Are Higher Education Institutions Trapped in Conformity? A Translation Perspective

In the higher education literature, there seems to be a growing consensus that contemporary higher education institutions (HEIs) are trapped in conformity. From a new institutional perspective, higher education scholars argue that HEIs tend to comply with widely endorsed institutionalized values (e.g. academic excellence) and this widespread compliance leads to field homogeneity, at least in the missions of HEIs. In this paper, we introduce an alternative perspective drawing on recent insights in Scandinavian institutionalism. From this perspective, it has been argued that organizations tend to develop organization specific, heterogeneous definitions of institutionalized values to establish a fit with the modalities of the specific organizational context. Based on a comparative case study in Flanders, we investigate translation rules that shape heterogeneous definitions of the institutionalized value of socio-demographic diversity. The major contribution of our study is that it sheds new light on the dynamics underlying field homogeneity versus heterogeneity in higher education.