Evolution of Fields. The most characteristic narrative of field structuration
stresses the interacting processes of diffusion, imitation, and adaptation,
and the resultant community order. A study by Haveman and Rao (1997)
details the co-evolution of institutions and organizational forms in their historical
analysis of the California thrift industry between 1890 and 1928. Early
forms reflected the dominant logics of the virtues of mutual assistance and
self-help .. Members were shareholders, not depositors, and plans were dissolved
.when all participants had saved sufficient funds to build or buy they
own homes. These do-it-yourself forms were gradually supplanted by a more
conventional corporate model, "the Dayton/guarantee-stock plan," in which
members were differentiated from managers and depositors from borrowers.
A number of hybrid forms also were devised, but in the end, the Dayton
model became dominant. Haveman and Rao argue that the earlier mutual_
forms were consistent with the informal patterns of rural communities while
the Dayton model was more congruent ,.with the institutional logics of the
Progressive era, "appealing to well-understood rational-bureaucratic procedures
and arguing in efficiency terms." (1997: 1641