Conventions at work: The role of competent actors and form investments in accomplising coordination – A study on the work time reduction of hospital doctors

Description

We apply an economics of conventions (EC) perspective to better understand divergent organizational responses to institutional forces. Empirically, we examine how different types of hospitals responded to a new law, which should reduce hospital doctors’ work time from up to 72 hours a week to a weekly maximum of 48 hours. A change on such a scale would potentially affect the common good represented by the public health care system. Therefore, the different ways of responding were analyzed until coordination situations related to the potential work time reduction were re-stabilized. We show that organizational responses are arrangements devised to allow making decisions on matters affecting the common good, meaning that the competent actors involved and the form investments in place provide a ground for coordinating actions. We reach three conclusions about the role of competent actors and investments in forms as well as their interplay: First, competent actors are perceived as competent only if their justifications of decisions correspond with the public evaluation of the situation. Second, investments in forms are only performative if they are perceived as useful cognitive and evaluative devices that reduce uncertainty in coordination situations. Third, a problematic coordination situation is perceived as resolved when the competent actors involved and investments in forms available in situ match up.

Period	5 Jul 2018 → 7 Jul 2018
Event title	34th EGOS Colloquium
Event type	Conference
Location	Tallinn, EstoniaShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International