Trabalho institucional de legitimação dos bancos digitais sob a perspectiva da nova teoria institucional: um estudo de caso

Abstract

This study describes and analyzes the institutional work of legitimation employed by digital banks, particularly XP Investimentos, through its representative offices in the city of Curitiba, to challenge the established organizational field dominated by traditional banks and to address the changes that occurred after the onset of the Covid- 19 pandemic, as well as to investigate the relationships between such changes and the institutional work implemented or supported by this bank up to the present day. The research field was chosen due to the observation that XP is part of an economic sector exhibiting significant growth and a recent trajectory marked by profound transformations of both a technical and institutional nature. The study is based on the premise that the development of digital banks, driven by the entry of new actors into the financial market, is positively influenced by changes in the sector’s institutional patterns. Thus, the research investigates the actions of the main offices linked to XP in the Curitiba region that participate in this process of institutional change, during the period from 2019 to 2024. It is a qualitative and descriptive study, grounded in sociological concepts from the new institutional theory. The research approach adopted is a single case study, with a cross-sectional perspective and longitudinal evaluation. The level of analysis is organizational, and the units of analysis are the managers of the main offices linked to XP Investimentos in the Curitiba region. The data treatment techniques consist of thematic content analysis of documents and semistructured interviews. The content analysis is qualitative, with the unit of meaning for the themes based on the theoretical foundation, through the process of categorization. Data collection occurs in two stages: the first refers to the collection of documentary data, and the second to interviews with managers selected based on their performance in terms of resource capture. The results reveal that the offices accredited to XP in Curitiba employ institutional practices such as financial education to empower clients, digital innovations (hybrid platforms) for geographic expansion, rigorous compliance adapted to the Consumer Defense Code, and local partnerships, such as sports sponsorships, to build social capital and visibility. These practices exemplify coercive isomorphism (regulatory compliance), mimetic (response to uncertainties), and normative (values of transparency and proximity). The main result evidenced is the characterization of a reciprocal relationship between the changes promoted in a historically stable organizational field—the Brazilian financial market—and the implementation of insurgent institutional work, arising from the construction of a new organizational identity marked by transparency, proximity, and innovation, oriented toward the legitimation of the system itself. This dynamic manifests in the identification of an emerging “institutional work of modification”: the offices actively modify institutions by integrating local elements (sustainability, community relations, Curitiba cultural adaptations) into XP’s centralized norms, promoting gradual and legitimate innovations that enrich the field’s stability. The main contributions include: theoretical, by advancing the literature on institutional work in emerging markets, demonstrating active and reciprocal modification by insurgent actors, complementing classical perspectives of creation, maintenance, and disruption; methodological, by proposing an analytical framework for case studies in hybrid contexts (digital-physical), combiningthematic analysis with institutional network mapping; and practical, offering concrete recommendations for managers to enhance legitimacy and competitiveness, such as the implementation of training programs adapted to the regional profile.