City Research Online

Abstract

We explore how transitory management fashions become institutionalized. Based on the concepts of institutional entrepreneurship and institutional work, we postulate that fashionable management practices acquire permanence when they are anchored within fieldwide institutions. The building of such institutions requires various types of institutional work, including political work, technical work and cultural work. Based on a review of the empirical literature on various management fashions, we identify the actors engaging in these different types of works, and their skills. Our results suggest that the institutionalization effect is stronger if more types of institutional work are deployed and if the skill sets of the involved actors vary. We also argue that institutional construction in the case of management fashions is likely to take the form of decentralized `partaking' rather than being led by a single dominant institutional entrepreneur. We conclude with implications for the study of management fashions and the role of agency in institutionalization.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Copyright Sage 2008
Publisher Keywords:	institutional entrepreneurship, institutional work, institutionalization, management fashions, management knowledge, management practices
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor > HD28 Management. Industrial Management
Departments:	Bayes Business School > Management
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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