Authentication as Institutional Maintenance Work

• Date: 01 March 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12413
• Author: Eva Boxenbaum,Sylvain Colombero
• Published date: 01 March 2019

© 2018 John Wiley & Sons Lt d and Society for the Adva ncement of Management Stud ies

Authentication as Institutional Maintenance Work

Sylvain Colomberoa and Eva Boxenbaumb,c

aGrenoble Ecole de Management; bCopenhagen Business School; cMINES ParisTech – PSL Research

University

ABST RACT Institutiona l maintenance work refers to actors’ deliberate effort to m aintain an

institution. T his paper examines how actors use authentication, i .e., the relational const itution

of an artefact as or iginal or as a genuine expression of a par ticular type, style or per son, to

accomplish inst itutional maintenance work. We investigated contemporar y adjustments to six

listed build ings. These works were undertaken to keep t hese building s functional while at the

same time protecti ng their listing; by doing so t hey contributed to mai ntain the in stitution of

Architectu ral Heritage. Our analysis ident ifies three forms of authentication: mat erial consoli-

dation, craft s mobilization a nd character enha ncement. We elaborate on each of them and

explain thei r institutional underpinn ings and outcomes. The paper concludes with an art icula-

tion of authentication as a potent form of inst itutional maintenance work. Taking its st arting

point in material ity, authentication is a relat ional practice t hat helps maintain institut ions

relying on irreplaceable artefacts for their maintenance.

Keywords: arch itectural her itage, authentic ity, institution al maintenanc e, materialit y

INTRODUCTION

Actors engage in institutional maintenance work when they deliberately seek to repro-

duce institutions through their daily activities (Lawrence and Suddaby, 2006). Previous

research has identified verbal discourse (Quinn-Trank and Washington, 2009; Zilber,

2009) and practices (Dacin et al., 2010) as effective forms of institutional maintenance

work. Recently, scholars have turned to artefacts as another potent resource for insti-

tutional maintenance work. An artefact is defined as ‘a discrete material object, con-

sciously produced or transformed by human activ ity, under the inf luence of the physical

and/or cultural environment’ (Suchman, 2003, p. 98). Artefacts communicate institu-

tional content through material means (Carlile et al., 2013; Dover and Lawrence, 2010;

Journal of Man agement Studi es 56:2 March 2019

doi: 10. 1111/j om s.12413

Address for re prints : Sylvain Colombero, Gr enoble Ecole de Management, 12 rue Pierre Sém ard, 3800 0

Grenoble, France (sylvai n.colombero@grenoble-em.com).

Authentication as Institutional Maintenance Work 409

© 2018 John Wiley & Sons Lt d and Society for the Adva ncement of Management Stud ies

Jones et al., 2013), a capacity that imbues them with an ability to inf luence institutional

dynamics and contribute to institutional maintenance (Jones and Massa, 2013; Jones

et al., 2012; Lawrence et al., 2013). For instance, the classical Roman columns th at often

decorate court houses evoke, and reproduce, ancient Greek and Roman institutions of

democracy and justice.

Artefacts have particular qualities that impact their capacity for institutional mainte-

nance. We focus here on the quality of irreplaceability, understood as a widespread per-

ception among a group of actors that a particular artefact carries value that significantly

exceeds that of its reproduction or replacement. Artefacts are irreplaceable when they

are widely perceived as authentic, that is, when they are believed to be ‘the original’ or

‘the real thing’ (Grayson and Martinec, 2004, p. 297) or ‘being true to’ something, that

is, when actors construe them as ‘genuine’, ‘original’ or ‘true’ (Carroll, 2015; Carroll

and Wheaton, 2009; Grayson and Martinec, 2004; Peterson, 2005) rather than ‘fake’

or ‘manufactured’ (Askin and Mol, 2018; Peterson, 1997). Artefacts are not inherently

authentic. Rather, people attribute authenticity to them (Askin and Mol, 2018).

Irreplaceable artefacts are particularly important for the maintenance of institutions re-

lated to heritage. Heritage institutions refer to sets of institutionalized ideas, practices and

artefacts that govern which elements from the past are being brought into the present to

sustain contemporary collective identities, shared values, and social structures. Heritage in-

stitutions create meaning by bridging time as Smith explains in a reflection on her empirical

work: ‘Heritage wasn’t only about the past – though it was that too – it also wasn’t just about

material things – though it was that as well – heritage was a process of engagement, an act of

communication and an act of making meaning in and for the present’ (2006, p. 1). Heritage

institutions evoke the past not only discursively, but also through irreplaceable artefacts.

Irreplaceable artefacts face the challenges of material decay and loss of functionality.

Whereas a little patina adds value to an irreplaceable artefact, showing that it has been

used and connecting the artefact to the past, its decay or loss of functionality diminishes

its ability to bring the past into the present. The latter situation prompts the question of

whether to forgo its contemporary use or to adapt the irreplaceable artefact. The former

option favours a gradual erosion of the heritage institution that it sustains. In contrast, the

latter choice proactively favours the link between the past and the present, which helps

maintain the institution that relies on the irreplaceable artefact. In this case, a key chal-

lenge consists in adapting the irreplaceable artefact without sacrificing its authenticity in

the process. The practices involved in this process can be described as authentication.

Authentication refers to a thoroughly relational process through which artefacts come

to be established as authentic (Askin and Mol, 2018). Authentication is essentially ‘the

process by which authenticity is socially produced and ascribed’ (Askin and Mol, p.

164). This process, which occurs during social interaction, engages a variety of actors

in the co-construction of authenticity (Askin and Mol, 2018; Lehman et al., in press).

Authentication may take place when an artefact’s authenticity is established for the first

time, such as when a newly discovered painting is certified as being the original work of

a famous artist. In a religious context, authentication can also take the form of consecra-

tion, that is, a set of practices that establish an artefact as sacred (Jones and Massa, 2013).

Authentication is also in play when an irreplaceable artefact, previously established as

410 S. Colombero and E. Boxenbaum

© 2018 John Wiley & Sons Lt d and Society for the Adva ncement of Management Stud ies

authentic, undergoes repair or adaptation to maintain its contemporary functionality. In

this process, the artefact risks losing its perceived authenticity, which calls for renewed

authentication to establish its continued status as an irreplaceable artefact. To exemplify,

an old church that is converted into a tourist office requires renewed authentication to

maintain its affiliation with the institutions of religion or architectural heritage, without

which it no longer sustains any of these institutions. We focus in this paper on the renewal

of authentication in the context of modifying irreplaceable artefacts. To illuminate how

authentication unfolds in this context, we ask the following research question: how do actors

preserve the authenticity of irreplaceable artefacts that are essential for institutional maintenance?

Our empirical study examines the institutional maintenance of architectural heritage,

which relies for its maintenance on irreplaceable artefacts known as ‘listed buildings’. Listed

buildings are protected because they represent artistic styles or historical periods that are

deemed to have symbolic and/or artistic value for the nation state (Council of Europe,

1985). More specifically, we analyse the authentication of six listed buildings that were

subjected to contemporary adjustments (Rouillard, 2006), aimed at their renovation or ex-

tension. All were at high risk of losing either their functionality or their authenticity in the

process but maintained both and thus consolidated their inclusion on the national inven-

tory of listed buildings. To make our findings robust across national contexts, we selected

cases from both Denmark and France, which have similar practices in place to protect listed

buildings and thereby maintain the institution of architectural heritage (Jokilehto, 1986).

We identified three distinct forms of authentication that imbue irreplaceable artefacts

with their potency for institutional maintenance, which we labelled as material consolida-

tion, crafts mobilization and character enhancement. Although one form of authentication pre-

dominated in each case, we suggest that these three forms may be used in combination

with one another to engage and satisfy different participants in the authentication pro-

cess. These findings contribute to the literature on institutional maintenance with insight

into how actors establish material artefacts as authentic through relational processes that

draw selectively on material features, verbal discourse and practices. Collectively, they

offer a novel, complementary role for material artefacts in institutional maintenance,

extending previous work that has begun to unpack how material artefacts interact with

verbal discourse and practices during institutional maintenance work (e.g., Jones and

Massa, 2013; Lanzara and Patriotta, 2007; Patriotta et al., 2011).

ARTEFACTS IN INSTITUTIONAL MAINTENANCE WORK

Institutional maintenance work refers to the proactive engagement of actors in the con-

tinuous existence of established institutions (Lawrence and Suddaby, 2006). Such work

is particularly visible in the context of a pending threat of deinstitutionalization (Barin

Cruz et al., 2016; Blanc and Huault, 2014) and under conditions of institutional com-

plexity (Smets and Jarzabkowski, 2013). Neglect can also make institutions subject to

gradual erosion (Dacin et al., 2010; Lawrence et al., 2013; Zucker, 1988). We have lim-

ited insights into the gradual erosion of institutions (Barin Cruz et al., 2016; Lawrence

et al., 2009; Lok and De Rond, 2013), and the collective ‘silent’ work of maintenance in

which actors engage to prevent it (Micelotta and Washington, 2013, p. 1139).