Keeping a dream alive: Sustaining the rational myth of industrialization in the construction industry from 1945 to 1970

Thibault Daudigeos (), Eva Boxenbaum (), Sylvain Colombero and Pillet Jean-Charles
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Thibault Daudigeos: MC - Management et Comportement - EESC-GEM Grenoble Ecole de Management
Eva Boxenbaum: CGS i3 - Centre de Gestion Scientifique i3 - Mines Paris - PSL (École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris) - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - I3 - Institut interdisciplinaire de l’innovation - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CBS - Copenhagen Business School [Copenhagen]
Sylvain Colombero: EESC-GEM Grenoble Ecole de Management
Pillet Jean-Charles: MC - Management et Comportement - EESC-GEM Grenoble Ecole de Management

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Abstract: How do rational myths survive over time? According to Meyer and Rowan (1977), rational myths provide idealized cultural accounts of how organizations should operate. They have two key properties: 1) they are rationalized prescriptions that specify in a rulelike way the appropriate means to rationally pursue certain social purposes, and 2) they are highly institutionalized, i.e. their legitimacy is taken for granted. Rational myths help organizational members make sense of uncertain situations and guide organizational action in meaningful and legitimate directions. While existing literature has shed light on how rational myths come into existence and how they operate, we are still missing insight into how they survive over time. Our enquiry explores, through a multimodal analysis, how rational myths survive over time in the absence of solid demonstrations that they hold true. Empirically, we examine the rational myth of industrialization as formulated by the automotive industry at the turn of the 20th century, notably how it expressed itself in the construction industry in the postwar period.

Keywords: Rational myth; industrialization; construction industra (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-09-22
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Published in 2nd International Conference: Visuality, Materiality, Multimodality, Copenhagen Business School, Sep 2016, Copenhagen, Denmark

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01392856

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