Coordinated school-linked services: the US experience WILLIAM L OW E B OY D AND RO B E RT L . C ROW SON

The new institutional theories in the study of organizations discuss the power of ‘contagion’ in spreading innovations (Scott and Christensen 1995). Indeed, new ideas and accompanying changes can sometimes spread very rapidly, almost like epidemics, even within organizational sectors thought to be resistant to reform (Singh et al. 1991).