Proudly Elitist and Undemocratic? The distributed maintenance of contested practices

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A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä
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Date

2021-01-01

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Department of Management Studies

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Language

en

Pages

27

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Organization Studies, Volume 42, issue 1, pp. 7-33

Abstract

This study examines the maintenance of highly institutionalized practices during periods of vehement contestation and changing external demands. Employing a cross-level longitudinal research design, we explore how the recruitment model of elite French business schools persisted, remaining fundamentally intact despite serious questions raised about its functional utility and social legitimacy. Comparing three periods of contestation, we document shifting coalitions of dispersed actors that were incentivized to ?thematically? maintain the practices in the focal field with little formal orchestration. Our findings indicate that practices which contribute to social stratification often foster meta-routines that cajole constituencies in multiple fields to, collectively and self-interestedly, promote and regulate conservative change. We identify three meta-routines?referential comparison, generative improvisation, and distributed monitoring and policing?that introduced flexibility and encouraged ?unforced? adaptations. In elaborating these meta-routines, we contribute to extant theory on the mechanisms of institutional maintenance, and shed further light on the role of complex embeddedness as a constraint on institutional processes.

Description

doi: 10.1177/0170840619874462

Keywords

contested practices, institutional infrastructure, institutional maintenance, organization theory, qualitative methods

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DOI

10.1177/0170840619874462

Citation

Raynard, M, Kodeih, F & Greenwood, R 2021, 'Proudly Elitist and Undemocratic? The distributed maintenance of contested practices', Organization Studies, vol. 42, no. 1, pp. 7-33. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840619874462

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https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:aalto-202202021681

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[article-cris] Kauppakorkeakoulu / BIZ