Patricia Bromley

Stanford University | SU · International and Comparative Education (ICE) and Environmental Social Science

The existential threat of climate change requires reimagining foundational aspects of society, including jobs, transportation, energy, the built environment, natural resources, health, and water and food supplies. We argue that to realize such broad scale change requires systems thinking. In this introduction to the special issue on Nonprofits and...

More than two decades of social scientific research has identified the growing network of corporations, think tanks, nonprofits, and advocacy organizations that aim to obstruct climate change action within the United States. Conventional arguments emphasize the role of economic self-interest (e.g., wealthy and powerful corporations) in shaping the...

What is the nonprofit sector and why does it exist? Collecting the writing of some of the most creative minds in the field of nonprofit studies, this book challenges our traditional understanding of the role and purpose of the nonprofit sector. It reflects on the ways in which new cultural and economic shifts bring existing assumptions into questio...

The categories commonly mobilized to think about education have long been associated with the notion of the nation state and have functioned as obstacles, rather than resources, for our understanding of how globalization plays out in this particular field. In the last two decades, both social theory and comparative politics have attempted to overco...

The categories commonly mobilized to think about education have long been associated with the notion of the nation state and have functioned as obstacles, rather than resources, for our understanding of how globalization plays out in this particular field. In the last two decades, both social theory and comparative politics have attempted to overco...

A rapidly growing research stream examines the social effects of entrepreneurship on society. This research assesses the rise of entrepreneurship as a dominant theme in society and studies how entrepreneurship contributes to the production and acceptance of socio-economic inequality regimes, social problems, class and power struggles, and systemic...

Nonprofits today are expected to go beyond their missions to adopt a wider set of commitments and values. This movement is remaking the sector in surprising ways.

Anthropogenic climate change is a scientific fact, but U.S. public discourse around the issue remains mired in controversy, including in education. Our study leverages natural language processing methods to give a precise look into the extent to which climate change-related topics are covered in 30 of the most widely used high school history textbo...

Formal schooling in the U.S. has a long and violent history towards Indigenous peoples, today morphing into exclusion and erasure. Using a novel longitudinal dataset of U.S. textbooks (n = 193) from California and Texas, published from 1850 to 2019, we seek to shine light on the issue through a comprehensive analysis of depictions of Indigenous peo...

Since post-World War II and especially throughout the 1990s, the globalization of a liberal international order propelled a wave of education reforms around the world. However, recent challenges to the legitimacy of the liberal order may undercut the prevalence of education reform across countries. To reveal how global changes are influencing educa...

This article uses primary research to examine the practical consequences of the Business Roundtable's much-vaunted "Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation"

For decades, the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, has attracted a lot of criticism and the idea of a “Davos Man”, rich, alienated, detached from his national roots, and full of empty talk, became a popular trope. However, Shawn Pope and Patricia Bromley analysed all of the organisation’s press releases for the past eight...

The global neoliberal era has sparked a burgeoning literature. Most accounts emphasize the political economy of the period, focusing on global markets and privatization. By contrast, we conceptualize neoliberalism as a broad cultural ideology that has reshaped how we think about people and institutions in all arenas of life, not just the economy. W...

Despite conflicts between social and economic goals, contemporary US firms routinely depict such aims as synergistic. Analyzing 300 annual reports from a sample of 80 large US public firms between 1960 and 2010, we examine the rise of ‘win–win’ conceptions of corporate responsibility (CR), which include both the social benefits of economic activiti...

Recent decades have witnessed a discursive expansion of calls for abstract and charismatic management beyond the systematic administration of concrete settings—hyper-management. A first dimension of hyper-management is the lionization of individuals and organizations as empowered purposive actors, embodied in celebrations of vision, innovation, and...

The liberal and neoliberal world order is increasingly under attack. Global levels of democracy have been declining for over a decade, accompanied by rollbacks in some kinds of rights. We examine the implications of increasing criticisms of the (neo)-liberal era over time for educational reform discourse around the world by drawing on a unique prim...

Cutting-edge data science techniques can shed new light on fundamental questions in educational research. We apply techniques from natural language processing (lexicons, word embeddings, topic models) to 15 U.S. history textbooks widely used in Texas between 2015 and 2017, studying their depiction of historically marginalized groups. We find that L...

"The nonprofit form has spread around the world as a unique alternative to markets and governments. This third edition of The Nonprofit Sector provides great insight into this phenomenon and is as exciting and informative as the previous two. With fresh faces and insights, it is a real joy to read."-Joseph Galaskiewicz, University of Arizona "Now...

The last two decades have witnessed an unprecedented rise in government restrictions on foreign funding to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Often in the name of defending the nation from outside influences, over 60 countries have implemented laws limiting foreign funding to NGOs. We use event history analyses to evaluate domestic and global ex...

Observers have noted that organizations in all sectors, whether business, nonprofit, or government, have been moving toward rationalized structures that presuppose and express empowered organizational actorhood. We draw upon neo-institutional theory in this paper to extend the argument: The arrival of organizational actorhood has precipitated a con...

We address two views from organization theory to consider the expansion and effects of nonprofits in education: first, a functional view emphasizing the direct effect of work of civil society organizations (CSOs) and, second, a phenomenological neoinstitutional view focusing on the cultural meaning of education CSOs as indicators of a rationalized,...

The valorization of humanity and diversity are ongoing global processes that pose new challenges to nationalism and the monocultural narrative once favored in schools and universities. This paper focuses on an exploratory analysis of textbooks, indicating a growth of cosmopolitan and multicultural emphases. Students are increasingly exposed to worl...

This article reviews the state of research and data on relevant content, broadly understood as sustainable development, in social science textbooks worldwide. Specifically, it examines the extent to which these textbooks could help learners to acquire the knowledge, skills and values that are needed to meet goal 4.7 of the United Nation's Sustainab...

Organizational scholars today routinely refer to firms as “actors.” In contemporary uses, the term conveys identity, sovereignty and the capacity for purposive action. Understood in this way, the conceptualization of the firm as an actor is significant in that it diverges from descriptions of the firm as, for example, a “legal fiction” that is the...

A broadly recognized sociological insight is that rising levels of individualism increasingly characterize a growing number of countries. This article examines the extent to which schooling is altered by, and transmits, this core cultural shift. It analyzes 476 secondary school social science textbooks from 78 countries from 1950 to 2011 to see whe...

We discuss cultural transformations that have contributed to the expansion of management ideas in number, domains, and across sectors. Our discussion is organized around a conceptual model that depicts main propositions. The processes that we observe, supported by numerous examples of particular management ideas, have contributed to the standardiza...

Private foundations in the United States are powerful actors in contemporary society. Their influence stems in part from their lack of accountability - they operate free from market pressures or finding sources of funding, and they are not subject to formal democratic systems of checks and balances such as elections or mandatory community oversight...

The sacred status of individuals is a central pillar of world culture in research on education and beyond. The intended socialisation of students is increasingly to become empowered individuals who respect human equality and diversity in a globally interconnected world. At the same time we have little understanding of what exactly the concept of in...

There is a great and longstanding divide in visions of the international arena. Some assert that states are the most relevant actors in international politics, and others emphasise the importance of non-state actors as vehicles through which shared ideas and identities are enacted. Typically, cross-national scholarship adopts one of these positions...

The study of public policy and administration, including research on education, has long been dominated by assumptions rooted in the disciplines of politics and management. Politically oriented research focuses on causal processes driven by power and self-interest, looking at sources of inequality and hegemony. Research using a management lens emph...

The new institutionalism in sociology and organizational research is best represented as an extended family of scholars that share a broadly defined theoretical orientation. The multiple lines of thought in this tradition have a common interest in the relationship between social structure and organizations. Within this frame, researchers differ in...

The study of formal planning in nonprofits and the public sector is thriving, with management gurus providing abundant advice on its value and proper execution. We address a related, but broader issue: why has the management tool of formal planning become prevalent in organizations with a public goal in the first place? To answer this question, we...

Calls for accountability in the nonprofit sector have never been stronger, and the rise of various forms of self-regulation represents a profound shift for nonprofits. Existing studies tend to focus on effective design and implementation of accountability policies, with an eye toward improving nonprofit efficiency and reducing instances of miscondu...

Contemporary institutional theory spans multiple levels of analysis and includes several loosely related conceptual streams developing in parallel. A number of these perspectives address how and why social structures spread. In this study we show how drawing on three forms of institutionalism – historical, world polity, and Scandinavian approaches...

It is widely recognized that firms are increasingly pressured not only to generate profit and shareholder value for owners and investors, but also to become more socially responsible in response to demands from other stakeholders such as consumers, activists, and regulators. There are many reasons to expect conflict between social and economic goal...

Organizational scholars today routinely refer to firms as “actors.” In contemporary uses, the term conveys identity, sovereignty and the capacity for purposive action. Understood in this way, the conceptualization of the firm as a social actor is significant in that it diverges from descriptions of the firm as, for example, a “legal fiction” that i...

An important transformation is reshaping once-distinct social structures, such as charitable and religious groups, family firms, and government agencies, into more analogous units called organizations. We use the ideas of sociological institutionalism to build a cultural explanation for the blurring between traditional sectors. In contrast to mains...

Over the 20th century the celebration of both human rights and the rights of diverse minorities have become central features of an emerging world culture. Using multilevel modeling I empirically test whether nation-state legitimacy, measured on security, political, and cultural dimensions, influences emphases on diversity and human rights in nation...

Organizations are increasingly subject to rating and ranking by third-party evaluators. Research in this area tends to emphasize the direct effects of ratings systems that occur when ratings give key audiences, such as consumers or investors, more information about a rated firm. Yet, ratings systems may also indirectly influence organizations when...

We offer an institutional explanation for the contemporary expansion of formal organization—in numbers, internal complexity, social domains, and national contexts. Much expansion lies in areas far beyond the traditional foci on technical production or political power, such as protecting the environment, promoting marginalized groups, or behaving wi...

In this study the authors analyze 548 secondary social science textbooks to examine the extent to which multiculturalism-related content appears over time and around the world. Findings suggest significant global increases in textbook depictions of minority rights and groups experiencing discrimination over time and in many regions.

The pervasive spread of rationalizing trends in society, such as the growing influence of managerial sciences and increasing emphases on accountability and transparency, has created significant changes in organizations’ external environments. As a result, there is growing pressure on organizations to align their policies and practices, and to confo...

Research on the human rights movement emphasizes direct changes in nationstates, focusing on the efficacy of treaties and the role of advocacy in mitigating immediate violations. However, more than 140 universities in 59 countries established academic chairs, research centers, and programs for human rights from 1968–2000, a development that highlig...

As the members of an organizational field adopt similar practices, considerable variation in enactment can ensue. Field-level theories, however, do not yet explain how and why organizations vary in their use of standard practices. To tackle this issue, we focus on the infiltration of managerial practices into a sector traditionally motivated by nor...

The world environmental movement has gained much strength in recent decades and has led many nations to focus on environmental education. We examine the extent to which this global movement has helped change national textbooks. We also consider the effects of national development, national policy on environmentalism, and the general expansion of po...

Education systems originally emerged alongside the creation of the nation-state system with the goal of constructing a loyal, unified national citizenry. But at least since the middle of the twentieth century, schools also increasingly aim to promote and support diversity. This shift in the purpose of schooling, however, remains poorly explained. E...

Background: This paper considers how textbooks resolve the tension between contradictory goals of promoting a cohesive national identity while teaching respect and equality among diverse social groups in British Columbia (B.C.), Canada.Purpose: The article presents preliminary results of a larger study examining the content of required civic educat...

A striking feature of modern societies is the extent to which individual persons are culturally validated as equal and empowered actors. The expansion of a wide range of rights in recent decades, given prominence in current discussions of world society, supports an expanded conception of the individual. We examine the extent to which broad global c...

Educational development organizations and related global movements emerged and expanded during the twentieth century. Today, most activities in the educational development field are characterized by a scientific outlook that schooling can be transformed using measurable and generalizable knowledge, and most of its leaders believe that experts can t...

Violent conflict and humanitarian disasters such as floods, famines, or tsunamis, have existed since the start of human history. However, it is only recently that education in these emergency situations has emerged as a visible organizational field. We aim to use a unique theoretical application of sociological neo‐institutionalism to explain the r...

In reaction to the disasters of the first half the 20th century and World War II, a dramatic world movement arose emphasizing the human rights of persons in global society. The contrast—celebrated in international treaties, intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations, and much cultural discourse—was with narrower world emphases on the right...

This article examines Holocaust education in secondary school social science textbooks around the world since 1970, using data coded from 465 textbooks from 69 countries. It finds that books and countries more connected to world society and with an accompanying emphasis on human rights, diversity in society and a depiction of international, rather...

The valorization of humanity and diversity are ongoing global processes that pose new challenges to nationalism and the mono cultural narrative once favored in schools and universities. This paper focuses on an exploratory analysis of textbooks, indicating a growth of cosmopolitan and multicultural emphases. Students are increasingly exposed to wor...