Examines the claim that we need to change the organization's culture if we want to bring about organizational change. Concerns itself with the mainstream conception of (organizational) culture, especially in relation to what is called``the paradox of culture'', its twin tendencies towards stability and variability. In the process, the role of the leader and organizational learning are reassessed in their purported causal interrelation. Develops the notion of culture as cognitive process based on recent research in both cultural anthropology and the new cognitive science.

Provides an overview of a rather large research program, developed over the last 15 years, that seeks to offer a new perspective on the nature of theory and practice in educational administration. The core ideas of the program, together with a considerable amount of detail, can be found in three books by Evers and Lakomski. However, because these volumes stand in a developmental sequence, there is merit in presenting in a brief compass an account of our overall strategy, especially in relation to the nature of administrative theory, and some of the conclusions reached along the way. The discussion has two main parts. First, the central theoretical features of our program are outlined, indicating some earlier results flowing from their application to various debates in educational administration. Then, some examples are offered focused on the main concern of our most recent research – developing and applying this framework to a cluster of problems about administrative practice and the nature of practical knowledge.

Arguments about the strengths and weaknesses of traditional logical empiricist conceptions of science have figured prominently in debates over the nature and content of theories of educational administration. In this article, we briefly review some of these debates and their consequences for administrative theory, concluding that much of the dispute is misconceived owing to the widespread acceptance of foundational assumptions about knowledge justification. As an alternative, we urge the adoption of a nonfoundational, coherentist view of knowledge justification that leads to a much broader conception of science, one we think is more suitable for developing a systematic new science of administration. We conclude by outlining some consequences of our new science for postmodern developments in the field and approaches to organizational design and leadership.

PurposeThe purpose of this conceptual paper is to argue that leadership, including distributed leadership, is a concept of folk psychology and is more productively viewed as an emergent self‐organising property of complex systems. It aims to argue the case on the basis that claims to (distributed) leadership outrun the theoretical and empirical resources distributed and other leadership theorists can offer to support them.Design/methodological approachThe paper employs contemporary scientific as well as traditional philosophical criteria in determining the knowledge claims made by distributed leadership theories. Of particular importance are the coherence theory of evidence that employs the super‐empirical virtues, especially coherence to establish the scientific virtue of theory, and the conception of leadership as part and parcel of folk psychology.FindingsWhen considering the basis of claims to distributed leadership from a neuroscientific and empirical perspective, there is little basis in fact about the existence of (distributed) leadership as an ontological category. Talk of leadership is a conventional, commonsense label for vastly more complex and fine‐grained causal physiological and neuronal activities within certain social contexts. In this sense distributed leadership is a conception available for reduction.Originality/valueThe significance and originality of this paper lies in the fact that it proposes causal investigations of social phenomena such as leadership; demonstrates the importance and necessity of interdisciplinary research; and outlines exciting new research agendas that both question traditional taken‐for‐granted conceptions of social explanations and suggests directions of where solutions may be found in the future that are defensible by the best of current science.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to argue that emotion has a central role to play in rational decision making based on recent research in the neuroanatomy of emotion. As a result, traditional rational decision‐making theories, including Herbert Simon's modified model of satisficing that sharply demarcates emotions and values from rationality and rational decision making, need substantial revision. The paper concludes by outlining some central features of a theory of emotional decisions that is biologically more realistic than the traditional rationalist‐cognitive model.Design/methodology/approachThe paper employs contemporary scientific as well as traditional philosophical criteria in its argumentation. Methodologically, it can be described as an example of applying naturalistic philosophy to a central issue of human thought and experience, and how humans are able to value things at all on the basis of their neuroanatomy.FindingsThe paper presents some initial features of a new theory of emotional decisions that is biologically more realistic than the traditional rationalist‐cognitive model.Originality/valueThe significance and originality of this paper lies in the fact that it proposes causal investigations of the real bases for rational decision making as a central human feature which runs counter to conventional wisdom and has far reaching implications for education, to name just one discipline; it demonstrates the importance and necessity of interdisciplinary research; and it outlines an exciting new research agenda that promises to be more productive in terms of understanding and hence planning for, the way in which humans make decisions.