3
Studies of population decline often employ an ecological framework, which
suggests that organizations cannot change strategy and structure quickly enough to keep
pace with environmental change. Organizations that attempt to change core features
(e.g., goals, core technology) are hypothesized to expose themselves to an increased risk
of failure, as change drains resources away from operations and renders performance less
reliable (Hannan & Freeman, 1977; 1984). However, recent empirical studies have
shown that, in the face of dramatic environmental change, core change may actually
improve performance and survival chances (Haveman, 1993; Zajac & Kraatz, 1993). The
second contribution of the current study will be to bring evidence from higher education
to weigh in on this debate.
In addition to exploring the conditions that lead to a transition to coeducation and
the performance and survival implication of such a change, the above examples of Mills
College and VMI suggests a third question – do the answers to the first two questions
depend on whether we look at men’s or women’s colleges? That women’s colleges alone
continue to operate as single-sex to this day suggests that these colleges may have an
advantage over men’s colleges. One possible theoretical explanation for the differences
in failure rates observed centers on Selznick’s (1957) use of institutionalization as
something that happens to an organization over time, whereby the organization becomes
“(infused) with value beyond the technical requirements of the task at hand” (p. 17,
emphasis in original). Women’s colleges may be valued as more than simply higher
education organizations, and this may explain how Mills was able to remain single-sex
with the help of student and faculty protest, while VMI went coed despite intervention by
the state that resulted in the creation of a women’s military institute.
The analyses in this study are based on data collected for the population of single-
sex colleges that meet the eligibility requirements of the Department of Education for
listing in their Education Directory for the period of 1970 to 1980. The following section
provides an overview of the logic of ecological theory, as well as the process of
Convention