Interlopers and Field Change: The Entry of U.S. News into the Field of Legal Education

Abstract

This article analyzes a process by which established organizational fields change through the incorporation of new field-level actors. Drawing on 137 in-depth interviews with U.S. law school administrators and faculty, the paper demonstrates how the U.S. News & World Report rankings of law schools gained a foothold in the field of legal education, how the dynamics of the field helped entrench the field position of USN and its rankings despite spirited opposition from key actors, and how these same dynamics explain how a seemingly minor change—the addition of a single actor to the roster of existing field actors—transformed many aspects of this field. A close examination of this new model of field change enhances field theory by underscoring how field characteristics, such as the interconnections among actors and the web of mutual influence that these imply, themselves can facilitate change. Substantively, this research provides insight into the way that those who measure, credential, or certify key field actors and activities can achieve pervasive influence over the fields they evaluate.

Field or Fields? Building the Scaffolding for Cumulation of Research on Institutional Fields

“…While early studies of change often featured the heroic efforts of institutional entrepreneurs changing inertial institutional fields, the literature now acknowledges that fields are often complex (Greenwood et al, 2011) and pluralistic (Kraatz & Block, 2008), yet there has been little attempt to systematically portray the importance of differences in field types or conditions for field processes. While the literature differentiates between 'emerging' and 'mature' fields, studies of institutional change make it clear that even mature fields become unsettled and change over time (see e.g., Hoffman, 1999;Munir, 2005;Reay & Hinings, 2005;Sauder, 2008). Scott (2014) argues that fields vary one from another, as well as over time; thus, a comparative lens is necessary.…”

“…This is not to say that established fields will not change: in fact, much of the institutional change literature starts with a description of a stable field that later changed because of the rise of new actors, new interests or exogenous shocks that changed power positions or unsettled logic prioritizations (Borum, 2004;Greenwood et al, 2002;Hoffman, 1999;Sauder, 2008;Vaccaro & Palazzo, 2015).…”

“…These may come from incumbents (Greenwood & Suddaby, 2006), in which case power structures are often reinforced, or from new actors, such as U.S. News' entry into ranking of legal education (Sauder, 2008). If such a change is introduced by a new or peripheral actor, this new infrastructure, especially ratings, rankings and awards, reconfigures relations within a field, and is often used to disrupt established power bases (Sauder, 2008) by changing the social evaluations of reputations and status of actors conducted within the field (George, Dahlander, Graffin, & Sim, 2016). Such innovations are often legitimated by the pressures and logics drawn from broader society or nearby fields (Greenwood & Suddaby, 2006;Guillen, 1997;Kim, Shin, Oh, & Jeong, 2007;Sauder, 2008).…”

“…Moving to a contested state often occurs through more disruptive change, either an exogenous shock or through the challenging of status quo by a new or peripheral actor (Hensmans, 2003), a coercive change via new regulation, or perhaps the tipping point is a social movement or arbiter of taste where existing rules of the game are publicly called into question (Sauder, 2008). Reay and Hinings (2005) show how the established field of healthcare in Alberta became contested when a new government-led healthcare reform strategy was implemented and legislated.…”

Good Firms, Good Targets: The Relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility, Reputation, and Activist Targeting

“…The effect of being a prestigious firm may be especially strong when its reputation is quantified as a ranking, such as Fortune's reputation index. Rankings inform stakeholders about the quality and value of a company, thereby positively biasing evaluations of a company's behavior (Espeland and Sauder 2007;Sauder 2008). Thus, being highly ranked in a reputation index should discourage a firm from being investigated and having negative attention focused on it.…”