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)

THE chorus of approval with which Mr. Mundella's report on the progress of elementary education was received on Monday cannot but be gratifying to all who have at heart the highest welfare of the country. With one or two unimportant exceptions—members whose vision is so bizarre as to discern communism in the education of the children of the working classes, and who connect the increase of weeds with the spread of education'what criticism there was referred to details of method. All the members whose opinions are of any weight agreed that vast good had resulted to the country by the working of the Code. As to the special subjects, among which science is included, the weight of opinion was decidedly in favour of their retention. The greatest friends of the Fourth Schedule will admit that there is still much room for improvement in the teaching of these subjects; it cannot be expected that so great a novelty in the system of elementary education in the country can all at once be taught to perfection. About the success of the compulsory system of education it may be said that the House was all but unanimous. The analogy between the treatment of paupers and the free education of the children of the working classes will not hold water. In the one case we are simply keeping from starvation people whose improvidence or misfortune have made them a dead burden on their fellows; in the other case we are feeding the minds of those who one day will have to bear the brunt of the work of the nation; The better these future workers are educated, the more intelligently and the more effectively are they likely to do their work, and the less likely are they to become inmates of our workhouses and prisons. As Serjeant Simon testified, even already is there a marked decrease of embryo criminals in our streets. The conclusion come to by Mr. Mimdella and those who,like him, have the interests of education at heart, is not that we have gone too far, but that we have not gone far enough; not that we have reached finality, but that we have only made a good beginning. The figures he adduced to prove the success of the existing Education Act were practically admitted to be irrefutable; and we only trust the progress in the next ten years will be at an equal ratio to that achieved during the past decade. “Many of us,” he truly said, “would pass away without seeing the full effect of the work we are doing.” As to the propriety of encouraging the retention of exceptionally clever boys in elementary schools beyond the regulation age, the figures showed that it would be cruel and unjust to forbid this. Until we have a State system of secondary education in England similar to that about to be sanctioned in Scotland, until air equally decisive step is taken with regard to educational endowments in the one country as in the other, the nation would be doing a gross injustice to force exceptionally clever boys to leave school just when their intellects were beginning to shoot into full vigour. Mr. Mundella showed by his figures that Scotland is still ahead of England in the matter of education; that extra or special subjects are more widely sought after and with greater success, and that a larger percentage of children in elementary schools proceed to secondary education. But it should be remembered that this is the result of many generations of universal education, and that in Scotland it has long been considered as great a disgrace to be uneducated as in England it is considered to be immoral. There among the great majority of the working classes compulsory education was scarcely needed, and this will no doubt be the case in England in the course of a century or so, when education will have become as great a necessity as decent clothing. Again during the debate was it shown by those who have the best means of knowing that where science is properly taught there the children are as a rule more intelligent and bright, and better up in the ordinary subjects than in schools where science is neglected. Sir John Lubbock gave a remarkable instance of the favour with which properly conducted science-teaching is received by the children themselves:—

The Education Debate

The organization man.

Post-modernism has brought about changing demands with respect to time in work organisations. Whilst the impact of this has been given some attention at both the organisational and individual level far less has been given to a consideration of the extent to which individual differences might moderate the impact of such changes. In order to proceed with this line of enquiry it is necessary first to be able to measure individual differences related to time. This paper, through an analysis and synthesis of existing measures of individual attitudes/approaches to time, a subsequent qualitative study, and large quantitative survey study (N=683) identifies a five factor structure for time-related individual differences (Time Personality) and reports on the development of five complementary measurement scales : Leisure Time Awareness, Punctuality, Planning, Polychronicity and Impatience. A series of reliability and validity studies indicate that the scales are psychometrically sound. The findings are discussed in the context of the role Time Personality might play in moderating the effects that differing organisational structures and changing work demands might have in organisational settings.

A biographical note

Education in a Post‐welfare Society

In 1975, the fourth Annual Conference of the British Educational Administration Society (BEAS, now BELMAS) had as its theme ‘Autonomy and Accountability in Educational Administration'. In their con...

Persistent Preoccupations: The Rise and Rise of School Autonomy and Accountability In England

This paper asks whether schools and colleges should be regarded as institutions as well as organizations, and if so what are the implications. Different conceptions of ‘institution’ are examined including an attempt to distinguish ‘institution’ from ‘organization’. It is suggested that institutions are committed to a set of values beyond the transmission of knowledge and skills, as well as to breadth in education and the importance of continuity and a degree of stability. Positive and negative connotations of the idea of institution are briefly reviewed. The discussion is placed in a wider context of the debate about the public realm and its boundaries. Institutional theory is drawn on regarding the interplay between schools and colleges and their environments. Finally there is a brief discussion of the conception of ‘civic institution’, and its implications concerning the ownership of publicly-funded schools and colleges.

Ron Glatter

Papers

Persistent Preoccupations: The Rise and Rise of School Autonomy and Accountability In England

Are schools and colleges institutions

Choice and Diversity of Schooling Provision: Does the Emperor Have Any Clothes?.

Towards Whole System Improvement.