The Economic Sociology of Conventions: Habit, Custom, Practice, and Routine in Market Order

Biggart, Nicole Woolsey; Beamish, Thomas D.

doi:10.1146/annurev.soc.29.010202.100051

Cited by 269 publications

(188 citation statements)

References 96 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

169

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…American adopters of convention theory as a lens for understanding coordination, and economic activity more broadly (Biggart & Beamish, 2003). Their contribution to the volume, "Capital and carbon: The shifting common good justifications for energy regimes", shows how key concepts underlying the EW framework can be used as a loose theoretical frame to help explain why and how important shifts in the institutions and collective beliefs that underpin capitalist economic systems occur.…”

Section: Finally Thomas Beamish and Nicole Woolsey Biggart Were Amonmentioning

confidence: 99%

Justification, Evaluation and Critique in the Study of Organizations: An Introduction to the Volume

Cloutier¹,

Gond²,

Léca³

2017

Research in the Sociology of Organizations

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This is the accepted version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Permanent repository link and evaluation in organizations by reconsidering the notion of worth, and finally 4) push the boundaries of the framework itself by questioning and fine tuning some of its core assumptions. Taken as a whole, this volume not only carves a path for a deeper embedding of the EW approach into contemporary thinking about organizations, it also invites readers to refine and expand it by confronting it with a wider range of diverse empirical contexts of interest to organizational scholars.Keywords: economies of worth; justification; critique; evaluation; French Pragmatist Sociology.3 Despite early acknowledgement of the relevance of the EW framework for studying organizations (Denis, Langley, & Rouleau, 2007;Livian & Herreros, 1994), and a recognition that it provides "a highly original perspective stressing the importance of processes of critique and justification for the production of organizational order and change" (Jagd, 2011, p. 344 (Patriotta, Gond, & Schultz, 2011;Ramirez, 2013;Taupin, 2012). JUSTIFICATION, EVALUATION AND CRITIQUE IN THE STUDY OF ORGANIZATIONS: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE VOLUMEWhile demonstrating the "generative" potential of the EW framework by combining it with other theories is both interesting and useful, there are many missed opportunities in failing to embrace the EW framework as a theory that is worthy for its own sake, one that can be particularly helpful, for example, for uncovering some of the normative contradictions that underlie institutional life by investigating how individual actors engage with a plurality of moral orders.Some of this potential can be seen in studies that have mobilized the EW framework to address topics such as intra-organizational dynamics of justification (Jagd, 2011), the strategic management of pluralistic organizations (Daigle & Rouleau, 2010;Denis et al., 2007) decision-making in public management contexts (Dodier & Camus, 1998 It is in light of the above observations and the opportunities they gave rise to that we settled on the following four objectives for the volume: (1) clarify how individuals manage the contradictions and compromises inherent in organizational pluralism by considering the daily moral life of actors inhabiting institutions; (2) look at organizations critically by unpacking the rhetorical foundations of critiques, and pragmatically examining the roles of rhetoric and justification in the critical operations that organizational actors engage in; (3) reconsider the notion of worth beyond its purely economic sense and consider the multiple facets that constitute and produce value in organizational life and (4) push the boundaries of the EW framework itself and by so doing, help further embed notions such as justification, critique and valuation in our contemporary analysis and understanding of organizations.Collectively, the set of contributions proposed in this volume address these four key objec...

show abstract

Section: Finally Thomas Beamish and Nicole Woolsey Biggart Were Amonmentioning

confidence: 99%

Justification, Evaluation and Critique in the Study of Organizations: An Introduction to the Volume

Cloutier¹,

Gond²,

Léca³

2017

Research in the Sociology of Organizations

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Conventions can help to bridge different perspectives by providing an acceptable compromise between competing value frameworks (Biggard & Beamish, 2003;Denis et al, 2007).…”

Section: Disputes Conventions and Accounting Practicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Performance measurement, modes of evaluation and the development of compromising accounts

Chenhall

Hall

Smith

2013

Accounting, Organizations and Society

196

240

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In this paper we develop the concept of compromising accounts as a distinctive approach to the analysis of whether and how accounting can facilitate compromise amongst organizational actors. We take the existence of conflicting logics and values as the starting point for our analysis, and directly examine the ways in which the design and operation of accounts can be implicated in compromises between different modes of evaluation and when and how such compromises can be productive or unproductive. In doing so, we draw on Stark's (2009: 27) concept of 'organizing dissonance', where the coming together of multiple evaluative principles has the potential to produce a 'productive friction' that can help the organization to recombine ideas and perspectives in creative and constructive ways. In a field study of a non-government organization, we examine how debates and struggles over the design and operation of a performance measurement system affected the potential for productive debate and compromise between different modes of evaluation. Our study shows that there is much scope for future research to examine how accounts can create sites that bring together (or indeed push apart) organizational actors with different evaluative principles, and the ways in which this 'coming together' can be potentially productive and/or destructive.2

show abstract

“…These range from the earliest work of Max Weber to network theory, convention theory and more [18,19,51,52]. It is beyond the scope of this article to address all of these.…”

Section: The Food System Is Working But Why?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These do not have to be explained to people or renegotiated all of the time; most people come into the system with a sense of them and are quickly assimilated into the way of working. As others have found, economic actors operate "from a repertoire of alternatives that reflect social structural constraints" [18] (p. 450). Asking the different actors to explain how the system works and what makes it work often elicited strange looks and shoulder shrugging; "we just do it like this".…”

Section: Symbiosis As a Core Ordering Principlementioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The Symbiotic Food System: An ‘Alternative’ Agri-Food System Already Working at Scale

Wegerif

Hebinck

2016

Agriculture

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract:This article is an analysis of the agri-food system that feeds most of the over four million residents of the fast growing city of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. It is based on qualitative research that has traced the sources of some important foods from urban eaters back through retailers, processors and transporters to the primary producers. Particular attention is given to the functioning of the market places and how new actors enter into the food system. These reveal that more important to the system than competition are various forms of collaboration. Of particular interest is how a wide range of small-scale and interdependent actors produce the food and get it to urban eaters at a city feeding scale without large vertically-or horizontally-integrated corporate structures. This "symbiotic food system" is an existing alternative to the corporate-dominated agri-business food system; it can and does deliver at scale and in a way that better responds to the needs of people in poverty who are buying food and the interests of food producers. It is not perfect in Dar es Salaam, but the food system is working and is a model that should be built on.

show abstract

The Economic Sociology of Conventions: Habit, Custom, Practice, and Routine in Market Order

Cited by 269 publications

References 96 publications

Justification, Evaluation and Critique in the Study of Organizations: An Introduction to the Volume

Justification, Evaluation and Critique in the Study of Organizations: An Introduction to the Volume

Performance measurement, modes of evaluation and the development of compromising accounts

The Symbiotic Food System: An ‘Alternative’ Agri-Food System Already Working at Scale

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About