Top-down vs. bottom-up-processes as strategies

Author(s):

Helge Hernes

Conference:

ECER 2009

Network:

26. Educational Leadership

Format:

Paper

Session Information

26 SES 06 B,

Paper Session

Time:

2009-09-29

10:30-12:00

Room:

NIG, Leseraum, 6. Floor

Chair:

Klaus Kasper Kofod

Contribution

Top-down vs. bottom-up-processes as strategies for organization development school development in educational institutions This paper reports the results from a study of 16 schools in a Norwegian urban municipality. All respondent groups (principals, assistant principals, teachers, and parents) reported a low degree of critical attitude towards steering from the national as well the municipality level when such steering was perceived to be inferior. Furthermore, the school managers reported higher degree of satisfaction with the students’ results and achievements than the teachers did. The paper examines how these and other findings from the study can be interpreted as arguments for top-down vs. bottom-up-processes as strategies for organization development school development in educational institutions respectively. In the case of reliance of the school managers’ perceptions and considering the low degree of critical attitudes towards steering as a virtue, top-down-processes should be encouraged. Bottom-up-processes, on the other hand, is the correct response if the low degree of critical attitudes towards steering is considered to be a challenge and the decision is based on teachers’ rather than the school managers’ perceptions about students’ results and achievements. The two alternatives are then elaborated upon and compared, using the pyramid and the ant hill as metaphors. The first alternative is based on the traditional hierarchical approach, and the second one on the emerging followership (e.g. Chaleff, 2003; Kellerman, 2008; Shamir, 2007;) and positive workplace deviance (Spreitzer and Sonenshein, 2004; Warren, 2003) literature. In the first case, the system is considered to be highly manageable while less so in the second case. Furthermore, all employees are conceived as committed to the organizations’ interests in the second case and the managers more than the teachers in the first case. The paper ends up with arguing that if there is a potential for bottom-up-processes, there may be a need for skill and knowledge among teachers to act as constructive participants in such bottom-up-processes.

Method

A survey study is conducted in the urban Norwegian municipality

Expected Outcomes

The paper ends up with arguing that if there is a potential for bottom-up-processes, there may be a need for skill and knowledge among teachers to act as constructive participants in such bottom-up-processes.

References

Chaleff, Ira (2003). The courageous follower.Standing up to and for our leaders. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers. Pages 1-56. Kellerman, Barbara (2008). Followership. How followers are creating change and changing leaders. Boston: Harvard Business Press. Page 3 – 74. Kidwell, Roland E. and Martin, Christopher L. (2005). The prevalence (and ambiguity) of deviant behavior at work. In Kidwell, Roland E. and Martin, Christopher L. (eds.): Managing Organizational Deviance. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications. Pages 1-21. Shamir, Boas (2007). From passive recipients to active co-producers. Followers’ roles in the leadership process. In Shamir, Boas; Pillai, Rajnandini, Bligh, Michelle C., and Uhl-Bien, Mary (eds.) Follower-centered perspectives on leadership. A tribute to the memory of James R. Meindl. Greenwich: Information Age Publishing. Page ix-xxxix. Spreitzer, Gretchen and Doneson, David. (2008). Musings on the past and future of employee empowerment. In Cummings, Thomas G. (ed.). Handbook of Organization Development. Los Angeles: SAGE Publications. Pages 311 – 324. Spreitzer, Gretchen M. and Sonenshein, Scott (2004). Toward the construct definition of positive deviance. American Behavioral Scientist. 47, 6, 828-847. Warren, Danielle (2003). Constructive and destructive deviance in organizations. Academy of Management Review. 29, 4, 622-632.

Author Information

Helge Hernes

University of Agder

Department of Political Science and Management

Kristiansand

158

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