Institutional work amidst the financial crisis: emerging positions of elite actors

Riaz, Suhaib; Buchanan, Sean; Bapuji, Hari

doi:10.1177/1350508410389630

Cited by 68 publications

(58 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…indicates that economists who support a new theory can use their influence in the public discourse (Riaz, Buchanan, & Bapuji, 2011) to spotlight anomalies that confirm their theory. If scholars from other disciplines cannot influence the public discourse to a similar extent, even if their theories produce anomalies, other actors are less likely to see the anomalies and change their practices in line with those theories.…”

Section: Why Some Theories Are More Likely To Become Self-fulfillingmentioning

confidence: 99%

When Do Theories Become Self-Fulfilling? Exploring the Boundary Conditions of Performativity

Marti

Gond

2018

AMR

132

146

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Management researchers increasingly realize that some theories do not merely describe, but also shape social reality; a phenomenon known as "performativity." However, when theories become performative or even self-fulfilling is still poorly understood. Taking this gap in current research as our starting point, we develop a process model to show that new theories will only become self-fulfilling (1) if they motivate experimentation, (2) if experimentation produces anomalies, and (3) if these anomalies lead to a practice shift. On that basis, we identify six boundary conditions that determine whether theories will come to shape social reality. To illustrate our argument, we explore the conditions under which theories that postulate a positive link between corporate social performance and corporate financial performance may become self-fulfilling. KEYWORDS:Anomalies, boundary conditions, corporate social performance (CSP), experimentation, performativity, socially responsible investing (SRI) 3/53In the course of the last decade, management scholars and other researchers in the social sciences increasingly realized that some theories do not merely describe, but also shape the patterns of social interaction that constitute social reality (Callon, 1998;. They dubbed this phenomenon "performativity." The most "intriguing" cases of performativity arise when theories become self-fulfilling; that is, when using theories increases the "conformity" between theories and social reality (MacKenzie, 2006: 18-19). A well-known example thereof is the Black-Scholes theory, where using that theory pushed option prices toward the prices that the theory predicted (MacKenzie & Millo, 2003). In such cases, theories can become self-fulfilling by reshaping the language, social norms, and institutional designs of traders, managers, policy-makers, or other actors (Ferraro, Pfeffer, & Sutton, 2005a).Further studies in this tradition examined, for example, how rational choice theory makes decision-making within organizations more rational (Cabantous & Gond, 2011) or how mainstream financial theories reinforce the currently widespread technocratic approach to financial regulation (Marti & Scherer, 2016).Most studies on performativity to date focus on theories that have successfully transformed social reality. However, because of this "success bias," the literature lacks a clear understanding of the conditions that determine whether theories become performative or not. This lack of understanding becomes particularly apparent where the "strongest" forms of performativity (MacKenzie, 2006: 19) are concerned; that is, when theories become self-fulfilling (Healy, 2015: 176). Current research thereby neglects the insight of Felin and Foss (2009b) that social reality is not invariably malleable. Keeping in mind these shortcomings of previous research on performativity, we set out to explore how boundary conditions determine whether a theory will become self-fulfilling or not. 4/53To analyze these boundary conditions, we start by developin...

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Section: Why Some Theories Are More Likely To Become Self-fulfillingmentioning

confidence: 99%

When Do Theories Become Self-Fulfilling? Exploring the Boundary Conditions of Performativity

Marti

Gond

2018

AMR

132

146

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“…While the literature on institutional work provides relevant insights on how to study the purposive work of hospital risk managers in relation to institutional constraints and order, this literature has until now been focused on the institutional work of professionals, elites, and experts at the field level (Lefsrud and Meyer 2012;Paton, Hodgson, and Muzio 2013;Riaz, Buchanan, and Bapuji 2011;Suddaby and Viale 2011). For instance, Suddaby and Viale (2011) explain how professionals play a central role in the reconfiguration of institutions and organizational fields.…”

Section: Risk Work As Institutional Workmentioning

confidence: 98%

The institutional work of hospital risk managers: democratizing and professionalizing risk management

Labelle

Rouleau

2016

Journal of Risk Research

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The growing importance of risk management programs and policies in health care organizations has given rise to a new organizational figure, the risk managers. This paper seeks to better understand their role by looking at their risk work as a form of institutional work. From an inductive study of hospital risk managers in the Quebec health care sector, we provide a situated account of the risk work or 'the effortful pattern of practices' accomplished by hospital risk managers at the intra-and extra-organizational levels. The results show that they engage in two broader recursive forms of institutional work. At the intra-organizational level, it is by building bridges, autonomizing teams, legitimizing risk work, and pragmatizing interventions that hospital risk managers contribute to democratizing the risk management practices in their organization. At the extraorganizational level, it is by networking with colleagues, hybridizing knowledge, shaping identity, and debating solutions that they contribute to articulating a professionalization project. We argue that the recursive relationship between these two forms of institutional work, namely democratizing and professionalizing risk management, demonstrates how the risk work done at one level facilitates the risk work accomplished at the other. The paper provides three contributions. First, it opens the black box of the hospital risk managers' roles by showing the complexity of their risk work, instead of formalizing expectations about their role in a normative way, as is generally the case. Second, this research provides evidence about how actors with limited collective power and resources such as hospital risk managers participate in disseminating risk management programs and policies. Third, the paper offers a multi-level understanding of the ways by which hospital risk managers work to institutionalize risk management program and policies. The paper ends by discussing the importance of gaining a better understanding of the risk managers' role and their institutional work.

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“…Organization scholars have demonstrated recent interest in how these processes produce inequality (e.g. Riaz et al, 2011;Froud et al, 2010;Murphy and Ackroyd, 2013;Beverungen et al 2012b). Critical accountants, in particular, have led the way in this regard (for example, McSweeney, 2009;Sikka, 2009) and, while theorists have also considered these questions (DeCock et al, 2011;Harney, 2011), they have tended to do so without any pretence to the general theory of inequality which Cap21st proposes.…”

Section: The Organizational Specificity Of Financementioning

confidence: 99%

Organization studies of inequality, with and beyond Piketty

2017

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Thomas Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century did much to bring discussions of economic inequality into the intellectual and popular mainstream. This paper indicates how business, management and organization studies can productively engage with Cap21st. It does this by deriving practical consequences from Piketty's proposed division of intellectual labour in general and his account of 'supermanagers' in particular. There are organizational specificities to inequality which Piketty's framework does not address, however. Cap21st's account of corporate governance, of tax avoidance policy and of financialisation, in particular, requires significant conceptual and empirical supplementation. We argue that business, management and organisational scholars should contribute to the cross-disciplinary inequality research project which Cap21st proposes not despite these limitations but because of them.

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Institutional work amidst the financial crisis: emerging positions of elite actors

Cited by 68 publications

References 29 publications

When Do Theories Become Self-Fulfilling? Exploring the Boundary Conditions of Performativity

When Do Theories Become Self-Fulfilling? Exploring the Boundary Conditions of Performativity

The institutional work of hospital risk managers: democratizing and professionalizing risk management

Organization studies of inequality, with and beyond Piketty

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