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Leadership in Educational Change
Abstract
With the imperative placed on schools in recent years to improve, the leadership of educational change has increased in significance. The research repo schools in South Wales that have made significant changes to improve pupil achievement. Various triggers initiated the improvement journey and the schools faced numerous challenges. Although the improvement journey was variously configured, there appeared to be sequential stages: pre-acceleration, acceleration and post-acceleration. The organizational leadership needs in those different stages were diverse and in schools where change had been successfully engineered, leadership was enacted differently with diverse themes emerging in the various phases. The findings have important implications for the leadership of change in a range of institutions such as those in the public and voluntary sectors which have multiple and often conflicting objectives, a multiplicity of stakeholders and are staffed by professionals. The paper illustrates the changing nature of leadership in the journey of organizational change which may help to explain the absence in the literature of the characteristics or the key actions that are the essence of good leadership. The paper concludes by modelling the dimensions of improvement that the leader must influence at an institutional and individual level to bring about educational change. These dimensions are effectiveness, reflective capability and adaptive capability.
... 61-62). Whereas Connolly et al. (2000) focus on leadership in educational change and the principals' role, to understand their role in bringing about school innovation, other researchers with educational science background study the role of intra-and extra organisational networks (see e.g., Berkemeyer, et.al., 2011;Trempler et al., 2014, p. 80). This perspective seeks to characterize the role and influence of leaders not in terms of their individual personas but their interaction with the context, inner as well as outer" (Connolly et al., 2000), aspects of internal and external cooperation among ESD stakeholders should also be considered in future research on the UN DESD implementation. ...
... Whereas Connolly et al. (2000) focus on leadership in educational change and the principals' role, to understand their role in bringing about school innovation, other researchers with educational science background study the role of intra-and extra organisational networks (see e.g., Berkemeyer, et.al., 2011;Trempler et al., 2014, p. 80). This perspective seeks to characterize the role and influence of leaders not in terms of their individual personas but their interaction with the context, inner as well as outer" (Connolly et al., 2000), aspects of internal and external cooperation among ESD stakeholders should also be considered in future research on the UN DESD implementation. In political science, the multiorganisational unit of analysis also gained popularity in implementation research (e.g., Hjern & Porter, 1981;O'Toole & Laurence J., 2003). ...
... The study of the role of resources and incentives made available, (see e.g., Goggin, Bowman, Lester, & O'Toole, 1990; Hill & Hupe, 2014, p. 141), persuasive programmes, (see e.g., Dahme & Grunow Dieter, 1983), or the behavioural assumptions of policy tools (see e.g., AnneSchneider, Helen Ingram, 1990) could add interesting further insights in this special case of DESD implementation. Additionally, models of change management in schools that originate from school research (see e.g.,Connolly et al., 2000) or leadership approaches (see e.g.,Hinnings, Brown, & Greenwood, 1991) focusing on the influencing role of leadership, could also be transferred to the case of ESD. Applying this to the case of ESD, one could further analyse the role the principals play in effective ESD implementation in their schools. ...
At the end of the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (UN DESD), coinciding with the international evaluation process, questions about the successfulness of the Decade on the local level are being raised. This analysis studies the implementation process of the UN DESD on the local level, as it assessed the state of art of ESD in Grammar Schools in Baden-Württemberg (BW). In reference to a preceding evaluation report, the study shows considerable results on the development of the ESD implementation in schools. By providing novel data from a teacher survey for the school year 2014/15, this study reveals that the UN DESD still lacks concrete structural implementation educational reality.
... SBM is coupled with profound changes to the role of the principal, with centralization of standards and accountability but decentralization in the management of resources and decision making (cf. Caldwell, 1992Caldwell, , 1998Connolly, Connolly & James, 2000). It brings work intensification and the emergence of a new professional culture (cf. ...
Designing an interactive online portal for Chinese essay writing: An action research study; Postgraduate preferences: A study of factors contributing to programme satisfaction amongst Masters students; The model of principal leadership in Hong Kong Protestant Christian secondary schools following the change of sovereignty; The ideology and implementation of Liberal Studies in Hong Kong: Between societal level and school level;
http://www.hkta1934.org.hk/NewHorizon/index2.html
... While their separation may be theoretically possible (Durrant, 2004), in practice it is much more difficult (Gronn, 2003b;Spillane and Diamond, 2007) and even unhelpful to do so (Bush, 2008a). Little consensus exists for precisely what leadership is, how/if it can be developed or how important it is (Connolly et al., 2000). Empirical evidence of 'the extent and nature of school leadership effects' (Bush, 2008a: 7) is weak. ...
Increasing emphasis has been placed on leadership within educational theory, policy and practice. Drawing on a wide range of academic literature and policy documents, this paper explores how the discourse of leadership has shifted and for what purposes. The authors are critical of the lack of conceptual underpinning for that discourse, evident both nationally and internationally, and they identify key issues that the teaching profession has been left to try to understand and make sense of. They caution that, despite attempts to align contemporary policy developments to position leadership as inherent in the role of every teacher, flaws in the conceptualisation of leadership, and particularly in favoured forms such as ‘distributed leadership’ and ‘teacher leadership’, pose significant challenges to a serious attempt to ‘reprofessionalise’ teachers. Contemporary developments in Scottish education are referred to, exemplifying key tensions inherent in translating international trends into practice.
... Educational organisations are no exception -they should also create and manage knowledge and learning on a continuous basis (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995). In this continuous process of learning to implement best practices, new managerial styles need to be promoted, to foster increased leadership of educational change (Connolly et al., 2000). Knowledge management for change management needs to involve all levels in education, from lowest (students, instructors, course managers) to top levels (school and university managers), and especially knowledge management at the organisational level, such as teams and communities of practice (Gupta and Bostrom, 2005). ...
Nowadays, university policies highlight the importance of complementing teaching activities with competence development in the framework of the European Higher Education domain. A previous step for this concerns the development of an effective, efficient, practice-oriented, and user-friendly competence evaluation tool. The main objective of this article is to illustrate the use of a competence self-evaluation tool and to explore the implications of such Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tool for education. We use a web-based tool designed to assess and develop social and personal competences, which is applicable to the learning process. We apply it to a Spanish university, with students considered as project managers of their studies. We obtain some validation of the tool as an instrument for self-evaluation, with effects on the attitude towards learning, providing knowledge on the contribution of the learning activities to developing competences. We also discuss a series of implications at different levels of the education community: university management, teaching centres and, just as important, students.
... In place of the more commercially relevant market and control culture, ideas of change, innovation and partnership have come to the fore (Martin and Boaz 2000;Ranson and Stewart 1994), along with programmes to foster social inclusion (Geddes and Root 2000), organisational learning and the knowledge economy. This has generated a revision of the roles of leadership and management in the modernisation and improvement of public sector services (Hartley and Allison 2000;Bichard 2000;Connolly et al. 2000;Davis and Geddes 2000). ...
... It would however be wrong to believe that strategic change will unfold neatly in a linear fashion in accordance with the carefully laid plans. 24,[27][28][29][30][31] Interviewees reported that the transition was characterised by surprises with unpredictable and uncertain outcomes. Words such as 'frustrating', 'chaotic', and 'difficult' were often used to describe their experience. ...
This paper analyses the use of the private finance initiative (PFI) approach to deliver school projects in England. The findings are based on case-study research in the Building Schools for the Future scheme (BSF), the largest single capital investment in SO years to rebuild and renew all of England's secondary schools. Up to half of the school infrastructure is to be procured by PFI contracts. A major concern has been the high cost associated with PFI procurement and any subsequent changes to scope. Furthermore, in some cases PFI-funded schools have been closed soon after completion; at great cost to the public sector. The aim of this research was therefore to
understand the underlying reasons for these problems.
The main conclusion is that the difficulties in BSF arise
from not sorting out strategic issues and instituting
appropriate organisational frameworks before engaging
the private sector. The result of this is a lack of clarity
about the long-term needs and end user aspirations. A
brief outline of current programme management methods
is given and it is suggested that this might be integral to
the successful delivery of schools using private finance. A
clear strategic vision that cascades into projects via
programmes will ensure that the school infrastructure is
appropriate for the anticipated strategic benefits and is
aligned to the overall service delivery ambitions.
O mercado de trabalho vem exigindo que os profissionais possuam competências que vão além das ditas técnicas, as chamadas competências pessoais ou soft skills, por entender que estas, somadas à formação técnica específica, resultam em profissionais habilitados a transitar no mundo corporativo com maior fluidez. O objetivo desta pesquisa foi validar a contribuição da empresa júnior de uma universidade pública na formação complementar do engenheiro no que concerne às características pessoais ligadas a liderança. Para tal, foram utilizadas entrevistas semiestruturadas com perguntas baseadas na literatura revisada. Três diferentes grupos foram estudados inicialmente: os que participaram da empresa júnior (Perfil 1), os que participam atualmente da empresa júnior (Perfil 2) e os que não participaram da empresa júnior (Perfil 3). Os dados mostraram-se insuficientes em função da grande quantidade de variáveis não previstas (habilidades inatas, aquisição de habilidades no mercado de trabalho e outras atividades extracurriculares). Assim, foi criado o Perfil 4, composto por pessoas que não fizeram parte da empresa júnior e que não estiveram no mercado de trabalho. Como resultado, verificou-se que a empresa júnior pode ter influência, parcial ou total, na aquisição de habilidades pessoais requisitadas pelo atual mercado de trabalho, especialmente em relação a comunicação eficiente e habilidade de trabalho em grupo.
Palavras-chave: Liderança. Trabalho em equipe. Empresa júnior. Atividades extracurriculares.
The labor market has been demanding that professionals have skills that go beyond said techniques, the so-called personal skills or soft skills, as they understand that these, in addition to specific technical training, result in professionals qualified to move in the corporate world with greater fluidity. The objective of this research was to validate the contribution of the junior company of a public university in the complementary training of the engineer with regard to personal characteristics linked to leadership. For this, semi-structured interviews were used with questions based on the reviewed literature. Three different groups were initially studied: those who participated in the junior company (Profile 1), those who currently participate in the junior company (Profile 2), and those who did not participate in the junior company (Profile 3). The data proved to be insufficient due to a large number of unforeseen variables (innate skills, acquisition of skills in the labor market, and other extracurricular activities). Thus, Profile 4 was created, composed of people who were not part of the junior company and who were not in the labor market. As a result, it was found that the junior company may have an influence, partially or totally, in the acquisition of personal skills required by the current labor market, especially in relation to efficient communication and teamwork skills.
Keywords: Leadership. Teamwork. Junior company. Extracurricular activities.
The study explored the perceptions of student-teachers of educational leadership and management with regard to the roles of homeroom teachers and subject teachers in secondary schools. The participants of the study are students in the biggest College of Education in Israel. The analysis was conducted on the students’ posts in an online forum of an academic course using qualitative and quantitative methods. The students’ posts indicated a differentiation between the perceptions of the two roles on the level of ideology as opposed to the practical level. The most prevailing leadership model that emerged from the findings is transformational with four other models, all of which are congruent with the humanistic approach to teaching. Further research should focus on the gaps between school reality and teacher education programmes in order to facilitate the induction phase for novice teachers.
Adopting a multilingual perspective, this empirical paper explores the varied use and meanings of referents of leadership and management among 24 Welsh senior managers. We argue the importance of recognising the linguistic imperialism of the English language – and its dominant leadership discourse of the heroic individual leader – over locally signified referents of leadership and management in other languages and discourses. At present, the lexical item leadership lacks evaluation of its relevance and meaning within other languages and multilingual contexts. We add to this gap through a discussion of research that analyses 24 Welsh senior managers’ reflections on referents of leadership and management and their varied meanings in their two official workplace languages, i.e. Welsh and English. Based on the findings, we explore linguistic power dynamics represented in their reflections on this language diverse work setting and conclude with implications for the practice of leadership and management.
In education literature there is a distinct lack of scholarly work on issues of leadership other than on functional leadership at lower levels or high-level individual leadership activity which dominates existing studies. This empirical research is based on the result of a merger of education providers within the North East of England. A crucial aspiration of the newly merged organisation was to provide an overarching innovative leadership structure to facilitate integrated leadership. The specific focus of this article is participants of a bespoke postgraduate learning intervention. The authors apply sense-making theory to identify how student-leaders undertaking a leadership development intervention developed to become a community of education leaders. The reflective accounts of the student-leaders indicated a combined approach of distributed, shared and collaborative leadership. Whilst the study was conducted in the UK, the concepts and ideas are likely to have international application.
The Problem
In this case study we see a move away from orthodox views of school leadership as “headship” to a more contemporary model of educational leadership wherein we note a departure from functional, curricula-based school leadership toward more human resource development (HRD) approaches. The aim of this study was to consider the effectiveness of an educational development program for middle leaders within an educational establishment.
The Solution
We examined the impact of a bespoke higher education leadership development intervention in Leadership (and Change) on the formation and cohesiveness of a newly formed innovative leadership structure.
The Stakeholders
The leadership development intervention was designed through a tripartite collaboration including a university, senior school leaders, and staff. The intervention was designed to shift leadership from individual leader agency to interdependent human leadership agency. Through tripartite evaluation we uncover leadership development praxis that transcends the boundaries of conventional educational leadership and reemphasizes the benefits of bridging the academic/practitioner divide and the application of theory to praxis.
The purpose of this article is to make the case for a broader perspective on school leadership and school-environment interrelationships and to develop the concept of systemic leadership for schools and the related notion of systemic authorization. The article explores the background to the concept and relevant aspects of the conceptualization, which are: the primary task, leadership and task-related roles, and the system. We draw on research we have recently completed into the nature of primary schools where the level of student attainment in national test scores is high despite the students experiencing considerable socio-economic disadvantage. The schools we studied sought and received considerable support, validation and valuing from the wider system that provided leadership and authorization for the schools with beneficial outcomes. Importantly, this leadership and authorization was reciprocal in that the schools responded similarly to those in their system.
Those with an interest in public sector institutions increasingly recognize the necessity for those institutions to work collaboratively with each other and with other organizations. In part, this trend is based on the acceptance that many public policy problems are interconnected and can only be meaningfully tackled interorganizationally. One such policy area is school improvement, which constitutes the central concern of the article and is currently a dominant feature of education policy in Britain. The article conceptualizes the notion of educational collaboration by developing a framework through a review of the relevant literature. The analytical framework makes a paradigmatic distinction between resource dependency and institutional perspectives on collaboration. It recognizes that, although the perspectives interrelate in practice, the interests they serve are distinct and different. The framework acknowledges that individual actors, such as teachers, those in leadership positions in schools, and managers in local authorities may have different purposes for collaboration and disaggregates the antecedents, the process and the successful and unsuccessful outcomes of collaboration.
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the usefulness of organizational change theory for management practice.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors present an exploratory, empirical study of managers who were taught organizational change theory as part of a postgraduate degree. Building on the study findings, they analyse managers' subsequent experiences of organizational change; of how they use change theory in practice and the impact on their practice of their earlier formal study.
Findings
The paper finds that the complexities of managing change in practice reflect distinctive organizational environments and cultures. The skills and knowledge which managers found most useful were those that enabled them to “make sense” of the organizational change they subsequently experienced. The main impact of their earlier studies was to prompt informative, discursive and reflective approaches to change management.
Practical implications
The paper discusses the implications for future teaching of organizational change and the development of organizational change theory.
Originality/value
The qualitative findings of the study add to, and help to explain, earlier research findings on the questions of how managers' experience change, how they use organizational change theory and its impact on their practice.
This paper is an account of a research-based study of the experience of subject leaders (SLs) in Wales in improving the practice of members of their departments. Seventeen SLs from secondary schools in South Wales were interviewed in depth. The findings reveal that the SLs worked to create a culture of collaboration that both controlled the development of practice and contained the anxiety and emotions associated with teaching, organising and practice improvement. A significant issue was the SLs' attempts to improve the practice of those department members whose practice was unsatisfactory.
The Scottish Qualification for Headship (SQH) was established in 1998 and is organised and delivered by two (previously three) consortia comprising a partnership model with universities and local authorities. SQH participants are encouraged to adopt a distributed style of leadership in taking forward their School Improvement Project. Currently, SQH participants are exposed to some of the "big ideas" within the distributed leadership literature but there is an expectation that participants ground theory in their own practice and in the contextual practice of their schools. This article describes a research that explores the experiences of the first cohort of participants graduating from the revised SQH programme at the University of Edinburgh. Findings of this study imply that SQH participants encounter a range of tensions in trying to take forward a "distributed leadership perspective" in leading school improvement initiatives. (Contains 2 tables.) (Contains 2 tables.)
This article discusses a peer mentoring teacher education initiative that aims at developing pre‐service teachers’ capacities to participate successfully in learning communities, both during their initial teacher education and throughout their teaching careers. Peer mentoring utilizes the latest conceptualization of mentoring, that of co‐mentoring by Bona et al. or that proposed by Hargreaves and Fullan, where all teachers give and receive support. Such a conceptualization challenges the traditional assumption that the mentor knows best and is consistent with the latest approaches to teacher professional development, where teachers are encouraged to participate in learning communities. A peer mentoring teacher education initiative is described and three essential elements are highlighted.
Within management generally, and education management more specifically, there has been an almost continuous search for the key to effective management development. Generic occupational standards, generated by the Management Charter Initiative (MCI), are claimed to be applicable and transferable to any manager in any organization. Thus, a manager in a school would be expected to meet the same requirements as a manager in any other organization at the same management level. In the education world, both practitioners and theoreticians are sceptical about the competency approach. This article analyses the relevance of the management standards to primary headship by reporting on the experiences of six headteachers seeking NVQ management qualifications.
Over a number of years in the UK, public service improvement has been at the centre of both Conservative and Labour policy. Keen to make improvements in public services, the current Labour government is pursuing this issue more strongly than any other. This paper examines the concept of improvement and reviews the academic literature which has empirically assessed improvements in a range of public services. Drawn from over 50 studies of improvement, the evidence highlights seven determinants or improvement ‘triggers’ which have been put in place and which have had a positive effect on a public service. These include quality frameworks and public participation forums. The paper reviews the evidence and evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of the studies themselves. The findings of the paper indicate that, despite a political drive to improve public services, there is insufficient evidence available on ‘what works’ in bringing about improvement. The need for sustained research in this area is emphasized and conclusions are drawn on a way forward.
As governments and public service organizations across the globe engage in strategies of institutional and organizational change, it is timely to examine current developments and a future research agenda for public governance and management. The paper commences with reflections on the state of the field, based on an analysis of papers published in the British Journal of Management over the last decade. While there was some variation apparent across the set, the 'typical' article was found to be influenced by the discipline of organizational behaviour, set within the health-care sector, using case-study methods within field-based studies, and investigating shifts in roles and relationships and the management of change. It has also in the past been UK-centric, though the journal editorial policy and our own article call for a stronger international and comparative focus in the future. The second section of the article summarizes the articles and themes contained in this collection of papers on public service organizations. The third section explores a possible research agenda for the future, arguing for the significance of public sector research for the understanding of management more generally, and for examining the interface between private and public organizations (an increasingly common phenomenon). We suggest the need to set public services research in policy and political contexts, and suggest this may reveal organizational processes of wide interest. We call for a wider set of disciplines to engage in public management research, and to engage in moving the agenda from the study of efficiency to effectiveness as defined by a variety of stakeholders. We address the issue of how far public management researchers should become directly engaged with the world of policy and suggest that whether researchers engage in Mode 1 or Mode 2 research, their work would benefit from a stronger theoretical base.
This article focuses on the influence leadership role congruence has on organisation change within three South African organisations in the manufacturing industry. The research was done in two phases. Phase I investigated the utilisation of leaders in specific leadership change roles. Four leadership change roles (Initiator, Shaper, Monitor, and Assessor) were identified, each for which a set of competencies (competence cluster) was developed. A questionnaire (Leadership Role Competence Questionnaire) measuring the perceived level of competence for each role was designed. Phase II investigated the influence of the congruence results on organisational change outcome. A questionnaire (Change Outcome Questionnaire) measuring the soft dimensions of organisation change was developed. All three respondent organisations’ leaders involved with their organisations’ change initiatives were selected for Phase I. A random sample of 120 employees per organisation was used for Phase II. The main findings were that congruence existed for two roles (Initiator and Assessor). In addition to this it was found that role congruence for the Initiator and Assessor roles influenced change outcome positively, and that a lack of congruence for the Shaper and Monitor roles had a negative influence on change outcome.
OpsommingHierdie artikel fokus op die invloed wat rolkongruensie het op organisasieverandering binne drie Suid Afrikaanse maatskappye in die vervaardigingsektor. Die navorsing is gedoen in twee fases. Fase I het die aanwending van leiers in spesifieke leierskapsveranderingsrolle ondersoek. Vier leierskapsveranderingsrolle (Inisieerder, Vormer, Moniteerder, en Assessor) was geïdentifiseer waarvoor vir elk ’n stel vaardighede (vaardigheidsbondel) ontwikkel is. ’n Vraelys (Leierskaps-Rol-Vaardigheid Vraelys) wat die waargenome vlak van vaardigheid in elke rol meet, is ontwikkel. Fase II het die invloed wat die kongruensieresultate op die organisasieveranderingsresultate gehad het, gemeet. ’n Vraelys (Veranderings-Resultate Vraelys) wat die interpersoonlike dimensies van organisasieverandering meet, is ontwikkel. Al die leiers van die respondent organisasies wat betrokke was met die veranderingsinisiatiewe is geselekteer vir Fase I. ’n Ewekansige steekproef van 120 werknemers per organisasie was gebruik vir Fase II. Die belangrikste bevindinge was dat kongruensie gevind is vir twee rolle (Inisieerder en Assessor). Aansluitend hierby is gevind dat rolkongruensie vir die Inisieerder en Assessor rolle die organisasieveranderingsresultate positief beïnvloed het terwyl ’n gebrek aan kongruensie vir die Vormer en Moniteerder rolle die organisasieveranderingsresultate negatief beïnvloed het.
Chris James is Professor of Education Management in the University of Glamorgan Business School and Peter Phillips is Headteacher of West Monmouth School, Pontypool, Gwent. In this paper, the first of three in this edition on different aspects of marketing in education, they stress that this is a relatively new area of interest in educational management. As such it is not surprising to find that much of the literature is characterised by ideas developed in non-educational settings. In this paper they use the notion of the 'marketing mix' to examine the practice of marketing in a number of schools within England and Wales. They find little evidence of the development of sophisticated market driven approaches within the schools they studied.
This article reviews and evaluates major theories of leadership and summarizes findings from empirical research on leadership. Major topics and controversies include leadership versus management, leader traits and skills, leader behavior and activities, leader power and influence, situational determinants of leader behavior, situational moderator variables, transformational leadership, importance of leadership for organizational effectiveness, and leadership as an attributional process. Methodological issues in leadership research and implications for improving managerial practice are discussed also. An integrating conceptual framework is presented to show how the different theories and lines of research fit together.
Abstract: When change is required in an organisation, perhaps due to a business purchase, the award of a contract, or the recognition that current business performance must improve, the management team may decide that they need to change the behaviour of the employees to generate the success and returns for the business envisaged. This change of behaviour can be difficult to create. In this paper, the author describes some of the reasons for the difficulties experienced, and introduces an eight-step process, which played a significant role in generating commitment in very different organisations with measured changes in organisational behaviour.
Analytical methods were used to identify issues and track changes, but the changes themselves occurred through the trust generated by the process, and from the bonding within the management team as difficulties were overcome and progress made. This paper shares the value of change through traditional project management and non-traditional emotional management.
Although there is general recognition that leadership is important for organizational cultures, the issue of how leadership affects culture has received only scattered attention. Existing analyses have tended to focus on how leaders create or change cultures, ignoring the role that leadership plays in maintaining cultures. This paper focuses on how cultural leadership that innovates, by either creating or changing organizational cultures, is likely to differ from that which maintains organizational cultures. Hypothesized linkages are advanced between nine elements of cultural leadership-drawn from the literature on charisma-and its consequences. The predictions made are derived from a synthesis of existing theory and insights gained from descriptions of leadership in the scholarly and popular literatures. Both descriptions and theoretical considerations suggest that, while cultural innovation and maintenance leadership differs in some ways, the behaviors of effective cultural leaders do not. Cultural leadership apparently has some generic characteristics. Two variants of each of the basic types are identified and linked to extant conceptualizations of leadership. Implica- tions discussed include the risks and advantages of organizations' having multiple cultural leaders at the same time. (ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURES; LEADERSHIP; ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE; CHARISMA; CULTURAL CHANGE; CULTURAL CONTINUITY)
This paper discusses some of the results from a study of school choice in Wales, funded by an ESRC training grant. The study uses a mixture of methods for data collection and analysis, assessing the views of parents and children, in all types of schools, both before and after making the selection of a new school. The process of choosing a school is found to have three major components. The first of these, which may be a decision by default, is the selection of a type of school(s) for further consideration. The second component is the selection of a number of schools of the chosen type, or ‘choice set’, and the third is the decision itself. The role of the parents and child vary typically at each step. Each of the steps can be approached by families in very different ways and, although previous writers have suggested a simple dichotomy between those who are and those who are not willing/able to engage in an education market, such a model is not sufficient to explain the diversity found in this study. The paper starts with a brief account of the methods used and then provides evidence from the survey and from more detailed narratives of the existence of three steps in the choice process. Finally, the stories of five families are used to illustrate different approaches to each step.
Kate Bullock and Professor Ian Jamieson are lecturers in the School of Education of the University of Bath and Professor Chris james is now at the University of Glamorgan Business School. This paper presents the findings of an exploratory study in which educational managers at three different stages in their careers were interviewed about their conceptions of educational management learning. Its conclusions have implications for the continuing professional development of those who work in schools and higher education.
Pressure for reform and change in the public services will continue irrespective of the political composition of governments. There are many interrelated pressures for change, some of the key ones being the need to contain public spending (to under 40 per cent GNP?) in the face of ever increasing global competition, changing demographic and employment patterns, increasing need and demand for services, and the need to find innovative solutions to obdurate problems of local levels - health, housing, community safety, unemployment and so on. Above all, this will require greater productivity; changing skill boundaries, demarcations and mixes; far greater applications of technology and innovative community-based multi-agency working - beyond rhetoric. Unfortunately, much current research, scholarship and commentary is “locked into” individual public sectors - health, education, public administration and so on. This means that it is likely to be informed by existing frames of reference which already lie within these sectors. A wider flow of ideas, theory and critical analysis across private and all public sectors could lead to the development of new paradigms of insight, understanding and practice. This would prove a further impetus for a bottom-up social movement with a communitarianist agenda. Unfortunately this is most unlikely to be promoted top- down because most politicians are also “locked into” the binary thinking of Fordist modernism.
Discusses the action learning cycle (ALC; R. Revans, 1983), a well used and well documented approach to experiential management education, and development. The ALC encourages a self-limiting perspective on learning and change for individuals and organizations. It is suggested that such limitations can be overcome through the deliberate introduction of psychological and political components into the rational model. It is asserted that the interaction between how learning is promoted or discouraged is an expression of political forces that impact on the ALC. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
As our understanding of processes of strategic management develop, it is clear that the problems of managing major shifts in strategy, which organizations face on occasions, are of a different order to the typically incremental strategy development they follow. It is also recognized that these problems are closely linked to cognitive and cultural dimensions of organizations. Research on the management processes associated with more fundamental strategic change is still sparse, but suggests that it requires substantial cognitive shifts in which intervention, often by new corporate leaders, and political and symbolic, as well as more substantial action, is likely. This paper draws together the author's and other research in related fields, to formalize explanatory models, which link organizational inertia of strategy, more fundamental strategic change, and in particular the symbolic management activities of corporate leaders as strategic change agents.
Incl. biographical notes on the authors, bibliographical references, index We also have:The meaning of educational change,1st ed. (1982) and 2nd ed.(1991)
Sumario: What culture is and does -- The dimensions of culture -- How to study and interpret culture -- The role leadership in building culture -- The evolution of culture and leadership -- Learning cultures and learning leaders
Cultural Perspectives On Organizations Leadership and Performance Beyond Expectations Strategies for Cultural Change. Butterworth-Heinemann Leaders: The Strategies for Taking Charge
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