Translation of institutional rules: The overseas player in English county cricket

Conceiving of institutionalization as a process of translation, I explore the question, how is a membership rule for an organizational field changed through translation? I use archival research to examine the organizational field of first class County cricket in England, specifically focusing on the rule governing the qualification of professional cricketers born outside of the United Kingdom. The findings illuminate a new role for scripts in the translation of membership rules. Scripts, which defined how the work of cricket should be performed, were disembodied from membership categories, which specified who should perform the work. These scripts were then re-embodied in new membership categories. This paper makes a contribution to scholarly understanding of institutional change by showing how translation of membership rules, as a type of institutional rule, occurs through the disembodying and re-embodying scripts in membership categories