TY - JOUR A1 - Reith, Florian A1 - Seyfried, Markus T1 - Balancing the Moods BT - Quality Managers’ Perceptions and Actions Against Resistance JF - Higher education policy N2 - Quality management (QM) has spread around the world and reached higher education in Europe in the early 1990s (Mendel, 2006, 137; Kernegger and Vettori, 2013, 1). However, researchers were rather more interested in national quality assurance policies (macro-level) and accreditation systems (meso-level) than in intra-organizational perspectives about the day-to-day implementation of quality assurance policies by various actors (micro-level). Undoubtedly, organizational change is a challenging endeavor for all kinds of groups. On the one hand, it provides the opportunity of further development and innovation, but on the other hand, it exposes organizations and actors to the risk of losing established structures and accepted routines. Like in many other organizations, actors may not necessarily perceive change as a promoter of innovation and development. Instead, they may consider change as a threat to the existing status quo or, as March points out, as an “interplay between rationality and foolishness” (March, 1981, 563). Consequently, change provokes either affective or behavioral actions (Armenakis and Bedeian, 1999, 308–310), such as, for example, resistance. Anderson (2006, 2008) and Lucas (2014) have shown, for example, that academic resistance is an important issue. However, Piderit characterizes resistance as a multidimensional construct (Piderit, 2000, 786–787) subject to a wide variety of issues related to quality and QM. Although QM has been described as a “fashion” (Stensaker, 2007, 101) in the higher education sector that provokes many different reactions, its implementation in higher education institutions (HEIs) is still a rather unexplored field. Thus, the evidence provided by Anderson (2006, 2008) and others (Newton, 2000, 2002; McInnis et al., 1995; Fredman and Doughney, 2012; Lucas, 2014; etc.) needs to be expanded, because they only consider the perspective of academia. In particular, the view of other actors during the implementation of quality assurance policies is a missing piece in this empirical puzzle. Nearly nothing is known about how quality managers deal with reactions to organizational change like resistance and obstruction. Until now, only a few studies have focused on intra-organizational dynamics (see, for example: Csizmadia et al., 2008; Lipnicka, 2016). Besides the lack of research on the implementation of quality assurance policies in HEIs, quality managers seem to be an interesting subject for further investigations because they are “endogenous” to institutional processes. On the one hand, quality managers are the result of quality assurance policies, and on the other hand, they influence the implementation of quality assurance policies, which affect other actors (like academics, administrative staff, etc.). Here, quality managers, as members of an emerging higher education profession, are involved in various conflict lines between QM, HEI management and departments, which need further research (Seyfried and Pohlenz, 2018, 9). Therefore, the aim of our paper is twofold: firstly, to answer the question of how quality managers perceive resistance, and secondly, which measures they take in situations of perceived resistance. We offer a new research perspective and argue that resistance is not merely provoked by organizational change; it also provokes counter-reactions by actors who are confronted with resistance. Thus, resistance seems to be rather endogenous. To theorize our argument, we apply parts of the work of Christine Oliver (1991), which provides theoretical insights into strategic responses to institutional processes, ranging from acquiescence to manipulation (Oliver, 1991, 152). We, therefore, investigate the introduction of QM in teaching and learning, and the emergence of quality managers as higher education professionals as one of the results of quality assurance policies. Consequently, the introduction of QM may be considered as an institutional process provoking reactions and counter-reactions of various organizational units within HEIs. These circumstances are constitutive for how quality managers deal with resistance and other reactions toward organizational change. We use this theoretical framework to analyze the German higher education sector, because this particular case can be considered as a latecomer in New Public Management reforms (Schimank, 2005, 369) and Germany is a country where academic self-governance plays a very important role, and strongly influences academics’ behavior when it comes to organizational change (Wolter, 2004). Our empirical results are based on a mixed-methods research design and integrate half-structured interviews and a nationwide survey at the central level in German HEIs, which excludes faculty members of QM (decentral level). They reveal that quality managers take different types of action when resistance occurs during the implementation of quality assurance policies. Furthermore, quality managers mainly react with different tactics. These tactics seem to be relevant for convincing academics and for the enhancement of their commitment to improve the quality of teaching and learning, instead of provoking further resistance or avoidance practices. This article proceeds as follows: the next sections describe the context and explain our main theoretical concepts referring to the work of Oliver (1991) and others. After that, we present our case selection and the methodological framework, including the data sources and the operationalization of selected variables. Finally, we provide our empirical results about quality managers’ perceptions on resistance and we draw conclusions. KW - higher education KW - quality management KW - institutional processes KW - resistance KW - balancing Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1057/s41307-018-0124-6 SN - 0952-8733 SN - 1740-3863 VL - 32 IS - 1 SP - 71 EP - 91 PB - Palgrave Macmillan CY - Basingstoke ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Brennecke, Julia A1 - Ertug, Gokhan A1 - Kovács, Balázs A1 - Zou, Tengjian T1 - What does homophily do? BT - a review of the consequences of homophily JF - Academy of Management Annals N2 - Understanding the consequences of homophily, which is among the most widely observed social phenomena, is important, with implications for management theory and practice. Therefore, we review management research on the consequences of homophily. As these consequences have been studied at the individual, dyad, team, organizational, and macro levels, we structure our review accordingly. We highlight findings that are consistent and contradictory, as well as those that point to boundary conditions or moderators. In conducting our review, we also derive implications for management research from insights gained by research in other disciplines on this topic. We raise specific issues and opportunities for future research at each level, and conclude with a discussion of broader future research directions, both empirical and conceptual, that apply across levels. We hope that our review will open new vistas in research on this important topic. Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.5465/annals.2020.0230 SN - 1941-6520 SN - 1941-6067 VL - 16 IS - 1 SP - 38 EP - 69 PB - Erlbaum CY - Mahwah ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Holthaus, Leonie A1 - Stockmann, Nils T1 - Who makes the world? BT - Academics and (un)cancelling the future JF - New perspectives N2 - In this essay, we consider the role of academics as change-makers. There is a long line of reflection about academics' sociopolitical role(s) in international relations (IR). Yet, our attempt differs from available considerations in two regards. First, we emphasize that academics are not a homogenous group. While some keep their distance from policymakers, others frequently provide policy advice. Hence, positions and possibilities of influence differ. Second, our argument is not oriented towards the past but the future. That is, we develop our reflections on academics as change-makers by outlining the vision of a 'FutureLab', an innovative, future forum that brings together different world-makers who are united in their attempt to improve 'the world'. Our vision accounts for current, perhaps alarming trends in academia, such as debates about the (in)ability to confront post-truth politics. Still, it is a (critically) optimistic one and can be read as an invitation for experimentation. Finally, we sympathize with voices demanding the democratization of academia and find that further cross-disciplinary dialogues within academia and dialogues between different academics, civil society activists and policymakers may help in finding creditable solutions to problems such as climate change and populism. KW - multiplicity KW - policy KW - scholar-practitioners KW - transdisciplinarity KW - un-cancelling the future KW - world-makers Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1177/2336825X20935246 SN - 2336-825X SN - 2336-8268 VL - 28 IS - 3 SP - 413 EP - 427 PB - Sage Publications CY - Thousand Oaks, CA ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Elsässer, Joshua Philipp A1 - Hickmann, Thomas A1 - Jinnah, Sikina A1 - Oberthur, Sebastian A1 - Van de Graaf, Thijs T1 - Institutional interplay in global environmental governance BT - lessons learned and future research JF - International environmental agreements: politics, law and economics N2 - Over the past decades, the growing proliferation of international institutions governing the global environment has impelled institutional interplay as a result of functional and normative overlap across multiple regimes. This article synthesizes primary contributions made in research on institutional interplay over the past twenty years, with particular focus on publications with International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics. Broadening our understanding about the different types, dimensions, pathways, and effects of institutional interplay, scholars have produced key insights into the ways and means by which international institutions cooperate, manage discord, engage in problem solving, and capture synergies across levels and scales. As global environmental governance has become increasingly fragmented and complex, we recognize that recent studies have highlighted the growing interactions between transnationally operating institutions in the wake of polycentric governance and hybrid institutional complexes. However, our findings reveal that there is insufficient empirical and conceptual research to fully understand the relationship, causes, and consequences of interplay between intergovernmental and transnational institutions. Reflecting on the challenges of addressing regulatory gaps and mitigating the crisis of multilateralism, we expound the present research frontier for further advancing research on institutional interplay and provide recommendations to support policy-making. KW - institutional interplay KW - transnational institutional interplay KW - global KW - environmental governance KW - transnational governance KW - multilateral KW - environmental agreements Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10784-022-09569-4 SN - 1567-9764 SN - 1573-1553 VL - 22 IS - 2 SP - 373 EP - 391 PB - Springer CY - Dordrecht ER -