We examine in this paper the issue of how institutions are maintained and the role of agency in this process. We investigate more specifically the efforts of actors to maintain the institutional order through discourse. We approach this issue through an in-depth and longitudinal study of...

In this paper, we examine the issue of how certain actors tend to maintain institutionalized elements, in spite of significant technological and social change. In particular, we focus on the notion of artifacts, which represent one type of institutional carriers, but mostly overlooked in the...

In the French language, the word comptabiliteacute (accounting) first appeared in the middle of the eighteenth century. It was used in the Royal finances and its first meaning was that of accountability. Until the middle of the nineteenth century, or thereabouts, the uses of the word evolved...