Institutional scholars are not intellectually shy. We are willing to take on the tough fundamental questions. Our subject is nothing more nor less than understanding the basis of social order. We address the processes by which social structures, incorporating both symbolic and behavioral elements, are established, become stable and undergo change over time. Institutional analysis takes place broadly throughout the social sciences, fueled by the efforts of anthropologists, economists, cognitive and social psychologists, political scientists and sociologists. Still, throughout the last century and a half, sociologists have been the most persistent pursuers of the puzzle of social order, and they have recently been joined by organization scholars in management schools. In the subtitle of this chapter,‘onward’is intended to suggest that contemporary institutional theory is flourishing. There is substantial consensus on the ingredients or elements that together comprise these forms. Organizations have come to be one of the major types of social structures claiming the attention of institutional scholars and so we ask what is distinctive about an institutional approach to these forms. The adverb ‘upward’signals my belief that some of the most interesting work currently underway relates to developments at the transnational level where we have recently witnessed a flurry of activities to construct new institutional forms as well as to develop scholarly frameworks to interpret and support these efforts. The latter sections of the chapter review these developments. insTiTuTionAL eLeMenTs