Working within Discretionary Boundaries: Allocative Rules, Exceptions, and the Micro-Foundations of Inequ(al)ity

Nevena Radoynovska
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Nevena Radoynovska: EM - EMLyon Business School

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Abstract: Organizations tasked with allocating limited resources face obvious distributive dilemmas. Allocative rules – when applied universally – seek to limit the discretion of organizational members and mitigate disparate treatment. Yet, particularistic needs often warrant exceptions to such rules and accept unequal treatment in the interest of equity. I argue that organizational members engage in a form of boundary work, which I call discretion work, to manage discretionary boundaries around the application of allocative rules versus exceptions. Discretion work functions through semi-institutionalized ‘rules of exceptionalism,' which involve continual boundary-testing. Relying on ethnographic fieldwork at a French social service organization, enriched by interviews with service providers, I identify three types of discretion work – procedural, symbolic, and evaluative – which govern how, for whom, and for what purpose allocative decisions are made. The article contributes to institutional perspectives on inequality by a) articulating the micro-practices that (re)produce inequitable resource allocation at the bottom of the social ladder, and b) theorizing the often overlooked distinction between principles of equity and equality.

Keywords: boundary work; discretion; equity; inequality; institutional theory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-09-01
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Published in Organization Studies, 2018, 39 (9), 1277-1298 p

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02312180

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