To work well together, school boards and superintendents must reach agreement in certain sensitive areas of their relations. Five of these, briefly discussed, are (1) the degree to which administrators become involved in policymaking, and boards, in procedural issues; (2) the superintendent's authority over administrative appointments; (3) board…

Focusing on the problem of authority, an analysis of the theories of Max Weber, James D. Thompson, and Elliott Jaques forms the basis for this proposal for improved organizational effectiveness in public schools. Basic assumptions are that modern organizations are established and operated under rational principles and subject to rational analysis,…

Ideas on increasing personal and professional productivity for institutional advancement staff are provided in 25 articles. Techniques are outlined for getting organized, setting deadlines, delegating responsibilities, motivating staff members, and meeting the demands of one- or two-person compus offices. Some of the titles and authors of the…

A case study examined employee perceptions of the communication climate within a newspaper. Using qualitative and quantitative techniques, data were collected from 150 employees in 7 departments of a small newspaper organization, "Southwestern Newspapers". Results indicated that this newspaper can improve its communications climate by…

Chapter 11 of a revised volume on school leadership, this chapter offers suggestions for administrators desiring to communicate more effectively with various groups within and outside the school. The most valuable business executives excel at giving employees timely feedback, accepting criticism without being defensive, speaking clearly and…

A performance appraisal interview is a primary and important context for the supervisor and employee to work together to achieve superior performance. A survey of the research literature reveals that the appraisal interview functions to provide feedback on performance, to counsel and provide help, to discover what the employee is thinking, to…

Public relations as strategic communication is one possible theme for an introductory course in public relations. This perspective focuses attention on messages (their content, timing, media, and so forth) as strategic responses to the audience and the situation. It provides a defensible rationale for including certain relevant topics in the…

A study examined whether teacher efficacy affects the relationship between the teachers' perceptions of the school principal and the perceived communication conflict strategies teachers use when they disagree with the principal. To test this relationship, 830 questionnaires were distributed to public school teachers in six school districts across…

This paper reports preliminary findings from data gathering efforts of the Phi Delta Kappa (PDK) Commission on Developing Public Confidence in the Schools, and then charts several applications of some confidence-building techniques. A pilot test identified factors that caused people to gain or lose confidence in schools. Respondents (N=409)…

A three-phase study spanned five areas of interest: (1) the school as organization and social system, (2) roles and role behavior in organizations, (3) communication structure in organizations, (4) network analysis concepts, and (5) Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation-Behavior (FIRO-B). In phase one of the study, staff members listed…

A study investigated the nature of communication related to the Individual Program Planning (IPP) client servicing system at a rehabilitative vocational training research institute. Respondents included family members, staff, and other professionals who work on IPP teams. The questionnaire measured respondent attitudes toward the frequency,…

Utilizing data from the Federal Employee Attitude Survey, 1979, a survey was distributed to a stratified random sample of 20,000 employees to identify and analyze the factors influencing federal employee worker satisfaction. Questions on the survey ranged from demographics to personal evaluations of the work environment as recorded on a…

A case review study of court decisions concerning public employees' constitutional right of free speech yields conflicting and sometimes disturbing results. The most often cited precedent in these decisions is the 1968 Supreme Court ruling in "Pickering v. Board of Education" in which a letter from a school teacher to a newspaper…

Fiscal Impact Budgeting Systems (FIBS) are sophisticated computer based modeling procedures used in local government organizations, whose results, however, are often overlooked or ignored by decision makers. A study attempted to discover the reasons for this situation by focusing on four factors: potential usefulness, faith in computers,…

This document presents a review of the current consumer relations activites of the National Library Service (NLS) for the Blind and Physically Handicapped of the Library of Congress, and an overall plan to improve NLS receipt of user suggestions, comments, opinions, or complaints through libraries which form the nationwide NLS distribution system.…