Supporting instructional leadership and school improvement? Reflections on school supervision from a German perspective

2019 ◽  
Vol 57 (5) ◽  
pp. 571-581 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierre Tulowitzki
Keyword(s):  
Educational Leadership ◽  
School Improvement ◽  
School Leadership ◽  
Educational Administration ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Training And Development ◽  
Content Type ◽  
School Supervision ◽  
School Principalship ◽  
The Relationship

Purpose The purpose of this contribution is to draw on several recent contributions from the Journal of Educational Administration to reflect on the relationship between school supervision and educational leadership. Design/methodology/approach The German context of school supervision was first laid out. A comparative analysis of all contributions was then performed against the backdrop of the German context. Findings One finding from the analysis of the relationship between school supervision and educational leadership from a German perspective is the need to have structures of (mandatory) further training and development in place at the level of school principalship and school supervision. These structures represent building blocks for capacity building and for shifting cultures over time. Without reliable vehicles of professional development for all concerned parties, both school supervisory authorities and principals risk staying stuck in old professional identities that no longer match their current missions or emergent national aspirations. Originality/value This paper sheds a light on the complex relationship between school supervision, school leadership and school performance. The findings from the papers analyzed for this paper point to issues which scholars have been pondering about for decades now: Can supervision and support be successfully implemented within one agency? How can a supervisory authority change its professional identity? What combination of supervision, support and space creates conditions favorable to successful educational leadership and school improvement?

A systematic review of educational leadership and management research in Turkey

2019 ◽  
Vol 57 (6) ◽  
pp. 731-747 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mehmet Şükrü Bellibaş ◽  
Sedat Gümüş
Keyword(s):  
Educational Leadership ◽  
School Improvement ◽  
Mixed Method ◽  
Educational Administration ◽  
Research Approach ◽  
Recent Effort ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Leadership And Management ◽  
Content Type ◽  
School Principalship

Purpose While the current knowledge in the field of educational leadership and management (EDLM) has been primarily based on research produced in English-speaking Western societies, there have been significant efforts by other societies to contribute to the knowledge production, especially during the past decade. The purpose of this paper is to identify the contribution of Turkey to the international EDLM literature by investigating the topical focus, conceptual frameworks and research designs of papers published by EDLM scholars from Turkey. Design/methodology/approach Descriptive content analysis method was employed to examine 315 empirical, review, conceptual and commentary papers published by Turkish scholars in core educational administration and Web of Science journals. The time period of the review left open-ended. However, in practical terms, it begins in the year 1994 when the first article from Turkey was published in any of the selected sources and ends at the end of 2018. Information relevant to the research was extracted from each article and was coded to facilitate quantitative analysis. Using Excel software, descriptive statistics including frequencies and percentages were provided for each research question. Findings Results show that Turkish EDLM scholars mostly rely on survey based quantitative research approach, employing advanced statistical techniques in the analysis of the data. However, mixed method and qualitative studies are relatively less common. Organizational behavior, school leadership and emotions stand out as most frequently used topics, while Turkish scholars are not interested in analyzing the educational outcomes such as student achievement and school improvement. Consistent with the findings related to topical foci, a large number of those who were interested in correlational studies examined the relationship between leadership roles and organizational behaviors. Research limitations/implications The data set only included journal articles and excluded conference proceedings, books and theses/dissertations. Nevertheless, the authors believe this review adds significantly to previous reviews of local EDLM journals conducted by Turkish scholars. The authors concluded that the Turkish scholars should direct their future research to exploring and better understanding the practices of Turkish principals in schools by: diversifying their research topics; incorporating more qualitative and mixed-method designs; and taking into account specific features of the culture and educational system in Turkey. Practical implications Based on the current higher education context, reducing scholars’ teaching load, diversifying research funding opportunities, and modifying access to tenure tracks seem necessary interventions to support EDLM research with strong ties to practice and to the sociocultural context. In addition, policy changes aiming professionalization of administrative positions and establishing some forms of formal training for school principalship are needed. Such changes can help transfer the knowledge produced by the Turkish EDLM researchers to the practice and provide solutions to problems related to school administration. Originality/value This paper will add to recent effort to identify how a developing nation outside Western perspective approaches the field, and contributes to the global knowledge base.

Mapping educational leadership, administration and management research 2007–2016

2019 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meng Tian ◽  
Stephan Gerhard Huber
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Educational Leadership ◽  
School Improvement ◽  
School Leadership ◽  
Distributed Leadership ◽  
Public Management ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Content Type

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the development of educational leadership, administration and management (EdLAM) research by identifying thematic strands that hallmark key publications and synthesise major research findings and limitations. Design/methodology/approach This study combines bibliometric and content analysis methods to review 2,347 publications from 15 core EdLAM journals published from 2007 to 2016. Findings The bibliometric analysis identified five EdLAM thematic strands: school leadership for enhancing students’ academic achievement and teachers’ effectiveness; leadership for educational change, accountability and promoting democratic values; leadership for social justice, equal education and narrowing achievement gaps; principal’s instructional leadership for school improvement; and distributed leadership and its impact on organisational climate and teachers’ attitudes and stress. The content analysis revealed that the EdLAM research from 2007 to 2016 further developed the following research areas: the dynamics between leaders and teachers in leadership work, the potential risks of distributed leadership and the EdLAM challenges brought by the New Public Management and neoliberalism. Originality/value This study depicts state-of-the-art EdLAM research. It confirms the combination of bibliometric and content analyses as a useful approach for large-scale review studies. Finally, this review suggests future research directions.

Conceptualization and challenges: examining district and school leadership and schools as learning organizations

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Welsh ◽  
Sheneka Williams ◽  
Karen Bryant ◽  
Jami Berry
Keyword(s):  
School Improvement ◽  
School Leadership ◽  
Learning Organization ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Learning Organizations ◽  
School Leaders ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Relationship

Purpose Conceptualizing schools as learning organizations provides a potential avenue to meet the pressing challenges of school improvement in the USA. District and school leaders play an important role in creating and sustaining the conditions for a learning organization, yet little is known about how leadership responds to learning-resistant contexts in their mission to improve schools. This study aims to examine the relationship between the district and school leadership and schools as learning organizations. The focus is on the conceptualization of schools as learning organizations and the challenges involved in creating and sustaining conditions and processes in which to improve schools. Design/methodology/approach This paper uses semi-structured interviews with district and school leaders in the state of Georgia and data from completed dimensions of a learning organization questionnaire (DLOQ) study to analyze how district and school leaders conceptualize or make sense of schools as learning organizations and overcome challenges associated with creating and sustaining a learning organization in learning resistant contexts. Findings The analyzes find that participants perceive their school or district as a learning organization when the structure allows others to work together to learn and grow for the benefit of students. Originality/value This study is unique in that it adds to a growing number of studies that examine schools as learning organizations using the DLOQ and sheds light on the nature of learning resistant contexts.

School leadership, teacher’s psychological empowerment and work-related outcomes

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (7) ◽  
pp. 1501-1514
Author(s):  
Kersti Kõiv ◽  
Kadi Liik ◽  
Mati Heidmets
Keyword(s):  
Job Satisfaction ◽  
School Leadership ◽  
Leadership Style ◽  
Indirect Effect ◽  
School Principals ◽  
Psychological Empowerment ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Work Related ◽  
Perceived Leadership ◽  
The Relationship

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the mediating effect of teacher’s psychological empowerment between school leadership style and teachers’ work-related outcomes. Design/methodology/approach A total of 711 teachers from 31 Estonian schools were surveyed with a questionnaire measuring four dimensions of psychological empowerment (competence, meaning, self-determination and impact), school leadership characteristics (leadership style, leader’s empowering behavior and trust in leader) and teacher’s work-related outcomes (job satisfaction and workplace attachment). AMOS path analysis was used to investigate the direct and indirect relations between the teachers’ perceptions of school leadership, their psychological empowerment and their workplace attachment and job satisfaction. Findings This study found that psychological empowerment (subscales meaning and impact) mediates the relationship between perceived leadership empowerment behavior and teachers’ work-related outcomes. Also, the psychological empowerment (meaning and impact) mediates the relationship between perceived leadership style and teachers’ work-related outcomes. Trust in the principal has direct and indirect effect (through psychological empowerment) on job satisfaction, whereas there only seems to be indirect effect on workplace attachment through two components of psychological empowerment. Practical implications The mediating role of psychological empowerment includes an important message for school principals – in order to empower employees it is not sufficient to merely delegate formal power and decision-making rights. To facilitate the development of psychological empowerment, it is important to provide employees with an opportunity to experience agency, to experience that their voice and opinions are taken into account (perceived impact) and the purpose and targets of the whole organization are discussed with the employees and formulated in collaboration with them (perceived meaning). Originality/value Psychological empowerment as a mediating variable has not been widely researched, especially in school environment. The results will provide important signals for school principals, where and how to find leverage to improve teachers’ job satisfaction and workplace attachment.

How school leadership development evolves: crossing timescales and settings

2016 ◽  
Vol 28 (6) ◽  
pp. 338-354 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Jensen ◽  
Kirsten Foshaug Vennebo
Keyword(s):  
Leadership Development ◽  
School Improvement ◽  
School Leadership ◽  
Multiple Time ◽  
Improvement Project ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Qualitative Research Design ◽  
School Leadership Development ◽  
Video And Audio ◽  
Cultural Historical Activity

Purpose This paper aims to address workplace learning in terms of investigating school leadership development in an inter-professional team (the team) in which principals, administrators and researchers work together on a local school improvement project. The purpose is to provide an enriched understanding of how school leadership development evolves in a team during two years as the team works on different problem-spaces and the implications for leadership in schools. Design/methodology/approach The paper is based on a larger study with a qualitative research design with longitudinal, interventional, interactional and multiple-time level approaches. Empirically, the paper draws on tools, video and audio data from the teams’ work. By using cultural–historical activity theory (CHAT), school leadership development is examined as an object-oriented and tool-mediated activity. CHAT allows analyses of activities across timescales and workplaces. It examines leadership development by tracing objects in tool-mediated work and the ways in which they evolved. The object refers to what motivates and directs activity. Findings The findings suggest that the objects evolved both within and across episodes and the two-year trajectory of the team. Longitudinal trajectories of tools, schools and universities seem to intersect with episodes of leadership development. Some episodes seem to be conducive for changes in the principals’ schools during the collaboration. Research limitations/implications There is a need for a broader study that includes more cases in other contexts, thus expanding the existing knowledge. Originality/value By switching lenses of zooming, it has been possible to examine leadership development in a way that is not possible through surveys and interviews.

Mapping four leadership styles in Japan: how has the role of the principal been shaped by policies?

2019 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-207
Author(s):  
Hirokazu Yokota
Keyword(s):  
Instructional Leadership ◽  
Leadership Styles ◽  
School Leadership ◽  
Distributed Leadership ◽  
Educational Administration ◽  
Policy Documents ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Western View ◽  
Role Of The Principal

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine how internationally recognized styles of transactional, instructional, transformational and distributed leadership have emerged in the Japanese education system. Design/methodology/approach National legislation and policy documents in Japan since 1945 were collected by searching for the word “principal” or “head of school.” Then, four types are excluded: those that are unique only to one school type, do not explicitly deal with the role of the principal, are in subordinate laws prescribing contents that essentially overlap with those in superordinate statutes and define procedural roles of the principal. As a result, 17 legal provisions and 35 policy documents remained, each of which was analyzed by using four leadership styles. Findings Despite an increasing focus on instructional, transformational and distributed styles, Japan has not comprehensively articulated attributes and abilities expected of the principal. Additionally, a movement away from instructional leadership in the 2000s contrasts with the recent emphasis on “educational leadership.” Moreover, transformational leadership has centered on the school–family–community collaboration and the expansion of principal autonomy, and distributed leadership has taken the forms of new positions that support the principal, both of which were influenced by the decentralization movement. Research limitations/implications It points to the susceptibility of the role of the principal in Japan and western countries alike to broader structural reforms but with different implications and distinct timing of the advent of leadership styles among them. Additionally, Japan has adopted a modified approach to distributed leadership style, which is somewhat similar to delegation, to make a compromise between the emergent theory and the centrality of the principal in the school hierarchy. Furthermore, instructional leadership seems to be a “late bloomer” in Japan because of its practice-based nature and unsuitability to daily realities of the principal. Originality/value As an arguably unprecedented attempt to apply leadership styles to legislation and policy documents, this study builds a foundation for understanding how school leadership is shaped by education policies. Moreover, while making connections to the western view, it creates a paradigm for future studies of school leadership in Japan and in the field of comparative educational administration.

Leading school change and improvement

2019 ◽  
Vol 57 (6) ◽  
pp. 635-657 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jasna Kovačević ◽  
Philip Hallinger
Keyword(s):  
School Improvement ◽  
Knowledge Base ◽  
Bibliometric Analysis ◽  
Educational Administration ◽  
School Change ◽  
Descriptive Analysis ◽  
Intellectual Structure ◽  
Content Type ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
Basic Features

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to quantitatively document and synthesize the knowledge base on leading school change and improvement (LSCI). Design/methodology/approach The authors employed bibliometric analysis to evaluate 1,613 SCOPUS-indexed documents on LSCI published between 1960 and the end of 2017. In addition to descriptive analysis of basic features of the knowledge base, the review also employed citation and co-citation analyses of authors, journals and documents. Author co-citation analysis (ACA) was used reveal the intellectual structure of the LSCI literature. Findings The growth trajectory of LSCI research began with low levels of publication during the 1960s and 1970s, followed by steady and then accelerating growth in subsequent decades. Citation analyses highlighted key journals, authors and documents in this field, while ACA identified four research streams or Schools of Thought that comprise the LSCI knowledge base: transformational leadership for school improvement, instructional leadership for school improvement, shared leadership for change and school improvement, school improvement. Originality/value The review offers empirical documentation of the changing intellectual structure of the one of the key lines of inquiry that emerged in the field of educational administration over the past six decades. More broadly, the review illustrates the benefits of bibliometric analysis as a tool capable of illuminating critical features that bear upon knowledge accumulation in a line of inquiry, or a broader discipline.

Study of banking sector in Ghana shows importance of HRD training practices in developing employee effectiveness through the mediating role of employee competencies

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (5) ◽  
pp. 23-24
Keyword(s):  
Human Resource Development ◽  
Organizational Effectiveness ◽  
Banking Sector ◽  
Training And Development ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Impact Performance ◽  
Mediating Role ◽  
Employee Competencies ◽  
The Relationship

Purpose The purpose was to examine the mediating role of employee competencies in the relationship between human resource development (HRD) practices and organizational effectiveness. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected through questionnaire from 550 employees of the selected banks. The author tested four hypotheses Findings The results confirmed Hypothesis One, indicating training and development have a big influence on employee competencies. There was also support for Hypothesis Two, revealing employee involvement influences employee competencies. But the results did not support Hypothesis Three, which stated that career development has a significant influence on employee competencies. Finally, there was support for Hypothesis Four, which said HRD practices influence organizational effectiveness through the mediating role of employee competencies. Originality/value The author chose to focus on the banking sector because of its significance to a country’s economy. A further justification was that similar studies have focused on Western banks and there is a paucity of research into HRD practices in the West African banking industry. More broadly, there have been very few studies of the mediating processes through which HR practices impact performance.

scholarly journals HRM and innovative work behaviour: a systematic literature review

2017 ◽  
Vol 46 (7) ◽  
pp. 1228-1253 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Bos-Nehles ◽  
Maarten Renkema ◽  
Maike Janssen
Keyword(s):  
Training And Development ◽  
Journal Articles ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Hrm Practices ◽  
Innovative Climate ◽  
Huge Impact ◽  
Innovative Work ◽  
Innovative Work Behaviour ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Relationship

Purpose Although we know that HRM practices can have a huge impact on employees’ innovative work behaviour (IWB), we do not know exactly which practices make the difference and how they affect IWB. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to determine the best HRM practices for boosting IWB, to understand the theoretical reasons for this, and to discover mediators and moderators in the relationship between HRM practices and IWB. Design/methodology/approach Based on a systematic review of the literature, the authors carried out a content analysis on 27 peer-reviewed journal articles. Findings Working with the definitions and items provided in the articles, the authors were able to cluster HRM practices according to the ability-motivation-opportunity framework. The best HRM practices for enhancing IWB are training and development, reward, job security, autonomy, task composition, job demand, and feedback. Practical implications The results of this study provide practical information for HRM professionals aiming to develop an HRM system that generates innovative employee behaviours that might help build an innovative climate. Originality/value A framework is presented that aggregates the findings and clarifies which HRM practices influence IWB and how these relationships can be explained.

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