Institutional logics analysis in higher education research
18 Jan 2022, CGHE webinar
Yuzhuo Cai, Faculty of Management and Business, Tampere University, Tampere, Finland
Nicola Mountford, School of Business, Maynooth University, Maynooth, Ireland
Institutional logics were originally introduced by Alford and Friedland to describe how contradictory practices and beliefs inherent in modern Western societies shape individuals’ actions in the political arena. Thornton and her colleagues further develop the concept to account for the complexity of institutional changes in an institutional system. While institutional logics theory has increasingly been applied in higher education research, agreement is lacking on how to approach institutional logics analysis. This results in proliferating institutional logics in higher education studies and often confuses newcomers to the field as to how to use institutional logics in their empirical research. In their talk, Yuzhuo Cai and Nicola Mountford will respond to this situation based on their recent study. Specifically, they will go about the following questions.
• What approaches to institutional logics analysis are used in higher education studies?
• What institutional logics are identified/applied in higher education studies?
• What challenges are evident in applying institutional logics in higher education studies?
• How does the use of institutional logics in higher education research contribute to institutional logics theory?