Institutional Pressures and Isomorphic Change: The Case of New York City's Department of Education.

Many urban school districts have recently implemented sweeping reforms that alter the ways in which educational services are administered. The environment in which these reforms are embedded is increasingly and more directly tied to core political institutions and business elites. Hence, as this dependence has grown, districts have become more likely to reflect the rational myths regarding both behavior and structure promoted by these proximate political institutions and business elites. This paper explores the process through which conformity to these pressures results in organizations changing their structural arrangements to become isomorphic with institutionally prescribed expectations. Using a subset of the educational field in New York City, this paper focuses on the role of coercive pressures in this isomorphic process. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]