The thesis of this article is that the effectiveness of an organization depends on the philosophical bases of the individuals involved. Thus, the philosophical bases from which the individuals operate are the sine qua non for organizational effectiveness. (Author)

Examines extent to which principal leadership for professional development at four urban elementary schools addressed three aspects of school organizational capacity: teachers' knowledge, skills, and disposition; professional community; and program coherence. Finds, for example, that effective principals can sustain high levels of capacity by…

Critically examines participative decision making (PDM) in education, reviewing literature of the past 15 years and evaluating the current status of research on the subject; suggests how to appropriately use PDM in schools; and surveys gaps in knowledge. (MCG)

The study reported provides a critical examination of Fiedler's contingency model of leadership effectiveness; it focuses on the differential impact of low, intermediate, and high least preferred coworker leaders in good and poor group atmosphere schools using as the criterion of school effectiveness, Stern's High School Characteristics Index.…

Investigates characteristics of the organizational environment as perceived by 627 teachers in 64 Hong Kong secondary schools. Classifies perceived school environments into four typical styles associated with contrasting leadership styles. As in Western studies, the commitment style is preferable, but it requires considerable principal training to…

Research on effective schools is limited by the same weaknesses that hamper research on effective organizations. Examining two competing frameworks for studying organizational effectiveness, this report proposes a general model of school effectiveness. The model was enacted and studied in one school and was found to be effective. Includes two…

The findings suggest that more effective schools, as perceived by teachers, are characterized by more participative organizational processes, less centralized decision-making structures, more formalized general rules, and more professional activity. (Author)

Examines two ways of achieving social coordination: unilateral/hierarchical controls and multilateral controls. Discusses advantages of using mutual adjustment as an alternative to central coordination. Mutual adjustment occurs variously through language creation, moral codes, biological self-selection, market systems, and politics. Although…

To date most models of empowerment have focused on teachers' personal empowerment, which is defined as intrinsic task motivation reflecting an employee's orientation to his or her work role. Interestingly, little scholarly attention has been turned to the interaction of empowerment and work-team membership, that is, to empowerment acquired from…

Using Karl Weick's concept of organizing, argues that the information processing systems of administrators and teachers are largely separate. (JW)

Reviews theoretical and empirical information on organizational retrenchment and educational administrators' responses to the current decline in education. Argues that administrators must (1) adopt a more open and political administrative orientation to benefit from necessary retrenchments, (2) spur innovation, and (3) improve organizational…

This study investigated teachers' perceptions of politics in schools, based on an open-ended questionnaire distributed to 902 teachers, of whom 348 explicitly discussed favoritism. Accordingly, this article describes the meaning of favoritism from the perspective of teachers, with descriptions, themes, and hypotheses drawn directly from the data.…

Using Data from empirical Studies available on the various dimensions of faculty stress, this article suggests implications for organizational design in academe. The author interprets academic behavior in terms of two criteria -- organizational effectiveness and academic freedom. (Author)

Examines the social and organizational contexts of enrollment decline in Quebec (Canada) and describes the management strategies adopted by Quebec school districts to survive within reduced budgets and to try to increase budgets. Proposes a contingency model of the districts' management strategies and discusses the strategies' consequences and…

Findings from three studies of school superintendents' daily behavior and work attitudes indicate that superintending means mediating and communicating; that superintendents are constrained by social and organizational structures but do exert important organizational influence; and that dominant notions about leaders' social contexts,…