ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the dynamics of Cambodian French returnees institutional entrepreneurial activities aimed at affecting transformative change in their home country. The main question guiding the research focuses on how the respective political context that has an influence on these returnees upon their return to Cambodia has facilitated or constrained their initiatives aimed at transforming governmental and/or non-governmental institutions and sectors. Working from an actor-based perspective, the chapter assumes that institutional entrepreneurs are 'actors with sufficient resources who see in the creation of new institutions an opportunity to realize their interest'. Hence, the analysis in the chapter focuses on the perceptions towards, and the ways in which, Cambodian French returnees initiate projects in order to transform institutions in the Cambodian governmental and in the non-governmental sector. Institutions are assumed in the chapter to be the 'symbolic blueprint for organizations' and institutional entrepreneurs undertake activities aimed at shaping both the formal and informal rules that govern relationships.
