Specifically, this dissertation explains the rise of the for-profit university in the United States. Generally, it explains the legitimation of a new (form of) organization in an institutional environment.In this dissertation I demonstrate that organizational legitimation is a process whereby a key audience serving as an institutional gatekeeper cognitively comprehends an applicant as a member of an existing category in the audience's classification system. When this process is problematic or contested, it consists of active negotiations between the audience and the applicant (and sometimes third parties) over how to apply or interpret the rules of classification.Using a case-study framework I selected seven cases from the history of the leading for-profit university, the University of Phoenix. These cases represented episodes of successful legitimation by the three key gatekeeping audiences in the postsecondary education environment. I assembled the documentary record for each of these cases and supplemented them with informant interviews. With this evidence I compiled a narrative for each episode which I then analyzed using comparative and historical methods.I found that audiences' classification systems varied according to their category configurations and their classification rules, and that these variations may affect how legitimation proceeds. I further found that audiences and applicants draw from their own tool kits of unilateral, bilateral, and multilateral strategies. Finally, I found that legitimation may proceed according to one of several different temporal models.

This research focuses on for-profit post-secondary education in the United States. Through autoethnography it seeks to examine the dissonance of function, belief and ethic in the role of a professional educator working in the proprietary industry. The autoethnographic data, based on personal memory data, email correspondence and interviews, show the challenges faced by staff and faculty in their efforts to meet revenue-linked performance targets set by corporate employers. The study uses grounded theory in conjunction with analytical autoethnography to identify the core concept of institutional pressure and to formulate a theory relating to the probable consequences of that pressure. While some staff and faculty are tempted to use questionable practices in order to meet required goals, others perceive they have no control over the circumstances that lead, for example, to the student attrition for which they are held responsible. The research describes how the autoethnographer and her co-workers were arguably recipients of negative feelings which were split and projected towards them by their employers and were unable to process or transform these negative feelings adequately. Some resigned from their positions and others were dismissed, but they departed taking this negativity with them in much the same way as a traditional scapegoat. As for-profit education continues to attract the attention of the media and regulatory bodies in the United States and similar colleges are established in other countries, this research has implications for those with expectations of education as a social good who find themselves required to work in a for-profit environment.

For-profit postsecondary education rapidly expanded in the decade preceding the 2008 financial crisis. For-profit institutions enrolled 9% of undergraduate students in 2009, up from 3% in 2000. This growth that was promising is now troubling. Significant enrollment declines in 2010-2012, in light of regulatory risk, recent GAO reports, and public scrutiny of recruiting and lending practices, suggest the foundations are not stable. This paper will analyze recent strategic decisions in the for-profit postsecondary education market using the framework developed by Brewer, Gates, and Goldman (2002) and make predictions about firm strategies and the future of the industry.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Neoliberalism is a pro-capitalist ideology that cycles money and power to the elite class by deregulating or privatizing the public sphere and is fueled by economic exploitation and oppression. This dissertation examines the neoliberal construct at work in the privatization of Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS) from an ethnographic lens using the vantage point of an elected IPS board member. The literature surrounding the privatization of public schools offers stories from all over the U.S., however the conditions surrounding the privatization of public education systems are similar irrespective of geographical location. Common themes across the country include the de-professionalization of teachers, the circulation of the narrative myth of failing public schools and charter schools as a positive alternative, and overarching patterns of continued school segregation, gentrification of inner cities, and racial migratory patterns of residents affecting school enrollment. Theoretical framing employed in this study includes Punctuated Equilibrium at the macro level; sociopolitics and logics of action at the meso level, and critical theory and politics of resistance at the micro level of analysis. The analysis of data was conducted thematically and data sources encompass a self-authored blog as well as personal communications and reflections, news articles, and board documents. Results of this study illustrate that IPS as an organization underwent a fulcrum point of change, or ‘Punctuated Equilibrium’ in which it ceased to be an exclusively public institution and began to establish partnerships with private charter school companies with inherent profit motives, via the ‘Innovation School Network’. There were many political players involved in orchestrating this change, and those interest groups and their logics of action are detailed. Implications of this study include identifying the future spread of school privatization and possibilities for disrupting the furthering of this neoliberal agenda.

Organizations spend significant amounts of money to address low job satisfaction. As much as 16.5% of an organization's pretax income is lost due to employee withdrawal behaviors, with 27% of that amount associated with turnover. Building on the quality of working life theory, this single-site case study took place at a for-profit university located in the Midwest United States to understand the role that work-life balance programs play in employee job satisfaction. The population consisted of 6 front-line admissions managers, as that population was appropriate for understanding the work-life balance strategies college officials use to improve the job satisfaction of admissions representatives. The data collection process consisted of semistructured interviews, a review of observational field notes, and a review of employee surveys. Based on methodological triangulation of the data sources and analysis of the data, 3 emergent themes were identified. Participants indicated that both autonomy and flexibility contributed to employee job satisfaction, which the quality of working life theory and existing research on the subject supports. Participants also indicated that the manager-employee relationship was fundamental to improving job satisfaction, which was a finding outside of the scope of the conceptual framework used in the study. Social change implications include improving policy makers and business leaders' understanding of the role that work-life balance plays in job satisfaction. Employees will also find the results of this study informative when attempting to understand how work-life balance programs may contribute to the level of satisfaction they experience with their jobs.

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