The role of district leaders for organization social capital

Abstract

Purpose Although it is assumed that school district governance by districts leaders can impact schools’ capacity to improvement and educational quality, there is little systematic evidence to support this claim. The purpose of this paper is to discuss how governance goals and interventions affect school districts’ social capital. Design/methodology/approach The empirical enquiry used quantitative data on district leaders enacting governance as perceived by their school principals. These data were collected among 399 school principals of 23 Dutch school districts in elementary education, using a survey. Social network data on social capital within school districts were collected using a social network survey among educational administrators (i.e. district leaders, central office administrators and school principals). Additionally, examples of the relation between school district social capital and governance at six school districts were described. Findings Results suggest that district leaders can promote the organizational social capital of their school districts through focusing on educational goals. In addition, the findings show that they can reinforce their impact by using interventions varying in coercion level, of which offering support to school principals appears to be “a golden button” to make organizational social capital thrive. Research limitations/implications Limitations to the study are the generalizability of the findings (they can be questioned because “convenience sampling” was used) and warrant a longitudinal design to examine how organization social capital develops over time. Originality/value The study is unique as it addresses the impact district leaders may have on their districts’ social capital by focusing on social network approach in the study of school district governance.

Relations between an improving Swedish LEA and school principals with joint quality and improvement responsibilities

“…This signalled willingness of the LEA to take responsibility for student outcomes and promotion of equity throughout its jurisdiction, which has recognised importance for successful, systematic improvement of educational practice (e.g. Hooge et al, 2019;Rorrer et al, 2008). Thus, the positive resonance can be attributed to principals' perceptions that the SU's initiatives had improved coherence across the system, from national requirements and policies to expectations for local schools, which is generally challenging according to previous studies of policy implementation (e.g.…”

“…However, these studies are done in centralised school system and yet we need to know more about LEA level actors in decentralised systems. Hooge, Moolenaar, van Look, Janssen, and Sleegers (2019) addressed the role of district leaders in improving educational quality in the Dutch school system. Using quantitative data obtained by interviewing principals in 23 school districts they found that focusing on goals for teaching and learning processes had the most positive impact on the districts' social capital, probably due to direct alignment with the daily work and main concerns of school leaders and teachers.…”

Total quality leadership and organizational innovativeness: the role of social capital development in American schools

“…Out of 23 full-text and peer-reviewed research articles, 6 articles were relevant to the context and showed the various roles of school leadership in creating social capital (see Table 1). Hooge et al (2019) found that school district leaders create social capital among their school district members. Importantly, they experience competitive pressure and convey the needs of schools to teachers to fit with the external environment (Kwatubana, 2017;Potterton, 2019).…”

Exploring the Effects of Contextual Factors on Residential Land Prices Using an Extended Geographically and Temporally Weighted Regression Model

“…The purpose was to ensure equal access to public education resources, and to improve the fairness of the admission process. Residential areas were divided into designated school districts corresponding to nearby public primary and junior middle schools, and it was specified that children living in neighborhoods of school districts were required to enroll in the corresponding schools [56][57][58]. However, houses in school districts have gradually become a manifestation of capitalization for public goods, i.e., the precious popularity of school district housing in China, where the quality of public schools is higher [59,60].…”