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Ethnostatistics and Sensemaking

Making Sense of University and Business School Accreditation and Rankings

Saint Mary's University

Terrance G. Weatherbee

Acadia University

Scott R. Colwell

University of Guelph

This article combines ethnostatistics with Weick's sensemaking framework to explore how and why Canadian business schools and universities use comparative rankings and performance measures to signal to audiences about selected features and characteristics of their institutions. These quantitative performance-based strategies include seeking accreditation from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business and the use of data produced by Maclean's annual university rankings and other performance benchmarks—to position and validate themselves in their academic fields. Specifically, the authors deconstruct the production, meaning, and rhetoric used by business schools and universities when they draw on accreditation and rankings in the processes of socially constructing a sense of academic standing that is used to project a plausible image to both external and internal audiences.

Key Words: sensemaking • ethnostatistics • business school rankings • accreditation

Organizational Research Methods, Vol. 9, No. 4, 491-515 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/1094428106290786


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