Andrea Hanisch develops an action-economic embedding of New Institutional Economics, which allows for the explicit articulation of the behavior-controlling effects of institutions. She combines the approach of shared mental models according to North/Denzau with the frame-selection theory by Esser/Kroneberg. This new approach is empirically implemented using the example of privatization decisions in municipal financial administration in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW). This leads to an analysis of the specific economic and legal governance deficits that can exist in privatization situations.