Institutional behavior follows identity-appropriate rules more than pure utility.
March and Olsen's 1989 contrast: actors ask what a person in my position does in this situation, not what maximises my return. It predicts institutional behaviour better than the calculating model in most settings.
In practice
- A civil servant declines a gift worth forty pounds, not after weighing the risk but because officials do not accept gifts.
- A committee member votes as a committee member is expected to vote, and describes the reasoning afterwards in terms of merit.