Patterns of Tight and Loose Coupling in a Competitive Marketplace

Institutional and Technical Environments of Schooling Organizations

Earlier versions of New Institutionalism differentiate the institutional and technical environments of organizations. Building on Parsons (1960), this distinction captures how environments pose different demands on organizations and the rational responses that support their survival. Traditionally, there has been a division of labor between systems that are more loosely coupled or more tightly coupled. Seminal articles by Weick (1976) and Meyer and Rowan (1977, 1978) inspired the former thesis by acknowledging the nonrational, weakly coupled, and uncoordinated character of education organizations. These path-breaking articles detail how schools smooth over structural inconsistencies by complying in highly symbolic ways to macrocultural forces emanating from the environment. District, administrative, school, and classroom personnel are seen to operate with a high degree of independence, despite marshaling around a set of common teaching and learning goals. And while tightly coupled systems are theorized to operate with greater goal clarity amenable to inspection and outcome-based processes, in reality schools thrive by loose coupling and conforming to environmental expectations (Scott and Meyer 1991).

Theoretically, loose coupling provides sociologists of education a powerful analytical tool to explain the disparities between formal structure and classroom practices (Meyer and Rowan, 1978), the remarkable similarities between systems of education (DiMaggio and Powell 1983; Meyer 1977), and why reforms fail to produce fundamental structural changes (Binder 2001; Tyack and Cuban 1995). Researchers continue to build on this scholarship, examining a variety of topics including accountability schemes (Hallett 2010), sense-making processes (e.g., Coburn 2004; Jennings 2010), school shootings (Fox and Harding 2005), and the worldwide institutionalization of schooling (e.g., Schofer and Meyer 2005). These analyses advance the conceptual machinery of environments and coupling.

In recent years, the image of schools as loosely coupled has been questioned. Specifically, sociologists of education have called for greater sensitivity to the loose- and tight-coupled features of education systems (e.g., Coburn 2004; DiMaggio and Powell 1991; Spillane and Burch 2006; Spillane at al. 2011). Revisiting some of the limitations noted by Weick (1976), sociologists have started to reconceptualize teaching and learning as a highly differentiated and “multidimensional activity” (Spillane and Burch 2006:89; see also Gamoran and Dreeben 1986). This research distinguishes the specific subject areas and instructional activities that are more or less loosely coupled and tightly coupled to the technical core of schools (e.g., Spillane and Burch 2006) and how coupling processes are understood and engaged by participants (e.g., Coburn 2004; Hallett 2010; Jennings 2010; Spillane et al. 2011).

In the sociology of education, two major developments bring this theoretical point into sharp relief (see Meyer and Rowan 2006:2). First, the technical environment is growing stronger. In recent decades, the K-12 education sector has faced escalating accountability mechanisms such as standardized tests and codified benchmarks. Second, the organizational field of education is becoming more diverse. Traditional public schools now compete for students with a growing array of alternatives such as charter schools, magnet schools, and private schools (e.g., Fuller 2000). Alongside this growth, others have documented what Rowan (2006b) coined the “school improvement industry.” This industry includes the learning centers described in this article, along with corporate training ventures, education coaches, evaluation and testing services, and textbook companies that sell goods and services either to public schools (e.g., professional development services) or to their clients (e.g., tutoring, academic coaching; Kirp 2003; McDonough 1994; Rowan 2006b).

Bringing People Back In: Coupling and the Inhabited Institutions Approach

Part of the advancement to the New Institutionalism and coupling scholarship has been inspired by DiMaggio and Powell’s (1991:16) observation that “there has been little effort to make neoinstitutionalism’s microfoundations explicit” (for recent discussions, see Colyvas and Powell 2006 and Powell and Colyvas 2008). Previous scholarship emphasized the adoption of institutionalized templates, albeit sometimes unevenly, by legitimacy-seeking organizations. These applications of New Institutionalism tend to favor statements about how institutions are “infused with value” and how rules take on a “life of their own” (DiMaggio 1988). Individuals are often entirely absent or treated as “cultural dopes” (Garfinkel 1967:68-75). As Powell and Colyvas (2008:4) argue, this literature typically examines how actors save face, “negotiate”, or “enact” rather than how they “choose, plan or determine”.

Heeding these criticisms, there have been several theoretical advances in the field that correct New Institutionalism’s “macro-evolutionary drift” (Hallett 2010:56). Building on the “cultural-cognitive” pillar of New Institutionalism, this literature promotes examinations of the “socio-cognitive” dimensions of organizations (McKinley, Zhao, and Rust 2000), “organizations as interpretive systems” (Daft and Weick 1984), “script development” (Johnson et al. 2000), and “sense-making” in organizations (Weick 1995). This line of theorizing is sensitive to the “cognitive complexities” (Jennings and Greenwood 2003) that ultimately guide behavior and recognizes the varied ways that institutionalized practices operate at the micro-level (Powell and Colyvas 2008). It argues that while organizations may operate under a similar set of environmental pressures (e.g., weak economy), responses are always nested in perceptions of the past and in the range of future actions that are believed to be possible. These cognitive frameworks guide microlevel responses and may account for the multiple ways actors come to interpret and respond to pressures emanating from the environment. Thus, while prevailing institutionalized scripts may appear objective, they are always filtered through the unique repertoires and schemas of individual organizations and their members (see Berger and Luckmann 1966). Not only do these accounts draw on established concepts in microlevel sociology, but they also explain variations and new lines of action; they are the basis of many New Institutionalism critiques (e.g., Cummings 2003).

While invigorating the microcultural dimensions of New Institutionalism, much of this literature has been heavily theoretical, providing critiques, typologies, and concepts (e.g., Daft and Weick 1984; Johnson et al. 2000; Fligstein 1997). Empirical research only recently has made attempts to “inhabit” institutions by grounding analysis within the dynamic exchange between environments, organizations, and participants. Research by Creed, Scully, and Austin (2002), Hallett and Ventresca (2006), and Binder (2007) and the scholarship noted above (e.g., Coburn 2004; Hallett 2010; Jennings 2010) have used case studies to demonstrate how “organizations are not merely the instantiation of environmental, institutional logics ‘out there,’. . . but are places where people and groups make sense of, and interpret, institutional vocabularies of motive” (Binder 2007:547). By embedding agency within local contexts (Creed et al. 2002:475), this article builds on this scholarship and examines how actors within the private education sector actively construct meaning within a specific organizational context and how such constructions affect patterns of loose and tight coupling.

The Anatomy of an Ideal-type Tightly Coupled Education Organization

On the surface, OLC exemplifies an ideal-type tightly coupled organization. As a franchise corporation, the business has a patented “OLC Method” that has been rationalized by the head office. While OLC concedes much of the daily operation to local owners, franchisees are provided with a template for delivering the service, and they must purchase certain products supplied by the franchiser. As a result, OLC franchises are more standardized than independent small businesses since OLC’s reputation is at stake at all local outlets. A franchisee, who also developed a comprehensive private school in partnership with OLC, explained how these rules operate (TS:005): “They’re still very strict in running the program. It has to match the franchise’s philosophy, and it has to match that standard of quality control. . . . ‘This is the rule, this is what you have to do.’”

“Quality control” includes unifying and regulating the physical space, materials, student placement, and teaching protocols across sites. Most OLCs are approximately 1,000 square feet and efficiently divided into four rooms: waiting room, instructional area, manager office, and a small washroom. The instructional room houses patented C-shaped OLC desks that seat one instructor and three students. The room is painted in OLC’s signature color and decorated with classic alphabet and inspirational posters (e.g., a cat hanging off a tree, telling students to “Hang in There”). The perimeter of the room is lined with computers and bookshelves containing students’ baskets for their workbooks and other supporting materials. The design of the space maintains a look and feel across locations that is immediately identified with OLC.

Beyond the physical space, the standardization and control over student placement, education materials, and instructional methods are the most distinctive features of a learning center franchise. OLC has developed a highly prescriptive diagnostic test that managers are required to administer to students before enrolling them. Once assessed, the manager uses the test results to assign students to one of the literacy or numeracy programs, along with workbooks, lessons, and an instructor. The manager is required to reassess each student’s progress every 12th tutoring session and hold a parent–manager meeting to discuss the results. This assessment typically consists of a progress review, the instructor’s nightly feedback, and a review of the student’s workbooks. In consultation with the parents, managers use this information to guide future program decisions, including whether the student should advance to a different program or program level. ⁴ All of this information, including the diagnostic tests, notes from parent–manager meetings, and feedback from instructors, is used to craft a formal report that is then submitted to the head office for review by curriculum specialists and regional managers. This report not only aids in the development of new programs but also ensures that OLC procedures are being followed.

The use of OLC’s educational materials and instructional methods is tightly controlled and regulated by central administrators. While traditional tutors routinely use students’ school materials, OLC instructors do not allow students to review their school work or use their school textbooks. As one franchiser explained, OLC programs “don’t do that.” He explained that learning centers such as OLC are “more universal” and do not “tailor everything by province or by school board” (LCF:003). Instead, OLC stresses the value of using its “skill-building” materials, which include generic numeracy and literacy programs that are not tied to a particular school district or timetable (Aurini and Davies 2004). This emphasis on centralized educational materials allows OLC to produce a unique set of instructor manuals, workbooks, readers, texts containing literacy and numeracy exercises, and other supporting materials. During the workshops and training sessions I attended, a great deal of time was devoted to detailing the mechanisms of each workbook and program and how they should be “properly” used. Managers continually review the implementation of these materials, and attention is paid to even the smallest detail, such as dating each page of work. Instructors are also expected to record the progress of each student in a communication binder, including details of work completed and any notable successes or difficulties encountered during the session. Not only is this regulation of standardized nonverbal and verbal protocols seen to promote positive interactions between instructors and students, but it is also believed to create continuity of service between instructors and between locations.

Making Room in Tightly Coupled Spaces: Compromises, Noncognitive Goals, and Symbolic Coupling Rituals ⁵

Despite the high degree of formalization and oversight, evidence of loose coupling in OLC is everywhere. Ceremonial compliance (creating the illusion of conformity) and buffering (protecting the technical core of the organization) are routine events, and OLC instructors made concessions on a regular basis during my tenure. Over the yearlong observation, what became apparent is that these compromises are entirely consistent with OLC policy and instructional protocols. In fact, OLC conspires in the active construction of loose coupling by privileging customer satisfaction and institutionalizing protocols that potentially detract from more tangible instructional goals.

Marrying Technical and Institutional Logics ⁶

On the surface, OLC is superbly positioned to appeal to the growing technical environment of education. As I presented above, tight control over student placement, educational materials, and instructional practices are seen to generate numerous benefits for OLC and their customers. By developing unique educational materials, OLC is able to efficiently and profitably create a mass education product that is readily monitored from its central office. Formal policy also regulates the emotional labor of teaching, scripting the minute details of “acceptable” instructor–student interactions. These organizational features, coupled with OLC’s market position, project an image of order and transparency by aligning closely with the culture of accountability and supporting private solutions to various individual or social problems (e.g., Belfield and Levin 2002; Chubb and Moe 1990; Henig 1994).

However, OLC also draws on—and benefits from—the institutional environment. By design, the central focus on its product (education) and clientele (children) allows OLC to tangibly relate to the institutional environments of schooling and childhood. By offering numeracy, literacy, and preschool programs, OLC relates directly not only to formal schooling processes but also to an increased emphasis on “stimulating” young children’s growing minds (Quirke 2006; Wrigley 1989). As a business that caters to children from mostly middle-class families, OLC is also wedded to the logic of “intensive parenting” (Lareau 2011). Borrowing therapeutic language, this emphasis on “nurturing children’s inner essences and catering to their individual needs” has permeated the institutional field of education and child rearing for several years (Stevens 2001:183).

Common terms that emerged during interviews with OLC and its competitors were the importance of “boosting children’s self-esteem and confidence,” “meeting the needs of diverse learners,” “respecting children’s individuality,” and “nurturing children’s love of learning.” An excerpt from an Oxford Learning Centre (2010) Web site captures these emphases by stressing the importance of higher self-esteem and learning how to “think.” “Better grades,” rooted in the technical environment, is just part of contributing to children’s “life-long” emotional and cognitive toolkit:

Life-long tools like high self-esteem, an active, agile mind, and an understanding of how to study, learn and think. Only Oxford Learning puts all these outcomes within your child’s reach—along with better grades—with our cognitive approach to learning, where we focus on helping children learn how to learn.

Like its competitors, OLC does not simply play lip service to institutional logics but actively embeds them in formal policy. Protocols to rationalize positive instructor–student interactions, while marking a concerted effort to create “continuity of service” between instructors and between locations, also speak to the institutional environment of schooling. Compromises, conflict avoidance, and celebrating small and often inconsequential victories are part of this broader emphasis on building children’s love of learning and self-confidence. The interaction with Kim described above typifies the importance placed on “positive” student–teacher interactions. Practices such as the Ontario Moment are similarly positioned as self-esteem boosters by providing students with the opportunity to reflect on their accomplishments. ⁷