Histories, instutional regimes and educational organizations: the case of turkish higher education

Official URL: http://risc01.sabanciuniv.edu/record=b1156526 (Table of Contents)

This study examined the Turkish higher education field to understand plurality and its effects on an organizational field in an effort to extend new institutional theorizing. In doing this, the aim was to see how isomorphic pressures affected organizations against the backdrop of a multiple model organizational field. In addition, as the study had three data sets in three time points, it allowed for an analysis of periods with different institutional set ups. As such, the three periods displayed, first the early years when there was no strong coercive force in the field, which was followed by a period under strong coercive pressures toward homogenization, and a third period when the coercive body had allowed room for heterogeneity. The findings showed that in the first data point (year 1975), higher education organizations in the field displayed divergent organizational features, as expected, operating under a loose institutional set up. In this period, organizational features were shaped by the historical models educational organizations were founded upon. The second data set (year 1991), after the field having gone through a major overhaul due to the change in the higher education law, revealed more homogeneity, especially in organizational features that were monitored by the YÖK, a powerful regulatory body established in 1981. The third data set (year 2002), displayed heterogeneity the most, as expected. The entry of the private universities into the field, which began in 1992, as well as the "softened" period of YÖK increased heterogeneity.