The New Middle Management: Intermediary Organizations in Education Policy Implementation

Abstract

Intermediary organizations have become increasingly prominent participants in education policy implementation despite limited knowledge about their distinctive functions and the conditions that constrain and enable those functions. This article addresses that research-practice gap by drawing on theories of organizational ecology and findings from a comparative case study of four intermediary organizations that helped with collaborative policy implementation in Oakland, California. I define intermediaries as organizations that operate between policymakers and implementers to affect changes in roles and practices for both parties and show that such organizations typically vary along at least five dimensions. Oakland’s intermediary organizations all provided new implementation resources—knowledge, political/social ties, and an administrative infrastructure—but faced different constraining and enabling conditions. Using insights from this strategic case study, this article begins to build theory about intermediary organizations as important participants in contemporary policy implementation.

Managing Curriculum Change from the Middle: How Academic Middle Managers Enact Their Role in Higher Education

“…This is supported by Burgelman (1988) in Honig (2004) who posited that within the change process, action and cognition are intertwined so that for each of the four roles in the typology above, a synthesis of action and cognition unique to the position of the AMM is defined. Also the four roles of the AMM in the above typology do not suggest discrete breaks in the behaviour of middle managers during curriculum change as they combine synergistically into patterns of middle manager involvement (Floyd & Wooldridge, 2000).…”

Effective consultants: a conceptual framework for helping school systems achieve systemic reform

“…School systems, and indeed many other public institutions, may enter into a wide variety of relationships and partnerships with other entities, which can be differentiated based on how they are initiated, what services are provided, the form of the partnership and the depth of organisational involvement (Smith and Wohlsetter 2006). Examples of such relationships are reviewed below, drawing on literature describing intermediary organisations (Honig 2004), university-system partnerships (Bartholomew and Sandholtz 2009;Darling-Hammond et al 2007), community engagement partnerships (Epstein et al 2009;Militello, Rallis, and Goldring 2009;National School Board Association 2000) and government-or private foundation-funded partnerships.…”

“…Intermediary organisations work between actors in the education system and primarily function to mediate and manage change in both parties (Honig 2004). For example, an intermediary organisation could be employed by a school or school system to facilitate a community engagement process, working between the school system and various stakeholders to align the school or system's vision and mission with community needs.…”

Educational Contracting and the Translation of Research into Practice: The Case of Data Coach Vendors in Delaware

“…These demands often exceed the capacity of education agencies to design and implement ambitious reform, particularly as state education agencies have experienced declining budgets and staff (CEP, 2011;Jochim & Murphy, 2013). One response to this overextension is for education agencies to turn to a range of external organizations (Datnow & Honig, 2008;Honig, 2004;Jacobson, 2008) for support-what Rowan (2002) referred to as the "school improvement industry"-which includes for-profit vendors, technical assistance agencies, universities, nonprofits, and other types of organizations. These organizations are given a contract by educational agencies to design, implement, or evaluate improvement initiatives.…”

“…Contracted organizations are referred to by a variety of names-intermediary organizations, vendors, technical assistance providers-and are described by the purposes they serve (see Honig, 2004, for a more thorough discussion). Research argues that such organizations can play a powerful role in mediating policy (Coburn, 2005;Honig, 2004), yet most studies to date have typically focused on these organizations as "background" in implementation research (Honig, 2004).…”