Scenario C: According to theory, even in highly institutionalized fields, organizations deviate from well-accepted norms if the technical requirements of the organizational field change substantially. For example, Kraatz & Zajac (1996) found that due to shifts in the technical environment (such as student life goals, emphasis on wealth creation, etc.), liberal arts colleges that operated in highly institutionalized settings started offering professional education as part of their curriculum even though that was against the institutional norms that guide liberal arts category. If this theory were generalizable, then the widespread access to high-speed internet, cheap and effective access to video conferencing facilities (e.g., Skype, Teams, and Zoom), and the increasing use of professional social networking platforms should have deemed traditional classrooms obsolete, and on-campus education should have been replaced by remote education. Yet, most universities offered almost all their courses exclusively in traditional classrooms until 2019, when Covid hit us and made it untenable to hold in-person classes. But, despite the successful transition to online learning for two years, universities across the globe are now returning to in-person learning in haste.

Question 5: How can you theoretically explain this indifference of universities towards their technical environment?

Question 6: According to Kraatz & Zajac (1996), only high-status organizations will be able to resist this pressure from the technical environment, but some of the notable initiatives in online education from traditional universities have indeed come from two of the most high-status tech universities in the US MIT (OpenCourseWare) and Stanford (Online Courses). They were offering such online courses even before Covid. Can Stanford and MIT initiatives be considered inconsistent with their status, or are they being consistent with their status? Also, what will be the consequence of these initiatives by Stanford and MIT to their own identity, and how will it affect the actions of other universities that hold them in high regard? Substantiate your answer using logical reasoning and drawing on theoretical arguments from the assigned readings.