Model Of Institutional Change Research Articles

The American ‘doc fix’: Incremental policy change and the growth of US healthcare spending

The extraordinary growth of healthcare spending in the United States necessitates an incremental model of institutional change. Efforts to reduce social spending in the 1980s introduced strict cost controls on healthcare, yet this regulation was annually abated with temporary legislation known as ‘doc fixes’. We show that the institutions set up to control spending were slowly undermined through three mechanisms: the transformation of wider political and economic problems into technical ones, the ‘layering’ effect of repeated budgetary appropriations, and the moral arguments that sustained incremental spending growth. This case illustrates how creative responses to budget constraints may produce incremental change, driven by ideas about how markets and welfare should work.

Mixed reviews on diversity initiatives: toward an institutional change model for Black faculty in engineering and computing

IntroductionUniversities across the United States have implemented initiatives to enhance diversity in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, focusing on improving outcomes for racially minoritized students. While many diversity initiatives target undergraduate programs, there is a gap in support for STEM graduate students. Recognizing the persistent underrepresentation of racially diverse populations in STEM, the Biden-Harris Administration launched the “Raise the Bar: STEM Excellence for All Students” initiative, aiming to bolster STEM education nationwide. Foundations like the Sloan Foundation have developed pathways programs for STEM students, extending support into graduate school and the professoriate. The success of diversity initiatives often hinges on the participation and endorsement of underrepresented STEM faculty.MethodsThis study investigates the perspectives of twenty-nine Black engineering and computing faculty regarding diversity initiatives within their respective departments. Grounded theory methodology guided the qualitative analysis, enabling a deeper understanding of the racialized diversity management framework. Drawing on institutional racism perspectives, the study aimed to develop a theoretical framework elucidating institutional engagement with and implementation of diversity initiatives in engineering education.ResultsThe participants’ perspectives on diversity initiatives reflected features of organizational change. Three types of organizational environments emerged: 1) stagnant, characterized by aspirational commitments to diversity; 2) moderate, where underrepresented populations are recruited but expected to assimilate into the dominant culture; and 3) transformational, representing organizations taking significant steps towards creating equitable environments. The narratives of the study participants shed light on the varying effectiveness of efforts to increase the representation of successful Black students and faculty in engineering academia.DiscussionThe findings underscore the importance of understanding organizational contexts and dynamics in shaping the outcomes of diversity initiatives. By delineating the racialized diversity management framework, this study provides insights into the complexities of institutional engagement with diversity in engineering education. Addressing the challenges identified, particularly in environments characterized as stagnant or moderate, is crucial for advancing equity and inclusion in STEM fields. Effective diversity initiatives must go beyond recruitment efforts to create transformative, equitable environments conducive to the success of racially minoritized students and faculty in engineering academia.

Model of Institutional Integration of the Community Revolving Fund as a Source of Sustainable Capital and Poverty Alleviation in Rural Areas

This study attempts to create an integration model of institutional change from a government-driven initiative, specifically the integration of community revolving funds (DBM) into Village-Owned Enterprises (BUMDesa). In particular, every village in Banyuwangi Regency having a Village Credit Bank was included in this study. This study used descriptive qualitative research. The information was gathered using a combination of in-depth interviews, participant and non-participant observation, and document reviews. The data was examined for validity using a series of source triangulation, technique triangulation, and time triangulation. The institutional dynamics of community revolving funds (DBM) arising from government policies or programs. It was governed by overlapping rules from different independent bodies, which made it challenging to implement the transformation process and expensive to do so. The Village Credit Bank and the PNPM-Mandiri activity implementation unit (UPK) were eventually merged to create the Bumdesma business unit after overcoming numerous challenges. The Inter-Village Cooperation Agency (BKAD) and Bumdesma are two new organizations that were created as a result of the institutional change process but their existence does not enhance community services. The dynamics of institutional change and transformation led to disagreements over property rights, and uncertainty surrounding ownership status sparked the emergence of Free Riders who later converted BKD assets into KSPs run by a number of former managers, which in turn had an impact on the sale of BKD assets to private parties. The institutional transformation process caused BKD's institutional nature to move from private goods to common goods as a secondary bank of BRI. The oversight of Microfinance ex Village Credit Bank (BKD) is the sole aspect of Bumdesa business units that are covered in this research. This research is able to contribute a model of integrating the management of Bumdesa as a Common Resource as an effort to alleviate poverty in Indonesia.

Gradual and Transformative Institutional Change: the influence of stakeholders and advocacy coalitions at the Belo Monte Hydroelectric power plant

Abstract This work analyzes the performance of stakeholders and advocacy coalitions in processes of gradual institutional change based on the case study of the Belo Monte hydroelectric power plant. The methodology adopts content analysis, using shorthand notes of hearings held in the National Congress, and other publicly available documents. In-depth semi-structured interviews were also conducted, collecting data from individuals involved in the history of the power plant. The study allowed to characterize stakeholders pro or against the enterprise, observing their degree of influence and the role played. In addition, the work used the Advocacy Coalition Framework to verify how stakeholders formed three advocacy coalitions and exerted the strategies of institutional change ‘displacement,’ ‘conversion,’ and ‘layering’ following the gradual and transformative institutional change model. Empirical evidence indicates that the composition of coalition members may determine the type of institutional change and that institutional changes can also result from learning among coalitions, as the incorporation of socio-environmental considerations that have altered the original design of the hydroelectric power plant.

Gradual and Transformative Institutional Change: the influence of stakeholders and advocacy coalitions at the Belo Monte Hydroelectric power plant

Abstract This work analyzes the performance of stakeholders and advocacy coalitions in processes of gradual institutional change based on the case study of the Belo Monte hydroelectric power plant. The methodology adopts content analysis, using shorthand notes of hearings held in the National Congress, and other publicly available documents. In-depth semi-structured interviews were also conducted, collecting data from individuals involved in the history of the power plant. The study allowed to characterize stakeholders pro or against the enterprise, observing their degree of influence and the role played. In addition, the work used the Advocacy Coalition Framework to verify how stakeholders formed three advocacy coalitions and exerted the strategies of institutional change ‘displacement,’ ‘conversion,’ and ‘layering’ following the gradual and transformative institutional change model. Empirical evidence indicates that the composition of coalition members may determine the type of institutional change and that institutional changes can also result from learning among coalitions, as the incorporation of socio-environmental considerations that have altered the original design of the hydroelectric power plant.

The cultural evolution and ecology of institutions.

Human societies are structured by what we refer to as ‘institutions’, which are socially created and culturally inherited proscriptions on behaviour that define roles and set expectations about social interactions. The study of institutions in several social science fields has provided many important insights that have not been fully appreciated in the evolutionary human sciences. However, such research has often lacked a shared understanding of general processes of change that shape institutional diversity across space and time. We argue that evolutionary theory can provide a useful framework for synthesizing information from different disciplines to address issues such as how and why institutions change over time, how institutional rules co-evolve with other culturally inherited traits, and the role that ecological factors might play in shaping institutional diversity. We argue that we can gain important insights by applying cultural evolutionary thinking to the study of institutions, but that we also need to expand and adapt our approaches to better handle the ways that institutions work, and how they might change over time. In this paper, we illustrate our approach by describing macro-scale empirical comparative analyses that demonstrate how evolutionary theory can be used to generate and test hypotheses about the processes that have shaped some of the major patterns we see in institutional diversity over time and across the world today. We then go on to discuss how we might usefully develop micro-scale models of institutional change by adapting concepts from game theory and agent-based modelling. We end by considering current challenges and areas for future research, and the potential implications for other areas of study and real-world applications.This article is part of the theme issue ‘Foundations of cultural evolution’.

Cultivating a culture of scholarly teaching and learning in a college of engineering: An ecological design approach

ABSTRACT This paper describes a novel institutional change model, embodied in the Engineering Education Transformations Institute at the University of Georgia, that was intentionally designed to build community and expertise around scholarly teaching and learning in engineering education. The model is informed by several theoretical constructs, including complex systems theory, the propagation paradigm, a strengths perspective, and ecological design principles. The goals of this paper are twofold. First, we introduce these theoretical constructs and describe how they inform both the organisational structure and day-to-day operations of the Institute. Second, drawing on data collected using ethnographic methods and a thinking with theory analytical approach, we share two practice examples that demonstrate some of the opportunities and challenges associated with our institutional change efforts. The first example shows how our Institute’s programming enabled a teaching-focused faculty member to connect with others in our college in ways that dramatically enhanced his existing STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) outreach efforts to a local, resource-constrained high school. The second example demonstrates how complex systems theory and ecological design principles can be used to both create the conditions for scholarly teaching, learning, and research in engineering education, and provide a set of theoretical perspectives through which to better understand and solve challenges that arise in collaborative, educational research and practice settings.

What makes a major change of wildlife management policy possible? Institutional analysis of Polish wolf governance.

Poland was one of the first countries of Central and Eastern Europe with stable wolf populations to effectively introduce year-round protection of the species. This paper traces the process of policy change using institutional theory as an organizational perspective. Based on the analysis of data from desk research and semi-structured interviews, we propose a model of institutional change and argue that in the 1990s, environmental activists and wildlife biologists successfully used a political window of opportunity connected with socio-economic transformation after 1989 and managed to induce the government to move the species from the domain of hunting to the domain of nature conservation. The new policy, informed by an ecological paradigm, diverged from the historical path dominated by hunters and the vision of the wolf as a pest and a hunting target. The improved protection led to the numerical growth of Poland's wolves and ultimately to their westward expansion.

Between conflict and consensus: The Dutch depoliticized paradigm shift of the 1980s

How do deep economic crises reshuffle dominant policy frameworks? Institutionalist scholars such as Peter Hall, Mark Blyth, Vivien Schmidt and Colin Hay have focused particularly on the 1980s. The polarizing ascension of Thatcher and Reagan, characterized by a public battle of ideas, has become the prime example of a broader neoliberal turn. Based on this experience, it is common to assume that a shift in policy paradigm involves a politicized contest over ideas. The Dutch market-oriented reforms of the 1980s have long been described as a counterexample, representing an alternative, consensual trajectory of institutional change. As critics have pointed out, the problem with this account is that there is little evidence for an economic policy consensus in the 1980s. Based on the Dutch case, this paper proposes a third, depoliticized model of institutional change, where policy makers instigate a battle of ideas within the institutions, while politicians depoliticize the reforms in public debate.

Study on the Institutional Change of Early Childhood Education Quality Assurance in China: From the Perspective of Historical Institutionalism

This study discusses the institutional change of Chinese early childhood education quality assurance institution (ECEQAI) from the three dimensions of the perspective of historical institutionalism of that refer to the external environment, dynamic mechanism containing with nation-market-society, and the invisible ideology of the institutional change. Chinese ECEQAI was divided into five historical periods, which were 17 years after the founding of China (1949-1966), the Great Cultural Revolution (GCR) period (1966-1976), the early stage of Reform and Opening-up (RO) (1976-1995), the social change period (1995-2010) and the new period (2010-now). This study also concludes five separate change models for Chinese ECEQAI that correspond to the five periods. The first was a compulsory and gradual institutional change model influenced by the Soviet model and dominated by national power. The second was compulsory and radical change model controlled by the counter-revolutionary group. The third was a compulsory and gradual institutional change model dominated by national power. The fourth was induced and gradual<sup>①</sup> institutional change model driven by market power and forced by society power. The fifth was a compulsory and gradual institutional change model led by national power and forced by society power. Finally, the future change direction of China’s ECEQAI was further pointed out, that was the government-leading and tend to balanced three-pole power model of “Nation-Market-Society”, as well as the “three-pole power relationship” of indepth communication and positive interaction.

The Shaping of Diversity Management in France: An Institutional Change Analysis

This paper addresses the shaping of diversity management in France using a neo‐institutional perspective, through which non‐discrimination in the workplace is viewed as an organizational field structured around the problem of discrimination and the challenge of diversity management. The analysis draws on the process approach, together with the institutional change model as an analytical framework. By analysing the conditions in France, the authors contribute to the understanding of how diversity management has been managed over time. They also show how the environmental context, the position of institutional entrepreneurs, practices and boundaries affect institutional dynamics in a given organizational field.

Los condicionantes políticos de los procesos de profesionalización en América Latina. Un modelo de cambio institucional

El presente trabajo desarrolla un modelo de cambio institucional para analizar los condicionantes que operan sobre el nivel de institucionalización de las burocracias meritocráticas en dos países latinoamericanos: Chile y Argentina. De acuerdo con el modelo propuesto, el avance o grado de implantación de las meritocracias se muestra dependiente tanto de la capacidad de demanda y organización de actores de la sociedad civil y del Estado, como de la preeminencia de un determinado entramado político-institucional. La contrastación empírica del modelo arroja como resultado que la intensidad del poder de patronazgo de la presidencia es el principal condicionante del grado de institucionalización de los sistemas meritocráticos evaluados.

Mudança institucional e informações durante o período democrático

Understanding institutional change remains a major theme on the agenda of social sciences. Thus, this working paper analyzes, through a comparative perspective, the different institutional transformations of the Portuguese and Spanish intelligence systems after the transi¬tion to democracy and after 9/11.We applied an institutional change model centered on the relationship between ideas and interests, and used process tracing as a technique in order to identify the key drivers and inhibitors that explain the different institutional paths observed in the intelligence systems of both countries after two critical junctures.

How might organisational institutionalism support the challenges of the modern hospice?

The external environment within which UK charitable hospice care operates is changing. More people are dying with conditions other than cancer; however, this disease still dominates modern hospice care. Organisational institutionalism offers a theoretical lens through which to consider the challenges facing the hospice movement. Concepts such as legitimacy, decoupling, deinstitutionalisation, and reinstitutionalisation can help hospice leaders understand the challenges of change and some of the strategies that can be employed at local and national levels. This paper outlines a number of environmental and influencing factors driving and impacting change. A model of institutional change is introduced, explored, and considered from the context of hospice. When it comes to understanding change, legitimacy is a major concept introduced to challenge and pose questions for hospices to address. This paper proposes a model demonstrating a perspective regarding the current structure of services within hospice organisations. The model argues that only hospice care for people with cancer is truly institutionalised and that other areas of care lack comparable legitimacy. It provides 3 directions for hospice in addressing the challenges faced: (i) decoupling, (ii) deinstitutionalisation then reinstitutionalisation, and (iii) a new social movement. The paper concludes with recommendations for future consideration.

Writing and the Undergraduate Curriculum: Using Assessment Evidence to Create a Model for Institutional Change

AbstractIn this article, we describe the process of turning assessment results into substantial curricular revision, report on the mechanisms we used to encourage, measure, and reinforce successes, and outline the vertical and horizontal curriculum map of writing at Stetson University. We conclude with questions we have identified along the way and the developments we see ahead, as this instructional map for a critical skill has opened the door to similar maps for other critical skills.

The proliferation of multilateral development banks

Since 1945 the number of multilateral development banks (MDBs) has increased at a linear rate, with approximately one new MDB created every three years. The proliferation of MDBs has resulted in an inefficient duplication of international institutions with overlapping functions. Further, this trend contradicts our existing understanding of why states create countervailing international organizations. This article proposes a novel, two-step theoretical model of institutional change and creation in an attempt to explain this empirical puzzle. Utilizing the complementarities of rational-choice and historical institutionalism, the model demonstrates that the rational actions of states in the past can lead to seemingly irrational institutional change in the future. This process results in the repetitive creation of countervailing MDBs designed to solve the same functional problems. To evaluate the model’s hypotheses, three case studies are undertaken, employing archival material, internal documents, and 48 interviews conducted by the author in London, Washington, D.C. and Manila, Philippines. The empirical results are of direct interest to policy-makers currently negotiating the structure of new MDBs in Asia and Latin America.

Legitimacy and institutional change in international organisations: a cognitive approach

AbstractWhy are some institutional designs perceived as more legitimate than others, and why is the same institutional design sometimes perceived as legitimacy-enhancing in one setting and not in another? In a world in which most international organisations (IOs) do not fully embody societal values and norms, such as democratic participation and equal treatment, why do legitimacy deficits in some organisations lead to pressure for institutional change while in others they are tolerated? These are important questions given that many analysts have diagnosed a ‘legitimacy crisis’ of IOs, but we argue that existing approaches are ill equipped to answer them. We show that the existing legitimacy literature has an implicit model of institutional change – the congruence model – but that this model has difficulty accounting for important patterns of change and non-change because it lacks microfoundations. We argue that attributions of legitimacy rest on perceptions and this implies the need to investigate the cognitive bases of legitimacy. We introduce a cognitive model of legitimacy and deduce a set of testable propositions to explain the conditions under which legitimacy judgments change and, in turn, produce pressures for institutional change in IOs.

Institutional Path‐Dependencies in Europe's Networked Modes of Governance

AbstractWe consider whether transnational networks that softly discipline Member States (such as the OMC or regulatory networks that oversee national discretion in implementing broad EU frameworks) mark a significant turn in European integration or merely a transitional step towards centralization (agencification) and formalization (subjecting to law). We suggest this requires a closer reading of the institutional changes necessary to bring about centralization/formalization, and ask particularly whether change might be partially attributable to the very institutional‐agents operating inside Europe's networked modes of governance. Supplementing functional‐political explanations, we propose an endogenous model of institutional change that incorporates the independent role transnational networks play in shaping their own institutionalization, which may make this mode of governance more resilient and even self‐reinforcing. We test the plausibility of this model with a case‐study detailing the institutional entrepreneurship of transnational networks in the telecoms sector.

Notes toward a macro version of the Nee–DellaPosta–Opper model of institutional change

Notes toward a macro version of the Nee–DellaPosta–Opper model of institutional change

Attempting Institutional Change: Swedish Apprenticeship, 1890–1917

Sweden never got an apprentice law after apprenticeship was de-regulated in 1864. This has been attributed to unified opposition to legislation from industry employers and trade unions, with the craft employers as the only advocates. Analysing the pattern of agreement and disagreement in the political struggle over apprenticeship in the Swedish case in 1890–1917, it is clear that opposition was not that uniform, nor was the support from the craft employers that undivided. This article makes use of Kathleen Thelen’s model of institutional change in order to shed new light on the developments in Sweden. The model states that any apprentice law requires a coalition of two or more out of the state, the crafts and the metalworking industries – divided into employers and workers. Legislation, in turn, is a near requirement for the survival of strong apprenticeship. In this article the Swedish case will be discussed in relation to two of Thelen’s cases, Germany and Great Britain. In Germany an apprentice law was passed in 1897, while in Great Britain no modern apprentice law was ever passed. Similarities can be found between both of these cases and the Swedish case.