The isomorphism of educational providers in the New Zealand tertiary market
运用新制度社会学解释新西兰高等教育市场中公立与私立教育机构如何在竞争学生时趋同，并分析脱耦现象对公立与私立机构的不同影响。
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explain how aspects of institutional theory can be used to explain how tertiary educational providers must necessarily adopt the same features while competing in the market for students. Using new institutional sociology (NIS), the authors seek to explain this phenomena and how such diverse private providers have borrowed from the polytechnics and universities to share the same institutional features. Design/methodology/approach This paper employs NIS to explain how tertiary educational providers must necessarily adopt the same features while competing in the market for students. In the last few decades, the Auckland tertiary market for overseas students has enjoyed strong growth before Covid-19. Findings Decoupling provides a link between NIS and legitimacy theory in that it explains how symbolic strategies are aimed at some kind of legitimization rather than directed at technical efficiencies. It is argued that the public tertiary providers are more prone to decoupling than PTEPs because they are less attentive to costs due to their more monopolistic position in the market. Originality/value Originally, the market was dominated by the local universities and polytechnics with few private providers. Currently, private providers cater for a large share of the certificate and diploma market and have a growing stake in the degree market. As these changes came about so, more diverse private providers entered the market. This paper explains how these diverse entrants came to share the same organizational features.