Institutional entrepreneurship and change in consumer protection policy in the telecommunications sector: Innovations in the text-based analysis approach

Abstract

This article analyses the institutional entrepreneurship within independent regulatory agencies (IRAs) as a variable explaining policy change over time and seeks to offer new insight for the identification and analysis of structure-agency relationships. The article contributes to the institutional entrepreneurship research agenda by connecting changes in IRA consumer protection policy to changes in agency leadership (specifically, agency presidents). The method used relies upon a quantitative and qualitative text analysis approach to connect and pinpoint structure-agency dynamics over time. The empirical sections compare and contrast the results obtained through the content analysis of the annual reports issued between 2000 and 2015 by the Italian Communications Authority (Agcom), and illustrate variations between periodic changes to Agcom’s presidency and changes in ideas, strategies and tools in the field of consumer protection in the telecommunications sector.