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This article presents results from a case study of media activities in a Swedish governmental agency where we illustrate a) how the media logic is translated and become embedded in the studied agency, and b) how different professional groups inside the organization shape the translation process. Theoretically we do this by re-visiting the notion of translation. Translation theory focuses on the local enactment and embeddedness of institutional models, ideals and practices. Institutional logics literature, on the other hand, focuses on the creation and flow of field-level meaning systems. By combining these two theoretical perspectives we are able to form a framework for understanding the local embeddedness and enactment of field-level institutional logics. The result of our study suggests that institutional logics – once they become introduced in a given context – consist of four elements that are interpreted and enacted differently inside organizations. We identify three local, profession-based value systems that shape the translation of the media logics, and we use this finding to theorize the role of professional value systems in shaping local translation processes.

Analysing the introduction of international rankings in the field of management education, this article aims to understand how and why rankings have proliferated and institutionalized and with what effects. Building on institutional theory, I propose that rankings function as rhetorical devices to construct legitimacy within the field, which actors use to attempt to shape and reform the field as it develops. Rhetorical devices shape meaning, as they are used to justify practices and procedures and shape the means of comparison and assessment. The rankings are used by European business schools to attempt to alter perceptions of the field and their own positions within it. The result of these processes is also, however, a preservation of status and the principles whereby status is formed in the field, primarily through the work of habitus. I discuss the implications of these findings for understanding rankings and for institutional theories of fields.

How are business school rankings shaping the international management education field? This paper investigates the role of classification mechanisms such as rankings in forming organizational fields, and asks to what extent rankings are influencing organizations to become more alike. Using a qualitative study of European business schools and their responses to international rankings, I show how the rankings are shaping and codifying an organizational template on which business schools form identities and identification with the field. The rankings codify this template by defining belongingness to a group, specifying measures for competition and comparison, and by promoting role models. Through the template, isomorphic pressures are mediated by the use of both specific and ambiguous criteria for performance, and in the way the template guides and channels imitation processes. This way, the template secures similarity and recognition of ‘belonging together’ in the field while allowing for considerable variation in organizational practices and identities.

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