In 1974 an article appeared in Science magazine with the dry-sounding title “Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases” by a pair of psychologists who were not well known outside their discipline of decision theory. In it Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman introduced the world to Prospect Theory, which mapped out how humans actually behave when faced with decisions about gains and losses, in contrast to how economists assumed that people behave. Prospect Theory turned Economics on its head by demonstrating through a series of ingenious experiments that people are much more concerned with losses than they are with gains, and that framing a choice from one perspective or the other will result in decisions that are exactly the opposite of each other, even if the outcomes are monetarily the same. Prospect Theory led cognitive psychology in a new direction that began to uncover other human biases in thinking that are probably not learned but are part of our brain’s wiring.

Thinking fast and slow.

The four Visegrad states — Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia (until 1993 Czechoslovakia) and Hungary — form a compact area between Germany and Austria in the west and the states of the former USSR in the east. They are bounded by the Baltic in the north and the Danube river in the south. They are cut by the Sudeten and Carpathian mountain ranges, which divide Poland off from the other states. Poland is an extension of the North European plain and like the latter is drained by rivers that flow from south to north west — the Oder, the Vlatava and the Elbe, the Vistula and the Bug. The Danube is the great exception, flowing from its source eastward, turning through two 90-degree turns to end up in the Black Sea, forming the barrier and often the political frontier between central Europe and the Balkans. Hungary to the east of the Danube is also an open plain. The region is historically and culturally part of western Europe, but its eastern Marches now represents a vital strategic zone between Germany and the core of the European Union to the west and the Russian zone to the east.

Economy and 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)

Public Management Reform. A Comparative Analysis

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.

In current debates over thefuture of core institutions in a `knowledgesociety', universities figure most prominently. It seemsclear that they are crucial nodes in theoverall knowledge producing system, which, however,need to be repositioned and reformed.Therefore, the learning capacities ofuniversities are of central relevance. But howdo universities adapt to new challenges? Thecentral claim of the paper is that the rapidchange of pace at the level of higher educationdiscourse is hardly met at the level ofuniversities. Here, one has to take the path-dependentcharacter of their structures, practices andidentity concepts into account. Therefore, learning the`new, new thing' is a more cumbersomeprocess than might be expected at first sight.Empirical evidence for this claim is drawn fromthe institutionalization of technology transferoffices at German universities. Based on thesefindings, further general policy and researchperspectives on the role of path dependency inuniversity structures are discussed at the endof this paper.

Learning the `New, New Thing': On the role of path dependency in university structures

Weltkultur : wie die westlichen Prinzipien die Welt durchdringen

Science and politics all over the world are generating new ideas and models for the functions and structures of the higher education sector and its institutions. These are increasingly exposed to pressures of change. The contributions compiled in this volume identify the most influential models and investigate the context of their origin, their dissemination mechanisms and chances to establish themselves, as well as the resulting consequences for the universities.

Towards a Multiversity? : Universities between Global Trends and National Traditions

Neo-Institutionalismus: (2., komplett überarbeitete Auflage)

This article investigates the form of European universities to determine the extent to which they resemble the characteristics of complete organizations and whether the forms are associated with modernization policy pressure, national institutional frames and organizational characteristics. An original data set of twenty-six universities from eight countries was used. Specialist universities have a stronger identity, whereas the level of hierarchy and rationality is clearly associated with the intensity of modernization policies. At the same time, evidence suggests limitations for universities to become complete, as mechanisms allowing the development of some dimensions seemingly constrain the capability to develop others.

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Georg Krücken

Papers

Learning the `New, New Thing': On the role of path dependency in university structures

Weltkultur : wie die westlichen Prinzipien die Welt durchdringen

Towards a Multiversity? : Universities between Global Trends and National Traditions

Neo-Institutionalismus: (2., komplett überarbeitete Auflage)

European universities as complete organizations? Understanding identity, hierarchy and rationality in public organizations