Stratified University Strategies: The Shaping of Institutional Legitimacy in a Global Perspective

Abstract

Globalizing forces have both transformed and made the higher education sector increasingly homogenous. Growing similarities among universities have been attributed to isomorphic pressures to ensure and/or enhance legitimacy by imitating higher education institutions that are perceived as successful internationally, particularly universities that are highly ranked globally (Cantwell & Kauppinen, 2014; DiMaggio and Powell, 1983). In this article, we compare the strategic plans of 78 high, low, and unranked universities in 33 countries in 9 regions of the world. In analyzing the plans of these 78 universities, the paper explores patterns of similarity and difference in universities' strategic positioning according to Suchman's (1995) three types of legitimacy-cognitive, pragmatic, and moral. We find evidence of stratified university strategies in a global higher education landscape that varies by institutional status. In offering a corrective to neo-institutional theory, we suggest that patterns of globalization are mediated by status based differences in aspirational behavior (Riesman, 1958) and "old institutional" forces (Stinchcombe, 1997) that contribute to differently situated universities pursuing new paths in seeking to build external legitimacy.

Legitimacy, stratification, and internationalization in global higher education: the case of the International Association of Universities

“…The additional finding that IAU membership is associated with international offices and curricula as well as regional memberships indicates an emerging 'internationalist' type of university. While the literature highlights that internationalization has multiple meanings for different universities and is articulated in different ways (Buckner and Zapp 2020;Zapp and Lerch 2020;Ramirez 2006;Buckner 2020;Seeber et al 2016;Stensaker et al 2019), the correlation between these variables indicates that there is a cluster of institutions that increasingly embrace the aim to connect across boundaries.…”

“…In a related vein, young universities that have been created in a time when the internationalization trend was especially strong can be expected to be more strongly inclined to join the IAU. As these younger organizations have to catch up to the older and more established universities that shape the dominant models in the global higher education field, they use the globalized narrative of excellent and international universities to signal their legitimacy (Buckner and Zapp 2020;Buckner 2020;Oertel and Söll 2017;Stensaker et al 2019). This resonates with the concept of imprinted institutional logics, an idea that has proven useful in explaining similarities in organizational structure and behavior within and across fields and periods (Thornton et al 2012).…”

“…The need to display such proper identity is particularly evident in lower status and less affluent organizations. In the realm of higher education, looking like a "real" university is crucial, especially for organizations lacking reputation (Hüther and Krücken 2016;Stensaker et al 2019). For these universities, joining the easy-to-enter and welcoming IAU is an attempt to enhance legitimacy as well as visibility and to access its resources.…”

“…Stinchcombe (1965) argued that organizational structures and strategies were heavily influenced by the conditions in which organizations were born, that is, by the dominant and persistent institutional logics of the specific era in which they came into existence (Oertel 2018;Oertel and Söll 2017). Even though there are serious and ongoing debates as to what constitutes internationalization (Buckner 2017(Buckner , 2019(Buckner , 2020Knight 2014;Kosmützky and Putty 2016), the post-World War II era clearly emphasizes internationalization in higher education as a desideratum more so than in earlier time periods (Ramirez 2006;Chou et al 2017; Parreira do Amaral 2010; Powell et al 2017;Seeber et al 2016;Stensaker et al 2019). In this perspective, one would expect younger universities to be more attracted to membership in the IAU as a way of displaying commitment to internationalization, and thus, to looking like a "proper" university.…”

Governance for excellence and diversity? The impact of central and regional affiliation for the strategic positioning of Chinese top universities

“…Strategic plans are in this perspective a more symbolic tool, nevertheless important as they may maintain and strengthen the legitimacy of the university towards external stakeholders (Ramirez and Christensen 2013). However, in a situation where there is much uncertainty about what to do, an institutional perspective predicts that many organizations will imitate those that are perceived as being most successful (Riesman 1958;DiMaggio and Powell 1983;Stensaker et al 2018). This implies that many universities and colleges would try to imitate those research universities with the highest national, if not global status.…”