(De)Legitimating Accounts as an Interplay between Actions, Meanings, and Actors: The Case of a Plant Closure

• In Event: 161 - Section on Organizations, Occupation and Work Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 02. Organizational Arrangements and Workplace Practices

Abstract

This paper examines how the characteristics of organization members, the composition of their work context, and the meanings they attach to organizational practices and arrangements shape the processes of institutionalization, especially that of legitimation. Using qualitative and quantitative data of steelworkers whose plant closed, I investigate how the embeddedness of individuals and work departments shape their evaluations of managers, their firm, and the market. The findings contribute to a burgeoning literature on institutionalization as a political phenomenon and highlight the merits of examining organizational processes inside the organization.

Author

• Paul Carruth, The Ohio State University