Foreign ideas, domestic problems, and institutional change: The role of legal professionals

Abstract This article investigates how ideas shared by a professional group are promoting institutional change. Using a unique dataset of interviews and the qualitative method collective mindset analysis (CMA), the thinking patterns of Brazilian legal professionals related to how to counter corruption were reconstructed. We identified two general types of thinking among people working in anti-corruption: a local- and abroad-oriented mindset, with the majority of the group thinking that domestic deficiencies should be remedied by imitating foreign solutions tested in the ‘developed’ world. Our findings contribute to the existing literature on organizational institutionalism and discuss the effect of ideas in a professional field.