Dismantling Managerial Values: When Law’s Ambiguity Meets Organizational Complexity

Abstract

Based on an in-depth case study in the French nuclear industry, this chapter describes what happens when law’s ambiguity meets organizational complexity. While regulation studies suggest that organizations assign managerial values (such as efficiency or flexibility) to their compliance structures, this research focuses on the mixed role of purchasing managers in these processes. Constituting the missing link when explaining the legal regulation of economic activities, these intermediaries defend a financial conception of the firm against a more technical performance oriented solution. This financial conception did not emerge from nowhere, but resulted from the institutionalization of a particular meaning of business regulation within the nuclear industry. However, if values guide organizational behavior, the behavior of the actors can under no circumstances be reduced to these values. Conflicts, misunderstandings, and mistakes are a constitutive part of these process, too.