Institutional Biography and the Institutionalization of a New Organizational Template: Building the Global Branded Hotel Chain

This article expands understanding of how institutional biography may inform institutional change by examining Conrad Hilton’s role in building the global branded hotel chain (1946-1969). We show how an individual’s institutional biography can play a pivotal role in their development as an institutional entrepreneur and the institutionalization of a new organizational template. Biography, informed by the institutions individuals experience in their life trajectories, shapes the process by which an individual becomes an institutional entrepreneur; influencing the institutionalization of a new template by enabling entrepreneurs to acquire a more central position within their field. Hilton’s self-narrative became closely coupled with the ‘grand narrative’ of post-war U.S. capitalism. The Hilton case vividly illustrates how institutional tensions, embracing national interests, corporate interests, and individual self-interest, can become distilled into the identity, choices, and ambitions – the personal biographical narrative – of individuals who play a formative role in the institutions they build, change, or disrupt.