SFeDu
of.211, Gorgoko St., 88 
Rostov-on-Don
Russia
344002
+7 (863) 250-59-54
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
te@sfedu.ru

TERRA ECONOMICUS

  • Home
  • Issues
  • 2016
  • No 4
  • Adaptive behavior and institutions: examining the organization of higher education in Russia

Adaptive behavior and institutions: examining the organization of higher education in Russia

TERRA ECONOMICUS, , Vol. 14 (no. 4),

The process of institutional change is going very rapidly in the field of higher education. Government reforms have been implemented within a short period of time. Universities tend to be bigger and more expensive, that is why external governmental pressure, as well as the number of regulatory mechanisms, increases. The atmosphere in higher education organizations has become more strained. Therefore, actors who are involved in the educational process, mainly lecturers and students, have to adapt their behaviors to complicated and constantly changing rules. The paper aims to identify adaptive behavioral patterns of actors involved in the higher educational process. Institutional economics and qualitative research methodology are addressed as the conceptual framework which is intended to contribute to the understanding of the adaptation mechanisms in the field of higher education. We have conducted and analyzed fifty in-depth interviews with the key actors within the universities of Rostov Region (Southern Federal District, Russia). Unfortunately, the implemented reforms are usually perceived as badly prepared, poorly negotiated and incompatible with present working rules and prescribed values. It has been found out that lecturers try to mitigate the effects of the new orders through obedience and opportunistic behavior. Meanwhile, the majority of students tend to adopt the changes. Active engagement of the representatives of communities from higher education through public discussions is suggested as necessary to the reform success.


Keywords: adaptive behavior; institutional change; higher education; government reforms; Russia; qualitative research

References:
  • Balatsky E.V. (2014a). Arrhythmia Syndrome in the field of Higher Education. Journal of New Economic Association, no. 4, pp. 111–140, (http://www.econorus.org/repec/journl/2014-24-111-140r.pdf). (In Russian).
  • Balatsky E.V. (2014b). How they blew the bubble with Russian Higher Education. Management problems in social systems, vol. 11, no. 7, pp. 56–82. (In Russian).
  • Dorokhina O. and Levinsky D. (2016). How Dmitry Livanov worked. Kommersant, August 19 (http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/3069339?utm_source=kommersant&utm_medium=all&utm_campaign=spec). (In Russian.)
  • Fursa E.V., Oganesyan A.A. and Ustinov D.Yu. (2016). Higher Education and State Reforms: Qualitative Analysis. Bulletin of the All-Russian Conference «Interdisciplinarity in the modern Humanities and Social Sciences», Rostov-on-Don: Southern Federal University Publ. (In Russian.)
  • Klyamkin I.M. and Timofeev L. (2000). Russia in Shadow: economic and social study. Moscow: Russian State Humanitarian University Publ. (In Russian.)
  • Kurbatova M. (2016). Higher Education Reform as an Institutional Project of the Russian Bureaucracy: the Content and the Outcomes. The Universe of Russia, no. 4, pp. 59–86. (In Russian.)
  • Kurbatova M.V., Aparina N.F., Donova I.V. and Kagan E.S. (2014). Lecturer activity formalization and the universities activity effectiveness. Terra Economicus, vol. 12, no. 4, pp. 33–51. (In Russian.)
  • Standing G. (2011).The precariat: The new dangerous class. Moscow: AD Marginem Press. (In Russian.)
  • Tambovtsev V.L. (2015a). Social Policy: Unresolved Problem of Scientific Justification. Social Sciences and Modernity, no. 6, pp. 5–13. (In Russian.)
  • Tambovtsev V.L. (2015b). The Scientific Basis for the Higher Education Reforms. Omsk University Bulletin. Series «Economics», no. 2, pp. 66–70. (In Russian.)
  • Volchik V.V. and Posukhova O.Yu. (2016). Precarity and professional identity in the context of institutional change. Terra Economicus, vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 159–173. (In Russian.)
  • Volchik V.V., Zotova T.A., Filonenko Yu. V., Fursa E.V. and Krivosheeva-Medyantseva D.D. (2015). Identifying a Framework of Institutional Change in the Field of Higher Education in Russia. Journal of Economic Regulation, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 114–131. (In Russian.)
  • Williamson O. (1993). Behavioral Assumptions. THESIS, issue 3, pp. 39–49. (In Russian.)
  • [English version: Williamson O. (1985). Behavioral Assumptions / In: Williamson O. The Economic Institutions of Capitalism. Firms, Markets, Relational Contracting. N.Y.: The Free Press, p.44–52.]
  • Yefimov V.M. (2016). Economic science in question: another methodology, history and research practices. Moscow: KURS, Infra-M Publ. (In Russian.)
  • Bollag B. (1990). In Both East and West, Reunification Will Bring Big Challenges to German Higher Education. Chronicle of Higher Education, vol. 37, no. 5, A1.
  • Bourdieu P. (1988). Homo academicus. Cambridge: Polity Press.
  • Chavance B. (2012). John Commons’s organizational theory of institutions: a discussion. Journal of Institutional Economics, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 27–47 (doi:10.1017/S1744137411000336).
  • Commons J.R. (1998). Investigational Economics / In: Samuels W.J. (ed.) Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology. Archival Supplement 7. Greenwich, Connecticut: JAI Press Inc., pp. 39–326.
  • Commons J.R. (2012). Institutional Economics. Теrrа Economicus, vol. 10, no. 3, pp. 69–76 (http://ecsocman.hse.ru/data/2012/11/20/1251380341/journal10.3.1-7.pdf). (In Russian.)
  • Dagevos H. (2005). Consumers as four-faced creatures. Looking at food consumption from the perspective of contemporary consumers. Appetite, vol. 45, no. 1, pp. 32–39.
  • Dequech D. (2013). Economic Institutions: explanations for conformity and room for deviation. Journal of Institutional Economics, vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 81–108.
  • Dewey J. (1922). Human Nature and Conduct: An Introduction to Social Psychology. New York: Henry Holt.
  • Enders J. (2006). The academic profession / In: Forest J.J F. and Altbach P. (eds.) International handbook of higher education. Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 5–22.
  • Enders J., De Boer H. and Weyer E. (2013). Regulatory autonomy and performance: The reform of higher education re-visited. Higher Education, vol. 65, no. 1, pp. 5–23.
  • Foss N.J. and Weber L. (2016a). Moving opportunism to the back seat: Bounded rationality, costly conflict, and hierarchical forms. Academy of Management Review, vol. 41, no. 1, pp. 61–79.
  • Foss N.J. and Weber L. (2016b). Expand Bounded Rationality, but Don’t Throw Opportunism Out of the Car and Under the Bus: A Reply to Lumineau and Verbeke. Academy of Management Review, vol. 41, no. 4, pp. 741–744.
  • Fry M. and Polonsky M.J. (2004). Examining unintended consequences of marketing. Journal of Business Research, vol. 57, pp. 1303–1306.
  • Gigerenzer G. (2003). Why does framing influence judgment? Journal of General Internal Medicine, vol. 18, pp. 960–961.
  • Gruchy A.G. (1947). Modern Economic Thought. The American Contribution. N.Y.: Prentice-Hall, Inc.
  • Guba E. and Lincoln Y. (1994). Competing paradigms in qualitative research / In: Denzin N.K. and Lincoln Y.S. (eds.) Handbook of Qualitative Research. London: Sage, pp. 105–117.
  • Gumport P.J. (2000). Academic restructuring: Organizational change and institutional imperatives. Higher education, vol. 39, no. 1, pp. 67–91.
  • Hall W.A. (2013). Consumerism and consumer complexity: Implications for university teaching and teaching evaluation. Nurse education today, vol. 33, no. 7, pp. 720–723.
  • Hochstettler T.J. (2004). Aspiring to Steeples of Excellence at German Universities. Chronicle of Higher Education, vol. 50, no. 47, B10.
  • Hodgson G.M. (2000). What is the essence of institutional economics? Journal of Economic Issues, vol. 34, issue 2.
  • Hodgson G.M. (2013). From Pleasure Machines to Moral Communities: An Evolutionary Economics without Homo economicus. Chicago and London: The Chicago University Press.
  • Kivistö J. (2008). An assessment of agency theory as a framework for the government–university relationship. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, vol. 30, no. 4, pp. 339–350.
  • Kruecken G. (2003). Mission Impossible? Institutional Barriers to the Diffusion of the «Third Academic Mission» at German Universities. International Journal of Technology Management. Inderscience Publishers, vol. 25, no. 1–2, pp. 18–33.
  • Kvale S. (1996). Interviews: An Introduction to Qualitative Research Interviewing. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
  • Lumineau F. and Verbeke A. (2016). Let’s Give Opportunism the Proper Back Seat. Academy of Management Review, vol. 41, no. 4, pp. 739–754.
  • Mirowski Ph. (1987). The Philosophical Bases of Institutionalist Economics. Journal of Economic Issues, 21, pp. 1001–1038. Reprinted in: Lavoie D. (ed.) (2005). Economics and Hermeneutics. Taylor and Francis e-Library, pp. 74–110.
  • Muscio A., Quaglione D. and Ramaciotti L. (2016). The effects of university rules on spinoff creation: The case of academia in Italy. Research Policy, vol. 45, no. 7, pp. 1386–1396.
  • Naidoo R. (2008). The competitive state and the mobilised market: higher education policy reform in the United Kingdom (1980–2007). Critique Internationale, vol. 39, April/June, pp. 47–65.
  • Naidoo R., Shankar A. and Veer E. (2011). The consumerist turn in higher education: Policy aspirations and outcomes. Journal of Marketing Management, vol. 27, no. 11–12, pp. 1142–1162.
  • Parada J.J. (2006). A pragmatic institutional economics approach to economic development and institutions: The case of Colombia. Dissertation … presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Kansas City, Missouri: University Of Missouri-Kansas City.
  • Rutherford M. (2011). The Institutionalist Movement in American Economics, 1918–1947: Science and Social Control. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Rutherford M. (2012). Field, Undercover, and Participant Observers in US Labor Economics, 1900–1930 / In: Maas H. and Morgan M. (eds.) Histories of Observation in Economics.
  • Supplement to volume 44, History of Political Economy. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp. 179–199.
  • Schmid A.A. (2004). Conflict and Cooperation: Institutional and Behavioral Economics. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
  • Simon H.A. (1990). Invariants of human behavior. Annual Review of Psychology, vol. 41, pp. 1–19.
  • Simon H.A. (1997). An empirically based microeconomics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Stanfield J.R. (1999). The Scope, Method, and Significance of Original Institutional Economics. Journal of Economic Issues, vol. XXXIII, no. 2, pp. 231–255.
  • Varghese N.V. (2013). Governance Reforms in Higher Education: A Study of Selected Countries in Africa. IIEP/SEM334/Theme paper, April (http://www.iiep.unesco.org/sites/default/files/governance_reforms_in_he_paper_pf.pdf).
  • Weber L. (2005). Nature and Scope of Public Responsibility for Higher Education and Research / In: Weber L. and Bergan S. (eds.) The Public Responsibility for Higher Education and Research. Strasbourg: Council of Europe, pp. 29–43.
  • Weber L. and Mayer K.J. (2014). Transaction cost economics and the cognitive perspective: Untangling the impact of informational and interpretive uncertainty on governance choice. Academy of Management Review, vol. 39, pp. 344–363.
  • White N.R. (2007). The customer is always right? Student discourse about higher education in Australia. Higher Education, vol. 54, pp. 593–604.
  • Whitford A.B. (2006). Unitary, divisional, and matrix forms as political governance systems. Journal of Management Governance, vol. 10, pp. 435–454.
  • Williamson O.E. (1985). The economic institutions of capitalism. New York: Free Press.
  • Williamson O.E. (2000). The new institutional economics: Taking stock, looking ahead. Journal of Economic Literature, vol. 38, pp. 595–613.
Publisher: Southern Federal University
Founder: Southern Federal University
ISSN: 2073-6606