Georg Krücken is professor for Science Organization, Higher Education and Science Management at the German University of Administrative Sciences in Speyer. After undergraduate und graduate studies in sociology, philosophy, and political sciences at Bielefeld University and the University of Bologna, he received his Ph.D. in sociology from Bielefeld University in 1996, where he worked as an associate professor until 2006. From 1999 to 2001 he was a visiting scholar at the Department of Sociology at Stanford University. He taught as a guest professor at the Institute for Science Studies, University of Vienna, and at the Centre de Sociologie des Organisations, Sciences Po, Paris. His research interests include neo-institutional theory, science studies, organizational studies, and the management of higher education.

Gili S. Drori (Ph.D., Sociology Stanford University 1997) is a lecturer in Stanford University's International Relations Program and the Director of the International Relations Honors Program. Her research interests include the comparative study of science, social progress and rationalization, globalization, and governance. She also wrote on world culture, global health, technology entrepreneurship, and higher education. These interests inform her recent books: Science in the Modern World Polity: Institutionalization and Globalization (Stanford, 2003 co-authored with John W. Meyer, Francisco O. Ramirez and Evan Schofer), Global E-litism: Digital Technology, Social Inequality, and Transnationality (Worth, 2005), and Globalization and Organization: World Society and the Expansion of Formal Organization (OUP, 2006 co-edited with John W. Meyer and Hokyu Hwang).

• Part I: Overview


• 1: Gili S. Drori and Georg Krücken: World Society: A Theory and a Research Program in Context


• 2: John W. Meyer: Reflections: Institutional Theory and World Society


• Part II: Concepts and Processes


• 3: John W. Meyer, John Boli, and George M. Thomas: Rationalization: Ontology and Rationalization in the Western Cultural Account


• 4: John W. Meyer and Brian Rowan: Myth and Ritual: Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth


• 5: John W. Meyer and Ronald L. Jepperson: Actorhood: The "Actors" of Modern Society: The Cultural Construction of Social Agency


• 6: David Strang and John W. Meyer: Diffusion: Institutional Conditions for Diffusion


• 7: John W. Meyer: Globalization: Sources and Effects on National States and Societies


• Part III: Applications


• 8: John W. Meyer, John Boli, George M. Thomas, and Francisco O. Ramirez: The Nation-State: World Society and the Nation-State


• 9: John W. Meyer and Francisco O. Ramirez: Education: The World Institutionalization of Education


• 10: John W. Meyer, David J. Frank, Ann Hironaka, Evan Schofer, and Nancy Tuma: Environment: the Structuring of a World Environmental Regime, 1870-1990


• 11: John W. Meyer: Management: Globalization and the Expansion and Standardization of Management


• 12: Gili S. Drori, John W. Meyer, Francisco O. Ramirez, and Evan Schofer: Science: World Society and the Authority and Empowerment of Science


• 13: John W. Meyer: Human Rights: World Society, the Welfare State, and the Life Course: An Institutionalist Perspective


• 14: David J. Frank and John W. Meyer: The Individual: The Profusion of Individual Roles and Identities in the Postwar Period


• 15: Elizabeth Heger Boyle and John W. Meyer: Law: Modern Law as a Secularized and Global Model: Implications for the Sociology of Law


• 16: John W. Meyer: The European Union: The European Union and the Globalization of Culture


• 17: John W. Meyer: Universities: the University in Europe and the World: Twentieth Century Expansion


• Part IV: Bibliography of Meyer's Writings