The purpose of our efforts is to explore the use of cohorts using a neo-institutional lens (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983; Powell & DiMaggio, 1991; Scott, 2001). This project is exploratory and conceptual. It is aimed more at identifying issues and questions for more thorough and finely grained analysis than at arriving at definitive conclusions. However, in addressing this purpose we also seek to raise questions about how program decisions are made. This is a critically important issue for the field in today’s environment. Buffeted by calls for reform and by threats to alter the role of the university in the preparation of educational leaders (Petersen & Young, 2004), the harsh criticisms leveled against preparatory programs by Levine (2005), and calls for a redefinition of educational doctoral programs (e.g., Shulman, Golde, Bueschel, & Garabedian, 2006), the field is in need of critical reflection about how it does its work and how it selects the means to prepare educational leaders. We suggest that one lens that will aid the field in fostering the quality of critical reflection required is neo-institutional theory. To illustrate the potential contribution of this theory as a lens to support critical reflection by the field we explore two issues: (a) change in the use of cohorts in leadership preparation programs over time and (b) factors and processes that neo-institutional theory would suggest has led to their widespread use.
Theoretical Perspectives
Universities are characterized by unclear goals, ambiguous connections between technologies employed (e.g., instructional strategies) and outcomes, and fluid participation of organizational members (Cohen, March, & Olsen, 1972). In addition, educational outcomes that are achieved tend to be difficult to measure, even if agreement can be reached about which outcomes should be pursued. These characteristics of organized anarchy insert much uncertainty into organizational life within universities (Cohen et al., 1972; Hanson, 2001). Meyer and Rowan (1977) have posited that under these uncertain conditions organizations strive for legitimacy because the structural forms necessary for technical efficiency and effectiveness are either not known or are not amenable to adequate testing. Thus, organizations adopt structures that are acceptable to an organization’s stakeholders, and other members of the institution’s organizational and professional fields. These structures reflect rationalized myths that serve symbolic and theatrical functions. They serve symbolic functions by capturing and communicating meaning internally among organizational members. But they also function as theater insofar as images projected externally serve to contribute to the organization’s legitimacy within society (Meyer & Rowan, 1977; Bolman & Deal, 2003). The logic therefore is that educational preparation programs must be effective because they have legitimacy – they take on acceptable, widespread form – in this instance, a cohort structure.
The manner in which organizational structures and practices become increasingly homogenized has been the subject of much theorizing and research. In their seminal work on this topic, DiMaggio and Powell (1983) identified two forms of isomorphism, or “a constraining process that forces one unit in a population to resemble other units that face the same set of environmental conditions” (p. 149). The first, competitive isomorphism, focuses on market competition and an organization’s need for resources and customers. Competitive isomorphism is most relevant under conditions where free and open competition is characteristic of the organizational environment. In competitive isomorphism, organizations are said to adapt to changing environmental conditions in order to “fit” the environment and be able to obtain needed resources.
The other form of isomorphism is institutional, the focus of this article. In this case organizations compete not just for resources and clients, but also for “… political power and institutional legitimacy, for social as well as economic fitness” (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983, p. 150). Thus, neo-institutional theory posits that meanings in the minds of organizational participants become reified “social facts” (Meyer & Rowan, 1977; Scott, 2001, p. 42). These “social facts” undergird particular belief systems and structures that dominate an organizational field, or a population of organizations, like universities or departments of educational leadership, that offer similar services and share some common environmental pressures (Scott, 2001). Neo-institutionalism “ . . . takes as a starting point the striking homogeneity of practices and arrangements . . .” (Powell & DiMaggio, 1991, p. 9) found in these organizational fields.
Neo-institutionalism includes four analytic categories or heuristic devices that aid in reflecting on why and by what means certain beliefs and structures come to dominate a field and contribute to its isomorphic features: “mechanisms,” “carriers,” “field logics,” and “sources of influence.” Each of these heuristic devices is explored in the paragraphs which follow.
Mechanisms and Carriers
The first two analytic devices focus on the forms that “social facts” take (i.e. regulations, norms, and/or values/beliefs), the mechanisms through which they are distributed across organizations and the “carriers” of a particular form.
DiMaggio and Powell (1983) identify three mechanisms by which institutional isomorphic change occurs: coercive, mimetic, and normative. Although DiMaggio and Powell present these mechanisms as conceptually separate, they also note that the typology is an analytic one; the mechanisms are not necessarily empirically distinct. Mizruchi and Fein (1999) support connections among the three mechanisms by noting that most research on institutional isomorphism has focused on the mimetic mechanism at the expense of the other two, thereby distorting DiMaggio’s and Powell’s original conceptualization. With this in mind, we employ these three mechanisms both separately and in concert to analyze the isomorphic nature of cohort usage in educational leadership preparation programs.
Coercion. Coercive isomorphism derives from political influence, authority, and problems of legitimacy. It is the result of formal and informal pressures to conform that are imposed on an organization by other organizations and by cultural expectations (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983). Formal pressures or “social facts” include governmental statutes, rules, and regulations, as well as standards of accrediting agencies that are generally carried by organizations and persons with some level of relevant authority. While formal, explicit coercion is the most evident form of this mechanism, subtle, informal demands may also contribute to isomorphic change. For example, Mizruchi and Fein (1999) have noted that even anticipated pressures from actors in the environment may influence an organization’s behavior.
Mimetic behavior. Mimicking other organizations occurs especially under conditions of uncertainty and ambiguity – when organizations possess characteristics of organized anarchies. The “model organization” may be unaware that others are copying it, and mimicking may occur unintentionally or intentionally. It may, for example, be the unexpected result of the transfer of personnel from one organization to another, or occur because personnel purposefully adopt practices described in the literature or heed the advice of a consultant. Due to an organization’s wish to be perceived as legitimate under conditions of uncertainty, organizations tend to model themselves after other organizations that are perceived to be highly successful and more legitimate (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983).
Normative processes. Norming relates to the processes by which a profession seeks to maintain jurisdiction over work, domains of knowledge, and the reproduction of its kind (Abbott, 1988; Larson, 1977). Three aspects of these processes are central to isomorphic change. First is the shared knowledge base of a profession, including its belief system about the reproduction of its kind. Second is the networking among professionals that cuts across organizations and is supported by professional associations through conferences, newsletters, and publications. These networks serve as robust carriers of structure within an organizational field. In their study of the philanthropic practices of corporate managers, Galaskiewicz and Wasserman (1989) found that networking was, for example, closely related to mimetic behaviors. The managers who Galaskiewicz and Wasserman studied tended to mimic persons they knew and trusted instead of individuals who worked for more successful and prestigious organizations, as purely mimetic views of isomorphism would predict. Thus, social networks, especially when related to the normative mechanism, play an important role in achievement of isomorphic change. Third, is the career track of leaders within a profession. Career tracks, themselves, tend to be somewhat homogenized across organizations and within professions. As a consequence, differences between organizational leaders tend to be bounded due to socialization and other isomorphic forces at work within a profession (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983). This normative boundedness constrains leaders’ behaviors and choices in that they seek to provide legitimacy of their organization within the field by selecting structures that have been accepted as social facts by the field.
Field Logics
Field logics, the next analytic device include the “ . . . belief systems and related practices that predominate in an organizational field” (Scott, 2001, p. 139). Friedland and Alford (in Scott, 2001, p. 139) have noted that these logics provide the “organizing principles” that organizational participants use to carry out their work. Field logics vary across four dimensions – content, penetration, linkage, and exclusiveness.
Content is the meaning and interpretation field participants give to belief systems. Penetration is the vertical depth and strength with which particular belief systems are held by participants. Linkages refer to the horizontal connections participants make between different belief systems. For example the linkage between belief in the outcomes of cohorts and beliefs about the Ed.D. degree as a practice-oriented, professional degree. Exclusiveness is the extent to which one field logic predominates or competing logics vie for acceptance (Scott, 2001, pp. 139-140).
Sources of Influence
The final analytic device draws our attention to the sources from which institutionalization springs. Scott (1987) has highlighted seven different sources:
- Imposition of organizational structure. In this case agents impose common structure either by virtue of their authority or through their use of coercive power. This form of influence is comparable to the mechanism of coercion (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983).
- Authorization of organizational structure. In this situation a subordinate unit voluntarily complies with the wishes of an agent in order to obtain approval of that agent (as in choosing to be accredited when accreditation is not required to operate a program).
- Inducement of organizational structure. Another agent induces change by requiring the change as a condition of funding the organization.
- Acquisition of organizational structure. In this situation organizational actors deliberately choose to acquire structural models and employ mimetic and/or normative mechanisms to do so.
- Imprinting of organizational structure. An organization takes on particular structural characteristics for an organizational field at the time of its founding. For example, as new doctoral programs are established, a cohort structure is chosen because that structure is characteristic of the field.
- Incorporation of organizational structure. Through incremental environmental adaptation, organizations over time incorporate environmental structures into their own structure.
- Bypassing organizational structure. Within the context of strong cultural institutional structures, organizational structures may not need to be as complex and elaborate as in cases where the cultural structures are weak (Meyer & Rowan, 1977). In this case “cultural controls can substitute for structural controls” (Scott, 1987, p. 507).
Taken together the analytic devices of mechanisms, carriers, field logics, and sources of institutionalism provide a framework for critically examining how and why the field of educational leadership has chosen to use cohorts.
Analysis
We used two sources of information to explore the strength and penetration of cohorts in educational preparation doctoral programs, change in use of cohorts over time, and the factors and processes that have led to the “strength” and “penetration” of cohort structure in the field. The first information source was extant research literature that reported the range of cohort use in educational leadership programs.
The second source of information was the frequency with which cohorts have been a focus of the field’s literature for a twenty year period (1985-2005). We used data on frequency of cohort focus to supplement information from existing studies on cohorts (first source of information). Key word searches for “cohort” and related terms (such as doctoral, educational leadership, and superintendency) were conducted in (a) Google Scholar, (b) the Emerald database, (c) ERIC, and (d) the Educational Administration Quarterly. In addition, we conducted a search on the term, “cohort,” in the title or abstracts of presentations made at the annual meetings of the University Council for Educational Administration from 1985-2005. We checked across all sources to ensure there were no duplicate entries. This analysis not only permitted a focus on the overall volume of literature about cohorts but also an exploration about how the frequency of attention to cohorts has changed over time. The value of this type of analysis is predicated on three assumptions. The first is that the frequency with which cohorts are a focus in the literature is a function of their use in educational preparation programs (i.e., if they are used by educational leadership departments they will become a focus of research and writing). Second, their appearance in the literature is a demonstration of individual faculty members’ interest in this programmatic form – they are of sufficient merit to attract the interest of those who design and teach in them. Third, a focus on cohorts in the literature demonstrates a shared belief in the field (acted on by reviewers of manuscripts and paper proposals) that cohorts are of sufficient interest and importance to merit the allocation of scarce resources (publication space, paper presentation slots) to their consideration. Thus, the literature of the field serves as a way to gauge the strength and the level of penetration that a field logic, such as cohorts, has achieved in an organizational field.
The remaining issue of what factors and processes have led to the strength and penetration of cohorts in the field was addressed by applying the heuristic devices introduced earlier to the field’s research about cohorts and other factors at work in the field. Our analysis and presentation of it were guided primarily by the three mechanisms of isomorphic change (coercive, mimetic, and normative). The analysis led to the identification of a number of questions about the processes by which cohort use has become so prevalent in the field. These questions, as well as the findings and analyses that led to them, allow us to propose a framework for further inquiry into this phenomenon.
Observations
In this section we provide analysis that establishes the foundation for the framework recommended later. We first explore the level of cohort use in doctoral preparation programs. Then we analyze isomorphic processes that may account for the level of use reported.
Cohort Usage as Reported in Extant Research
In his 1999 monograph on the state of the educational leadership profession, Murphy noted that changes in preparation programs have included changes in program structures. He also noted that “perhaps the most distinct piece of the structural mosaic has been the widespread implementation of cohort programs” (p. 42). This widespread use of cohorts is also supported by three recent studies. Norton (1995), in a survey of UCEA institutions, found that 30 (70%) of responding institutions reported use of cohorts. Most institutions that used cohorts did so for doctoral programs (70%). Half of the institutions had been using cohorts for six or more years, while the other half had adopted this program structure within one to five years of the study.
In 1994, McCarthy & Kuh (1997) surveyed chairs or coordinators of 371 educational administration / leadership units in four-year colleges and universities in the United States. Responses were received from 254 (68%) of those surveyed. Responding chairs/coordinators reported that more than half of EdD students were enrolled in cohorts. McCarthy and Kuh also conducted discriminant analyses in order to identify characteristics (program and faculty variables) that differentiated between research, doctoral, and comprehensive institutions. The use of cohorts was not found to be a distinguishing variable among the different types of institutions.
Barnett, Basom, Yerkes, and Norris (2000) surveyed 383 United States and Canadian university educational administration programs listed in the Educational Administration Directory (Lane, 1996 in Barnett, et al., 2000). Two hundred twenty-three programs responded (58% response rate) and of this number 141 (63%) reported using cohorts in some or all of their preparation programs. Barnett et al. also compared cohort usage on the basis of institutional size and priority on teaching, research and service. They found that cohorts tended to be used more frequently in institutions with 10,000 or more students and in institutions that emphasized research rather than teaching or service.
Cohort Use as Reflected in the Field’s Literature
Another gauge of the field’s interest in cohorts is the extent to which cohorts are a focus of the field’s literature. As noted earlier, we conducted a literature search in order to track the frequency with which cohorts have been addressed in selected sources from 1985 through 2005. We conducted this analysis recognizing that cohorts have been explicitly or implicitly recommended as program structures since the 1950s (Achilles, 1994), if not before (Basom, Yerkes, Norris, & Barnett, 1995). However, our interest was to focus on a recent era in order to investigate the current level of interest in cohorts and to confine our analysis of isomorphic processes to the past twenty years, and especially to the past decade.
Results of our analysis of the literature are portrayed in Table 1. As noted there, within the time period explored, mention of cohorts was first found in 1987, but significant mention of them in the literature we reviewed was not found until 1992. The frequency with which cohorts were addressed increased especially between the late 1990s through 2004 after which a decline was witnessed in 2005 (which may be a function of delay in data entry in some of the data bases we explored). Although certainly a limited gauge of cohort use, these data nonetheless suggest that interest in cohorts within the field has increased over the past twenty years.
Existing survey data about cohort use, as well as our analysis of the literature, lead to two observations. First, cohorts have indeed become widespread in doctoral programs and if our analysis of the literature is any indication, interest in them, if not their use has grown steadily in the past two decades. Therefore, it would appear that this particular programmatic structure or field logic has achieved at least a moderate level of penetration for doctoral programs in a relatively short amount of time. However, cohorts have yet to become an exclusive field logic for educational leadership doctoral programs. This lack of absolute homogeneity in reported use highlights the continuous, rather than the dichotomous, nature of institutionalization (Krasner, 1988), as well as the possibility for alternative structures and field logics to coexist within the same organizational field (Greenwood & Hinings, 1996). Still, the apparent growth in the use of cohorts over the past several years requires exploration of reasons for their increase. This question is addressed later in our analysis of the mechanisms of isomorphic change.
Second, results reported in extant research literature on cohorts raise questions about whether differences exist among different types of higher education institutions in the use of cohorts. Although McCarthy and Kuh (1997) reported no difference in use between types of institutions, Barnett et al. (2000) suggest that differences do exist, with larger, research oriented institutions using cohorts more frequently than other types of institutions. Whether these conflicting results are a function of different data collection times and procedures, the use of different typologies to categorize institutions, or differences in who responded to the two surveys cannot be discerned from the information provided. More research is required about cohort use by different types of institutions. As noted later, the results of such research would contribute in important ways to the understanding of mimetic pressures within the field.
Isomorphic Mechanisms
As noted earlier, three forms of isomorphic pressure lead to increasing levels of homogeneity in structures and field logics employed by organizations to gain legitimacy in a field. Each of these is explored below with reference to cohort use.
Coercion. Coercive processes require either explicit or implicit influence from an agent on an organization to comply with its wish for a particular organizational structure. As noted earlier, this influence may actually be exercised or organizational personnel may anticipate becoming subjects of future coercion, if they fail to comply with coercive pressures. In addition, agents of coercion can act either from a basis of authority (to which the target organization acquiesces) or by using coercive power, threatening sanctions and other forms of punishment for failure to comply.
In the case of cohort use, only one condition of the coercive mechanism appears to apply. This condition is the general belief among educational leadership faculty that failure to reform preparation programs may result in actions by members of the professional field to weaken higher education’s role as the major provider of these programs. Over the past few years national attention on public education in general, and school leaders in particular, has helped form a trenchant perception of university preparation programs. Newspaper accounts such as those in Education Week, and the more widely read New York Times and USA Today, have covered broad leadership issues but have also focused on leadership preparation. For the most part these articles have been highly critical of traditional university preparation programs and represent, in large measure, current popular opinion of university-based educational leadership preparation (Guthrie & Sanders, 2001; Young & Petersen, 2002; Petersen, 1999). More recently, Levine’s call for discontinuance of EdD programs in favor of master’s programs similar to the M.B.A. highlights anew the range of threats that have surfaced to stimulate a variety of reforms, including calls for redefining the traditional EdD (Shulman, et al., 2005).This unyielding scrutiny has leadership preparation programs in a precarious position. Decreased institutional support, stronger state licensure mandates, federal and government sponsored initiatives designed to prepare school leaders outside of the university setting, coupled with alternative licensure for school administrators are evidence of external groups’ dissatisfaction with the performance of university programs in preparing educational leaders:
Over the past few years, the national attention focused on educational leadership has escalated. Dewitt-Wallace Readers Digest Foundation, the U.S. Department of Education, the Annenberg Foundation, the Broad Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the National Governors Association, Educational Officials, and the leaders of several national corporations, among others, have all expressed interest in the training and preparation of school leaders. Their focus on this issue has brought with it millions of dollars in research and program funding…For the most part, [they are] critical of traditional university preparation of school and school system leaders and/or supportive of alternative preparation programs. (Young & Petersen, 2002, p.1).
Other than these generalized threats about creating alternatives to university leadership preparation programs, we are unaware of any external agent within the organizational field (state departments, accreditation associations, professional associations, practitioners, etc.) that is requiring, either by virtue of authority or threat of sanctions, the use of cohort structures to deliver leadership preparation programs. Therefore, the condition of anticipated coercion that does obtain in this instance acts not in a specific way but generally. University programs do not anticipate that failure to reform preparation programs will result in the imposition of a cohort structure by external agents or the application of specific sanctions. Rather, faculty appear to share a diffuse understanding that reform is indeed necessary if higher education is to maintain it’s predominate role in leadership preparation. Additional evidence of this diffuse threat are English’s (2006) concerns about the routinization and standardization of preparation programs as a consequence of the application of ELCC and NCATE standards.
Thus, the legitimacy of program sponsorship and programs themselves has been put into play by some members of the organizational field (e.g., accrediting bodies, foundations). The perception of potential coercive action by these and other actors can influence program decisions (Gates, 1997), including decisions made about programmatic forms needed to achieve legitimacy and avoid coercive actions. One acceptable form and image of reform – contributing to institutions’ perceived legitimacy as major producers of school leaders – may very well be cohorts, a fact highlighted by Levine’s (2005, p. 51) mention of them when touting the effectiveness of the Broad Foundation’s Urban Superintendent’s Academy. Coercion does not appear to be the principal mechanism for this isomorphic tendency. Rather, the appropriateness and acceptability of cohorts appear to be more a consequence of mimetic and normative processes as we discuss below. But the condition of anticipated coercion may well have established a diffuse but powerful understanding and environmental force-field within the profession that reform is necessary. The resultant climate may have served to strengthen beliefs about the acceptability of cohorts as structures that can provide legitimacy and social fitness for the profession – i.e., creating a linkage between the two field logics of reform and cohort use.
Mimetic behavior. Organizations can purposefully acquire structures by modeling their configurations after those of other organizations within the organizational field, or what Scott (1987) has labeled “acquisition.” Mimicking occurs most frequently under two conditions – uncertainty and when other organizations are viewed as being more legitimate and successful than the one doing the copying.
Despite the widespread use of cohorts we still have little data that support their efficacy in preparing education leaders (Barnett, et al., 2000; Scribner & Donaldson, 2001). Most research has supported the contributions cohorts make to affective outcomes (e.g., development of interpersonal skills, providing emotional support to learners) (Scribner & Donaldson, 2001). The most glaring gap in evidence about cohort efficacy is in the area of their contribution to preparation of successful educational leaders (Barnett, et al., 2000). Yet, our evidence about other structures used in preparation programs is no better. As Barnett et al. (2000) have noted, “. . . little anecdotal or empirical evidence exists to support claims that preparation programs make a difference to school leaders” (p. 277). Thus, the organizational field is faced with much uncertainty about the technical effectiveness of its programs. Under these conditions, we expect organizations to mimic others they perceive to be more legitimate and more successful.
The meanings of legitimacy and success in academe are more difficult to address, in that no clear definitions of either exists, and even with the definitions we do have, the measures of these two attributes remain subjects of debate. One possibility, however, is that cohorts have been increasingly used because they mimic the traditional structures employed in the preparation programs of professions considered of higher status and more successful (e.g., medicine, law, business) than educational leadership (Abbott, 1998; DiMaggio & Powell, 1983; Miner, 2002). Similar mimicking has been observed in the case of other professions. For example, the accounting profession mimicked law and the clergy in adopting the partnership organizational form (Greenwood & Hinings, 1996). Although this form of modeling has been suggested for the adoption of cohort structures (e.g., Saltiel & Russo, 2001), we have found no data or accounts that directly support this claim, pointing to another area where research is needed.
Another approach to the issue of legitimacy is to consider, like reputational studies, those institutions and programs that have higher national rankings. If these are the programs others aspire to mimic, then do they use cohorts? Definitive answers to this question are also lacking. The best information available is the mixed results of the Barnett et al. (2000) and McCarthy and Kuh (1997) studies. As noted earlier Barnett et al. found cohorts to be used more extensively by institutions considered to be “higher” in academic categorization (i.e., larger, research institutions). However, McCarthy and Kuh found that the use of cohorts was not a variable that differentiated between comprehensive, doctoral, and research institutions.
Therefore, while the condition of uncertainty would suggest that the widespread use of cohorts has occurred in part due to educational leadership programs mimicking each other or the more prestigious professions, no data provide clear support for this conclusion. However, if mimicking behavior is indeed occurring, even less is known about what programs are serving as models for others and on what basis they are judged to be more legitimate and successful. These are questions that need to be addressed empirically.
Also, if modeling is occurring, the content of beliefs about cohorts, as well as linkages made between these field logics, need exploration – i.e., what beliefs are actually embedded in this modeling behavior and how are these linked to other belief systems? For example, some researchers (e.g., Cordeiro, et al., 1993; Weise, 1992; Saltiel & Russo, 2001; Barnett, et al., 2000) have suggested that cohorts are seen as mechanisms that provide program coherence and integrity, support student recruitment, and provide an effective way to organize students and limited faculty resources. Faculty opinions about the strengths and weaknesses of cohorts indeed appear to center as much or more on logistical and administrative issues as on their impact on learning and leadership performance (Barnett, et al., 2000). Therefore, is this field logic more about logistical arrangements and connected more to issues of effective and efficient resource utilization? If so, then how has it become connected to issues of learning outcomes, professional performance, and reform of educational leadership preparation programs? Also, how has this particular form of the field logic been promulgated throughout the field – i.e., more by administrators than by faculty members? These too are questions that need to be addressed.
