Collegiality as institutional work: Collegial meeting practices among Norwegian pastors.

This article examines collegiality as institutional work within the organizational context of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Norway, focusing on how pastors and their managers (deans) perform collegiality to maintain and gradually adapt the pastor profession. Collegiality is analyzed through four dimensions of institutional work—structural, conceptual, operational, and relational—demonstrated primarily in weekly pastoral meetings that serve as safe, prioritized spaces for shared theological reflection, professional identification, trust-building, and knowledge exchange. The study finds that collegiality functions both to preserve core professional values and practices and to enable slow, dialogic change in response to increased managerialism, with hybrid professional managers playing a key role in balancing professional autonomy and organizational demands. While collegiality is distinct from formal decision-making and hierarchical management, it remains central to sustaining professional identity and fostering collaboration within this religious institution.