The More Things Change . . . Institutional Maintenance as Justification Work in the Credit-Rating Industry

doi:10.3917/MANA.155.0529

Home
/
Papers
/
The More Things Change . . . Institutional Maintenance as Justification Work in the Credit-Rating Industry

Journal Article•DOI•

The More Things Change . . . Institutional Maintenance as Justification Work in the Credit-Rating Industry

Benjamin Taupin¹•Institutions (1)

Conservatoire national des arts et métiers¹

01 Dec 2012-Vol. 15, Iss: 5, pp 529-562

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors combine the theory of justification developed by Boltanski and Thevenot with the concept of institutional work to analyse how actors' discursive engagement can lead to the maintenance of legitimacy.

read less

Abstract: This article combines the theory of justification developed by Boltanski and Thevenot with the concept of institutional work to analyse how actors’ discursive engagement can lead to the maintenance of legitimacy. In controversies over the regulation of credit rating, actors perform institutional work based on the use and arrangement of several forms of legitimacy in order to promote a certain view of justice. A longitudinal qualitative study of the justifications produced by stakeholders in credit rating between 2000 and 2010 reveals three different mechanisms that lead to institutional maintenance. The first is a straightforward case of confirmation work in which the actors repeat or reformulate the existing regulatory arrangement or simply refuse to take part in the debate. The second involves qualifying objects according to the existing concept of regulation. In the third, reference to the model of the circular figure can explain the mechanism that prevents the controversy from ending: the actors’ inability to resolve a debate involving several orders of morality is precisely what leads to the reaffirmation of the foundations underlying the legitimacy of credit rating regulation.

...read moreread less

Citations

PDF

Open Access

More filters

The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields (Chinese Translation)

[...]

Paul DiMaggio, Walter W. Powell

01 Jan 2008

TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that rational actors make their organizations increasingly similar as they try to change them, and describe three isomorphic processes-coercive, mimetic, and normative.

...read moreread less

Abstract: What makes organizations so similar? We contend that the engine of rationalization and bureaucratization has moved from the competitive marketplace to the state and the professions. Once a set of organizations emerges as a field, a paradox arises: rational actors make their organizations increasingly similar as they try to change them. We describe three isomorphic processes-coercive, mimetic, and normative—leading to this outcome. We then specify hypotheses about the impact of resource centralization and dependency, goal ambiguity and technical uncertainty, and professionalization and structuration on isomorphic change. Finally, we suggest implications for theories of organizations and social change.

...read moreread less

2,134 citations

Journal Article•DOI•

Institutional Work: Current Research, New Directions and Overlooked Issues

[...]

Thomas B. Lawrence¹, Bernard Leca², Tammar B. Zilber³•Institutions (3)

Simon Fraser University¹, Rouen Business School², Hebrew University of Jerusalem³

06 Aug 2013-Organization Studies

TL;DR: The authors reviewed the evolution of institutional work as a scholarly conversation within organization studies, focusing in particular on where they fit into the current scholarly conversation and how they move us in important new directions.

...read moreread less

Abstract: The study of institutional work has emerged as a dynamic research domain within organization studies. In this essay, we situate the papers published in the Special Issue. We first review the evolution of institutional work as a scholarly conversation within organization studies. We then introduce the papers in the Special Issue, focusing in particular on where they fit into the current scholarly conversation and how they move us in important new directions. Finally, we discuss a set of neglected issues that deserve further attention.

...read moreread less

423 citations

Cites background from "The More Things Change . . . Instit..."

...Jagd (2011) and Taupin (2013) examine the ‘justification work’ by actors who develop moral arguments to support their institutional projects and the complex debates that ensue....
[...]

Journal Article•DOI•

The New Masters of Capital: American Bond Rating Agencies and the Politics of Creditworthiness

[...]

Adam Harmes¹•Institutions (1)

University of Western Ontario¹

01 Dec 2005-Perspectives on Politics

TL;DR: The New Masters of Capital: American Bond Rating Agencies and the Politics of Creditworthiness by Timothy J. Sinclair as mentioned in this paper draws upon a cogent interweaving of rationalist and constructivist approaches to reveal the various forms of power exercised by American bond raters such as Moody's and Standard & Poor's.

...read moreread less

Abstract: The New Masters of Capital: American Bond Rating Agencies and the Politics of Creditworthiness. By Timothy J. Sinclair. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005. 208p. $29.95. In his book, Timothy J. Sinclair makes a strong theoretical and empirical contribution to the growing political economy literature on the increasing influence of nonstate actors. More specifically, he draws upon a cogent interweaving of rationalist and constructivist approaches to reveal the various forms of power exercised by American bond raters, such as Moody's and Standard & Poor's. Moreover, by means of detailed case studies on the rating of corporations, municipalities, and national governments, he demonstrates the broad political implications of rating agency power in terms of both geopolitical and distributive questions. In both cases, Sinclair's central argument is that “rating agencies help to construct the context in which corporations, municipalities, and governments make decisions. Rating agencies are not, as often supposed, ‘neutral’ institutions. Their impact on policy is political first, in terms of the processes involved, and second, in terms of the consequences of competing social interests” (p. 149).

...read moreread less

189 citations

Journal Article•DOI•

The Moral Microfoundations of Institutional Complexity: Sustainability implementation as compromise-making at an oil sands company:

[...]

Christiane Demers¹, Jean-Pascal Gond²•Institutions (2)

HEC Montréal¹, City University London²

01 Apr 2020-Organization Studies

TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on the fact that moral judgements are likely involved when individuals face a plurality of logics within organizations and analyse the moral micro-finance of these logics.

...read moreread less

Abstract: Research on institutional complexity has overlooked the fact that moral judgements are likely involved when individuals face a plurality of logics within organizations. To analyse the moral microfo...

...read moreread less

39 citations

Cites background from "The More Things Change . . . Instit..."

...Taupin (2012) uncovers the circularity of the justification work engaged in by financial rating agencies to reconstruct their worthiness after the 2008 crisis....
[...]
...The EW framework provides a vocabulary to capture the processes whereby, through their ‘justification work’ (Jagd, 2011; Taupin, 2012), individuals build on these ‘worlds’ to establish or challenge the forming of ‘compromises’ (Thévenot, 2001) in contexts of dispute or tension between worlds…...
[...]

Book Chapter•DOI•

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

[...]

Charlotte Cloutier, Jean-Pascal Gond, Bernard Leca

01 Jun 2017

TL;DR: The work in this article presents state-of-the-art research and thinking on the analysis of justification, evaluation and critique in organizations, as inspired by the foundational ideas of French Pragmatist Sociology's economies of worth (EW) framework.

...read moreread less

Abstract: This volume presents state-of-the-art research and thinking on the analysis of justification, evaluation and critique in organizations, as inspired by the foundational ideas of French Pragmatist Sociology’s economies of worth (EW) framework In this introduction, we begin by underlining the EW framework’s importance in sociology and social theory more generally and discuss its relative neglect within organizational theory, at least until now We then present an overview of the framework’s intellectual roots, and for those who are new to this particular theoretical domain, offer a brief introduction to the theory’s main concepts and core assumptions This we follow with an overview of the contributions included in this volume We conclude by highlighting the EW framework’s important yet largely untapped potential for advancing our understanding of organizations more broadly Collectively, the contributions in this volume help demonstrate the potential of the EW framework to (1) advance current understanding of organizational processes by unpacking justification dynamics at the individual level of analysis, (2) refresh critical perspectives in organization theory by providing them with pragmatic foundations, (3) expand and develop the study of valuation 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

...read moreread less

35 citations

Cites background or methods from "The More Things Change . . . Instit..."

...Other studies using the EW framework have been helpful for advancing our understanding of institutional work, by explaining legitimacy maintenance (Lawrence & Suddaby, 2006) as a dynamic combination of multiple orders of worth (Patriotta, Gond, & Schultz, 2011; Ramirez, 2013; Taupin, 2012)....
[...]
...For example, in a longitudinal study of the credit-rating industry, Taupin (2012) shows the different rhetorical and justificatory claims that actors mobilized in order to maintain the legitimacy of the industry in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis....
[...]

1
2
3
4
…
5
6
7
8
9
10
11

Collapse

References

PDF

Open Access

More filters

Book Chapter•DOI•

The iron cage revisited institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields

[...]

Paul DiMaggio, Walter W. Powell

01 Apr 1983-American Sociological Review

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that rational actors make their organizations increasingly similar as they try to change them, and describe three isomorphic processes-coercive, mimetic, and normative.

...read moreread less

32,981 citations

Journal Article•DOI•

Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony

[...]

John W. Meyer, Brian Rowan

01 Sep 1977-American Journal of Sociology

TL;DR: Many formal organizational structures arise as reflections of rationalized institutional rules as discussed by the authors, and the elaboration of such rules in modern states and societies accounts in part for the expansion and i...

...read moreread less

Abstract: Many formal organizational structures arise as reflections of rationalized institutional rules. The elaboration of such rules in modern states and societies accounts in part for the expansion and i...

...read moreread less

23,073 citations

"The More Things Change . . . Instit..." refers background in this paper

...The expression “isomorphic change” (Meyer & Rowan, 1977; DiMaggio & Powell, 1983) associates institutional reproduction (“isomorphic”) with the idea of movement (“change”)....
[...]

Journal Article•DOI•

The role of institutionalization in cultural persistence.

[...]

Lynne G. Zucker

01 Oct 1977-American Sociological Review

TL;DR: This paper found that the greater the degree of institutionalization, the greater generational uniformity, maintenance, and resistance to change of cultural understandings, and that these understandings are resistant to change.

...read moreread less

Abstract: Traditional approaches to institutionalization do not provide an adequate explanation of clultural persistence. A much more adequate explanation can be found in the ethnomethodological approach to institutionalization, defining acts which are both objective (potentially repeatable by other actors without changing the meaning) and exterior (intersubjectively defined so that they can be viewed as part of external reality) as highly institutionalized. Three levels of institutionalization were created in the autokinetic situation to permit examination of the effects of institutionalization on three aspects of cultural persistence: generational uniformity of cultural understandings, maintenance of these understandings, and resistance of these understandings to change. Three separate experiments were conducted to examine these aspects of cultural persistence. Strong support was foundfor the predictions that the greater the degree of institutionalization, the greater the generational uniformity, maintenance, and resistance to change of cultural understandings. Implications of these findings for earlier approaches to institutionalization are discussed.

...read moreread less

2,874 citations

"The More Things Change . . . Instit..." refers background in this paper

...Marti, I., & Mair, J. (2009)....
[...]
..., & Mair, J. (2009). Bringing change into the lives of the poor: Entrepreneurship outside traditional boundaries....
[...]
...Zucker, L. G. (1977). The role of institutionalization in cultural persistence....
[...]
...Jarzabkowski, p., Matthiesen, J., & Van De Ven, A. H. (2009). a practice approach to institutional pluralism....
[...]
...Furthermore, by adopting a dual vision between diffusion and maintenance, several studies have come to consider that a practice considered to be taken for granted was no longer justified (Zucker, 1977; Tolbert & Zucker, 1983; Green, 2004) since the justification was only necessary when the practice was in the process of spreading....
[...]

Journal Article•DOI•

Institutional Sources of Change in the Formal Structure of Organizations: The Diffusion of Civil Service Reform, 1880-1935

[...]

Pamela S. Tolbert, Lynne G. Zucker

01 Mar 1983-Administrative Science Quarterly

TL;DR: This paper investigated the diffusion and institutionalization of change in formal organization structure, using data on the adoption of civil service reform by cities and found that when civil service procedures are required by the state, they diffuse rapidly and directly from the state to each city.

...read moreread less

Abstract: The authors are jointly responsible forthe theoretical argumentand analysis. M. Craig Brown suggested the topic of civil service reform. Maureen J. McConaghy, Nancy Brandon Tuma, Glenn R. Carroll, and P. Y Liu provided methodological advice, Sharon Stevens aided early computational work. Both of us are grateful to Phillip Bonacich for his advice throughout the research, and to Marshall W. Meyer, John W. Meyer, William G. Roy, Herman Turk, Richard A. Berk, David McFarland, Oscar Grusky, and Jeffrey Pfeffer fortheir helpful comments on an eariner draft. This paper investigates the diffusion and institutionalization of change in formal organization structure, using data on the adoption of civil service reform by cities. It is shown thatwhen civil service procedures are required bythe state, they diffuse rapidly and directly from the state to each city. When the procedures are not so legitimated, they diffuse gradually and the underlying sources of adoption change overtime. In the lattercase, early adoption of civil service by cities is related to internal organizational requirements, with city characteristics predicting adoption, while late adoption is related to institutional definitions of legitimate structural form, so that city characteristics no longer predict the adoption decision. Overall, the findings provide strong support for the argument that the adoption of a policy or program by an organization is importantly determined by the extent to which the measure is institutionalizedwhether by law or by gradual legitimation.

...read moreread less

2,833 citations

"The More Things Change . . . Instit..." refers background in this paper

...…and maintenance, several studies have come to consider that a practice considered to be taken for granted was no longer justified (Zucker, 1977; Tolbert & Zucker, 1983; Green, 2004) since the justification was only necessary when the practice was in the process of spreading. in the material…...
[...]

Journal Article•

Institutions and Institutional Work

[...]

Thomas B. Lawrence¹, Bernard Leca, Roy Suddaby•Institutions (1)

University of Oxford¹

16 Jun 2006-Social Science Research Network

TL;DR: The Handbook of Organization Studies as mentioned in this paper provides a retrospective and prospective overview of organization studies, providing a synthesis of knowledge and literature from the field of organizational studies, and provides an overview of the most significant issues to affect organization studies such as leadership, diversity and globalization.

...read moreread less

Abstract: Providing a retrospective and prospective overview of organization studies, the Handbook continues to challenge and inspire readers with its synthesis of knowledge and literature. As ever, contributions have been selected to reflect the diversity of the field. New chapters cover areas such as organizational change; knowledge management; and organizational networks. Part One reflects on the relationship between theory, research and practice in organization studies. Part Two address a number of the most significant issues to affect organization studies such as leadership, diversity and globalization. Comprehensive and far-reaching, this important resource will set new standards for the understanding of organizational studies. It will be invaluable to researchers, teachers and advanced students alike.

...read moreread less

2,211 citations

"The More Things Change . . . Instit..." refers background in this paper

...Next, Lawrence and Suddaby (2006) noted that in the maintenance process, the way institutional actors lose understanding of their actions remained obscure....
[...]
...…of legitimacy has not been seriously questioned in the case of an environment in which the actors are dealing with a number of institutional logics (Lawrence & Suddaby, 2006; Thornton, Ocasio, & Lounsbury, 2012). individuals generally conform to a dominant logic (Thornton, 2002), but Suddaby and…...
[...]
...It is thus truly possible to talk of institutional work (Lawrence & Suddaby, 2006; Lawrence, et al., 2009) of justification, which I define as work done publicly by actors, based on the use and arrangement of multiple forms of rationality in a moment of strong contestation intended to promote their…...
[...]
...…field, he considers it an indicator of promising potential for development for empirical studies in the “institutional work” research agenda (Lawrence & Suddaby, 2006; Lawrence, Suddaby, & Leca, 2011) . rESEArcH QuESTIon According to the findings of Patriotta, Gond and Schultz (2011),…...
[...]