Neo-institutionalism in the analysis of public policies and organizations
- Summary -
Graduate of the Faculty of Sociology, then followed by a Master in Public
Policy and interest in the field of normative political theory, but also of a PhD
whose subject can be framed in the organizational and economic sociology, the
academic preoccupations with the ways to achieve economic and social
cooperation have been the main direction of research since the beginning of my
academic career.
The research questions, from the very beginning of my academic inquiry,
were related to the way social co-operation was accomplished, to the
aggregation problem, from the individual to collective action, to generation of
trust required to achieve mutually beneficial transactions between actors. These
were formulated within the epistemological and methodological framework of
individualism, a methodological principle assumed from the onset. In a
democratic and pluralistic society, we can hardly conceive other entities or facts
as the basic constituents, building blocks of the social organization, but also as
explanatory factors of other social facts / phenomena. Both ontologically and
epistemologically, individualism has been the principle behind my research in all
the projects I have been involved. Furthermore, the methodological
individualism was most often framed in an institutionalist explanatory
perspective. I have thus tried to accomodate in my work the two major concepts
of sociology, agent and structure, by the latter actually meaning the rules of the
game, the set of expectations associated with certain social roles, as well as the
incentive scheme associated with them.
The major theme of research on the ways of producing social and
economic cooperation was thus placed within the theoretical-conceptual as well
as methodological realm of institutionalism (mainly in its economic or rational
choice and sociological versions). Also, most of the subsequent studies and
analyzes, be these on organizations as subjects to sociological study, or public
policies, shared the framework of institutional explanation. I will continue to
refer to some of the research directions that I have explored and to which I have
managed to make some contributions through what I have published.
In studying the organizations, I was interested in the ways in which actors
co-operate and produce social order by appealing to authority and hierarchies,
unlike the free interaction of actors on the market. Markets and hierarchies are
institutional alternatives to producing social co-operation, but they are rather
ideal types that abstract various forms of hybrid organization. The forms of
cooperation are the actual result of social institutions, but also of the
crystallization of stable patterns of interaction in the form of social networks.
Institutions and networks are functional alternatives in producing social cooperation. Both institutions and networks have the function of reducing
uncertainty, opportunism, generating confidence and predictability of behaviors
that facilitate mutually beneficial cooperation. Starting from the Granovetter's
seminal article (1985), I proposed a model of the embedment of the action in the
networks of relations and which assumes a logic of situated action that is not
exclusively determined by either social norms or economic interests, but it is
relative to the social context of the relationships within which it is placed. In the
book Organizations and Organizational Fields, I aimed to outline and evoke the
explanatory power of a concept which evokes relatively stable patterns of
crystallized social relationships that could not be characterized either as
organizations or as market relations. They are not part of the organizations
because they are not formalized as such; on the other hand, they do not follow
exclusively the logic of the market, as they are forms that actually limit the
competition. I defined the organizational field as a social structure made up of
both social institutions and networks that facilitate cooperation. They represent
the crystallization of stable social relations of cooperation, being occurences of
hybrid forms of organization in which both formal organization and social
relations coexist. According to the neo-classic economics, the market is a place
where equilibrium is reached by competition, being reflected in exchange rates.
Any change in circumstances is reflected in prices, which produce trading
relationships based on the maximization of actors' utility. On the other hand, the
empirical observations show that the markets are socially organized spaces
forming social fields: a set of socially constructed actors (especially collectives -
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organizations) between which are established solid exchange relations transactions - of different types (of material goods or symbolic). Stability is
manifested by the maintenance of the relationship between two actors, despite
the deterioration of environmental conditions and circumstances, which
transforms it into an instance of limitation of competition and of producing
predictability.
I have defined the social field as an interaction sphere based on an
emerging structure of stable actors' relationships, but also shaped by the shared
social meanings that legitimizes this status quo. The institutional setting, the
rules of the game that allocate incentives and rewards, but also, to a higher
degree of institutionalization, shared mental models is complemented by the
social capital that generates trust and diminishes opportunism.
Largely written from the perspective of sociological institutionalism, the
theory I have proposed for explaining social and economic cooperation seeks to
integrate the explicative role of social action with that of shared symbolic
systems that create cvasi-organized spaces for social action. Without falling the
trap of a too narrow view of socialized actors, it aimed at including both the
action and the structure through the social networks and the shared cultural
meanings. The theory was supposed to bring a new perspective in the field of
social sciences in Romania by trying to integrate specific concepts and
approaches from economics, sociology and political science in explaining the
emergence of stable structures of cooperation between individual and collective
actors, designated by the concept of social fields.
In the study of organizations, the starting point was the neo-classical
economic conception of ubiquous markets in order to reach a more
constructivist view, that is integrative of the institutions and the social relations,
what I refer to as structure in the social action. In my further research in the field
of public management, then continued in the educational policy studies, I was
particularly interested in the other way round, in ways to consider the purposive
action and thus achieve quasi-markets within the organizations, to bring
competition and classic ways of market governance into organizational
management. If in the previous studies of organizations I was more interested in
the way of producing the legitimate social order, in public management and in
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the analysis of educational policies I was interested in how to increase
performance through competition and different allocations of incentives for
action. Both themes were approached from a neo-institutional point of view,
while adopting the assumptions of methodological individualism.
In the research I undertook on quality assurance mechanisms, I have
shown how formal institutions produce conformism, ritualism and isomorphism
or homogeneity, thus becoming dysfunctional for the purpose of increasing
quality and organizational performance. I argued in favor of more dynamic ways
of stimulating performance through policies that set up competition - such as
benchmarking - and / or league tables. Both would be ways of public intervention
to reduce informational asymmetry, particularly transaction costs and stimulate
competition between suppliers of educational services.
Last but not least, the problems of social measurement of the individual
and / or organizational performance become a key issue when appealing to
mechanisms to stimulate competition in specific sectors of the public sector,
such as education. The assumptions and methodological limitations of measuring
the impact of scientific results at the individual and organizational level must be
clearly explained before they are used to stimulate competition in one direction
or another.
In the future, I intend to develop these research directions on public
organizations and policies, as well as on social research methodology and the
directions and limits of social measurement, especially with regard to policy
formulation based on "evidence": or empirical knowledge.
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