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Turning Vice Into Virtue: Institutional Work And Professional Misconduct, Elisabeth Brooke Harrington
Turning Vice Into Virtue: Institutional Work And Professional Misconduct, Elisabeth Brooke Harrington
Brooke Harrington
Why do professionals engage in or aid misconduct, rather than rejecting it as a threat to their legitimacy and labor market survival? This paper contributes to the scholarly agenda by drawing on an ethnographic study of professionals who facilitate offshore tax avoidance for the ultra-wealthy. This form of expert advisory work has become highly controversial, and is increasingly classified as a form of professional wrongdoing. Building on theories of institutional work and categorization, the study theorizes practitioners’ responses to field-level legitimacy threats. Specifically, the paper models a process in which misconduct is re-categorized in terms of the core norms that …
Between Kinship And Commerce: Fiduciaries And The Institutional Logics Of Family Firms, Elisabeth Brooke Harrington, Vanessa Strike
Between Kinship And Commerce: Fiduciaries And The Institutional Logics Of Family Firms, Elisabeth Brooke Harrington, Vanessa Strike
Brooke Harrington
In this study we explore how the institutions of kinship and commerce are integrated within family businesses.
Previous research shows that family firms’ characteristic synthesis of institutional logics often unravels during
intergenerational successions; however, it remains unclear how this process can be arrested, or by whom. Through
inductive analysis, we offer a novel insight: outside advisors can act as surrogates for family in this integrative
role. Specifically, we identify fiduciaries—professionals with special client obligations—as key actors in preserving
family firms’ viability as commercial enterprises and kinship groups. Our findings contribute to theories of family
businesses, professions, and institutions.