An Introduction to MultiAgent Systems.

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)

Contrasting treatment‐specific survival using double‐robust estimators

The racial and ethnic makeup of the United States has changed substantially since the country’s founding, with dramatic changes occurring in just the last 20 years. It is well known that the over 50 percent of students from communities of color in public K–12 schools will, in the very near future, be the majority of the U.S. adult population. Racial and ethnic diversity comes with a host of benefits at all levels of education and in the workforce—greater productivity, innovation, and cultural
competency, to name a few. Moreover, the current and future health of our nation—economic and otherwise—requires that the whole of our population have equitable access to sources of opportunity.
Chief among such sources of opportunity is higher education. It is therefore imperative that educators, policymakers, community leaders, members of the media, and others have access to timely data on one of the most salient predictors of higher
education access and success in this country: race and ethnicity. To be clear, there are myriad factors that inform educational access and success, such as income, wealth, geography, and age. Yet it remains the case—as the data in this and other studies show—that race is a prevailing factor in many educational outcomes.
This report examines over 200 indicators, looking at who gains access to a variety of educational environments and experiences, and how these trajectories and their outcomes differ by race and ethnicity. These data provide a foundation from which the higher education community and its many stakeholders can draw insights, raise new questions, and make the case for why race still matters in American higher education. When considering the data on the whole, we offer the following key takeaways: 1. Over the past two decades, the U.S. population has grown not only more educated but also more racially and ethnically diverse, thanks in large part to a growing Hispanic population that is seeking higher education at levels not before seen. 2. Too many Black students fare poorly in America’s postsecondary education system. At both the undergraduate and graduate levels, advances in Black students’ enrollment and attainment have been accompanied by some of the lowest persistence rates, highest undergraduate dropout rates, highest borrowing rates, and largest debt burdens of any group. 3. We still lack precise, national data on many educational outcomes for American Indians or Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians or other Pacific Islanders; but what the available data do show is troubling. 4. Great differences exist by race, ethnicity, and gender in where students go to college and what they study, signaling an uneven playing field in the labor market and a threat to the opportunity for intergenerational upward mobility. 5. How students pay for higher education varied considerably by race and ethnicity, especially in terms of who borrows and who leaves college with high levels of student loan debt.6. Racial and ethnic diversity among college faculty, staff, and administrators still doesn’t reflect that of today’s college students.

Race and Ethnicity in Higher Education: A Status Report

This study analyzes the impact that publishing during the period of PhD study has on researchers’ future knowledge production, impact, and co-authorship. The analysis is based on a representative sample of PhDs from all fields of science working in Portugal. For each researcher in the dataset, we compiled a lifetime publication record and respective meta-data retrieved from Thomson Reuters Web of Science. Our results extend the previous literature by showing that those who publish during their PhD have greater research production and productivity, and greater numbers of yearly citations and citations throughout their career compared to those who did not publish during their PhD. Moreover, it is found that those who publish during their PhD are more adept to publish single-authored publications and engage in publications with peers based abroad, thus suggesting both higher levels of scientific autonomy and international collaboration dynamics.

The Impact of Publishing during PhD Studies on Career Research Publication, Visibility, and Collaborations.

This article analyzes the impact of research unit size on academics' scientific output and communication behavior with peers, controlling for individual and organizational characteristics, including the academics' engagement in teaching. Results show that research unit size does not influence total scientific output, but rather the scientific output profile of individual academics. Upon disaggregating the output we find that academics at larger research units publish more in international than in national peer-reviewed journals. This suggests that research unit size positively affects international visibility, a venue that may proxy for research quality. The analysis also shows that as research unit size increases, it influences academics' overall communication. Most importantly, the academics' information exchange with peers at both national and international levels is highest at larger research units, suggesting that research unit size facilitates contact with academics at both national and international institutions. Copyright , Beech Tree Publishing.

How does size matter for science? Exploring the effects of research unit size on academics scientific productivity and information exchange behaviors

/pdf/2015-16-national-postsecondary-student-aid-study-npsas-16-33t0m8wh8y.pdf

2015-16 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS:16): Student Financial Aid Estimates for 2015-16. First Look. NCES 2018-466.

Recently a number of studies have focused on states' adoptions of postsecondary-specific policies. Cutting across much of this research is the presence and influence of interstate diffusion of policy adoptions, a phenomenon for which support is scant. This paper seeks to address this through broadening the categorization of policies beyond the discrete form traditionally used to one that encompasses a larger conception of "finance policy." Our sample uses 131 finance innovations for 47 states over a 29 year period, finding that upon broadening our definition, we can detect the process of diffusion. However, the findings are striking, showing that while states do learn from one another, the process is dynamic and shifts across time.

Rethinking Policy Diffusion: The Interstate Spread of “Finance Innovations”

By 2010, all but 12 U.S. states had adopted some form of research and development tax credits. The forces driving the rapid rise and spread of this policy remain unclear. This event history analysi...

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0891242413517135

State Research and Development Tax Credits: The Historical Emergence of a Distinctive Economic Policy Instrument

Over the past two decades, state governments have increasingly invested in programs to recruit accomplished scientists from elsewhere to university positions. This event history analysis suggests that an intriguing mix of comparative state disadvantage and leveragable existing research resources is associated with the likelihood of states adopting such programs.

T. Austin Lacy

Papers

How does size matter for science? Exploring the effects of research unit size on academics scientific productivity and information exchange behaviors

2015-16 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS:16): Student Financial Aid Estimates for 2015-16. First Look. NCES 2018-466.

Rethinking Policy Diffusion: The Interstate Spread of “Finance Innovations”

State Research and Development Tax Credits: The Historical Emergence of a Distinctive Economic Policy Instrument

State-Funded "Eminent Scholars" Programs: University Faculty Recruitment as an Emerging Policy Instrument