XIX ISA World Congress of Sociology (July 15-21, 2018)

331

Ranking Organizations: The Double Role of Organizations in the Production and Impact of Rankings

RC17 Sociology of Organization (host committee)

Language: English

Rankings are a ubiquitous feature of modern world society. They are used to evaluate a whole variety of organizations such as universities, hotels, hospitals and for profit corporations – nationally as well as internationally. Organizations play dual roles in the institutionalization of rankings, as producers as well as objects of evaluation. We invite contributions that discuss one or both of these roles, asking, on the one hand, how organizations contribute to the production and publication of rankings, and, on the other, how they react to being ranked by others. We are particularly interested in comparative perspectives that look at commonalities and differences between rankings in different organizational fields. Against this background, we welcome a range of theoretical and empirical contributions on rankings addressing issues such as the following:

(1)   What exactly are rankings and how do they relate to other forms of evaluation?

(2)   How are rankings produced?

(3)   How are rankings published, and how are they embedded into public discourse?

(4)   How do organizations react to rankings?

(5)   What role do rankings play in different organizational fields?

(6)   How do historical path-dependencies of organizational fields, rankings and ranked organizations impact the institutionalization and globalization of rankings?