Citation: Demers, C. and Gond, J-P. ORCID: 0000-0002- 9331-6957 (2019). The moral microfoundations of institutional complexity: Sustainability implementation as compromisemaking at an oil sands company. Organization Studies, Paper forthcoming in Organization Studies. The moral microfoundations of institutional complexity: Sustainability implementation as compromise-making at an oil sands company AbstractResearch on institutional complexity has overlooked the fact that moral judgements are likely involved when individuals face a plurality of logics within organizations. To analyze the moral microfoundations of institutional complexity, we build on Boltanski and Thévenot's (2006 [1991]) economies of worth (EW) framework and explore how individuals produce moral judgement in response to the institutional complexity triggered by a major shift in the sustainability strategy within an oil sands company. Fifty-two interviews with employees, managers and executives reveal how actors rely on four types of justification that combine different moral principles and related objects with the aim of either forming (sheltering and solidifying work) or challenging (fragilizing and deconstructing work) a new compromise with regard to sustainability within the organization. Our results show how the EW framework can enrich institutional complexity theory by bringing morality back into the analysis as a core dimension of inhabited institutions while advancing the microanalysis of compromise-making around sustainability in organization studies.

This study uses a discursive perspective to analyze the way in which top managers legitimize change in official announcements. It focuses on the foundations of legitimacy invoked using both Weber's typology, based on modes of authority, and the conventionalist model, stressing the constitutive frameworks that justify collective action. We use a narrative approach to examine four texts intended for employees in the context of mergers-acquisitions in the Canadian financial services sector. We look at those announcements as wedding narratives. A framework based on the canonical schema and Greimas's actantial model was applied to the texts. The analysis reveals that these narrations of corporate marriages, while describing the same event, give distinct versions of it. These distinctions bring out differences between firms in terms of the foundations of legitimacy invoked, the contribution of the various actors, and the narrative style favoured.Communication's critical role in the implementation of change is often cited in the literature (Ford and Ford, 1995;Kanter, 1987). Communication is presented as a tool for diffusing top management intentions (Demers, 1993) and for preparing minds to a new context of action (Giroux and Taylor, 1995). Managers legitimate change to encourage employee commitment to imminent transformations (Armenakis et al., 1993).Mergers and acquisitions (M/As) are a formidable challenge for change management. The joined organizations are often radically transformed and

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in practice-based studies of organizational change. Most of this research does not explicitly consider the tension between situated and sociohistorical practices that are central to the transformation of work practices associated with an episode of change. In our study of the impact of off-the-shelf three-dimensional rendering software on the daily practice of architects in a small, highly regarded firm, we explore the incompatibility between these different levels of practice. By building on the concept of contradiction drawn from activity theory, we identify patterns of challenges, reenactments, and enactments through which situated change simultaneously reproduces and questions institutionalized practices.

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to introduce this special themed section which explores the relationship between contradiction and organizational change. Design/methodology/approach -This paper analyzes the four papers included in this special themed section, drawing links between the different texts. Findings -A review of the papers shows that they contribute to our understanding of the dynamics of organizational change by focusing on how contradictions manifest themselves and how they are managed in various change contexts. Originality/value -This introduction provides readers of the themed section with an overview of the four papers.

L’objectif de cet article est de proposer un modèle du processus de diffusion stratégique qui tient compte de l’interaction entre l’interprétation des dirigeants et celles des autres membres de l’organisation, dans une situation de changement radical. Le processus de diffusion y est donc conçu non seulement comme un processus de transmission d’information mais également comme un processus interactif de création de sens. La diffusion stratégique y est décrite comme l’interaction entre deux processus qui s’articulent respectivement autour de la redéfinition de la mission et de la redéfinition de la gestion. Le premier de ces processus est une dynamique horizontale : une négociation entre les différentes parties de l’organisation, tandis que le deuxième est une dynamique verticale : une chaîne d’échanges entre supérieur et subordonné.