In this paper, we examine the way interplays within and between material and symbolic works contribute to maintaining an institution over time. Drawing on a historical analysis of the Parisian Metropolitan Railway entrances over a century, we highlight five forms of interplay: triggering, bolstering, constraining, combining and self-reinforcing. Our analysis offers a process model revealing how this great variety of interplays is progressively arranged into various sequences. Those various sequences of interplays contribute to progressively mesh together the material and symbolic works and sustain the institution over time. Our paper refines our understanding of the role of institutional work and its interplays in institutional maintenance, allowing us to consider symbolic and material works as of similar importance for maintenance. In so doing, we develop a more nuanced view of institutional maintenance, as a certain purification of the institution can be needed for the latter to be sustained over time.
This paper aims to explain the industry emergence following a disruptive innovation through key activities (KAs) in interorganizational networks, i.e. the structural components of innovation that are actors and their interorganizational network. Based on the literature on interorganizational relationships (IORs) and disruptive innovation, we create a link with Adner’s ecosystem-as-structure construct to argue that the innovation networks could be used as an assessment tool to highlight key activities rather than focal companies to explain industry emergence. To explore our argument, we developed a longitudinal innovation network analysis of the autonomous vehicles industry from 2011 to 2019 based on a unique database encompassing 545 IORs. Our key findings revealed that IORs could be used as metrics for illustrating the emerging years of an industry, while also supporting Adner’s construct on ecosystem-as-structure as IORs for autonomous vehicles emerge around five key activities (i.e. connectivity, artificial intelligence, design and commercialization, sensing and Mobility-as-a-Service). In doing so, we reveal the interest to adopt a yearly macro analysis for explaining industry emergence.
