The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society

What makes organizations so similar? We contend that the engine of rationalization and bureaucratization has moved from the competitive marketplace to the state and the professions. Once a set of organizations emerges as a field, a paradox arises: rational actors make their organizations increasingly similar as they try to change them. We describe three isomorphic processes-coercive, mimetic, and normative—leading to this outcome. We then specify hypotheses about the impact of resource centralization and dependency, goal ambiguity and technical uncertainty, and professionalization and structuration on isomorphic change. Finally, we suggest implications for theories of organizations and social change.

The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields (Chinese Translation)

This is a study in industrial sociology; it a partial report, to be followed by another, of an investigation of singel factory seen in the light of Max Weber's theory of bureacracy.

Patterns of Industrial Bureaucracy.

No wonder you activities are, reading will be always needed. It is not only to fulfil the duties that you need to finish in deadline time. Reading will encourage your mind and thoughts. Of course, reading will greatly develop your experiences about everything. Reading invisible colleges diffusion of knowledge in scientific communities is also a way as one of the collective books that gives many advantages. The advantages are not only for you, but for the other peoples with those meaningful benefits.

Invisible colleges : diffusion of knowledge in scientific communities

The Social Contexts of Research. Edited by Saad Z. Nagi and Ronald G. Corwin. Pp. xii + 409. (John Wiley: New York and London, August 1972.) £5.65.

Sociology of Science

Quality judgements in terms of academic standards of excellence required by external stakeholders such as labour markets and steering hierarchies obviously exert strong pressure on universities. Do they generate an ‘iron cage’ effect, imposing a passive and uniform conformity on global standards? The paper examines the organization of higher education and research set-ups with a strong lens. What does academic quality actually mean when observed in the field? How do universities and their subunits – professional schools, colleges, etc. – actually achieve what they call quality? A methodological and analytical framework is tested. Three sociological concepts – diversity, recognition and local order – make it possible to build four ideal types applicable to comparative inquiry. Such a typology identifies the interdependencies existing between how they position themselves with respect to quality dimensions and internal organizational measures. The paper contributes to a broader organizational study agenda: how do local orders face and deal with market and hierarchy dynamics in a global world of apparently increasing standardization under pressure from soft power. It questions the effect of the ‘iron cage’ hypothesis. It lists a series of changing patterns or dynamics between types of universities in terms of quality sensitivity, fabrication and content. Diversity and standardization in fact coexist.

/pdf/academic-institutions-in-search-of-quality-local-orders-and-1r1zqu7cab.pdf

Academic Institutions in Search of Quality: Local Orders and Global Standards

Quality judgments in terms of academic standards of excellence required by external stakeholders such as labour markets and steering hierarchies obviously exert strong pressure on universities. Do they generate an "iron cage" effect imposing a passive and uniform conformity on global standards? The paper examines the organization of higher education and research set-ups with a strong lens. What does academic quality actually mean when observed in the field? How do universities and their subunits - professional schools, colleges, etc - actually achieve what they call quality? A methodological and analytical framework is tested. Three sociological concepts - diversity, recognition, local order - make it possible to build four ideal-types applicable to comparative inquiry. Such a typology identifies the interdependencies existing between how they position themselves with respect to quality dimensions and internal organizational measures. The paper contributes to a broader organizational study agenda: how local orders face and deal with market and hierarchy dynamics in a global world of apparently increasing standardization under pressure from soft power. It questions the effect of the "iron cage" hypothesis. It lists a series of changing patterns or dynamics between types of universities in terms of quality sensitivity, fabrication and content. Diversity and standardization in fact coexist.

La multiplication de reformes, au sein des administrations, mobilisant des principes et des instruments inspires de la doctrine du New Public Management (NPM), a provoque protestations et mobilisations collectives de la part de nombreux groupes professionnels dans de nombreux secteurs (sante, education, justice, travail social, recherche…). Ces phenomenes font surgir des interrogations sur le devenir des groupes professionnels inscrits dans les services publics en particulier sur la remise en cause de leur autonomie par les reformes NPM. L’opposition entre NPM et professions, pour heuristique qu’elle soit, n’epuise pas l’analyse. Faut-il penser ces changements en termes de declin des professions, de retrecissement des autonomies professionnelles, de mutations des modeles professionnels, de recomposition du professionnalisme, etc. ? Ces questions se situent au carrefour d’une actualite vive — en France et en Europe — et de reflexions sociologiques continues. Elles sont developpees et traitees ici a partir de terrains empiriques, d’echelles d’analyse et d’experiences de recherche variees. Les contributions a ce dossier explorent ainsi les declinaisons des tensions entre NPM et professions.

https://spire.sciencespo.fr/hdl:/2441/c6t1fl36hv9s7q89j6sh929hh/resources/2011-benamouzig-et-alii-new-public-management-v-auteur.pdf

New Public Management et professions dans l’État : au-delà des oppositions, quelles recompositions ?

Partanl du constat que les faits de protection des marches du travail debordent largement le domaine des professions a statut, l'auteure propose de tirer toutes les consequences qui resultent selon elle du passage d'une sociologie des professions a une sociologie de la professionnalisation. Elle invite ainsi a rassembler dans une meme classe d'objets - "les marches du travail fermes" - tous les faits d'organisation sociale des marches du travail issus d'efforts de professionnalisation, c'est-a-dire de stabilisation institutionnelle du rapport de travail. Dans cette perspective, les professions apparaissent comme une espece d'un genre qui rassemble egalement les marches internes de firmes ou les metiers organises transversalement aux entreprises, et repondent fondamentalement aux memes conditions de production et de reproduction.

/pdf/les-professions-comme-marches-du-travail-fermes-2epn0kndfs.pdf

Les professions comme marchés du travail fermés

Un metier n'accede pas necessairement au rang de profession. Tout depend de l'argumentation que les candidats a la professionnalisation sont capables de faire entendre a un auditoire. La competence qui culmine dans la notion d'expert serait le fruit d'un travail de construction. L'auteur montre que la rhetorique qui sous-tend ce travail est une rhetorique de la verite, du besoin, de la science et de la relation besoin/ science. Or cette relation tout comme le besoin et la science elle-meme, est soumise a variation. D'ou la crise des professions que l'auteur illustre a partir de l'exemple des medecins. La neutralite ethique et l'universalite du savoir medical n'ont pas resiste a la multiplication des besoins. A la recherche d'une superdeontologie pour faire face a la crise issue d'une perte de controle moral de la profession sur elle-meme, les medecins seraient aujourd'hui contraints a une refonte de l'ethique medicale. Celle-ci passe par une nouvelle argumentation destinee a reconquerir, aupres du public, leur legitimite professionnelle.

Catherine Paradeise

Papers

Academic Institutions in Search of Quality: Local Orders and Global Standards

Academic Institutions in Search of Quality: Local Orders and Global Standards

New Public Management et professions dans l’État : au-delà des oppositions, quelles recompositions ?

Les professions comme marchés du travail fermés

Rhétorique professionnelle et expertise