Induction as an institutionalized and institutionalizing practice – retail banking and consultancy in France

Purpose: Induction and institutions may have followed the same tracks for a long period of time, but their interaction is scarcely analyzed. On the one hand, induction prepares newcomers to work in an organization that is completely new to them. On the other hand, institutions apparently need induction processes to maintain themselves in the same time they renew their members. The objective of the present study is to analyze induction as a practice, and to show how this practice turns itself into an institution, in spite of the embeddedness of action scripts into rational schemes. Methodology/Approach: We introduce the case of a retail bank and a consulting company in France. Both have formalized induction systems, but they show enough differences to be considered as offering two complementary approaches of a same practice. The same method has been applied to both fields. It consisted in analyzing induction as an aggregate of ostensive (action scripts), performative (actions themselves) elements and artefacts (material productions). Findings: The successive steps of selections and integration of induction process appear as ways of testing the compatibility of newcomers with the immunity system of the organization. Moreover, throughout both case studies, the ostensive aspect of induction has remained stable for years, although markets and business models have changed a lot. Induction seems to be frozen as far as practicing (i.e. the implementation of action scripts) is concerned. The study of practising (i.e. the dialectic interaction of ostensive, performative elements and artefacts) shows that constant and individually lead adaptive moves preserve the institutionalized practice without any shape of rigidity. Limitations: The choice of the two companies could be discussed to infinity. Both companies deliver utilities. Both prove to be attached to specific traditions (a possible bias for further analysis). The length of observation periods may have been too short to draw definitive conclusions about the absence of change. The starting point of this research was focused on practices as major factors of change and learning, nevertheless the field study lead to counterintuitive results. Practical implications: It is quite common to emphasize manifold discrepancies between managers' patterns and what people actually do. Nevertheless, beyond the irreducible gap between procedure and performance, we would like to isolate the influence that institutional factors exert on actual performances. Stakeholders and managers have to get conscious of their institutional responsibility beyond their organizational and contractual one. Change has to be operated at those three levels. Originality/value of paper: Stability vs. change, uniformity vs. diversity depend on the lens by which we look at practices. If we take into consideration the ocean of actions that are performed day after day inside the firm, diversity and change appear. However, if we adopt a longer range look at what happens and correlate it to appropriate institutional factors, stability and uniformity emerge from permanent change. That disqualifies both technocratic attempts to standardize performance from abstract patterns and naive designs of spontaneous emergence of "not embedded" behaviors.