Social institutions are prevalent wherever individuals attempt to live and work together. From the simplest to the most complex, we produce them while conducting all aspects of our social life. From political decision making to economic production and exchange to the rules governing personal relationships, institutional arrangements establish the framework in which these social interactions take place. To be a member of a community or society is to live within a set of social institutions.

Consider their variety. At the most basic level of society, an array of social conventions, rules, and norms affects the ways in which we act in our everyday lives. Their influences on social life are substantial and numerous. They structure relations between the sexes and the ongoing affairs of family life; they set the standards of behavior among the members of a neighborhood or community; and they constitute an important source for the transmission of social knowledge and information from one generation to the next. In short, these informal conventions form the base on which a vast range of formal institutions organize and influence economic and political life. Economic organizations, from the small firm to the multinational corporation, are governed by institutional frameworks in the workplace and the boardroom.