The organizational ecology of undergraduate tourism education in Turkey: A model proposal

The allocation of quotas, occupancy rates, openings, and closures in tourism education programs at universities has been a subject of debate. While there are studies on new institutional theory in higher education, organizational ecology has not yet been applied to this field. This thesis aims to examine tourism education through the lenses of New Institutional Theory, Organizational Ecology, Density Dependence, Liability of Newness, Liability of Aging, and Theories of Ecological and Biological Evolution. The study adopts a mixed-methods and convergent research design. In the qualitative phase, data were collected from 17 academics who had held administrative positions in tourism education institutions, using semi-structured forms, and analyzed thematically. In the quantitative phase, data on faculties and schools offering tourism programs, as listed in the OSYM preference guides between 2003 and 2023, were analyzed and mapped using organizational ecology theories and ArcGIS. As a result, the study presented maps and a model, revealing that populations are determined by ecological boundaries and that the state plays a significant role in these processes. The findings indicate niche-seeking behaviors, territorial preservation tendencies, and proximity to saturation in population density. Furthermore, four types of spatial diffusion have been identified in the context of Turkey: balanced diffusion, unbalanced diffusion, isolated organizations, and inhibition zones.