This paper introduces the ‘signature of power’ as a framework to enhance the understanding of politics in organizational studies. We argue for an understanding of contemporary forms of power as a signature that connects and divides two constellations: juridical-political sovereignty (supreme authority) on one side, and economic-managerial government (practical regulation) on the other. These poles have analogies in organizational theory dichotomies like formal versus informal, and institution versus network. The signature of power serves as a heuristic – a discovery mechanism – that enables scholars to navigate and integrate these opposing forces without reducing them to one dominant paradigm. The framework is articulated through four analytical strategies: analytics of government (local, immanent power practices), genealogy of order (historical foundations of governing orders), archaeology of glory (rituals and symbols of supreme authority), and analytics of authority (formal organizational hierarchies and operations). These strategies and their distinct relationships provide a more coherent analytical framework for a multi-paradigm approach to understanding power relations, resistance, and organizational forms. The paper tests this analytic framework through a study of the corporation as a ‘signature of power’ that bridges economic-managerial and juridical-political forms and is shaped by historical shifts and legal innovations. Addressing potential critiques, the paper emphasizes the framework’s adaptability to resistance and its applicability to diverse organizational contexts. This conceptualization encourages intellectual plurality, fostering historically and conceptually informed insight into politics as a set of power-related organizational and institutional practices.
Uberization has become a paradigmatic case of how platform-mediated work arrangements disrupt labour markets and existing institutional structures, yet we know little about the discursive processes through which such models are reworked within divergent capitalist systems. This article investigates how Uber’s employment model is received, contested and reshaped in the United Kingdom, Germany and Mexico. Linking translation theory and Varieties of Capitalism within a discursive legitimation perspective, we examine how global platform employment practices are received, contested, and evaluated across national institutional contexts. Empirically, we conduct a longitudinal analysis of 3,771 newspaper articles (2012–2023) from the three countries, combining sentiment classification with thematic analysis. We identify discursive waves of (de)legitimation around Uber’s labour practices in distinct institutional constellations. The analysis reveals three trajectories: reactive accommodation under competitive and consumer pressures in the United Kingdom as a liberal market economy; proactive regulatory resistance rooted in labour institutions in Germany as a coordinated market economy; and delayed but intense contestation in Mexico as an emerging market economy characterized by hybrid, fragmented and highly informal arrangements. The study extends the discursive legitimation perspective by linking institutional theory and industrial relations theory to show how institutionally conditioned media discourses shape the (de)legitimation of global employment practices, while bringing emerging markets and informality more centrally into Varieties of Capitalism debates.
