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Abstract

Following the spirit of an earlier volume in the series focusing on ‘Comparative Approaches to Organizational Research’, the mandate of the current volume is to provide a comparative account of dynamics across two organizational fields – health care and higher education – and, subsequently, two specific types of organizational forms – hospitals and universities. In so doing, we take a broader perspective encompassing various conceptual and theoretical points of departure emanating from, mostly, the institutional literature in the social sciences (and its various perspectives), but also from public policy and administration literatures – of relevance to scholars and the communities of practice working within either field. In this introductory paper to the volume, we provide a brief overview of developments across the two organizational fields and illuminate on the most important scholarly traditions underpinning the study of both system dynamics as a whole as well as universities and hospitals as organizations and institutions. We conclude by reflecting on the implication of the volume’s key findings in regards to comparative research within organizational studies.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Professor John W. Meyer, Stanford University, for the kind foreword, and Professor Michael Lounsbury (Editor-in-Chief of the series), University of Alberta, for the invitation to be part of the series and his unconditional support throughout the entire process. Any remaining errors are our own.

Citation

Pinheiro, R., Geschwind, L., Ramirez, F.O. and Vrangbæk, K. (2016), "The Value in Comparing Organizational Fields and Forms", Towards A Comparative Institutionalism: Forms, Dynamics And Logics Across The Organizational Fields Of Health Care And Higher Education (Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol. 45), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 9-32. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X20150000045011

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2016 Emerald Group Publishing Limited