Fostering institutional existentialism in the search for legitimacy

Abstract

Educational and training institutions functioning in today’s globalized economic landscape find themselves in a situation where they face competition but also interrelatedness and interdependency with other global institutions. This naturally drives these institutions towards the pursuit of legitimacy, which would see its qualifications (and by extension its students) recognized as equal to its/their compeers. Within the field of organizational communication management, a body of literature focusses in on this pursuit of legitimacy, and frames it within an institutional mindset; formally as within institutional theory. Institutional theory, however, when practiced in educational organizations, has the potential to be functionalistic in nature – isolating and manipulating organizational elements to work towards achieving a desired state. In this paper, the institutional mindset of educators and students at the University of South Africa is empirically explored, in order to unpick the functionalistic nature thereof and to suggest alternative ways in which to interpret and implement institutionalism within this context. Herein, the four pillars of institutionalism is conceptually and empirically discussed, offering up considerations as to a more existentialistic approach in their effecting. From this, this paper proposes ways in which institutional existentialism has the potential to balance the perception of globalized legitimacy with contextual validity and authenticity.