Globalizing forces have both transformed and made the higher education sector increasingly homogenous. Growing similarities among universities have been attributed to isomorphic pressures to ensure and/or enhance legitimacy by imitating higher education institutions that are perceived as successful internationally, particularly universities that are highly ranked globally (Cantwell & Kauppinen, 2014; DiMaggio and Powell, 1983). In this article, we compare the strategic plans of 78 high, low, and unranked universities in 33 countries in 9 regions of the world. In analyzing the plans of these 78 universities, the paper explores patterns of similarity and difference in universities' strategic positioning according to Suchman's (1995) three types of legitimacy-cognitive, pragmatic, and moral. We find evidence of stratified university strategies in a global higher education landscape that varies by institutional status. In offering a corrective to neo-institutional theory, we suggest that patterns of globalization are mediated by status based differences in aspirational behavior (Riesman, 1958) and "old institutional" forces (Stinchcombe, 1997) that contribute to differently situated universities pursuing new paths in seeking to build external legitimacy.

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