Coercive and mimetic isomorphism as outcomes of authority reconfigurations in French and Spanish academic career systems

ABSTRACT

Reforms in higher education have been passed in many European countries in the last decades, mostly trying to adapt national systems to new European and global challenges. This study examines some consequences of such major reforms in France and Spain. Specifically, these reforms introduced new agencies whose remit was inter alia to provide evaluation of research and to make such assessments pivotal for academic career progression. The paper investigates empirically whether, and to what extent, these new forms of authority have been capable of engendering the expected change to the system of academic career evaluation. The respective policy approaches and policy implementation in France and Spain reveal that these reforms triggered a reconfiguration of powers at various levels of academic life – affecting strategies for successful career development. Policy-making implications are relevant when these two countries are compared, suggesting that more radical policy approaches (coercive isomorphism, the French case) do not result in more change to academic evaluation practices than mimetic ones (the Spanish case). It is also important to note that coercive isomorphism encountered more frictions in its implementation.

KEYWORDS:

• Reform
• career
• coercive and mimetic isomorphism
• France
• Spain

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 From another angle, one may maintain that an individual career is prima facie an individual matter. Whilst it is a truism that a career is indeed an individual endeavour, the paper speculates that careers are nested in a web of opportunities and constrains that depends by achievements such as actual tutelage, affiliations and other collective behaviours occurring within a field. Hence, the paper assumes that reforms that are not necessarily aimed at affecting careers (careers in terms of how to specifically recruit and promote, for instance) may actually determine deep changes in how careers are developed.

2 Meaning “competition” in French, concour refers to highly formalised competitions, typically via national regulations.

3 For the sake of parsimony, the paper do not discuss disciplinary differences, as they do not result per se to be relevant, although representing considerably different publications traditions.

4 GISs are temporary scientific networks formed in relation with the CNRS, for cooperation and synergies towards common research projects.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Economic and Social Research Council: [grant number ES/M010082/1]; Eu-SPRI: [grant number Post-doctoral funding from University of Mancheste]; Ministero dell'Istruzione, dell'Università e della Ricerca: [grant number Governance e valutazione dell'università: politic].