The Discipline of Rankings: Tight Coupling and Organizational Change

Abstract

This article demonstrates the value of Foucault's conception of discipline for understanding organizational responses to rankings. Using a case study of law schools, we explain why rankings have permeated law schools so extensively and why these organizations have been unable to buffer these institutional pressures. Foucault's depiction of two important processes, surveillance and normalization, show how rankings change perceptions of legal education through both coercive and seductive means. This approach advances organizational theory by highlighting conditions that affect the prevalence and effectiveness of buffering. Decoupling is not determined solely by the external enforcement of institutional pressures or the capacity of organizational actors to buffer or hide some activities. Members' tendency to internalize these pressures, to become self-disciplining, is also salient. Internalization is fostered by the anxiety that rankings produce, by their allure for the administrators who try to manipulate them, and by the resistance they provoke. Rankings are just one example of the public measures of performance that are becoming increasingly influential in many institutional environments, and understanding how organizations respond to these measures is a crucial task for scholars.

Reactivity and reactions to regulatory transparency in medicine, psychotherapy and counselling

“…We suggest reactivity to regulatory transparency can be explained as a self-fulfilling prophecy by including two elements: narratives shaping the interpretation and construction of social reality (Ferraro et al, 2005;Gabbay & Le May, 2010) and emotional reactions, particularly to anxiety, affecting how professionals internalise transparency (Sauder & Espeland, 2009).…”

“…This exceptional case was a story that stuck, amplifying GPs' perceptions of the risks regulation posed to them. The thought of receiving "that letter" from a regulator haunted doctors, who as in Sauder and Espeland's (2009) study, felt powerless to affect the behaviours made transparent, as another GP described:…”

“…Thus law schools focused on improving rankings rather than other wider aspect and indicators of quality. Sauder and Espeland (2009) explain that people internalise rankings, involving surveillance and normalisation, due to the anxiety rankings produce and the allure they possess.…”

“…… I had that letter from the GMC… I came back from holiday and found it on the kitchen table and I still, every time I come back from holiday, check my post, it's the first thing I do." Sauder and Espeland (2009) explained how rankings were internalised through surveillance and normalisation, involving cognitive interpretation and emotional reaction, particularly anxiety about status and lack of control. Doctors' identities and friendship networks are often tied to their professional role.…”

“…As Espeland and Sauder (2009) describe, the internalisation of measures of transparency occurs through a process of surveillance and normalisation, seduction and coercion.…”