This study extends our understanding of decision making by considering the responses of not-for profit organizations facing a potentially disruptive innovation. In particular, the study explored what matters most as business colleges respond to the online education. The study adds to the current body of literature on decision making through the dual lenses of institutional isomorphism and the behavioral theory of the firm. The primary research question was, "What factors are most salient in how a business college responds to the potentially disruptive innovation of online education?" This question is relevant and important to organizational leaders given the current environmental context. Exploring decision making in this way provides both theoretical and practical contributions. A qualitative multiple-case study explored decision factors at four public university business colleges. Through semi-structured interviews, participants revealed their sense of what mattered most in their institutional decisions. Data were analyzed within the institution and across the college cases, with themes identified using both an inductive and deductive approach. Ten themes emerged that were shared across the cases to varying degrees. Four unique themes, one from each case, also became evident through the analysis. Four major findings were discovered. First, each institution was unique: in each case one of the most salient themes was relevant only at that college. Second, the findings provide limited support for institutional isomorphism. Third, there was limited support for organizational slack. Lastly, there was limited support for performance - aspiration gap. Additional contributions were also made to our understanding of top management teams and the diffusion of innovation. Practitioners will benefit from this study by recognizing the impact their institution's historical, cultural and environmental context has on decision making. As importantly, leaders should seek to understand how institutional stakeholders perceive their "place like us" before implementing a decision strategy. Colleges with lower levels of organizational slack can be expected to place a higher priority on innovative market solutions than those with higher levels. Future studies could extend these findings by considering alternate proxies for organizational slack and performance - aspiration gap, by exploring other disruptive innovations, or expanding the study into other types of not-for-profit institutions.
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