SHAPING THE OPPORTUNITY STRUCTURE OF DEVIANCE: A COMMENTARY ON RINTAM€AKI, PARKER, AND SPICER’S “INSTITUTIONAL PARASITES”.

The article focuses on extending the concept of "institutional parasites," deviant actors that exploit institutions, by introducing the "opportunity structure of deviance," which encompasses institutional conditions influencing the feasibility and impact of parasitic behavior. This framework highlights how power relations, resource distribution, and strategic interactions between parasites and institutional functionaries shape the emergence, persistence, and outcomes of deviance, including institutional drift, layering, or reform. It also emphasizes the role of external stakeholders and broader organizational fields in shaping these opportunity structures, offering a more dynamic and context-sensitive understanding of institutional change. The authors argue that incorporating the opportunity structure provides a richer analysis of how parasitic behavior navigates and influences institutional environments, suggesting new directions for empirical research on organizational deviance.