Summary of Decoupling and Institutionalism
As I have mentioned before, decoupling is a very appealing strategy to deal with institutional pressures, mainly among pluralistic organizations. To make my point, I took the example of schools, which have been largely studied by institutional scholars (Firestone, 1985; Meyer & Rowan, 1978; Weick, 1976). Schools have to deal with a large array of diverse and competing demands. In this sense, schools have been a fertile ground
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for studying institutional pressures and strategies to cope with it. However, schools are not the only pluralistic organizations in the world, which means that decoupling strategies (merely adaptive or more than that) could be present in other organizations beyond schools. Thus, my conclusion is that researchers investigating other plural organizations (such as athletic departments) might consider the neo institutionalism and decoupling theories to better understand administrative processes. Possibly, in other settings, institutional rules have also been decoupled from technical activities as a means to accomplish organizational goals. Empirical investigations are in demand.
Institutional Rules of Intercollegiate Athletics
To talk about different patterns of bureaucracy and decoupling between institutional rules and technical activities in intercollegiate athletics, a discussion about intercollegiate athletic rules is mandatory. What kind of rules athletic managers are exposed to? What has the sport management literature reported about intercollegiate athletic rules compliance? What is the relationship between rules compliance and effectiveness? This part of this review of literature tries to shed some light on these questions.