The multiple dynamics of isomorphic change : Australian law schools 1987–1996

Abstract: The theory of institutional isomorphism has been criticized for overemphasizing organizational convergence and neglecting organizational divergence. Drawing on a range of empirical data, this paper shows that multi-dimensional accounts of isomorphic change are not necessarily incompatible with accounts emphasizing divergence as a typical form of organizational response to environmental uncertainties. The specific case investigated is the proliferation of academic organizational units (AOUs) teaching law at Australian universities over a ten-year period (1987–1996) that saw far-reaching structural transformations of the Australian university system. The key heuristic strategy employed in this paper is to scrutinize a) when isomorphic responses appear to occur, and b) which specific organizational form they take. In the empirical case examined, scrutiny of each of these dimensions strongly suggests that at least some isomorphic responses of universities were driven by a dual agenda of manifesting not only similarity but also distinction

Accounting for Impact? The Journal Impact Factor and the Making of Biomedical Research in the Netherlands

The range and types of performance metrics has recently proliferated in academic settings, with bibliometric indicators being particularly visible examples. One field that has traditionally been hospitable towards such indicators is biomedicine. Here the relative merits of bibliometrics are widely discussed, with debates often portraying them as heroes or villains. Despite a plethora of controversies, one of the most widely used indicators in this field is said to be the Journal Impact Factor (JIF). In this article we argue that much of the current debates around researchers’ uses of the JIF in biomedicine can be classed as ‘folk theories’: explanatory accounts told among a community that seldom (if ever) get systematically checked. Such accounts rarely disclose how knowledge production itself becomes more-or-less consolidated around the JIF. Using ethnographic materials from different research sites in Dutch University Medical Centers, this article sheds new empirical and theoretical light on how performance metrics variously shape biomedical research on the ‘shop floor.’ Our detailed analysis underscores a need for further research into the constitutive effects of evaluative metrics

Materialisations of space: phenomenological-archaeological investigations concerning the relations between the human organism, space and technology

In my thesis I investigate the impact the conceptual domestication and material technical transformation of space and movement has had on the behaviour of the human organism and the way it relates to its environment. In doing so l will examine the formation and structure of three non-identical yet interrelated forms of human space; rational-geometrical space, lived space, and technologically mediated space, I combine a phenomenological approach, which allows for an analysis of the horizontal relation between embodied organism and environment, with an archaeological perspective that traces the genealogy of specific symbolic and technological formations viewed in their nexus with lived, embodied behaviour.I argue that both the process of the conceptual domestication of space, particulady in the form of what Husserl refers to as the tendency of rationalisation and technisation, as well as the concrete technological transformation of the spatial environment, come into being and develop in a comparable way, While both initially directly or indirectly presuppose the perceptual' and motor activity of the embodied human organism, their subsequent development is tendentiously characterised by a relative departure from the human body in lieu of an extra-somatic organisation and materialisation of sense and behaviour.The implications for the behaviour of the individual human organism are ambivalent. On the one hand, the increasing uncoupling of technology and conceptual systems from human embodiment, has allowed for a rapid development of the human's overall technical and symbolic capacities, The result is an expansive material and symbolic 'humanisation' (Leroi-Gourhan) of the organism's behavioural and geographical environment. On the other hand, the very same process entails a behavioural regression with regard to the human organism's sensorimotor activity. I argue, by way of the former, that this may entail a constriction of the human organism's cognitive and imaginative capacities, potentially threatening its individuality