besharov and Smith, 2014; Reay and Hinings, 2009). But institutional inconsistencies are more cognitive in nature and are better understood at the organizational member level (Creed et al., 2010; Suddaby, 2010; Voronov and Yorks, 2015). The origin and diffusion of meaning-making can be better explained at the organizational member level (Suddaby, 2010). Yet, research on how organizational members experience such conflicting institutional prescriptions differently to develop varied levels of meaninglessness is scarce (except Creed et al., 2010; Hensmans, 2003; Suddaby, 2010). In this paper, we wish to develop this theme. Bartunek et al. (1983) advice that developmental stage theories are well placed to deal with the complex nature of many organizational problems. In the context of our inquiry, Kegan’s (1982, 1994) constructive development theory (hereafter, CDT) fits the bill. The CDT highlights the ways organizational members develop and make sense of their personality and the surroundings in the light of their experiences. In this research, we use the CDT to inquire how institutional inconsistencies experienced by organizational members translate into a feeling of meaninglessness. The CDT helps clarify the mechanism through which institutional inconsistencies translate into different degrees of meaninglessness in various mindsets. We expect that our work shall serve as a guidepost for scholars who attempt to develop strategies that can help managers counter the meaninglessness in their organizations. In the next section, we briefly review the literature on institutional inconsistencies. Then, we examine the conditioning role of institutional conformity pressure and disposition pressure that differently affect the conversion of institutional inconsistencies into meaninglessness in different organizational members. Next, taking the difference in organizational members’ mindsets – as categorized in the CDT – we explain the difference in their understandings and reactions to institutional inconsistencies. We drive some empirically testable propositions. We conclude highlighting some limitations of this work and identifying some avenues for future research. Review of previous research: institutional inconsistencies Institutions are underlying beliefs and dogmas that grow to become rules which monitor organizational members’ actions and activities (Jepperson, 1991; Lammers and Barbour, 2006; Scott, 2001). Institutions are dynamic in nature and evolve gradually (Ansari et al., 2010; Fiss et al., 2012; Gondo and Amis, 2013). The ample extant literature shows how institutions change and diffuse and what mechanisms guide such change and diffusion (Ansari et al., 2010; Fiss et al., 2012; Gondo and Amis, 2013). This change in institutions can be an outcome of certain institutional inconsistencies (Creed et al., 2010; Friedland and Alford, 1991; Greenwood and Suddaby, 2006; Rao et al., 2003; Seo and Creed, 2002). Institutional inconsistencies are “ruptures both among and within the established social arrangements” (Seo and Creed, 2002, p. 225). We accept and base our conceptual framework on this definition. Previous literature suggests following important sources of institutional inconsistencies: presence of potentially incompatible institutional norms (Seo and Creed, 2002); a person’s exposure to conflicting and overlapping institutional logics, which are defined as “overarching sets of principles that […] provide guidelines on how to interpret and function in social situations” (Fan and Zietsma, 2017; Greenwood et al., 2011, p. 318); legitimacy that undermines functional inefficiency; adaptation that undermines adaptability; intra-institutional conformity that creates inter-institutional incompatibilities; isomorphism that conflicts with divergent interests (Seo and Creed, 2002, p. 226); and an outcome of organizational responses (Vermeulen et al., 2016) to some institutional complexity (Fincham and Forbes, 2016), etc. Organizational members, in their routine life, find various examples of institutional inconsistencies originating from conflicting institutional logics. For example, Zilber’s study shows that how a conflict originates when the dominant feminist logic is challenged by the therapeutic logic (Zilber, 2002). Two more examples are depicted in the conflict between development and commercial microfinance logics (Battilana and Dorado, 2010) and between commercial and community logics (Besharov and Smith, 2014). The conflict can be across institutional spheres, where a strong sphere competes to be dominant (Dick, 2006; Ladge et al., 2012). Institutional inconsistencies are the breeding places for change. They can bring about institutional and social change at field and organizational levels (Creed et al., 2010; Friedland and Alford, 1991; Greenwood and Suddaby, 2006; Rao et al., 2003; Whittington, 1992). For example, previous research states that, field-level institutional inconsistencies lead to corporate governance change that: revolutionizes the managerial corporate control; changes the relative political position of various constituents; regulates climate of the market; threatens managerial hegemonic positions in a field; creates dissensus; and results in heterogeneous power and resources distribution for action in the field (Davis and Thompson, 1994). At the organizational level, these consequences of institutional inconsistencies have brought drastic changes in various policies (Scully and Creed, 1998). At an individual level, institutional inconsistencies shape a member’s orientation “from unreflective participation in institutional reproduction to an imaginative critique of existing arrangements” (Seo and Creed, 2002, p. 231). They “may facilitate a change in actors’ consciousness such that the relative dominance of some institutional arrangements is no longer seen as inevitable” (Seo and Creed, 2002, p. 233). They do so by providing a change-conducive environment, which identifies the existing gaps between the ways the things are and the things should be (Sewell, 1997; Swidler, 1986; Weber and Glynn, 2006). Moreover, they motivate the members to carve new means to resolve the conflicts (Creed et al., 2010; Goodrick and Reay, 2011; Greenwood and Suddaby, 2006; Greenwood et al., 2011). Researchers have explored the outcomes of institutional inconsistencies that result, for example, from identity-role incompatibility, e.g. being a “gay” and a “church minister” (Creed et al., 2010), a “devoted Catholic” and a “reformer” (Gutierrez et al., 2010) or a “professional” and a “mother” (Ladge et al., 2012). However, very little is known about organizational members’ experience of and reaction to institutional inconsistencies (except for Greenwood and Suddaby, 2006; Hensmans, 2003). Apparently, members may vary in their experience of and reaction to the tensions and conflicts created by institutional inconsistencies (Seo and Creed, 2002). It is suggested that, in the face of institutional change, organizational members either accept new logic or reinforce the existing ones (Tracy, 2004). More work is required to uncover the mechanism that operates beneath acceptance or rejection of institutional prescription and its outcomes, e.g. in the form of meaninglessness. We contend that institutional members’ experiences of institutional inconsistencies and eventual display of behavioral scripts are not free from the effects of internal and external forces. Therefore, in the lines ahead, we unpack the literature on the institutional pressure of conformity (external) and pressure of disposition (internal) that significantly influence the choices that organizational members make. Institutional pressure of conformity Institutional field is the set of actors (organizational members or organizations) (Hoffman, 1999), governed by approved institutional prescriptions. Institutional field derives its strength from the dominant views of the referent others – “whose perspective constitutes the frame of reference of the actor” (Oshagan, 1996, p. 337). Their views in the form of discourses are the “outward expression of a mental attitude” (Grunig, 1979, p. 741). These views can create, maintain and abandon any institution (Green et al., 2008; Greenwood et al., 2002). It is essential to conform to the dominant socially approved views of referent others, while any violation can lead to social penalties like losing face (Glynn and Huge, 2007; Glynn and Park, 1997; Ho et al., 2013; Kim, 2012; Neuwirth and Frederick, 2004; Oshagan, 1996; Rimal and Real, 2003). This conformity, primarily, relies on the fact that “how widespread a behavior is among referent others” and what are the threats and benefits of compliance or noncompliance (Rimal and Real, 2005, p. 185). The institutional field not only exerts the pressure of conformity, but it also facilitates the deinstitutionalization of the prescriptions with the approval of referent others. In fact, the deinstitutionalization is a two-stage process, whereby a dominant opinion turns hostile to an arrangement, and subsequently exerts pressure on the members to abandon it. Here, it is important to question that, when the organizational members abandon an institutional prescription under social pressure, what extent do they detach themselves mentally and emotionally from the previous institutional prescription. If they find it difficult to detach, how do they experience and behave in this new institutional settlement? Pressure of human disposition In the course of life, organizational members come across various inconsistencies in institutional fields. They respond differently to these conflicts and inconsistencies as per their personal experiences (Creed et al., 2014). These experiences are the product of the institutional practices that are carved in their minds and are internalized in the form of their disposition (Bourdieu, 2000). They result in emotional investment into certain internalized institutional practices (Bourdieu, 2000). Emotional investment can be defined as the emotional attachment of an organizational member to the basic ideals of certain institutional arrangements (Stavrakakis, 2008; Voronov and Vince, 2012; Zizek, 1999) that disciplines the organizational members’ subjectivity and disposition (Creed et al., 2014). Organizational members are considered as more than refined “actors” who initiate and respond to any change in the institutional stimuli (Bechky, 2011; Hallett and Ventresca, 2006). The emotional investment of organizational members’ disposition makes them respond differently to different situations. It may cause them to transcend certain institutional arrangement (Creed et al., 2014; Patriotta and Lanzara, 2006), and alternative institutional arrangements may or may not let them alter their behavioral scripts (Thornton et al., 2012). Even the organizational members may not identify the need to alter their behavior in response to a novel situation (Molinsky, 2013; Swidler, 1986). In a nutshell, the life-long learning process and personal experiences of organizational members impact their perspective to face and understand the institutional inconsistencies (Kegan, 1982, 1994; Mezirow, 2000). On the whole, the field pressure of conformity and pressure of human disposition exert either reinforcing or opposing pressures on organizational members. The disposition sometimes has a counteraction against the pressure of conformity. Thus, apparently, the organizational members exhibit the changed behavioral scripts, but in the very core of mind, the institutional arrangements are still present. This underscores the meaninglessness of newly imposed institutional arrangement. Therefore, to understand the complicity of printed-on-minds institutional arrangements in generating meaninglessness, it is necessary to complement the prior focus on field’s conformity pressure with differences in how organizational members experience the institutional inconsistencies. To explain that how organizational members differ in their experiences of and capacity to understand institutional inconsistencies, we include the CDT in our framework. Constructive developmental theory (CDT) The CDT (Kegan, 1982, 1994) is an extension of Piaget’s pivotal work on life-long progressive psychosocial development, explaining unfolding of mental capacity for complex thoughts throughout childhood and into adolescence (Fisher et al., 2000; Loevinger and Blasi, 1976; McCauley et al., 2006; Rooke and Torbert, 2005). The CDT posits that human cognitive development does not cease once organizational members reach adulthood (Kegan and Lahey, 2009). Rather, their life-long experiences make them differently capable of responding to their surroundings through self-reflection. Mindset development is not necessarily related to age; it means that older people do not have necessarily progressed to the higher mindset stage (Kegan and Lahey, 2009). The CDT (Drago-Severson, 2004; Kegan, 1982, 1994) is an effective tool to understand how organizational members with different mindsets experience institutional inconsistencies differently. Three reasons make the CDT a valuable option to explain the mechanism of translating institutional inconsistencies into different degrees of meaninglessness in various mindsets. First, it supports that people evolve their meaning-making process, which enhances their capacity to reflect on their experiences in a contextual setting they abode (Kegan, 1994; Kegan and Lahey, 2001; McCauley et al. 2006). So, this theory considers the contextual factors affecting organizational members meaning-making of the situations; this brings it close to the institutional theory. Second, the CDT explains that how the process of meaning-making in different mindsets is filtered through organizational members’ emotional experiences like desires, fears and anxieties (Kegan, 1994). Third, the CDT also indicates the differences between the mindset stages and personality variables (Strang and Kuhnert, 2009) in the light of the human actors’ various life-long experiences. Overall, it highlights the difference in organizational members’ capacity of meaning-making of the surroundings. In general, six mindset stages are categorized in Kegan’s CDT (1982, 1994). In this paper, we focus on the three stages, particularly relevant to adults – i.e. socialized mindset, self-authoring mindset and self-transforming mindset. Extant literature also confirms that the vast majority of organizational members’ mindsets fall within these three stages (Kegan, 1994; Kegan and Lahey, 2009; Rooke and Torbert, 2005; Torbert, 1987). Therefore, these three stages better fit the bill (Drago-Severson, 2009; McCauley et al. 2006; Strang and Kuhnert, 2009). Socialized knowers are organizational members who are identified as reliant on valued others for the authentication of their feelings, opinions and actions. They identify with the values and desires of valued others. They cannot externalize view point of valued others as discrete from their own. They avoid concrete conscious deliberation against valued others and feel threatened in case of a conflict that strains valued relations (Drago-Severson, 2004, 2009; Kegan, 1982, 1994; Kegan and Lahey, 2009). Self-authoring knowers can distinguish their feelings from those of others and take responsibility for their judgments. They derive approval of their actions from the trust what they believe is right (Kegan, 1982, 1994). For them, conflict is a constructive opportunity to improve performance (Popp and Portnow, 2001). In the face of conflicts, they deliberate conscious reflection based on their desired identity to take decisions (Kegan, 1994). While, self-transforming knowers can get engaged simultaneously with multiple and often competing value systems. They can maintain a dialectical relationship with differences, seeking more inclusive perspectives to address or transcend differences in a principled way (Kegan, 1982, 1994). Conflict is an opportunity for self-learning. In the face of conflicts, they reflect on the tensions and challenges using their intuition and emotions to act (Voronov and Yorks, 2015). At each mindset stage, people react differently to process events and to make meaning of them. The differences in mindset stages indicate the differences in the capacities to appreciate institutional inconsistencies, while the possibility of mindset stage development proposes that the capacity for appreciating institutional contradictions may change over time. Previous research verifies that, among professionals, more organizational members are either at the socialized mindset stage or at the transitioning stage from socialized to self-authoring or functioning at the self-authoring mindset stage (Kegan and Lahey, 2009). Hardly 1 per cent of them reach the self-transforming mindset stage (Kegan, 1994). However, we will not exclude self-transforming mindset from our analysis, because employees with such mindsets may considerably affect the meaning-making process in other mindsets. As mindset stages represent more or less durable capacities to reflect on the knowledge that is transferable across institutional spheres, the CDT complements the focus of institutional analyses of the field-specific influences on social behavior (Child and Smith, 1987; Hinings and Greenwood, 1988; Kikulis et al., 1995). Our conceptualization acknowledges more fully the sedimented (Creed et al., 2014) or “sticky” (Patriotta and Lanzara, 2006) effects of the various institutional arrangements that not only govern individuals’ lives in specific institutional spheres (Gladwell, 2005) but are internalized and retain their potency even when they are not directly exposed to them (Bourdieu, 2000; Kegan, 2000). Summing up, we expect that organizational members belonging to different mindsets as prescribed by the CDT experience disposition and field conformity pressures differently. The disposition and field conformity pressures condition the translation of institutional inconsistencies into meaningfulness or meaninglessness differently in three different mindsets. In the lines ahead, we explain the construct of meaninglessness and discuss the level at which it is operationalized in our work. Meaninglessness For decades, organizational efforts are being focused to generate meaningful work for their employees (Lips-Wiersma and Morris, 2013). Meaningfulness is defined as “the value of a work goal or purpose, judged to the organizational member’s own ideals or standards” (May et al., 2004, p. 11). In organizations, it is “the sense made of, and significance felt regarding the nature of one’s being and existence” (Steger et al., 2006, p. 81). Meaning-making is intrinsic to people as: […] by nature, a person is involved in his or her being and in his or her becoming (to which alienation is an obstacle): a subject whose whole being is meaning and which has a need of meaning (Aktouf, 1992, p. 415). Previous research suggests that organizational members with the meaningful approach are more creative, productive, committed and collegial in organizations (Amabile and Kramer, 2012). Traditionally, the focus of all management theories is to motivate their employees to get their work done; for this reason, the managers were supposed to adopt the carrot-and-stick approaches. Sometimes they achieve their objective by enhancing their compensations, and sometimes by making a job more enriched. Despite all efforts, the employees are reported to be engaged in counterproductive work behaviors more than any other time before in the history (Aquino et al., 1999; Ball et al., 1994; Bennett and Robinson, 2000; Robinson and O’Leary-Kelly, 1998). The meaning of life at work often has been treated as more philosophical rather than psychological, and scholars attribute it as one of the reasons behind few empirical studies conducted in this domain (Chamberlain and Zika, 1988; Keeva, 1999; Steenkamp, 2012). In the extant literature, there are three different levels to interpret meaning related to work. The first level is “meaning in work” that is about the organizational member’s reason behind working and his/her objective to pursue work-related activities (Isaksen, 2000). The second level is “meaning of work” that indicates the role of work in a society, depicting norms, values and traditions of work in the daily life of people. The meaning of work can be linked to values emanating from the organizational member, religion and society at large (Team, 1987). Nelson and Quick (2000) stated that the meaning of work differs from person to person and from culture to culture. In an increasingly global workplace, it is important to understand and appreciate differences among organizational members and among cultures with regard to the meaning of work. The third level is “meaning at work” which relates to the meaning within the specific context (Chalofsky, 2010). It implies meaning extracted through the relationship between the organizational member and institutional context. This last level of meaning at work is the aggregate of total work experience. Meaning at work is derived from or through the attachment of the employees to the organization, its procedures, their engagement in social relations and the evaluation of the worthiness of their work. In our theory, we are concerned with last two levels of meaning at work. This is because of our special interest in the importance of institutional context that cannot be neglected in the experience of meaningfulness or meaninglessness. Literature views meaninglessness (and its antonym meaningfulness) as an experience (Battista and Almond, 1973; Baumeister, 1991; O’Connor and Chamberlain, 1996; Yalom, 1980), as a perception (Fabry et al. 1979; Hackman and Oldham, 1975; Thompson and Janigian, 1988) and as a feeling (Kahn, 1990). As per Oxford dictionary, a feeling is an emotional state or reaction, an experience is a practical contact with and observation of facts or events and a perception is defined as an awareness of something through senses. In our conceptualization, we treat meaning or its absence as a feeling and experience. Therefore, we adopt the definition of meaninglessness as stated by Shephard (1971) – i.e. “the inability to understand the events in which one is engaged” (Shepherd, 1971, p. 14). The phenomenon of meaninglessness as a form of alienation appears when work roles are perceived lacking integration with organizational goals. In organization and management research, several important antecedents of meaninglessness have been identified. It has been found that meaninglessness can be an outcome of: burnout, apathy and detachment from one’s work (May et al., 2004); physical, psychological and emotional sufferings that leads to stressful life events (Newcomb and Harlow, 1986; Tim Oakley, 2010); a situation when work roles are perceived lacking integration with organizational goals (Casey, 2002); and inefficiency, non-adaptability, institutional inconsistencies and misaligned interests that negate the existing institutions making them meaningless (Seo and Creed, 2002). Keeping in view the aforementioned causes of meaninglessness, knowledge of meaninglessness in employees is essentially necessary for managers. This is because of the fact that meaninglessness is a symptom of several wrongs that might be at work in an organization. Sensing meaninglessness can help managers directly go to the cause and fix it. For example, in a recent intra-organizational level of treatment, Bailey and Madden (2016) have interviewed 135 professionals in 10 different professions and asked them to tell stories about incidents or times when they found their work to be meaningful. The results of the study reveal that meaninglessness is not same as other work attitudes, e.g. commitment or engagement, rather it is intensely personal and individual. Unjust and unfair treatment, pointless and unfitting job descriptions, improper judgment and non-supportive behavior of managers have been identified as causes of meaninglessness (Bailey and Madden, 2016). Therefore, managers play an important role in making work meaningless for their employees; thus, poor management is found to be the top destroyer of meaningfulness. Building on the previous work, we adopt the institutional perspective to propose that institutional inconsistencies breed meaninglessness. In doing so, we also trace a cause–effect path to show that originating from conflicting logics, institutional inconsistencies (cause) can result in the development of a feeling of disconnect (effect) in the organizational members who cannot navigate across different logics equally (Voronov and Yorks, 2015). In fact, their actions are affected by a dominant logic, negating the other logics by making them meaningless. This is apparent in the literature of organizational routines that, even in the presence of other competing logics, how one specific institutional logic embedded, for example, in religion, can control organizational members behavioral script (Creed et al., 2010; Gutierrez et al., 2010). Similarly, Kellogg (2011) and Michel (2011) demonstrate that the institutional logic of professionalism may alone shape organizational members’ behavior. But which logic organizational members shall adhere to and is depicted in their behavioral script depends on their mindsets and the emotional investment there against. For example, socialized knowers emotionally invest in the valued-others; self-authoring knowers invest in the desired identity; and self-transforming knowers invest in the moral identity (Kegan, 1982, 1994). This signifies the importance of analysis of variations in organizational members’ cognitive meaning-making, and therefore makes differences in their mindsets more appealing to us. It is important to clarify that institutional inconsistencies themselves do not trigger a change process. Rather, these are organizational members whose understanding of institutional arrangements can facilitate or impede the change (Emirbayer and Goldberg, 2005; Voronov and Vince, 2012). The reason is that the organizational members’ understanding of the institutional arrangements is a very significant factor in deciding that whether these institutions are meaningful or not (Bourdieu, 2000; Glynos et al., 2012; Mutch, 2007; Voronov and Vince, 2012). Thus, organizational members’ mindsets and understanding of institutional prescriptions are significantly important in meaning-making (Voronov and Yorks, 2015). As organizational members emotionally invest in institutional arrangements (Kegan, 1982, 1994), they are reactive to those factors that tend to attack their emotional investments. Here, we suggest that only those institutional inconsistencies that challenge organizational members’ investment (either in valued others, desired identity or in moral identity) can trigger cognitive micro-processes by which meaninglessness develops. Therefore, when organizational members perceive institutional inconsistencies, this brings a reflective shift in their consciousness, making them evaluate the existing institutions (Benson, 1977). This mobilizes organizational members to search for alternative meanings (Seo and Creed, 2002). Mindset stages and feeling of meaninglessness In this section, we shall discuss the ways the organizational members belonging to different mindsets experience institutional inconsistencies and field conformity pressure. Afterward, we shall put forth the propositions, showing the feelings of meaninglessness are conditioned by the factors of field conformity and disposition in the face of institutional inconsistencies. Socialized knowers Socialized knowers depend on the will of the “valued others” for the construction of reality and meaning-making of their environment. They even make sense of institutional milieu via the cues of valued other (Weber and Glynn, 2006). They do not rely on their own direct experience with the institutional arrangements. Their association with valued others is the source of authentication for them and make socialized knowers feel worthy. They subordinate their own needs to the happiness of others (Drago-Severson, 2009), as the level of sensitivity toward the wills of their valued others is high. Their self-subordination to valued-others is a psychological phenomenon, which postulates that they are strongly prone to be identified with others and be liked (Kegan and Lahey, 2009). This is because they depend on respected authorities as sources of authentication of their own opinions, feelings and actions. They perceive the peril of being shunned by the valued others as a threat to their very sense of self-authentication (Creed et al., 2014; Scheff, 1988; Thoits, 2004). Thus, the values, norms, reasoning and emotional experiences of socialized knowers are embedded in their social context (Kegan, 2000, p. 59). They also conform to the beliefs of the valued others about the institutional arrangements. In the face of any institutional inconsistencies, if the valued others preserve the status quo, then possibly such exposure to the institutional inconsistency may less likely develop the feeling of meaninglessness in socialized knowers. As the thought pattern of socialized knowers is actually conditioned by the cognitive and behavioral script of valued others, so they unconsciously subordinate their own opinions to the wishes of valued others (Drago-Severson, 2004). Thus, they are the one highly affected by the field pressure of conformity, exerted by the beliefs of valued others about institutional prescriptions. When it comes to the phenomenological experience of inconsistencies, socialized knowers have just a raw sensation of these inconsistencies. In terms of apprehension of institutional inconsistencies, if valued others defend the institutional status quo, socialized knowers’ cognitive apprehension is blocked. To fulfill the desire to conform to the desires of the valued others, socialized knowers would not deliberate to reflect on the institutional goals. Though cognitive apprehension of socialized knowers is limited, this apprehension can be facilitated, if the valued others highlight these inconsistencies (Voronov and Yorks, 2015), to develop meaninglessness in them (Figure 1). We, therefore, propose that: P1a. The degree of meaninglessness felt by socialized knowers is decreased to the extent the valued others defend the extant institutional prescription. P1b. The degree of meaninglessness felt by socialized knowers is decreased to the extent the field exerts the conformity pressure to extant institutional prescription. Otherwise, P1c. The degree of meaninglessness felt by socialized knowers is increased to the extent the valued others highlight the institutional inconsistencies. P1d. The degree of meaninglessness felt by socialized knowers is increased to the extent the field withdraws the conformity pressure to the extant institutional prescription. Self-authoring knowers Self-authoring knowers have a high sense of authority and possess the capacity for making deliberate choices between their own beliefs and expectations of others (Drago-Severson, 2009; Kuhnert and Lewis, 1987). They consider other people around as autonomous beings, being different from them having their own distinct values and agendas. Self-authoring knowers internalize certain institutional goals and treat them as their own desires and wishes. Therefore, they heavily invest in institutional goals. The understanding of the context of an institution is prerequisite for attaining this mindset stage. This context helps them to develop internalized capacity to desire certain things and exercise discretionary judgment based on their values. They draw clear symbolic boundaries between institutions; those which belong and those which do not, because institutions: […] exercise pressures on component organizational members to weaken their ties, or not to form any ties with other institutions or persons that might make claims that conflict with their own demands (Coser, 1974, p. 6). They tend to block any competing source of identification and allegiance. Thus, they develop an idealized desired identity which they seek to gain and to maintain (Anteby, 2008; Carr, 1998; Ibarra and Barbulescu, 2010). They evaluate their thoughts, feelings and actions (Ibarra, 1999), using the desired identity as a frame of reference through conscious reflection. Self-authoring knowers invest in institutional arrangements in which their desired identity is rooted. Generally, individuals governed by different logics can navigate multiple institutional spheres such as work and family. For instance, there can be self-authoring knowers who might prioritize different institutional spheres differently – e.g. they might prioritize their religion more than their profession, and this might be reversed for another person. Likewise, for them, some institutional orders are more demanding and dominate their life more strongly (Coser, 1974). The desired identities of self-authoring knowers are more likely to be aligned with one institutional sphere than another. Thus, they prefer to invest in those institutional spheres in which their desired identity is rooted. According to the scholars of the CDT, self-authoring knowers have a greater capacity for leadership and change management (Kuhnert and Lewis, 1987; Strang and Kuhnert, 2009; Valcea et al., 2011). Whenever there is an institutional inconsistency, they tend to act as change agents. However, their reaction to institutional inconsistencies greatly depends on the degree of their emotional investment in those institutions. Exposure to institutional inconsistencies which triggers dissonance against their desired identity tends to develop defense mechanisms in them. They generate a narrative to rationalize their continued emotional investment in particular institutional prescription to reduce dissonance. Conscious reflection and reasoning are their preferred modes of operation for dissonance reduction (Festinger, 1957). They view conflict as potentially constructive (Popp and Portnow, 2001). They have the cognitive awareness of the presence of alternative institutional arrangements, in case of institutional inconsistencies. In terms of apprehension of institutional inconsistencies, those experiences that improve their ability to rationalize inconsistencies facilitate their apprehension, rendering them meaningless. While, institutional inconsistencies which challenge their desired identity block their apprehension (Voronov and Yorks, 2015). Based on the above-mentioned arguments, we propose the following: P2. The degree of meaninglessness felt by the self-authoring knower is increased to the extent the alternative institutional prescriptions successfully challenges the ones attached to his/her desired identity. Self-transforming knowers This mindset stage is the most difficult to attain, thus is rare among the adults (Kegan, 1994; Kegan and Lahey, 2009; Rooke and Torbert, 2005; Strang and Kuhnert, 2009; Torbert, 1987). Self-transforming knowers take their “unique identity itself as an object of reflection”, experiencing “multiple possibilities of the self as a product of interaction with others” (McCauley et al. 2006, p. 638). They are indulged in what Lawrence and Maitlis (2012) call the “ethic of care”. Ethic of care involves seeing others as relational than as bounded actors and independent. Ethic of care allows them to value the growth of an uncertain future, conceive truth as provisional and local and recognize the ubiquity of vulnerability (McCauley et al., 2006). They consider conflict as inevitable and an opportunity for self-development and development of others as well. Self-transforming knowers are akin to Mannheim’s (1985) free-floating intellectuals, whose subjectivities are less constituted by the extant institutional arrangements and their positions in the arrangements. They can adopt a more skeptical orientation toward the institutional arrangements they encounter. This stage is most conducive to perceive institutional inconsistencies because of self-transforming knowers’ sense of self is least conditioned by particular institutional arrangements. They perceive institutional arrangements as potentially arbitrary social constructions (Gergen, 1997). When exposed to institutional inconsistencies, they use intuition and emotions to explore the tensions and challenges through self-reflection (Kegan, 1994). Their capacity to apprehend institutional inconsistencies makes them better evaluate their meaninglessness. Self-transforming knowers prefer to maintain personal integrity and moral identity (Blasi, 1984) to the extent that they evaluate institutional inconsistencies on the basis of what is morally right. It can be inferred that those institutional inconsistencies that trigger their moral identity strongly can make institutional arrangements highly meaningless. They take conflict as an instrument for learning. They do not adopt defense mechanism. Research shows that self-transforming knowers can help employees to resolve the conflict between community and market logics, by highlighting mutual identifications and by mitigating boundaries (Besharov, 2014). Self-transforming knowers identify themselves emotionally with those who are unprivileged and are more directly affected by the institutional inconsistencies. Their apprehension of institutional inconsistencies depends on the degree to which their moral identity is triggered (Khan et al., 2007). It is facilitated when they have increased emotional connection with people impacted by institutional inconsistencies. On the contrary, having little emotional connection with people impacted by institutional inconsistencies, proper apprehension of inconsistencies in self-transforming knowers is blocked (Kegan and Lahey, 2009; Voronov and Yorks, 2015). The case study on child labor in Pakistan soccer industry by Khan et al. (2007) shows that, in an utmost effort to maintain their moral identity, self-transforming knowers, sometimes, feel more meaninglessness in the face of institutional inconsistencies impacting others (Khan et al., 2007). Based on the preceding, we propose the following: P3. The degree of meaninglessness felt by self-transforming knowers is increased to the extent that they relate institutional inconsistency to the experiences of others impacted by it. Discussion In this paper, we suggest that the pressure of conformity (exogenous) and pressure of disposition (endogenous) condition the course of human agents’ actions in the face of institutional inconsistencies, differently in different mindsets. Grounded on the three types of mindsets as proposed in the CDT, we identify the nature and extent of reactions of different mindsets to institutional inconsistencies under the molding impact of the disposition and pressure of conformity. Thus, we argue that, for socialized knowers, the degree of meaninglessness is directly related to how valued others perceive an inconsistent institutional prescription. If the valued others defend that institutional prescription, socialized knowers will feel less degree of meaninglessness, provided the field also exerts high conformity pressure to that institutional prescription. On the contrary, the degree of meaninglessness felt by socialized knowers is enhanced if the valued others highlight the institutional inconsistencies in an institutional prescription, under decreased conformity pressure. Self-authoring knowers react differently in the face of institutional inconsistencies. They feel a heightened extent of meaninglessness if the alternative institutional prescriptions challenge those attached to their desired identity. Self-transforming knowers feel a higher level of meaninglessness when they realize that an institutional inconsistency is strongly related to the experiences of others impacted by it. Keeping in view the fact that meaninglessness is one of the most significant problems facing humanity (Lips-Wiersma and Morris, 2013; Maddi, 1967), we identify some managerial implications. Our work notes the importance of identification and categorization of employees based on their mindsets and behavioral scripts. The subject–object interview developed by Lahey et al. (1988) can be used to assess and categorize the types of mindsets of the employees. This will also inform the managers that, when exposed to institutional inconsistencies, how much and to what extent the employees will develop meaninglessness. However, what strategies managers would use to contain meaninglessness are yet to be explored, and we invite future researchers to advance this area of research. A better understanding of the organizational members’ perception of institutional inconsistencies and the reaction of the meaninglessness can obviously facilitate development and application of such strategies that can help managers to better organize in the face of institutional change – a perpetual phenomenon. In this connection, the managers should first assess whether the change is desirable. Thereafter, they ought to evaluate their own and others’ reaction to it. In particular, managers are required to better understand their own assumptions, beliefs and convictions, along with those of others, to develop a comprehensive perspective to facilitate or resist change. The feelings of meaninglessness by members with different mindsets can be channelized by the managers either to promote or resist a change. At this juncture, it is important to state the scope conditions relating to our work. Scope conditions can be dealt under three major headings: space, time and value (Bacharach, 1989). First, space or level issues are important to be dealt, because incongruence among levels of theory, measurement and analysis may create problems (Suddaby, 2010). We suggest that, depending on the mindset type, an organizational member’s feeling of meaninglessness might be higher to hihe/sher own previous feelings and lower than the group-level feeling and equal to the overall organizational level of feeling. Second, institutional inconsistencies, mindset and meaninglessness like many other organizational phenomena, are temporal in nature and are subject to constraints of time. Therefore, ignoring the temporal limits and assuming invariance in these constructs can be misleading. We recognize that, just as the type of mindset, the experience of meaninglessness is to be viewed as a state of mind that varies over time. We also suggest that meaninglessness is considered to have both the temporal scope condition – it increases as the employee encounters more events that cause it – and also discontinuous temporal scope condition – one particular event increases meaninglessness but over time it subsides. Third, a limit of the value gets relevant as researchers have their own view of the world and the assumptions (Pierce et al., 1989). Therefore, it is necessary to explicate the background assumptions that we have brought to this conceptual work. In this connection, we admit that our work focuses on theorizing feeling of meaninglessness and not on how employees with different mindsets move from such feeling to take action. We believe that this distinction has better served our analytical purpose and helped us better theorize the differential abilities of various mindsets in apprehending institutional inconsistencies with considerable depth. Moreover, we disregard the fact that institutional logics have their own internal contradictions (Greenwood et al., 2011) and focus on the contest between different logics. Future researchers may investigate the extent to which employees with different mindsets apprehend such internal contradictions and develop meaninglessness. In terms of avenues for future research, our work also paves the way for future research endeavors that may involve an interaction of three mindsets in actor’s meaning-making process (Kegan, 1982, 1994). It is suggested that interaction among three mindsets is largely governed by four major factors: degree of investment in institutional arrangements; phenomenological experience of inconsistencies; blockages of apprehension; and facility of apprehension (Drago-Severson, 2004, 2009; Kegan, 1982, 1994; Kegan and Lahey, 2009). We suggest that mutual interaction within and among different mindset groups should be thoroughly analyzed, as it carries a lot of unrealized potentials to advance this field of study. Lastly, Reay and Hinnings (2009) have suggested taking recourse to a multi-level analysis to explain the institutional change process. This should be complemented by a detailed investigation of meaning-making by different mindsets in the face of institutional inconsistencies at multiple levels. Moreover, for a broader understanding of the phenomenon, future researchers may also consider other “control” variables affecting the organizational member meaning-making along with their mindset types. We propose that, along with different mindsets, religiosity, loyalty, identity, demography and career-specific variables should be examined at the organizational member level. Likewise, commitment, structure, climate at the organizational level and the legal system, technology at the macro level can be examined. Figure 1. Institutional inconsistencies and meaninglessness in various mindsets