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)

Inclusion and Diversity in Work Groups: A Review and Model for Future Research

Summary Much has been written in the past two decades about women in academic science careers, but this literature is contradictory. Many analyses have revealed a level playing field, with men and women faring equally, whereas other analyses have suggested numerous areas in which the playing field is not level. The only widely-agreed-upon conclusion is that women are underrepresented in college majors, graduate school programs, and the professoriate in those fields that are the most mathematically intensive, such as geoscience, engineering, economics, mathematics/ computer science, and the physical sciences. In other scientific fields (psychology, life science, social science), women are found in much higher percentages. In this monograph, we undertake extensive life-course analyses comparing the trajectories of women and men in math-intensive fields with those of their counterparts in non-math-intensive fields in which women are close to parity with or even exceed the number of men. We begin by examining early-childhood differences in spatial processing and follow this through quantitative performance in middle childhood and adolescence, including high school coursework. We then focus on the transition of the sexes from high school to college major, then to graduate school, and, finally, to careers in academic science. The results of our myriad analyses reveal that early sex differences in spatial and mathematical reasoning need not stem from biological bases, that the gap between average female and male math ability is narrowing (suggesting strong environmental influences), and that sex differences in math ability at the right tail show variation over time and across nationalities, ethnicities, and other factors, indicating that the ratio of males to females at the right tail can and does change. We find that gender differences in attitudes toward and expectations about math careers and ability (controlling for actual ability) are evident by kindergarten and increase thereafter, leading to lower female propensities to major in math-intensive subjects in college but higher female propensities to major in non-math-intensive sciences, with overall science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors at 50% female for more than a decade. Post-college, although men with majors in math-intensive subjects have historically chosen and completed PhDs in these fields more often than women, the gap has recently narrowed by two thirds; among non-math-intensive STEM majors, women are more likely than men to go into health and other people-related occupations instead of pursuing PhDs. Importantly, of those who obtain doctorates in math-intensive fields, men and women entering the professoriate have equivalent access to tenure-track academic jobs in science, and they persist and are remunerated at comparable rates—with some caveats that we discuss. The transition from graduate programs to assistant professorships shows more pipeline leakage in the fields in which women are already very prevalent (psychology, life science, social science) than in the math-intensive fields in which they are underrepresented but in which the number of females holding assistant professorships is at least commensurate with (if not greater than) that of males. That is, invitations to interview for tenure-track positions in math-intensive fields—as well as actual employment offers—reveal that female PhD applicants fare at least as well as their male counterparts in math-intensive fields.

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Women in Academic Science: A Changing Landscape

Inclusive workplaces: A review and model

To increase the representation and participation of women and other minorities in organizations, workplaces must become more inclusive. For such change to be successful and sustainable, organizations must systematically break down the barriers constraining women's participation and effectiveness; improve their prevailing structures, policies, and practices; and engender transformation in their climates. This article presents the experience of 19 U.S. universities, funded by the National Science Foundation's ADVANCE Institutional Transformation program, that have embraced comprehensive transformation for improved gender representation and inclusion in science and engineering disciplines. It describes the facilitating factors, program initiatives, institutionalization, and outcomes of their transformation, and suggests a transformation model that all organizations can use to create an inclusive and productive workplace for a diverse workforce. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Breaking barriers and creating inclusiveness: Lessons of organizational transformation to advance women faculty in academic science and engineering

In this study we examine how a sample of 248 male and female professors at a Midwestern private research university construct their academic job satisfaction. Our findings indicate that both women and men perceive that their job satisfaction is influenced by the institutional leadership and mentoring they receive, but only as mediated by the two key academic processes of access to internal academic resources (including research-supportive workloads) and internal relational supports from a collegial and inclusive immediate work environment. Gender differences emerged in the strengths of the perceived paths leading to satisfaction: women’s job satisfaction derived more from their perceptions of the internal relational supports than the academic resources they received, whereas men’s job satisfaction resulted equally from their perceptions of internal academic resources and internal relational supports received. Implications for leadership and institutional practices are drawn from the findings.

How Do Female and Male Faculty Members Construct Job Satisfaction? The Roles of Perceived Institutional Leadership and Mentoring and their Mediating Processes

1. Gender Equity and Institutional Transformation in Academic Science and Engineering 2. State of Knowledge about the Workforce Participation, Equity and Inclusion of Women in Academic Science and Engineering 3. Study Sample and Methods 4. Factors Facilitating Institutional Transformation 5. Institutional Transformation Initiatives 6. Institutionalization of Transformation 7. Gender Diversity Outcomes: Changes in the Academic Workforce Participation of Women Faculty in STEM 8. Equity and Inclusion Outcomes for Women Faculty in Science and Engineering 9. Gender Diversity (Workforce Participation) Outcomes by Discipline 10. Conclusions

Xiangfen Liang

Papers

Breaking barriers and creating inclusiveness: Lessons of organizational transformation to advance women faculty in academic science and engineering

How Do Female and Male Faculty Members Construct Job Satisfaction? The Roles of Perceived Institutional Leadership and Mentoring and their Mediating Processes

Gender Equity in Science and Engineering: Advancing Change in Higher Education

Effective practices to increase women’s participation, advancement and leadership in US academic STEM

The Representation and Experience of Women Faculty in STEM Fields