Institutional Work & Individual Competence: The role of interactions in creating maintaining and disrupting institutions.

This work is a research proposal on microfoundations of neo-institutional theory. This proposal suggests to analyze, through the lens of neo-institutional theory, the role of individual competences in creating, maintaining, and disrupting institutions. Individuals exercise influence on the type of processes and operations that the organization carries on [1]. When these influences enable organizational innovation through the introduction of new practices, the underpinning mechanisms assume importance as premises for organizational design. In this study we propose to analyze a case of successful design and implementation of a service platform in the Italian public sector, supporting the interaction among Public Administrations (PA), Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) and citizens. This platform has been successfully adopted through software re-use projects in more than 140 local PAs in the Toscana Region, resulting in an interesting case-study to understand the influence of individual competence and their interactions in fostering innovation.This work is a research proposal on microfoundations of neo-institutional theory. This proposal suggests to analyze, through the lens of neo-institutional theory, the role of individual competences in creating, maintaining, and disrupting institutions. Individuals exercise influence on the type of processes and operations that the organization carries on [1]. When these influences enable organizational innovation through the introduction of new practices, the underpinning mechanisms assume importance as premises for organizational design. In this study we propose to analyze a case of successful design and implementation of a service platform in the Italian public sector, supporting the interaction among Public Administrations (PA), Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) and citizens. This platform has been successfully adopted through software re-use projects in more than 140 local PAs in the Toscana Region, resulting in an interesting case-study to understand the influence of individual competence and their interactions in fostering innovation.Uninvited Submission

Transnational corporations shaping institutional change:the case of English law firms in Germany

Questions remain about the factors that influence the ability of transnational corporations (TNCs) to shape processes of institutional change. In particular, questions about power relations need more attention. To address such questions, this article develops a neo-institutional theory-inspired analysis of the case of English law firms and their impacts on institutional change in Germany. The article shows that the shaping of the direction of institutional change by English legal TNCs was a product of conjunctural moments in which local institutional instability combined with the presence, resources and strategies of the TNCs to redirect the path of institutional evolution. This draws attention to the need to go beyond the TNC and its resources and to consider the way a diverse array of local actors and their generating of instability in existing institutional structures influence the ability of TNCs to become involved in processes of institutional change in particular, conjunctural moments in tim

Bad barrels and bad cellars:a ‘boundaries’ perspective on professional misconduct

Professions have traditionally been associated with a public safeguard role, with their superior ethical standards usually invoked to justify their occupational privileges and special labour market position. As such professionals have been thought to act as 'social trustees' (Brint, 1994) of key skills for the benefit of society as a whole or as 'gatekeepers' (Coffee, 2006) who play a fundamental role in maintaining the integrity of broader institutions. Yet recent scandals from Enron, to Parmalat and the recent financial crisis call into question the fiduciary role played by the professions. Thus, rather than as gatekeepers and social trustees, professions may have acted, perhaps unwittingly, as accomplices if not masterminds in recent episodes of corporate wrongdoing and malpractice. This chapter focuses on the role of professions in processes of malpractice and approaches this through the consideration of a number of key boundaries which frame professional practice and the tensions, conflicts and opportunities or temptations these generate. These include: 1) internal divisions within professional services firms between different services and the conflict of interests these may produce (thus the tensions between auditing and consulting within large accountancy firms), 2) the relationship between professional advisers and external stakeholders such as clients and increasingly financial investors, and the capture dynamics which may be at play here, 3) the boundaries which exist between different firms and professions engaged in gatekeeping functions and the systemic myopia that this allows and 4) the existence national and regional boundaries between jurisdictions with different standards of professional practice and regulatory oversight

The long way to professional recognition: : project management in Italy

This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of the following article: Luca Sabini, and Danie Muzio, ‘The long way to professional recognition: project management in Italy’, International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, Vol. 10 (4):822-840, September 2017. The final, published version is available online at DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJMPB-02-2017-0011.Purpose: The professionalization of project management (PM) profession has developed differently according to the different environments in which it has been introduced. The purpose of this paper is to examine an example of this professional project (Italy) with this research question: “what have been the professionalization strategies of PM professional associations within Italian field?” Design/methodology/approach: The authors develop a qualitative case study made up of semi-structured interviews and archival data. Findings: The analysis demonstrates how PM in Italy has embarked on a clear upward trajectory in terms of its occupational size, economic significance and institutional development. However, the development of PM in Italy considerably lags behind Anglo-Saxon countries. The authors also identify three main strategies through which this professionalization project is being accomplished (see Section 5). These are corporate engagement, expanding membership and institutional recognition. Research limitations/implications: The study reviews the professionalization of PM in Italy. This is not a comparative study, but rather highlights Italian PM professionalization. Moreover, the authors expect significant findings could be reached with a comparable research across different national contexts. Originality/value: This work constitutes the first detailed and comprehensive study in the field of PM within the Italian context.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Inserting professionals and professional organizations in studies of wrongdoing : the nature, antecedents and consequences of professional misconduct

Professional misconduct has become seemingly ubiquitous in recent decades. However, to date there has been little sustained effort to theorize the phenomenon of professional misconduct, how this relates to professional organizations, and how this may contribute to broader patterns of corruption and wrongdoing. In response to this gap, in this contribution we discuss the theoretical and empirical implications of analyses that focus on the nature, antecedents and consequences of professional misconduct. In particular, we discuss how the nature of professional misconduct can be quite variegated and nuanced, how boundaries between and within professions can be either too weak or too strong and lead to professional misconduct, and how the consequences of professional misconduct can be less straightforward than normally assumed. We also illuminate how some important questions about professional misconduct are still pending, including: how we define its different organizational forms; how it is instigated by the changing nature of professional boundaries; and how its consequences are responded to in professional organizations and society more widely

Organizational professionalism in globalizing law firms.

Are the challenges of globalization, technology and competition exercising a dramatic impact on professional practice whilst, in the process, compromising traditional notions of professionalism, autonomy and discretion? This paper engages with these debates and uses original, qualitative empirical data to highlight the vast areas of continuity that exist even the largest globalizing law firms. Whilst it is undoubted that growth in the size of firms and their globalization bring new challenges, these are resolved in ways that are sensitive to professional values and interests. In particular, a commitment to professional autonomy and discretion still characterises the way in which these firms operate and organize themselves. This situation is explained in terms of the development of an organizational model of professionalism, whereby the large organization is increasingly emerging as a primary locus of professionalization and whereby professional priorities and objectives are increasingly supported by organizational logics, systems and initiatives

Legal services: opportunities and challenges

A review of recent trends in corporate legal services in North West England which can be perceived as creating either opportunities or threats - with reference to research funded by the Socio-Legal Studies Association. Article by James Faulconbridge (Department of Geography, Lancaster University) and Daniel Muzio (Leeds University Business School) - published in Amicus Curiae - Journal of the Society for Advanced Legal Studies. The Journal is produced by the Society for Advanced Legal Studies at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London

Learning the rules of the game: How is corporate masculinity learned and enacted by male professionals from nonprivileged backgrounds?

Focusing on the lived intersection of social class and hegemonic masculinity, this article uses data elicited over a 5‐year period to analyze the experiences of 10 white male participants from nonprivileged socioeconomic backgrounds, who were recruited as information technology professionals by a prestigious professional service firm (PSF). Employing a Bourdieusian perspective, we reveal how participants learned to enact the configuration of corporate masculinity deemed hegemonic in the field of their employing PSF. We pay particular attention to how participants engaged with distinctive forms of cultural capital to enact corporate masculinity, and the symbolic violence and “hidden injuries of class” this represents and leads to. In turn, we highlight how classed masculine norms create exclusion, marginalization, and discrimination in organizations. We suggest that class becomes recognized as a germane area

Valuation devices and the dynamic legitimacy-performativity nexus : the case of PEP in the English legal profession

Existing studies have developed increasingly sophisticated accounts of the performative agency of valuation devices and their effects on markets and organizations. In particular, research has focused on the work of different actors to legitimize valuation devices and ensure their adoption, which then leads to performativity. This paper extends work on the legitimacy and performativity of valuation devices by developing a dynamic, non-linear theorization of the boundary conditions of performativity and the feedbacks that result in changes in performativity over time. We ask: How do evolutions in a valuation device’s legitimacy relate to its performativity? Our analysis is based on a longitudinal study of the profits per equity partner (PEP) metric which between 1995 and 2013 became established as a key valuation device for English law firms. Through this case we draw attention to the dynamic legitimacy-performativity nexus. We show how the waxing and waning of different forms of legitimacy, in line with the dynamics of the broader institutional environment, affect the performativity of a particular valuation device. We also reveal a performativity paradox. The more a device gains legitimacy the more it becomes influential and exercises performative effects. The more this happens, the more the risk that tensions, contradictions and challenges will arise and begin to undermine the valuation device’s legitimacy and consequently its performativity. Consequently, we contribute to better theorizing the dynamic links between legitimacy, performativity and counter-performativity