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Reformed or Deformed? The Unending Renewal of the Public University between Unintended Consequences and Unexpected Challenges

Towards A Comparative Institutionalism: Forms, Dynamics And Logics Across The Organizational Fields Of Health Care And Higher Education

ISBN: 978-1-78560-275-7, eISBN: 978-1-78560-274-0

Publication date: 4 January 2016

Abstract

University reforms have been pervasive in European higher education over decades. Analyses of these reforms are still incomplete, however. To find a more comprehensive approach in explaining the relentless transformation of public universities, this paper suggests a novel, interactionist point of view. Drawing on ideational aspects of universities as institutions, the paper first explores the differentiation of basic, influential ideas of change. A recently developed typology is then used to further elaborate upon the composition and relation of these ideas. Finally, evidence is provided that supports a non-linear dynamic consisting of reciprocal influences, which overall indicates a recursive contingency between institutional context and coexistent frames of change.

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Acknowledgements

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the editors of this volume, first and foremost Rómulo Pinheiro, for their extremely helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper and Lisa Blaschke and Wendelin Küpers for their valuable assistance at its final optimization.

Citation

Deeg, J. (2016), "Reformed or Deformed? The Unending Renewal of the Public University between Unintended Consequences and Unexpected Challenges", Towards A Comparative Institutionalism: Forms, Dynamics And Logics Across The Organizational Fields Of Health Care And Higher Education (Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol. 45), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 59-80. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X20150000045014

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited