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II. Higher Education, Higher Education Policy (Higher Education Law, Higher Education Organisation, Personnel Structure, Student Body, Educational Assistance, Higher Education Statistics)
B. Essays, Commentaries, Statements
Author BRANKOVIC, Jelena
Title The status games they play : unpacking the dynamics of organisational status competition in higher education / Jelena Brankovic
Publication year 2018
Source/Footnote In: Higher education. - 75 (2018) 4, S. 695 - 709
Inventory number 46877
Keywords Hochschule : Wettbewerb ; Hochschule und Staat : allgemein ; Hochschule : Verfassung und Selbstverwaltung
Abstract The article uses the concept of organisational status to explore how universities respond to intensifying competition. Although status is not a novel phenomenon in higher education, recent insights show that the concerns with vertical positioning, both nationally and internationally, are gaining prominence with a growing number of universities worldwide. As global competition becomes as fierce as ever, universities’ efforts to maintain or advance their position vis-à-vis each other are becoming more salient. The paper draws from extant literature to identify three mechanisms of organisational status construction—categories, intermediaries and affiliations—and offers a set of propositions as to how universities of different status rank are expected to act when seeking to maintain or advance their status. Such activities, it is argued, shape status hierarchies, which, in turn, affect the scope of organisational action. The article contributes to the discussions on competition in higher-education literature and, more broadly, to the theory of organisational action in the tradition of sociological institutionalism. (HRK / Abstract übernommen) Brankovic, Jelena, E-Mail: jelena.brankovic@uni-bielefeld.de