(Nowy Sacz School of Business – National-Louis University, 2015) Merenheimo, Petra
In this article, actions within care marketization are conceptualized as institutional
entrepreneurship contesting the present practices of care production. Practices of
selling and buying care are described, and the underlying power relations in two care
marketization models are analyzed: outsourcing and the so called ‘second wave’, i.e.
the customer choice model, in Finland. Drawing from Bourdieu’s concepts of cultural,
symbolic, social and economic capital, the article highlights the relevance of capital
conversions for understanding institutional entrepreneurship. It is argued that the
positions and opportunities to gain a more powerful position are not solely field
intern conceptions, but can be related to macro level conceptions. Exploiting such
opportunities questions the challenging conception of institutional entrepreneurship,
itself. Instead, it is suggested that institutional entrepreneurship can also be conceived
as legitimate challenging which points that challenging and conforming may not be
necessary to be separated.