Higher Education and Health Organizational Fields in the Age of “World Class” and “Best Practices”

Abstract

The paper sets forth and examines the assumptions underlying two global ideas – world class and best practices – and their application to (higher) education and health organizations. Our basic (ex-ante) assumption is that both sectors are influenced by organizational fields that embody these ideas. However, we also assume that these sectors differ, and thus, that one should find between sector variations in the influence of such ideas. The findings suggest that both sectors have been affected by hegemonic ideas, yet in rather different ways, and that these ideas, particularly the metrics being used, pose different challenges in the two sectors.

Citation

Ramirez, F.O., Byrkjeflot, H. and Pinheiro, R. (2016), "Higher Education and Health Organizational Fields in the Age of “World Class” and “Best Practices”", Towards A Comparative Institutionalism: Forms, Dynamics And Logics Across The Organizational Fields Of Health Care And Higher Education (Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol. 45), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 35-57. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X20150000045012