Investigating rankings in the field of business education, we aim to examine field structuration process to understand how categories build symbolic value in an institutional field. We selected twenty reputed business schools from Pakistan and the United Kingdom (UK) through purposive sampling method. Adopting the concept of data triangulation, we gathered empirical evidences through interviews with business school marketing managers, academic experts in the field of marketing and reputation, and with industry experts. This data was further supplemented by variety of secondary sources such as internal student surveys, annual reports, newsletters and industry reports to perform a thematic analysis adopted in this study. Thematic analysis helped us to develop a model of institutional work and field level change by emphasizing on the key role categorization systems (rankings) in shaping perceptions of symbolic value (reputation). Our findings suggest, categorization tools create a contest at different levels. Consequently, it redefines the perception about value in the field. The current study may be useful for academia and Higher Education policy-makers by providing them with a theoretical understanding of categorization systems such as university rankings and the changing perception of value in the field.

This paper examines Gogol’s identity formation in The Namesake through Lacan’s three registers: the Imaginary, the Symbolic, and the Real. In the Imaginary, his fragmented self oscillates between the Russian writer’s name and his adopted American identity, revealing a fractured self-shaped by external validation. Within the Symbolic, his dual names “Gogol” and “Nikhil” represent competing cultural codes that generate linguistic and psychic conflict. Encounters with the Real, through his father’s death and marital breakdown, expose the limits of language and identity, confronting him with what resists representation. His shifting relation to names and desire underscores an ongoing search for coherence that remains unattainable. Integrating Lacanian theory with textual analysis, the paper argues that Gogol’s struggle transcends cultural adaptation; it is an ontological pursuit of selfhood marked by loss, longing, and the impossibility of closure.