The role of imprinting on the adoption of diversity management in German universities
| Published date | 01 March 2018 |
| Date | 01 March 2018 |
| Author | Simon Oertel |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/padm.12384 |
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
The role of imprinting on the adoption of diversity
management in German universities
Simon Oertel
School of Economics and Business
Administration, Friedrich Schiller University
Jena, Germany
Correspondence
Simon Oertel, School of Economics and
Business Administration, Friedrich Schiller
University Jena, Carl-Zeiss-Strasse 3, 07743
Jena, Germany.
Email: simon.oertel@uni-jena.de
This study questions the universal effect of organizational imprint-
ing and argues that the relevance of the imprint differs across
organizations' administrative levels. Specifically, this study analyses
how institutional founding conditions affect the adoption of diver-
sity management, as a method of responding to increasing institu-
tional pressure to conform to a logic of inclusion and equality in
institutions of higher education. Focusing on 112 universities in
Germany, results show that the imprint does not affect the adop-
tion of diversity management in general but does so at higher
administrative levels. Through a discussion of these findings, this
study contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of how
imprinting affects organizations. Further, it contributes to a better
understanding of factors that influence the diffusion of diversity
management in universities.
1|INTRODUCTION
Due to the increasing globalization of higher education as well as the Bologna reforms in Europe, institutions of
higher education are being confronted with competing institutional demands regarding their functions and objec-
tives (Neave 2003; Krücken and Meier 2006; Olsen 2007; Dobbins et al. 2011; Engwall 2015; Oertel and Söll
2017). While they are imprinted by a traditional institutional logic about how a university should be structured and
what it should look like—for example, based on the state-control model (e.g., in France) or the Humboldt model
(e.g., in Germany) (Dobbins et al. 2011)—they are also faced with more contemporary institutional demands.
Given the increasing importance of a commercial logic worldwide, for example, research on universities
observes the adoption of management concepts that are common in the corporate business world (Birnbaum 2000,
2001; Fay and Zavattaro 2016), including total quality management (Vazzana et al. 1997; De Boer et al. 2007), cor-
porate social responsibility (Sammalisto and Arvidsson 2005; Dahan and Senol 2012), and merit-based payments
(Wilkesmann and Schmid 2012). Another example is the global spread of a logic of inclusion and equality in higher
education—at least across industrial countries (Ramirez et al. 1997; Ramirez and Wotipka 2001; Paxton et al. 2006;
Barry et al. 2007; Dorius and Firebaugh 2010; Nkomo and Hoobler 2014; Ramirez and Kwak 2015; Su et al. 2015).
This logic of inclusion and equality has led to increasing pressure on universities to adopt diversity management,
which can be defined as the bundle of policies and programmes used by an organization to manage diversity effi-
ciently and to improve organizational outcomes (Robinson and Dechant 1997; Kelly and Dobbin 1998).
DOI: 10.1111/padm.12384
104 © 2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/padm Public Administration. 2018;96:104–118.
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