The insightful paper by Voronov and Weber (2016) moves this conversation to a higher level, theorizing beyond the simple (though important) idea that emotions occur and matter in social life, to a more fundamental engagement of emotions as a defining aspect of “institutional actorhood”. Recently, the cognitive emphasis within institutional theorizing has been challenged and emotions have been proposed as a key but neglected component of institutional processes (Creed, Hudson, Okhuysen, & Smith-Crowe, 2014 Massa, Helms, Voronov, & Wang, 2016 Voronov, 2014 Voronov & Vince, 2012 Wright, Zammuto, & Liesch, 2015). We argue that anchor relocation is vital to the sustained reproduction of institutional arrangements of which actors morally disapprove. In our case, the shift took place from idealized institutional arrangements to a more spiritual meaning system. Rather than exiting the field, morally perturbed actors engaged in reconciling activities, enabling them to shift the anchor of their emotional investment. Bringing back power into neo-institutionalism, we investigate the boundary conditions to the mobilizing potential of moral emotions. Suppressing the impetus for institutional disruption and change, systemic power engendered actors’ feelings of helplessness. However, organizational leaders exerted fear- and respect-eliciting systemic power that made these actors discontinue their disrupting activities.

How do actors continue to contribute to the reproduction of extant institutional arrangements, even after they have become morally perturbed by these arrangements? Through ethnographic research in eleven Pentecostal churches in urban Java, we found that when certain church practices morally perturbed church employees and volunteers, they evoked moral emotions of guilt and anger that triggered institutional instability.

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