Effects of Organic Management on Student Achievement

Abstract

Proponents of school restructuring often promote the purported benefits of professional forms of management that call for staff cooperation and collegiality, teachers' participation in school decision making, and supportive leadership by school principals. A theoretical perspective on organizations known as contingency theory refers to such management patterns as "organic management." This study examined the relationships between organic management and growth in student achievement in elementary and secondary schools. Two national databases were used to estimate a series of three-level growth models of student achievement at the elementary and secondary levels. Results suggested that organic forms of management are not a particularly powerful determinant of student achievement at either of these levels of schooling.

Conceptualizing School Leadership and Management from a Distributed Perspective: An Exploration of Some Study Operations and Measures

“…Furthermore, the analytical distinction between organic and mechanistic organizational arrangements may also be necessary (Rowan, 1990(Rowan, , 2002a(Rowan, , 2002b. Whereas mechanistic arrangements include centralized decision making, clearly defined positions, and hierarchical relations, organic arrangements involve staff in decision-making processes and cooperative relationships (Miller & Rowan, 2006). While it is tempting to view schools where leaders almost equal or even outnumber other staff as more organic and less mechanistic, our case schools suggest that this may not always be the case.…”

What Are the Different Types of Principals Across the United States? A Latent Class Analysis of Principal Perception of Leadership

“…In contrast, controlling principals less often had and met state or district goals and were also male. Miller and Rowan (2006) argue that more organic forms of leadership, such as shared instructional leadership, do not always influence an increase in student achievement. Future research should test a mediated (Hallinger & Heck, 1996) model of leadership and school and teacher conditions to examine whether or not these types of principals influence student success.…”

“…(pp. 382-383) Our assertion of a context-based leadership extends beyond correctly supporting teachers and effective instruction through either controlled or shared leadership (see Firestone & Wilson, 1985;Miller & Rowan, 2006;Rowan, 1990). Each characteristic of the school, students, teachers, and principal influences a principal's leadership behavior in a different way (Glasman & Heck, 1992;Goldring et al, 2008;Hallinger & Murphy, 1986;Krüger, Witziers, & Sleegers, 2007;Mayrowetz, Murphy, Louis, & Smylie, 2007).…”

“…However, this line of inquiry has focused on the effectiveness of these behaviors rather than the principal, who is able to perform or not perform these behaviors (Leithwood & Jantzi, 2008;Urick & Bowers, 2011, in press), and the school context, in which the characteristics-for example, student demographics, school location, or grade level-influence the effectiveness of these behaviors differently (Louis et al, 2010;May, Huff, & Goldring, 2012). Our conceptualization of types, the grouping of principals, compared to styles, the grouping of behaviors, better accounts for the differences in the way that principals may or may not perform these idealized behaviors in their specific school context (Fiedler, 1964(Fiedler, /1978(Fiedler, , 1966(Fiedler, , 1967Miller & Rowan, 2006).…”

Studying School Improvement Teams to Analyze Multiple Stakeholder Engagement in Decision-Making in Public Education

“…Research into models that did not have formal structures has shown a lack of success (Gordon and Seashore, 2009;Miller and Rowan, 2006). The drawback to informal organic improvement efforts that seek to engage multiple stakeholders is that they must reinvent the wheel, rather than building on what others have learned through implementation and research.…”