Women's Studies as an Innovation: Homophily, Isomorphism, and Diffusion

• In Event: 161 - Section on Organizations, Occupation and Work Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 08. Institutional Isomorphism and Decoupling

Abstract

When individuals or organizations adopt innovations that are in the process of spreading across a social field, do they do so in response to the actions of others who are similarly situated (isomorphism), do they imitate their own peers (diffusion), or is it rather that individuals or institutions who are likely to adopt the same innovation are already similar and neither isomorphism nor diffusion explains the spread of the innovation (homophily)? This paper utilizes the spread of women’s studies programs to compare these three explanations for the adoption of innovations. Drawing on a purpose-built networked dataset of 1292 colleges and universities in North America, the paper argues that diffusion across peer networks plays an important role in the adoption of this innovation and that homophily is at least as important as isomorphism in explaining adoption. The results suggest that accounts of organizational adaptation which ignore any one of these three explanations may fall short in their ability to explain the spread of innovations and that diffusion across self-defined peer networks may be the most important factor shaping the adoption of women’s studies as an innovation.

Author

• Mikaila Mariel Lemonik Arthur, Rhode Island College