The Discipline of Rankings: Tight Coupling and Organizational Change

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dc.contributor.authorSauder, Michael
dc.contributor.authorEspeland, Wendy
dc.date.accessioned2015-12-07T22:44:55Z
dc.date.issued2009
dc.date.updated2016-02-24T10:37:06Z
dc.description.abstractThis article demonstrates the value of Foucault's conception of discipline for understanding organizational responses to rankings. Using a case study of law schools, we explain why rankings have permeated law schools so extensively and why these organizations have been unable to buffer these institutional pressures. Foucault's depiction of two important processes, surveillance and normalization, show how rankings change perceptions of legal education through both coercive and seductive means. This approach advances organizational theory by highlighting conditions that affect the prevalence and effectiveness of buffering. Decoupling is not determined solely by the external enforcement of institutional pressures or the capacity of organizational actors to buffer or hide some activities. Members' tendency to internalize these pressures, to become self-disciplining, is also salient. Internalization is fostered by the anxiety that rankings produce, by their allure for the administrators who try to manipulate them, and by the resistance they provoke. Rankings are just one example of the public measures of performance that are becoming increasingly influential in many institutional environments, and understanding how organizations respond to these measures is a crucial task for scholars.
dc.identifier.issn0003-1224
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1885/25405
dc.publisherAmerican Sociological Association
dc.sourceAmerican Sociological Review
dc.subjectKeywords: education; institutional framework; ranking
dc.titleThe Discipline of Rankings: Tight Coupling and Organizational Change
dc.typeJournal article
local.bibliographicCitation.lastpage82
local.bibliographicCitation.startpage63
local.contributor.affiliationSauder, Michael, University of Iowa
local.contributor.affiliationEspeland, Wendy, College of Asia and the Pacific, ANU
local.contributor.authoremailrepository.admin@anu.edu.au
local.contributor.authoruidEspeland, Wendy, t957
local.description.embargo2037-12-31
local.description.notesImported from ARIES
local.identifier.absfor150310 - Organisation and Management Theory
local.identifier.ariespublicationu4136394xPUB38
local.identifier.citationvolume74
local.identifier.doi10.1177/000312240907400104
local.identifier.scopusID2-s2.0-65449119878
local.identifier.uidSubmittedByu4136394
local.type.statusPublished Version

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