Abstract (EN)

IS research's growing interest in institutional and neo-institutional approaches is confirmed by several literature reviews. Nonetheless, few works have studied the instrumentation of institutional frameworks, the concrete way these very meta-theoretical perspectives have been implemented up till now. This research begins with an overview of institutional and neo-institutional research, along with the more intermediate frameworks which have been extrapolated from them, before an analysis of a set of empirical articles or communications (from 1999 to 2006). Data have been treated by means of a thematic, a lexicometric and a cluster analysis (based on a canonical analysis). Thematic and lexicometric analysis show the domination of cross-sectional research (in particular for communications), and some interesting specificities in the process and level of analysis. Most research thus assumes some transnational and universal mechanisms of legitimation of technology (whatever the theoretical framework implemented). More specifically, the cluster analysis results in the elaboration of three groups of empirical research, with for all of them different instrumentation strategies.