Access to this document was granted through an Emerald subscription provided by emerald-srm:198285 [] For AuthorsIf you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -The purpose of this paper is to seek to investigate Etienne Wenger's theory of social learning in a community of practice by modeling two simultaneous aspects of teachers' collaborative learning: their engagement in close-knit internal groupings and engagement with colleagues that work externally to the core group. These two learning processes are related to two social-cognitive outcomes: teachers' organizational commitment and their sense of impact. Design/methodology/approach -The study investigated a field sample of 246 individual teachers from ten Finnish primary schools. Hypotheses were developed and tested by using multiple regression and structural equation modeling. Findings -The results indicate that local engagement supports teachers' organizational commitment. However, this form of collaborative learning behavior did not support their sense of impact. Moreover, external engagement with trusted colleagues supported sense of impact but not organizational commitment.Research limitations/implications -The study reinforces the importance of teachers' engagement in communities of practice. Specifically, the results suggest two specific social-cognitive outcomes related to two different learning processes situated in teachers' community of practice. It would be highly valuable to replicate this study in various multi-level settings. Practical implications -The study highlights teachers' engagement in communities of practice as a source of their motivational basis and their commitment. Findings recommend school leaders to facilitate internal and external learning communities. Originality/value -The study provides empirical evidence regarding the partial relationships between teachers' local and external learning engagement and the social-cognitive outcomes of these forms of learning behaviors.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between school leadership practices and teacher empowerment in the Finnish policy culture. Specifically, moral leadership and distributed leadership enacted by school principals are tested in a simultaneous design as predictor to two distinct yet related aspects of teachers’ sense of empowerment, respectively, in their work domain and their classroom domain. Design/methodology/approach – The study investigated a field sample of 246 individual teachers from ten Finnish primary schools. Hypotheses were developed and tested by structural equation modeling. Findings – The results indicate that moral leadership exerted by school principals support teachers’ sense of empowerment both in work domain and classroom domain. Distributed leadership, in the meaning of sharing instructional leadership tasks with teachers, supported work domain empowerment but did not predict classroom domain teacher empowerment. Taken together, the model show the value of school principals facilitating teachers in decision-making processes paired with showing a strong moral basis in their relationship with teachers. Research limitations/implications – The study reinforces the importance of moral leadership and distributed leadership as conjoint drivers for teachers’ sense of empowerment. It would be highly valuable to replicate this study in various multi-level settings. Practical implications – The findings recommend school leaders to put emphasis on facilitative, ethical, and authentic practices in immediate relationships with their teachers. Originality/value – The study provides empirical evidence regarding the partial relationships between principal leadership practices and teacher empowerment.