Reference : At the boundaries of institutional theorizing: Individual entrepreneurship in episode...
Scientific journals : Article
Business & economic sciences : Accounting & auditing
http://hdl.handle.net/10993/43482
At the boundaries of institutional theorizing: Individual entrepreneurship in episodes of regulatory change
English
Löhlein, Lukas mailto [WHU Otto Beisheim School of Management > Institute of Managment Accounting and Control]
Muessig, Anke mailto [University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Law, Economics and Finance (FDEF) > Center for Research in Economic Analysis (CREA) >]
May-2020
Accounting, Organizations and Society
Elsevier
83
1-21
Yes (verified by ORBilu)
International
0361-3682
1873-6289
Amsterdam
Netherlands
[en] Audit oversight ; Institutional entrepreneurship ; Field change ; Institutional ambiguities ; Institutional biography
[en] We analyse the institutional dynamics surrounding the establishment of independent audit oversight in Germany from 1997 to 2016. Complementing prior works, which have focused on countries where the global demand for independent regulation coincides with the domestic erosion of public trust in professional self-regulation, we investigate regulatory change in a context featuring strong trust in the accounting profession. To analyse the accounting establishment’s response to expanding global standards of accounting regulation and the escalating resistance of small accounting firms, as orchestrated by one individual, we mobilize a Bourdieusian field perspective and the literature on institutional entrepreneurship. By demonstrating how intra-professional conflict has increasingly eroded the establishment’s
capital to reproduce its hegemonic field position and keep the regulator at distance, our case
provides a counterpoint to prior research, which suggests that oversight is mainly the product of negotiations between a unified profession and the regulatory authority. Examining a rare instance of individual entrepreneurship also enables us to engage in a theory-testing process on the explanatory power of institutional ambiguitiesdthe subjectively perceived ruptures and contradictions within established social arrangementsdfor agency. Our findings suggest that ongoing encounters with institutional ambiguities result in varying disposition to activism. In this way, while acknowledging agency as a cause of field reproduction and change, our analysis shifts attention towards the relational, temporal, and transformational institutional dynamics that constitute distinct modes of agency. By identifying empirical residuals that seem to escape theorization, we also reveal the limits of institutional theorizing.
Internal Research Grants, University of Luxembourg
R-AGR-0167 > Auditoversight > 01/05/2012 - 30/04/2015 > MUESSIG Anke
Researchers ; Professionals ; Students ; General public
http://hdl.handle.net/10993/43482
10.1016/j.aos.2019.101102

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