Forty years ago the so‐called “theory movement” took
root in educational administration because it so fundamentally broke
with the past, replacing trial‐and‐error experience with analysis and
research in an effort to improve our understanding of educational
organizations and how to manage them. Fuelled by support from private
foundations and, eventually, the US federal government, this landmark
development in administrative and organizational theory altered the way
in which universities taught educational administration. In the
educational reform movement of the 1980s, however, the established and
time‐honoured theoretic concepts of the past four decades – with
their emphasis on mathematical proof and ways of thinking borrowed from
laboratory science – gave way to newer, richer ways of
understanding organizations and thinking about them. Describes the
emerging new directions in organizational and administrative theory and
where they are taking us.
Descriptions of the superintendency often highlight the pressure involved with being CEO of a complicated enterprise, responsible for millions of dollars, and multitudes of employees, at a time when districts are under added scrutiny. Stress has been proven repeatedly to effect worker health (Beehr & Newman, 1978; Cheng, et al., 2012; Hobson, Delunas, & Kesic, 2001). While there has been considerable research highlighting jobrelated stress in the public sector (Bacchus, 2008; Galanakis, et al., 2009; Monesh & Patil, 2012; Snapp, 1990), fewer studies have focused on education in general. The purpose of this study was to conduct a national survey in order to expand on previous research on stress in the superintendency by addressing the link between the superintendents' levels of stress and their health and well-being.
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