Multiple competition from a field perspective: structural equivalence and its effect

Prof. Dr. Achim Oberg (University of Hamburg)

Daniel Gotthardt (University of Hamburg)

Tino Schöllhorn ((University of Hamburg)

A central hypothesis of organizational field theory is that competition arises where two organizations have links to the same partners. Under these conditions of structural equivalence, the partners can substitute one organization for the other. It is also assumed that organizations notice this substitutability and react with competitive behaviour in order to reduce the pressure. Although this theory is rarely tested empirically, it is plausible in fields in which products and services are standardized and therefore organizations are relatively easy to replace. In the field of science, where a high social good is sought through cooperation between different institutions, structural equivalence could have consequences other than competition: Organizations such as universities or research institutes could themselves collaborate or form alliances under high structural equivalence. Since organizations in academia are embedded in multiple levels of relationships - collaborative relationships for research, public citations by other members of the field, and recognition by international partners - they may combine competitive and cooperative behaviors differently at each of these levels, leading to different degrees of multiple competition. To investigate the consequences of structural equivalence under such conditions, the project focuses on three questions: (a) How does structural equivalence emerge in the network of research collaborations? (b) Do research organizations publicly react to structural equivalence with competitive or collaborative behaviour? (c) To what extent do international partners perceive structural equivalence in a national field? In order to answer these questions empirically, three network levels - co-publications of German research organizations in the natural sciences and medicine, their self-presentation and their international recognition on the World Wide Web - are surveyed, stochastically modelled and systematically compared. This research thus makes a contribution to the theory of multiple competition in higher education, to institutionalist field theory and to dynamic network research.