The edge of order : essays on innovation and cooperation in institutional transitions
(2025)
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- Abstract
- Institutions are socially constructed and historically contingent paradigms that provide order by motivating action and coordinating interaction. They constitute distinct areas of social reality and frame societal challenges as comprehensible problems and solutions. Yet today, many institutional arrangements are under strain, raising questions about how new problems are defined in the face of the unknown, how cooperation unfolds during transitions, and which actors play decisive roles. This dissertation investigates these dynamics in the context of the COVID-19 outbreak in Italy. The first paper highlights the role of experts and professionals in experimenting with new problem framings. The second examines how cooperation within the first Western hospital to face the crisis triggered a paradigm shift, reshaping practices, structures, and materiality. The third explores entrepreneurs as theorists of new worlds. In sum, the thesis investigates how innovation and cooperation emerge in the liminal spaces of institutional transitions, where disorder is no longer rupture but the fabric of social life.
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Daprà, M. M. (2025). The edge of order : essays on innovation and cooperation in institutional transitions. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/260592