Strategic Action Fields in<scp>US</scp>Higher Education: The 1939<scp>M</scp>ercer University Heresy Trial

Taylor, Barrett J.

doi:10.1111/johs.12084

Cited by 8 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…Finally, humanities faculty members are influenced by activity in the proximate field of university administration, which can shape departmental resource allocations and organizational structures. Like many other scholars who have applied the theory of fields to understand changes in higher education and professions (e.g., Barnhardt et al, 2016;Krarup & Munk, 2016;Taylor, 2015Taylor, , 2016b, then, we argue that changes to the work of humanists-the decline in the status of the focal field and the strategies that keep it viable-can be understood as the result of complex interplays across multiple domains. To fully conceptualize the humanities, we describe each of these field contexts in turn.…”

Section: Figurementioning

confidence: 67%

Digesting “the Worm's Share”: Administrative Authority and Faculty Strategies in the Humanities

Taylor

Rosinger

Coco³

et al. 2019

Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education

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Background/Context Research on academic capitalism often maps changing conditions in which faculty work occurs without explaining the mechanisms by which change occurs. We use Fligstein and McAdam's theory of fields to posit that the changing conditions in which humanities faculty members work reflect activities in overlapping (the academic profession more generally) and proximate (university administration) fields. We seek to illuminate the ways in which humanities faculty experience heightened administrative authority and strategically respond. Research Questions We ask: 1) How do faculty members in the humanities understand the changes in their field? 2) How do faculty members in the humanities understand their relationships to members of overlapping (e.g., faculty in other areas) and proximate (e.g., administrators) fields? and 3) How do faculty members in the humanities strategize to improve their positions? Participants We conducted semistructured interviews with 46 faculty members in humanities fields with various appointments (tenured, tenure-track, non-tenure-track). Faculty participants were mainly housed in English and history, two of the largest humanities departments at many institutions, but also in philosophy and religion departments. Research Design Our multiple case study design took place at two public research universities to understand how faculty respond to changing conditions. The research sites, typical of many public research universities, experienced declining direct government support and therefore conditions in which academic capitalist processes occur were present at both. Humanities departments contributed a large portion of student credit-hour production at both research sites, yet such funds were centralized and allocated by university administration. Data Collection and Analysis Our interview protocol focused on faculty perceptions of resource allocation within the institution, allocation of work within the department, perceptions of the department relative to others, and how faculty structured their time and careers in response to various pressures inside and outside of their university. Semistructured interviews ranged from 25 and 90 minutes and were recorded and transcribed. We analyzed data using a priori and emergent codes which were grouped into broad themes reflecting faculty responses to changing conditions. Results Three strategic responses emerged among humanities faculty members we interviewed: utilizing lower status faculty members, exploiting weaker units in the field, and forming alliances. Conclusions/Recommendations Strategies result in the improved status of some individual faculty members but do not arrest the diminishing status of the humanities as a field. Our analysis suggests that field-level analyses entail implications for the study of academic work and processes in the academic capitalism tradition.

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Section: Figurementioning

confidence: 67%

Digesting “the Worm's Share”: Administrative Authority and Faculty Strategies in the Humanities

Taylor

Rosinger

Coco³

et al. 2019

Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education

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“…To explore the context within which BEAMs are developed and implemented we draw upon the theory of strategic action fields, as put forward by Fligstein and McAdam [25,26]. This theory builds on, and brings together, existing work in neo-institutional theory, political and organisational sociology, and social movement theory [56][57][58]. As a theory of stability and change it allows for the reconciliation of the reproduction of social order and the production of social change [27,56,59].…”

Section: Theory Of Strategic Action Fieldsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sustainable Construction through Industry Self-Regulation: The Development and Role of Building Environmental Assessment Methods in Achieving Green Building

Leiringer

2020

Sustainability

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The role of industry self-regulation in facilitating sustainable development has gained increasing recognition over the past two decades. As a result, voluntary certification standards have become ever more common and have been portrayed as effective means of enforcing more environmentally beneficial practices across a range of industries. In this paper, we consider the role of one such type of standard, building environmental assessment methods (BEAMs), and the role they have played in the transition towards green building in the construction industry. Drawing on the theory of strategic action fields, and using the case of HK BEAM in Hong Kong, we investigate the origins, development and impact of BEAMs in what is a highly de-centralised and fragmented industry. The paper concludes with reflections on the need to extend focus from the contents of the BEAMs in terms of categories, criteria and weightings, to instead more actively consider the “taken-for-granted” assumptions around sustainability and the dominant institutionalised practices in construction.

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“…This particular way of framing change, which is gaining traction in research focusing on organizational and market dynamics (e.g. Corbo, Corrado, & Ferriani, 2016; Helfen, 2015; Kauppinen, Cantwell, & Slaughter, 2017; Kjeldgaard et al, 2017; Litrico & David, 2017; Modell & Yang, 2018; Özen & Özen, 2011; Taylor, 2016; Wadhwani, 2018), is also well suited to explain the process through which product categories develop.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

From Mother’s Ruin to Ginaissance: Emergence, settlement and resettlement of the gin category

Pedeliento

Andreini

Dalli

2019

Organization Studies

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This article provides a historically grounded explanation of category emergence and change by using the gin category as an example. Formerly a standardized spirit produced by a narrow group of large England-based producers, gin has become a premium craft spirit made by thousands of big and small producers in every corner of the world – a categorical shift that commentators have dubbed the ‘ginaissance’. We approach product categories as socially constructed entities and make informed use of history to explain the successive categorical dynamics. Strategic action field theory is applied to explain how internal and external category actors interact to create and change product meanings and affect categorical configurations. Our results show how the intricate, complex and historically embedded processes that the product category underwent first triggered stigmatization and then put conditions in place that led to concentration and made the current ginaissance possible. Findings drawn from this study of gin contribute to research on product categories by revealing some peculiar dynamics of concentration and partitioning, status recategorization and categorical stigma, which are summarized in an empirically grounded process model of category emergence and change.

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Strategic Action Fields inUSHigher Education: The 1939Mercer University Heresy Trial

Cited by 8 publications

References 42 publications

Digesting “the Worm's Share”: Administrative Authority and Faculty Strategies in the Humanities

Digesting “the Worm's Share”: Administrative Authority and Faculty Strategies in the Humanities

Sustainable Construction through Industry Self-Regulation: The Development and Role of Building Environmental Assessment Methods in Achieving Green Building

From Mother’s Ruin to Ginaissance: Emergence, settlement and resettlement of the gin category

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