Diagnosing Institutional Design-Implementation Gaps: A Dual-Layer Systems Modeling Language Protocol for Visualizing Institutional Change Mechanisms

This study introduces a dual-layer protocol for diagnosing how formal institutional designs are implemented in practice in complex governance systems. The protocol builds two linked process maps; one for the formal rules and procedures (rules-in-form) and one for the routines actors actually follow in practice (rules-in-use). We adapt Systems Modeling Language (SysML), a graphical notation from systems engineering for specifying and analyzing complex socio-technical systems, to represent both formal workflows and observed rules-in-use, and then overlay the two maps to identify divergence nodes where practice bypasses, supplements, or otherwise alters formally prescribed processes. Using Chesapeake Bay watershed governance as an illustrative case, the method shows how drift, layering, conversion, and displacement become visible through recurring divergences in data submission, model review, and approval routines, including socio-technical artifacts such as data schemas, model parameters, and verification procedures. By producing transparent, empirically checkable visualizations linked to qualitative and documentary evidence, the protocol supports comparative institutional diagnostics and more targeted inquiry into where formal–informal gaps emerge and how they operate in collaborative governance. The study contributes to institutional analysis and policy process research by making visible the mechanisms through which gradual institutional change unfolds in collaborative governance and by offering a replicable way to represent implementation architecture and make socio-technical dependencies more readily inspectable through an open systems-engineering notation.