Responses to Conflicting Field Imperatives: Institutions and Agency Among Evangelical Christian Colleges

Abstract

This multi-site qualitative study focuses on evangelical Christian colleges, which sit at the juncture of the institutionalized fields of religion and higher education. Because widely held norms and reward structures characterize institutionalized fields, these two social spheres stand ripe for conflict with one another. I conceptualize field-level conflicts by drawing on “classic” institutional theory. I illuminate campus officials’ responses to field-level conflicts using recent innovations in the neo-institutional tradition that emphasize agency, strategic action, and field-level hierarchy. Findings therefore both describe these colleges as organizations and refine emerging concepts in neo-institutional theory.

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