The institutional requisites of capitalism

The armed insurrection in Chechnya is further evidence of the rapid social, political, and economic changes occurring in what was, the Soviet Union and its satellite states. But despite the ongoing instability of the region, the movement toward a closer integration with the Western world seems irreversible, and Western businesses are increasingly looking toward Central and Eastern Europe for new opportunities. While there are several variants of institutional theory, most share a concern with social order and the taken-for-granted characteristics of social forms. Institutional theorists are interested in the matter-of-fact nature of social reality and the way in which social facts, such as particular organizational forms, are created, maintained, and communicated. Private property and the opportunity for profit–the most basic hallmarks of capitalism–can exist only as a result of the institutionalized arrangements upon which they have been constructed.