East China Normal University
Department of Educational Management
Workshop on
Practical Foundations of Educational Management & Educational Governance
Lecture 9 and 10
Social Institution:
The Practical Foundation of Educational Management to Governance (IV)
A. How to “Get Things Done” Effectively, Publicly and Institutionally?
1. Herbert A. Simon stipulated that administration is a practical science in search of a
way “to get things done.” (1945/1997, P. 1) In the precedent lectures, we have
examine ways
a. to get things done effectively. That is to plan and execute the task in point
according to the principles of cognitive-instrumental rationality and the
imperatives of coercive power
b. to get things done collectively and publicly. That is in most of human projects and
agencies, an individual, no matter how rational (including knowledgable) and
capable he or she is, he/she cannot have accomplished the project in point all by
him/herself. He/she need to collaborate with his/her fellow humans to
accomplish the task. Accordingly, he/she must plan and execute the task at
hand not only in line with cognitive-instrumental rationality but also comply with
the principles of communicative rationality. Furthermore, he/she must also follow
the imperatives of communicative power, and reasonably and impartially design
his/her project in point in legitimate and just fashion.
c. However, the task of getting-things-done requires another practical foundation,
namely institution. The way to get things done should not be in accidental,
idiosyncratic and ephemeral manner. It must be carried out in regular, consistent,
continuous and predictable manner; in short, to get things institutionally.
2. Conception of institution:
a. To begin with, we may simply define social institution as any human interactions
which bear the features of regularity, repetitiveness, endurance and resilience.
In light of this operational definition, we can see why researchers from different
disciplines in social sciences have paid such consistent attentions to the
concept of institution. It is because enduring patterns of human interactions,
such as market, government, state, dynasty, family, religion, ethnicity, nation, etc.
are the core subject matters of economics, political science, sociology and
anthropology.
b. In economics, Douglas North, the Nobel Laureate in Economic Science in 1993,
indicates, “Institutions are rules of the game in a society or more formally, are
the humanly devised constraint that shape human interaction. In consequence
they structure incentives in human exchange, whether political, social or
economic.” (North, 1990, p. 3)
c. Elinor Ostrom, prominent political scientist and the Nobel Laureate in Economic
Science in 2009, states, “Broadly defined, institutions are the prescriptions that
humans use to organize all forms of repetitive and structured interactions
including those within families, neighborhoods, markets, firms, sports leagues,
churches, private associations, and government at all scales. Individuals
interacting within rule-structured situations face choices regarding the actions
and strategies they take, leading to consequences for themselves and for
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others." (Ostrom, 2005, P.3)
d. In political science and public administration, James March and Johan Olsen,
two prominent scholars in public administration and political science, writes, “An
institution is a relatively enduring collection of rules and organized practices,
embedded in structures of meaning and resources that are relatively invariant in
the face of turnover of individuals and relatively resilient to the idiosyncratic
preferences and expectations of individuals and changing external
circumstances.” (March & Olsen, 2006, p.3) According, the suggest that in
institutions
i. “There are constitutive rules and practices prescribing appropriate behavior
for specific actors in specific situations.
ii. There are structures of meaning, embedded in identities and belongings:
common purposes and accounts that give direction and meaning to behavior,
and explain, justify and legitimate behavioral codes.
iii. There are structures of resources that create capabilities for action.” (ibid,
my numbering)
e. In sociology, Emile Durkheim, one of the founding father of sociology writes,
“Without doing violence to the meaning of the word, one may term an institution
all the beliefs and modes of behaviour instituted by the collectivity; sociology can
then be defined as the science of institutions, their genesis and their functioning.”
(1982/1895, P. 45)
3. Taken together, in studying public administration and policy, or more specifically,
educational management and governance, one essential and necessary approach
is to account for how and why a particular mode of governance could have endured
through time and prevailed against challenge and opposition, in short, could have
institutionalized.
B. Rediscovering Institutions: The New-institutionalism
1. New institutionalism: As a theoretical perspective emerged in different disciplines
and fields in social sciences since the 1980s, new institutionalism has provide a
system of conceptual and theoretical apparatuses, which have laid a promising
ground for researchers to search for regularities and orders in complex and
transformational social world. As for the field of public administration and policy, the
perspective of new institutionalism could shed light on the problem of how to get
things done in regular, consistent, continuous and predictable bases; or more
specifically how can a particular mode of governance consolidate, sustain, and
institutionalized.
2. What so new about the new institutionalism?
a. It was in 1984, James G. March and Johan P. Olsen published an article entitled
“The New Institutionalism: Organizational Factors in Political Life” in The
American Political Science Review that the term “new institutionalism” was
coined. They underline that the perspective of new institutionalism perspective is
the reaction to the prevailing perspectives in political sciences in the 1960s and
70s. One is the “old institutionalism” in point is that it focuses on studying of the
political institutions on formal-legal structure and procedures of political
institutions, such as the legislature, the executive, and the judiciary. The other
perspective in point is the political behavior approach, which applies the
behaviorism in psychology and concentrate on analyzing the political behaviors
of individual political actors, such as voters and their voting behaviors. In
reaction to these perspectives, the new institutionalism focuses on the political
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meanings, symbols and cultures that constitute the regularity and durability
underwriting the political institution and its structures.
b. In economics, initiative of the new institutionalist perspective is the reaction to
the methodological individualism found in economics, which manifest in theories
of rational choice of pure homo economicus (economic man). In reaction to tis
perspective, new institutionalism put its emphasis on meanings, identity and
cultures underlying human behaviors and choice (most notably Ostrom, 2014;
and Sen, 1977). Hence, the new institutionalism reinstates the methodological
collectivism (or more specifically methodological institutionalism) in economics
by accounting for economic actions with social units such as firms, classes,
status groups, ethnic groups, nation, and in more general sense the commons.
c. In sociology, the rise of new institutionalism is mainly in reaction to the
legal-rational system model prevailing in organization studies and the
structural-functionalism dominating the marco-sociological studies, such as
development studies. Based on the social phenomenological perspective made
popular by Berger and Luckmann in their work The Social Construction of
Reality (1967), new institutionalists emphasize the informal structure and
culture of organization and the subjectivity, definitions of situations and roles,
and identity underlying patterned interactions and enduring practices. In Berger
and Luckmann’s terms, new institutionalist approach the structure─agent
dilemma in soiologcial studies with a “dialectic” conception. That is society is
taken as both as objective and subjective reality and these two realities are
engaged in “an ongoing dialectical process composed of the three moments of
externalization, objectivation, internalization.” (Berger & Luckmann, 1967, p.
149)
C. The Perspectives in New Institutionalism:
Since the 1980s, the perspective of New Institution has proliferated in different
disciplines within social sciences. As a result, several social scientists have attempted
to form typology of new institutionalist perspectives in various way. For examples
1. Peter Hall and R.C.R. Taylor have distinguished three perspectives in new
institutionalism in political science:
a. Historical Institutionalism:
i. This perspective tends to see enduring human behavior-patterns as
outcomes evolve from specific historical and socio-economic contexts. Hence
“historical institutionalists tend to view have a view of institutional
development that emphasizes path dependence and unintended
consequences.” (P. 938)
ii. “Historical institutionalists define institution the formal or informal procedures,
routines, norms and conventions embedded in the organizational structure of
the polity or political economy. They can range from the rules of a
conventional order or the standard operating procedures of a bureaucracy to
the conventional governing trade union behaviour or bank-firm relations.” (P.
938)
iii. “In this perspective, the individual is seen as an entity deeply embedded in a
world of institutions, composed of symbols, scripts and routines, which
provide the filters for interpretation, of both the situation and oneself, out of
which a course of action is constructed. Not only do institutions provide
strategically-useful information, they also affect the very identities,
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self-images and preferences of the actions.” (p. 939)\
b. Rational-choice institutionalism:
i. “The rational choice institutionalists in political science drew fruitful analytical
tools from the ‘new economics of organization’, which emphasizes the
importance of property rights, rent-seeking, and transactions costs, to the
operation and development of institutions. Especially influential was
Willamson’s argument that the particular organizational form can be
explained as the result of an effort to reduce the transaction cost of
undertaking the same activity without such as institutions.” (P. 943)
ii. Rational-choice institutionalists “posit that the relevant actors have a fixed set
of preferences or tastes, …behave entirely instrumentally so to maximize the
attainment of these preferences and do so in a highly strategic manner that
presumes extensive calculation.” (Pp. 944-945)
iii. Rational-choice institutionalists tend to see politics as a series of collective
action dilemmas. The latter can be defined as instances when individuals
acting to maximizing the attainment of their own preferences are likely to
produce an outcome that is collectively suboptimal. …Typically, what
prevents the actors from taking a collectively-superior course of action is
absence of institutional arrangements that would guarantee complementary
behaviour by others. Classic examples includes the ‘prisoner’s dilemma’ and
the ‘tragedy of the commons’ and the political situations present a varieties of
such problems. (P. 945)
c. Sociological institutionalism:
i. "The sociological institutionalists tend to define institutions …not just formal
rules, procedures or norms, but the symbol systems, cognitive scripts, and
moral templates that provide the 'frames of meaning' guiding human action."
(p. 948) Accordingly, they "argue that many of the institutional forms and
procedures used by organizations were not adopted simply because they
were most efficient for the tasks at hand. …Instead, they argued that many
forms and procedures should be seen as culturally-specific practices, akin to
the myths and ceremonies derived by many societies." (p. 947)
ii. To some sociologists of new institutionalism, individual actions are construed
as role performances or prescriptive norms of behavior attached in particular
institutional contexts. "In this view, individuals who have been socialized into
particular institutional roles internalize the norms associated with these roles,
and in this way institutions are said to affect behaviour." (P. 948) Furthermore,
some sociological institutionalists "emphasize the way in which institutions
influence behaviour by providing the cognitive scripts, categories and models
that are indispensable for action, not least because without them the world
and the behaviour of others cannot be interpreted. Institutions influence
behaviour not simply by specifying what one should do but also by specifying
what one can imagine oneself in a given context." (p. 948)
iii. One of the distinctive features of the sociological institutionalism is the
explanation it offered for the endurance of institutional practices. Instead of
accounting them for rational-choices out of game situations or traditional
"dependent paths" inherited from the past, sociologists in new institutionalism
strive to reveal the legitimate bases from which reciprocal practices among
social actors derived and consensual arrangements among reasonable
agents endure.
2. Normative Institutionalism: More recently, B. Guy Peters (2005) argue that “the root
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of the new institutionalism” is founded in what called “normative institutionalism”.
Peters suggests that one of the basis of the endurance, resilience, and persistence
of patterned actions found among a definite group of people, i.e. the institution, is
the sense of appropriateness, righteousness, legitimation, and duty and calling,
which are planted deeply in sense and minds of the designated group of persons.
He argues that it is this “principle of appropriateness” (March, 1989) which motivate
persons in particular roles in the respective institutions to perform the prescribed
duties against all odds even in views of scarifying their own lives, such as firemen,
civil soldiers, etc. It is this deep sense of moral appropriateness which lends an
institution its endurance, resilience and persistence across space and time.
3. John Campbell has further made categorizations of perspectives in new
institutionalism as follow
Source: Campbell 2004, P. 1
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D.
Why is institution possible? Accounting for the Institutional Endurance
1. March & Olsen’s contribution: James G. March and Johan P. Olsen, professors of
political science, coin the concept of New Institutionalism in an article published in
The American Political Science Review in 1984. In that article they have also
injected a typology of “institutional order”, which has moved the institutional order
analysis beyond the two conventional explanation, namely order by
hierarchical-organization and order by competition and coercion. (March & Olen,
1984, P. 743)
a. Six types of institutional orders: To advance beyond the orders by hierarchical
organization and by competition and coercion, March and Oslen suggest that
new institutionalism can add in another six other types of institutional orders:
i. Historical order: It refers to the essential concept of “the efficiency of historical
processes” in new institutionalism. By efficiency of historical efficiency, it
refers to the way in which history moves quickly and inexorably to a unique
outcome, normally in some sense an optimum.” (March & Olsen, 1984, p. 743)
Accordingly, the internal order of an institution will be constrained by the
particular period in history and the institutional order will strive hard to
maintain a condition of optimum with its historical order. However, there may
be situations in which the institutional order is lagging behind the
transformation of the historical order, As a result, it will cause what March and
Oslen called “inefficiency of history”.
ii. Temporal order: The concept is specifically coined by March and Oslen to
stand against the concept of “causal order”, which is commonly used in
theoretical perspective of means-ends rational actions and the
methodological approach of positivistic deduction. March and Oslen suggest,
“Temporal order provides an alternative in which linkages are less
consequential than temporal. Things are connected by virtue of their
simultaneous presence or arrivals. …In many human situations (such as
institution) the most easily identified property of objects or events in the time
subscripts associated with them.” (March & Oslen, 1984, P. 743) For example,
in educational institutions things are mostly specified by their temporal orders,
such as year of graduation of students, year of publication of books,
examination year, school terms, etc.
iii. Endogenous orders: In response to the exogenous order commonly applied
by conventional studies of political science in accounting for institutional
changes, perspective of new institutionalism look into the endogenous order
espoused within the internal mechanism of a social institution, such as shift in
preferences and values among significant participants within an institution,
upset of balance of power within an institution, unanticipated consequences
espoused from conventional path of dependence in an institutional context,
etc.
iv. Normative orders: In reaction to the permeation of the theory rational choice
and self-interest politics in political research, March and Oslen underline that
“action is often more on discovering the normatively appropriate behavior
than on calculating the return expected from alternative choice.” (March &
Olsen, 1984, P. 744) Accordingly, March and Oslen have coined yet another
mostly-used concept in new institutionalism, namely “logic of appropriateness”
(in contrast with the “logic of consequentiality”) (March & Oslen, 1989, Pp.
23-24)
v. Demographic order: Social institutions can also be reviewed by looking into
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the demographic features of the incumbents of key positions or simple
members of the organization. March and Oseln suggest that “” a human
institution can be studied and interpreted as the cross-section of the lives of
the people involved. …A focus on institutional demography combines such a
version of organized life with attentionto a property of individual live that is
itself a product of the institutional structure ─ the individual career.” (March &
Oslen, 1984, P. 744)
vi. Symbolic order: March and Oslen underlines that “Symbols permeate politics
in a subtle and diffuse way, providing interpretive coherence to political
life.”(1984, P. 744) Hence, they suggest that in accounting for the enduring
order of an institution, we should pay particular “attention to the ordering force
of symbols, rituals, ceremonies, stories, and drama in political life.” (1984, P.
744) In one of the pioneer works on new institutionalist study of education,
Meyer and Rowan (1977) argues that the institutional structures and
organizations in modern schooling systems are products of the “ordering
forces” of the myth and ideology of the modernization and rationalization
project orchestrated by modern states.
b. Logic of appropriateness: March and Olsen have subsequently developed their
perspective of new-institutionalism in series of work, (most notably 1989 & 1995).
In those work, they have developed the conceptual dichotomy, namely the logic
of consequentiality and the logic of appropriateness.
i. “In logic of consequentiality, behavior are driven by preferences and
expectations about consequences. Behavior is willful, reflecting an attempt to
make outcome fulfill subjective desires, to the extent possible. Within such a
logic, a sane person is one who is ‘in touch with reality’ in the sense of
maintaining consistency between behavior and realistic expectations of its
consequences.” (March & Oslen, 1989, P. 160)
ii. In a logic of appropriateness,…behavior (beliefs as well as action) are
intentional but not willful. They involve fulfilling of obligations of a role in a
situation, and so of trying to determine the imperatives of holding a position.
Action stems from a conception of necessity, rather than preference. Within
the logic of appropriateness, a sane person is one who is ‘in touch with
identity’ in the sense of maintaining consistency between behavior and a
conception of self in a social role.” (1989, P. 160-161)
March and Oslen has written two “litanies for action” to illustrate the differences
between these two logic
Anticipatory Action
(Logic of Consequentiality)
1. What are my alternatives?
2. What are my values?
3. What are the consequences of my
alternatives for my values?
4. Choose the alternative that has the
best consequences.
Obligatory Action
(Logic of Appropriateness)
1. What kind of a situation is this?
2. Who am I?
3. How appropriate are different
actions for me in this situation?
4. Do what is appropriate
c. Conceptions of rules, role and identity
In light of the conception of the logic of appropriateness, March and Oslen further
develop a conceptual framework to account for political and social actions within
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the institutional context. To March and Oslen, political and social actions are not
solely derived from self-interest calculations and anticipation of consequences,
instead actions should be allocated “within a broader framework of rules, roles, and
identity.” (March & Oslen, 1995, P.29; see also Pp. 49-89)
i. Rules: In new institutionalist perspective, rules are not simply construed as
formal regulations governing actions of members of an institution. They are
further defined as identifications, interpretations, evaluation, and believes that
members of an institution attribute to these regulations and their actual
enforcements.
ii. Roles: Within a particular set of rules, an individual will define what he/she is
expected to do or not to do within that specific “rule set” i.e. “situation”. In short,
he/she should define his/her roles in accordance with the rules found in the
situation. However, an individual is not free to define his/her role and its sequent
performance as he/she pleased. He/she have to negotiate, balance and practice
with his/her role-partners and hopefully be able to settle in with a “routine”. As a
result, in each rule set, a respective set of rights and obligations will emerge and
subsequently routinized.
iii. Identity: As incumbent of a role has got used to or even felt committed to the
respective role performances, he/she will have forged an identity with the
respective role. In other words, the role and its subsequent obligations and
duties will have become part of his/her own self.
To March and Oslen, institutional endurance should not be attributed simply to the
capability and efficiency of the institutional structure in enforcing the formal
regulations upon members of an institution. Instead, we should also look into
subjective meanings attribute to rules and role ascriptions at work within the
institution. Furthermore, we should reveal the identity and commitment that
members have pledged to their institution.
3. The Social Phenomenology contribution
In the 1960s, Alfred Schutz’s The Phenomenology of the Social World was
translated and published in English (1967, the German edition was published in
1933) and Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann also published their work The
Construction of Reality (1966). These two works has elaborated the conceptions of
institution and institutionalization significantly.
a. The concept of institutionalization: Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann follow
Schutz’s conceptions has defines that “institutionalization occurs whenever
there is a reciprocal typiifcation of habitualized actions by types of actors. Put
differently, any such typification is an institution. What must be stressed is the
reciprocity of institutional typifications and the typicality of not only the actions
but the actors in institution. The typifications of habitualized actions that
constitute institutions are always shared ones. They are available to all
members of the particular social group in question, and the institution itself
typifies individual actors as well as individual actions.” (Berger & Luckmann,
1966, p. 72)
b. Externalization and objectivities of social institutions: These typified and
habitualized social actions in the forms of social routines among specific
human groups will in time be externalized and objectivated into “social facts”.
They will in turn impose social constraints upon the subjectivities and agencies
of individual, which were once the “geneses” of the objective social facts. As a
result, social institutions gain their objectivity and become the main parts of the
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social world.
c. Formalization and regularization of social structure: These objective social
facts, in the forms of social constraints, will in time be formalized and
regularized into social structure. They may be conceived as social
organizations, institutions, system, etc. These objectively existing social
structures will constitute the main bloc of the social world.
d. Internalization of the social structure: The objective social world with its social
structure will in turn be internalized by new members of the respective human
aggregates, by means of socialization, formal education and social control.
e. Role and identity: Accordingly the sociological concept role can be defined as a
typification that has been formalized and regularized in a particular situation.
(Berger & Luckmann, 1966, P. 91) For example the roles of teachers and
students in the situation of classroom, doctor and patients in the situation of
clinic and/or hospital. And the outcome of socialization is to internalize the role
expectation and role performance of a particular role. As a role, with its
expectation and performance, has been internalized to the extent that the
individual in point has made them as his own i.e. the role expectation and
performance are parts of his own self. As a result, it constitutes an identity.
(Berger & Luckmann, 1966, P. 151)
e. Reproduction of the social structure: The objectivity of the social structure will
gain its continuity and consistence unless it can successfully reproduce itself to
the coming generations. In Berger and luckmann’s own world, "One may
further add that only with the transmission of the social world to a new
generation … does the fundamental social dialectic appear in its totality. To
repeat, only with the appearance of the new generation can one properly
speak of a social world." (Berger & Luckmann, 1966, p. 79)
f. Legitimation: Apart from the formal structural aspect of the institution and
institutionalization, Berger and Luckmann have also analyzed the normative
base of social institution. Berger and Luckmann build this normative base on
the conception of legitimation. Accroding to Berger and Luckmann’s
conceptualization, legitimation is “best described as a ’second-order’
objectivation of meaning.” (Berger & Luckmann, 1966, p. 110) That is, if
meanings are externalized, objectivated and typified through continuous
human interactions and practices in the first place, they further need the
“second” round of meaning-endowing efforts in order to be formally
institutionalized within a given society. Berger and Luckmann suggest that
there are mainly two way to establish legitimation in institutional context:
i. Explanation of cognitive validity: “Legitimation ‘explains’ the institutional
order by ascribing cognitive validity to its objectivated meaning. …It always
implies ‘knowledge’. ” (1966, p. 111)
ii. Justification of normative dignity: “Legitimation justifies the institutional
order by given normative dignity to its practical imperatives. ….Legitimation
is …a matter of ‘value’.” (1966, p. 111)
g. Sedimentation: The cultural legitimation constituted with social institutions will
accumulate its validity and dignity over time. Berger and Luckmann have called
the process sedimentation. (Berger & Luckmann, 1966, P. 87)
4. Institutional economists’ contribution
a. One of the classical scenarios in rational-choice theory in economics is the
tragedy of the common, which stipulate that there will be detrimental effect for all
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if every participants pursue their “rent-seeking” project” and maximize that gains
at the expenses of the “common”. New-institutionalists in economics have
rendered a resolution, which Ostrom characterizes “the governance of the
commons” or the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) model.
b. Definition of institution: For economists in new-institutionalist perspective, if the
rules of the game have been adequately stipulated the rent-seeking actions and
the tragedy of the commons could be resolved. Accordingly, they define the rule
of the game as institution.
i. Douglas North, the Nobel Laureate in Economic Science in 1993, writes,
“institutions are rules of the game in a society or more formally, are the
humanly devised constraint that shape human interaction. In consequence
they structure incentives in human exchange, whether political, social or
economic.” (North, 1990, p. 3)
ii. Elinor Ostrom, the Nobel Laureate in Economic Science in 2009, also
suggests, “Broadly defined, institutions are the prescriptions that humans
use to organize all forms of repetitive and structured interactions including
those within families, neighborhoods, markets, firms, sports leagues,
churches, private associations, and government at all scales. Individuals
interacting within rule-structured situations face choices regarding the
actions and strategies they take, leading to consequences for themselves
and for others." (Ostrom, 2005, P.3)
iii. Accordingly, one of the primary focuses of institutional analysis and
development is to design and implement the adequate kind of “rule
configuration”, which generally consists of seven types of rules governing
seven aspects of the IAD model.
c. Taking together the economists contributions, they have rendered yet another
explanatory account for the constitution of institutions in competitive situations
among rational actors or even rent seekers.
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5. Institutional sociologists’ contribution
a. Richard Scott’s conception of pillars of institution: Richard Scott, professor of
sociology in Stanford university, has published one of the most popular text on
social institutions. The book has extended to its fourth edition since 1995 (1995;
2014) One of the most oft-quoted conception is the three pillars of institution.
The concept has provided a framework to account for the enduring order
constituted in institutional context.
i.. Scott defines institution that “Institutions consist of cognitive, normative, and
regulative structures and activities that provide stability and meaning to
social behavior. Institutions are transported by various carries ── cultures,
structures, and routines ── and they operate at multiple levels of
jurisdiction.” (Scott, 1995, p.33)
ii. Scott has summarized the differences between these pillars as follows.
b. Concept of path dependence: Apart from the features of endurance,
institutionalists have also rendered explanation for the continuity of institutional
features over time. Paul Pierson has put forth the concept of path dependence
i. Path dependence indicates that “once a country or region has started down
a track, the costs of reversal are very high. There will be other choice points,
but the entrenchments of certain institutional arrangements obstruct an easy
reversal of the initial choice. Perhaps the better metaphor is a tree, rather
than a path. From the same trunk, there are many different branches and
smaller branches. Although it is possible to turn around or to clamber from
one to the other ─ and essential if the chosen branch dies ─ the branch on
which a climber begins is the one she tends to follow. (Levi, 1997; quoted in
Pierson, 2004, p. 20)
ii. Simply put, path dependence refers “to social possesses that exhibit
positive feedback and thus generate branching patterns of historical
development.” (ibid, p.21)
iii. Accounting for path dependence (ibid, p. 24)
- Large set-up or fixed cost: “When setup or fixed costs are high,
individuals and organizations have a strong incentive identify and stick
with a single option.”
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- Learning effects: “Knowledge gained in the operation of complex systems
also leads to higher returns from continuing use.”
- Coordination effects: “These occur when the benefits an individual
receives from a particular activity increase as other adopt the option. If
technologies embody positive network externalities, a given technology
will become more attractive as more people use it. Coordination effects
are especially significant when a technology has to be compatible with an
infrastructure (e.g. software with hardware, automobiles with an
infrastructure of roads, repair facilities and fueling stations).”
- Adaptive expectations: “It derives from the self-fulfilling character of
expectations. Projections about future aggregate use pattern lead
individuals to adapt their actions in way that help to make those
expectations come true.”
c. The concept of isomorphism: Apart from accounting for the feature of endurance
and continuity, institutionalists has also provided explanatory account for the
institutional features of community, and to a less extent standardization and
formalization among organizations in the same institutional context.
i. Concept of isomorphism: New institutionalists stipulate that organizations in
modern rational institutional environment and/or organizational field tend to
develop similar structures, procedures and practices (organizational
elements in Meyer & Rowan's terminology). They term this process of
homogenization of organization isomorphism. "Isomorphism is a
constraining process that forces one unit in a population to resemble other
units that face the same set of environmental conditions." (DiMaggio &
Powell, 1991, p.66)
ii. Distinction between competitive and institutional isomorphism: DiMaggio &
Powell (1991) and Meyer & Rowan (1991) have made similar distinctions
between competitive and institutional isomorphism.
- By competitive isomorphism, it refers to the process of homogenization of
organizations taken place in "those field which free and open competition
exists." (DiMaggio & Powell, 1991, p.66) Organizations in these fields
usually possess "clearly defined technologies to produce outputs" and
therefore those "outputs can be easily evaluated" (Meyer & Rowan, 1991,
p. 54) As a result, development of common organizational elements, i.e.
isomorphism, can be attained through market competition, competitive
niche, standardized output performance and organizational efficiency.
(DiMaggio & Powell, 1991, p. 66)
- By institutional isomorphism, it refers to the process of homogenization of
organizations invoked in the context of "collective organized society"
(Meyer & Rowan, 1991, p. 49) in which institutional environment of
modern bureaucratic states have replaced market mechanism to act as
institutional rules of the field. As a result, in institutional organizations, the
development of common organizational elements can not be attain by
market competition and internal efficiency, instead "they incorporate
elements which are legitimated externally" and "they employ external or
ceremonial assessment criteria to define the value of structural
elements." (Meyer & Rowan, 1991, p. 49)
"For example, American schools have evolved from producing rather
specific training that was evaluate according to strict criteria of efficiency
to producing ambiguously defined services that are evaluated according
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to criteria of certification." (Meyer & Rowan, 1991, p. 55)
d. Mechanism of institutional isomorphism
DiMaggio & Powell identify three mechanism through which institutional
isomorphism are achieved, maintained or changed. The thesis can be taken as
analysis apparatus to study how schools, as institutional organization, adopt to
education policy changes.
i. Coercive isomorphism: "Coercive isomorphism results from both formal and
informal pressures exerted on organizations by other organizations upon
which they are dependent and by cultural expectations in the society within
which organizations function. Such pressures may be felt as force, as
persuasion, or as invitations to join in collusion." (DiMaggio & Powell, 1991,
p. 67)
Organizational restructures undertaken by HK schools in response to
Quality-Assurance Inspection, School Self Evaluation, External School
Review, Senior-Secondary Curriculum reform, School-based Management
and Incorporated Management Committee, etc. may be analyze in light of
the concept of coercive isomorphism.
ii. Mimetic isomorphism: Apart from coercive authority, "uncertainty is also a
powerful force that encourages imitation. When organizational technologies
are poorly understood, when goals are ambiguous, or when the environment
creates symbolic uncertainty, organizations may model themselves on other
organization." (DiMaggio & Powell, 1991, p. 69)
Confronted by collective puzzlement in policy implementation, such as those
initiated by Senior-Secondary curriculum reform or more specifically the
teaching of Liberal Studies, or School-Self Evaluation, most HK schools
could only imitate, model or simply copy from other schools.
iii. Normative isomorphism: Instead of compliance with modern institutional
environments of competitive market or bureaucratic-rational state,
isomorphism may take the form of professionalization. Organizations and
their operations, which are predominately identified with a profession, such
as hospitals with doctors and schools with teachers, can incorporate
cognitive, normative and regulative bases of that profession into their
organizations and apply them as criteria in assessing the performance as
well and legitimation bases of their organization.
e. The concept of social capital: New institutionalism at interpersonal level:
i. In recent years sociologists have initiated concepts such as social network
and social capital to depict the enduring interpersonal relationship in
institutional context. For example Lin conceptualizes that "social capital
as …is rooted in social network and social relations, and must be measured
relative to its roots. Therefore social capital can be defined as resources
embedded in a social structure which are accessed and/or mobilized in
purposive action." (Lin, 2001, p.12)
ii. Homophily: Lin further specifies that one of the structural foundations of
social capital is the principle of homophily. "The principle of homophily, also
known as the like-me hypothesis, is that social interactions tend to take
place among individuals with similar lifestyles and socioeconomic
characteristics." (Lin, 2001a, p. 39) Lin's the principle of homophily basically
echoes Berger and Luckmann's indication that identity as the basis of
"reciprocal typification of habitualized action" in institutional setting.
iii. Portes and Sensenbrenner (1998) have specified four sources from which
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enduring interpersonal co-operations, i.e. social capitals, are constituted.
-. Value introjection: It refers to "moral character" and "value imperatives"
individuals learned in the process of socialization. (Portes and
Sensenbrenner, 1998, p. 129) This resource is basically in congruent with
Beger and Luckmann's conception of internalization in the process of
institutionalization at individual level.
- Reciprocity transactions: It "consists of an accumulation of 'chits' earned
through previous good deeds to others, backed by the norm of
reciprocity." In comparison with value introjection, in this type of social
capital "individuals are not expected to behave according to a higher
group morality but rather to pure selfish end." (p. 130)
- Bounded solidarity: It refers to social capitals invoke from "situational
circumstances leading to the emergence of principled group-orientated
behavior. …Its classic sources are best exemplified by Marx and Engels's
analysis of the rise of proletarian consciousness and the transformation of
workers into class for themselves." (p. 130)
This type of collective sentiments grown out of common (usually socially
inferior) situations can also be found in unions, minority groups, etc.
- Enforceable trust: It refers of social capitals grown out of community, in
which "particularistic rewards and sanctions" are enforceable on its
members in the form of collective expectation and trusts. This type of
social capitals may manifest in informal institutional settings such as peer
group pressures or solidarity within new immigrant communities or in
formal institutional setting such as community sanction in professional
associations.
E. Why institution changes?
1. Identifying types of institutional changes
a. Categorization of institutional changes
i. Evolutionary or incremental changes: It has been signified within the
perspective that "Institutions are sticky and prone to inertia and, as a result,
change quite gradually." Hence, changes undertaken by institutions have
commonly been characterized as evolutionary changes. By evolutionary
changes, it refers to "continuous change that proceeds in small, incremental
steps along a single path in certain direction." (Campbell, 2004, p. 33)
ii. Revolutionary changes or punctuated equilibrium: Despite the institutional
inertia and resistance to change, "some scholars recognize, nonetheless, that
relatively rapid and profound institutional change does occur sometimes. They
often describe this discontinuous pattern of change as punctuated equilibrium."
(Campbell, 2004, p. 34)
iii. Punctuated evolution: Some scholars further specify that "The periods of
equilibrium occurring between punctuations are better characterized as
evolutionary rather than static." Hence, they prefer to characterize change in
institutions as punctuated evolution. That is, there are evolutionary changes in
terms of self reflection and social learning within periods of equilibrium and
equilibrium may be "punctuated occasionally by crises that involve open
struggle over the very core of the institutional status quo and the eventually
result in truly fundamental institutional transformation." (p. 34)
b. Identifying the dimensions of changes
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i. Scott’s conception of three pillars
- Changes in regulative dimension of pillars
- Changes in normative dimension of institutions
- Changes in cognitive dimension of institutions
ii. Levels of abstraction
- World systemic level
- Societal level
- Discursive level
- Organizational level
- Interactive level
- Individual cognitive level
c. Identifying the time frame: Time frame refers to the duration of time within which
institutional changes are set against for investigation.
2. Explaining institutional changes
Explaining institutional changes: John Campbell (2004) has stipulated the causal
mechanism accounting for institutional changes as follows
a. Negative feedbacks and critical junctures on dependence path: As indicated
above the maintaining and sustaining of institutional patterns depends on the
continuous feedbacks from the prevailing "dependence path" of the institution.
(Pierson, 2004) However, as negative feedbacks from the dependence path
appear and subsequently accumulated to a critical point. It may then trigger
fundamental changes in institution. (Campbell, 2004, p.65-68)
b. Bricolage: It refers to innovations in combining existing repertoire of institutional
principles and practices so as to solve crises or dilemma confronting an institution.
(Campbell, 2004, p. 69) According to March and Olsen's conception, bricolage
can be categorized into
i. Substantive bricolage: It refers to innovative combination of well-established
technical principles or practices within an institution in order to bring about
adjustment or fundamental change.
ii. Symbolic bricolage: It refers to innovative combination of normative and
cognitive principles and practices so as to reconcile normative or cognitive
conflicts invoked by changes.
c. The role of institutional entrepreneurs or bricoleurs: The conception of institutional
entrepreneurs or bricoleurs can specify the agent of change in the causal
explanation of institutional changes. The performance entrepreneurs depend
basically on two factors, namely their connectivity within the institution and the
availability of repertoires to be combined. As Campbell indicates "entrepreneurs
with more diverse social, organizational, and institutional connections tends to
have more expansive repertoires with which to work. In turn, the broader their
repertoire, the more likely they are to create a bricolage that is very creative and
revolutionary rather than one that is less creative and evolutionary, (Campbell,
2004, p.75)
e. Diffusion, translation and enactment:
i. Changes in punctuated equilibrium may not be invoked by bricoleurs from
within an institution. It may be triggered by input from other institutions. In other
words, institutional innovation or changes may diffuse and circulated among
institutions. Hence, institutional changes can be copies and learnt.
ii. However, input of changes or innovations from outside will not be copied
automatically and totally by a given institution. They must be translated and
innovatively combined with existing principles and practice.
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iii. Finally, in order for any principles and practice input from without to
substantiate within a given institution, they must be internalized cognitively or
normatively by members of the institution to become part of their daily routines
and practice. In other words, changes have to be enacted by members on daily
basis.
f. Normative and cognitive ideas about institutional changes
i. In accounting for institutional changes, new institutionalists play particular
attentions to how agents accept (interpret, identify, internalize, enact, etc.) new
ideas and in turn make changes in their practices, i.e. agencies.
ii. Typology of ideas about institutional change: Campbell has constructed a
framework to classify ideas into paradigms, public sentiments, programs and
frames.
iii. Typology of actors and their ideational roles: According to the classification of
ideas, Campbell has further differentiated actors within an institution into five
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F. Democratic (Communicative) Governance in Institutional Perspective: A Synthesis of
the Workshop
In light of the various theoretical perspectives and conceptual tools reviewed in the
precedent ten lectures, we may synthesize them into a theory of democratic
governance (March & Oslen, 1995; Bevir, 2010) or communicative governance
(Habermas, 1996)
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Communicative
Rationality
Communicative
Action
Empowering
Activating
Communicative
Power
Legitimation through Public Reasoning of
Fairness, Reciprocity, Impartiality, …
Sedimentation, Institutionalization
Sedimentation, Institutionalization
Communicative Institution
Rules,
Regulations,
& Laws
Rules, roles &
identities of the
governors; e.g.
legislators,
administrators,
& judiciaries…;
educational
officials,
principals,
teachers, …
Roles: Definitions
of rights &
Obligations of roles
And
Mutual
expectations of
role- partners
Communicative
Governance
and
Democratic
Governance
Identities
(Internalizing
role
performance
as part of one’s
own self
Rules, roles &
identities of the
governed;
e.g. citizens;
principals,
teachers, parents,
students
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