Business as usual in Financial Markets? The creation of incommensurables as institutional maintenance work

Hélène Rainelli Weiss and Isabelle Huault
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Hélène Rainelli Weiss: LARGE - Laboratoire de recherche en gestion et économie - Université Louis Pasteur - Strasbourg I - Université Robert Schuman - Strasbourg III
Isabelle Huault: DRM - Dauphine Recherches en Management - Université Paris Dauphine-PSL - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Helene Rainelli-Weiss

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Abstract: This paper aims to contribute to the literature on "institutional maintenance work". Focusing on the institutional disruption resulting from a regulatory project of market rationalisation, it enriches the description and analysis of the specific institutional maintenance work performed by powerful actors who engage in resistance against what they perceive as a threat to their discretion. Built on an in-depth qualitative study, our case concerns an attempt to change the form of over-the-counter markets as part of a recent financial reform. The paper contributes to the expanding literature on the maintenance of institutions by suggesting, in particular, that the creation of incommensurables should be added to the list of strategies available to powerful incumbents seeking to resist institutional change. Bridging the gap between the literatures on institutional maintenance and commensuration, it also demonstrates that specific institutional changes can usefully be understood as changes in commensuration systems. This innovatively suggests the existence of degrees of commensuration and calls for a finer-grained understanding of the institutional work required to maintain institutions in a context where the degree of commensuration experienced by a field or a market threatens to increase under coercive pressure.

Keywords: financial derivatives markets; financial regulation; institutional maintenance; resistance; incommensurables; commensuration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-01275254v1
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Published in Organization Studies, 2016

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