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 an account of the largest on-the-scene study of U.S. schools ever undertaken. Called A Study of Schooling' and carried on over 4 years, trained investigators went into more than 1,000 classrooms in 38 elementary and secondary schools in seven different sections of the United States. These schools were located in urban, rural, and suburban areas. The investigators talked to teachers, students, administrators, school board officials, parents, and other members of the community. The result is this landmark report, written by one of the country's most astute and experienced educators. His message is one of cautious optimism, despite the extensive problems uncovered, and he provides a realistic agenda for improvement. This report will be a rich and stimulating resource for all those concerned with the education of our youth.

The Schools We Deserve@@@A Place Called School: Prospects for the Future

The decoupling argument—that schools respond to pressures from the institutional environment by decoupling changes in structures from classroom instruction—has been a central feature of institutional theory since the early 1970s. This study suggests the need to rethink this argument. Drawing on a study of the relationship between changing ideas about reading instruction in California from 1983 to 1999 and teachers' classroom practice, the study provides evidence that messages about instruction in the environment influence classroom practice in a process that is framed by teachers' preexisting beliefs and practices and the nature of the messages themselves. Implications are drawn for theories of teachers' autonomy and methodological approaches to studying macro-micro linkages.

Beyond decoupling: Rethinking the relationship between the institutional environment and the classroom

Institutional analyses of public education have increased in number in recent years. However, studies in education drawing on institutional analyses have not fully incorporated recent contributions from institutional theory, particularly relative to other domains such as law and health policy. The author sketches a framework that integrates recent institutional theorizing to guide scholarship on these and other issues in K–12 public education in the United States. The author argues that although concepts such as “loose coupling” have been widely used, education researchers have not fully tapped institutional theories that have emerged more recently. The author introduces three interrelated constructs and applies them to a case study of district reading and mathematics reform. In the final section, the author considers how current developments in the governance of public schooling increase the utility of institutional perspectives and identify critical issues that need to be addressed in future work.

Educational Policy and Practice From the Perspective of Institutional Theory: Crafting a Wider Lens

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Competing Models of Schools and Communities: The Struggle To Reframe and Reinvent Their Relationships. Publication Series No. 8.

(1995). 4. ‘We have the right to be different’: educational community through a neoinstitutional lens. Journal of Education Policy: Vol. 10, No. 5, pp. 55-68.

Mary Erina Driscoll

Papers

4. ‘We have the right to be different’: educational community through a neoinstitutional lens