U.S. News & World Report College Rankings: Modeling Institutional Effects on Organizational Reputation

Processes of certification and evaluation are some of the most powerful institutional forces in organizational fields, and in the higher education field, rankings are a primary factor in assessing organizational performance. This article explores the institutional effects of the U.S. News & World Report undergraduate rankings on the reputational assessments made by senior administrators at peer universities and liberal arts colleges. In the estimation of structural equation models, we found that published college rankings have a significant impact on future peer assessments, independent of changes in organizational quality and performance and even of prior peer assessments of reputation.

[1]  C. Perrow.  Organizational Prestige: Some Functions and Dysfunctions , 1961, American Journal of Sociology.

[2]  W. Powell,et al.  The iron cage revisited institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields , 1983 .

[3]  M. Stevens,et al.  COMMENSURATION AS A SOCIAL PROCESS , 1998 .

[4]  Joel A. C. Baum,et al.  Institutional Embeddedness and the Dynamics of Organizational Populations , 1992 .

[5]  M. Spence.  Job Market Signaling , 1973 .

[6]  S. Sen.  Book review: "Hutchison, E.D. Dimensions of human behavior: Person and environment (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage" , 2008 .

[7]  J. Elashoff,et al.  Multiple Regression in Behavioral Research. , 1975 .

[8]  Elisabeth S. Clemens,et al.  The Typical Tools for the Job: Research Strategies in Institutional Analysis* , 2006 .

[9]  Sten Jönsson.  Institutions and Organizations , 1997 .

[10]  Peter M. Bentler,et al.  EQS : structural equations program manual , 1989 .

[11]  S. Dornbusch,et al.  Evaluation and the exercise of authority , 1976 .

[12]  Wendy Nelson Espeland,et al.  The Discipline of Rankings: Tight Coupling and Organizational Change , 2009 .

[13]  M. Stevens.  Creating a Class: College Admissions and the Education of Elites , 2007 .

[14]  W. Espeland,et al.  Rankings and Reactivity: How Public Measures Recreate Social Worlds1 , 2007, American Journal of Sociology.

[15]  L. Thacker.  College unranked : ending the college admissions frenzy , 2005 .

[16]  H. Rao.  The Social Construction of Reputation: Certification Contests, Legitimation, and the Survival of Organizations in the American Automobile Industry: 1895–1912 , 1994 .

[17]  Michael Sauder,et al.  Do Rankings Matter? The Effects of U.S. News & World Report Rankings on the Admissions Process of Law Schools , 2006 .

[18]  Rex B. Kline,et al.  Principles and Practice of Structural Equation Modeling , 1998 .

[19]  Rodolphe Durand,et al.  Border Crossing: Bricolage and the Erosion of Categorical Boundaries in French Gastronomy , 2005 .

[20]  Jitendra V. Singh,et al.  Organizational Legitimacy and the Liability of Newness , 1986 .

[21]  Ezra W. Zuckerman,et al.  The Categorical Imperative: Securities Analysts and the Illegitimacy Discount , 1999, American Journal of Sociology.

[22]  J. F. Volkwein,et al.  Institutional Prestige and Reputation among Research Universities and Liberal Arts Colleges* , 2006 .

[23]  R. Frank,et al.  The Winner-Take-All Society , 1995 .

[24]  K. Rask,et al.  The Influence of the U.S. News and World Report Collegiate Rankings on the Matriculation Decision of High-Ability Students: 1995-2003 , 2004 .

[25]  G. Fine,et al.  Arbiters, Entrepreneurs, and the Shaping of Business School Reputations1 , 2008 .

[26]  J. M. Macpherson,et al.  Global Competition, Institutions, and the Diffusion of Organizational Practices: The International Spread of ISO 9000 Quality Certificates , 2002 .

[27]  MaryBeth Walpole,et al.  College Rankings: Democratized Knowledge for Whom?. , 1998 .

[28]  Marc Meredith,et al.  Why Do Universities Compete in the Ratings Game? An Empirical Analysis of the Effects of the U.S. News and World Report College Rankings , 2004 .

[29]  Roderick M. Kramer,et al.  Members' Responses to Organizational Identity Threats: Encountering and Countering the Business Week Rankings , 1996 .

[30]  Lawrence Southwick,et al.  The Economics of Education. , 1973 .

[31]  R. Merton.  The Matthew Effect in Science , 1968, Science.

[32]  E. Zajac,et al.  Status Evolution and Competition: Theory and Evidence , 2005 .

[33]  K. Arrow.  Higher education as a filter , 1973 .

[34]  Nicholas A. Bowman,et al.  Getting on the Front Page: Organizational Reputation, Status Signals, and the Impact of U.S. News and World Report on Student Decisions , 2009 .

[35]  Francisco Ferreira,et al.  Theory and Evidence , 2009 .

[36]  Luis L. Martins,et al.  A Model of the Effects of Reputational Rankings on Organizational Change , 2005, Organ. Sci..

[37]  Patricia M. McDonough,et al.  COLLEGE RANKINGS: Democratized College Knowledge for Whom? , 1998 .

[38]  Marguerite Clarke,et al.  College and University Ranking Systems: Global Perspectives and American Challenges. , 2007 .

[39]  John W. Meyer,et al.  Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony , 1977, American Journal of Sociology.

[40]  Nicholas A. Bowman,et al.  College Rankings as an Interorganizational Dependency: Establishing the Foundation for Strategic and Institutional Accounts , 2011 .

[41]  H. Rao,et al.  Institutional Change in Toque Ville: Nouvelle Cuisine as an Identity Movement in French Gastronomy1 , 2003, American Journal of Sociology.

[42]  Joel Podolny.  A Status-Based Model of Market Competition , 1993, American Journal of Sociology.

[43]  Susan M. Gates,et al.  In Pursuit of Prestige: Strategy and Competition in U.S. Higher Education , 2001 .

[44]  B. Byrne.  Structural equation modeling with EQS : basic concepts, applications, and programming , 2000 .

[45]  Michael Sauder,et al.  Interlopers and Field Change: The Entry of U.S. News into the Field of Legal Education , 2008 .