Maintaining an Institution: The Institutional Work of Michelin in Haute Cuisine Around the World

Abstract

This paper aims at questioning how the maintenance of institutions is actually performed. Based on an institutional work perspective in order to better link field and actors relationships, we investigate how the Michelin Red Guide went international and used its internationalization to secure its dominant position over the field of haute cuisine. Michelin followed similar trajectories, and combined various types of institutional work in geographic expansion, especially policing, valorizing and embedding that at the same time as it further assessed its dominant position. Our research contributes to advancing the understanding of maintenance work, and in particular exemplifies that preserving a dominant position implies actively working towards imposing the symbolic and cognitive systems of rules.

Keywords: institutional work, Michelin Guide, restaurants

JEL Classification: L2, L8, L89, M48