Theoretical framework

Organizational systems strive to maintain stability assumed to decrease variance among organizational members' behaviors and promote organizational effectiveness (Liang & Fiorino, 2013). However, maintaining stability may not be an easy task when organizations encounter environmental turbulence. It creates a major source of threat to organizational stability and is considered influential on the relationship between external change, internal change, and organizational performance (Boyne & Meier, 2009). The larger the unpredictable change brought by environmental turbulence, the larger the negative effect on organizational performance (Power & Reid, 2005).

Organizational routines are among the main measures organizations employ to promote stability. The repetitive nature of organizational routines allows organizational stability to develop while, at the same time, routines enable organizational members to introduce changes that increase the correspondence of their actions with the changing circumstances (Feldman & Rafaeli, 2002).

When facing a turbulent and unpredictable environment, organizations may choose to stick to their existing structure and routines, hoping that this will enable them to maintain their internal stability and overcome environmental instability. Such a reaction is supported by the Structural Inertia Theory (Hannan & Freeman, 1984), arguing that maintaining existing routines is the best response to a dynamic and unpredictable environment.

Alternatively, the Structural Contingency Theory advocates that organizational effectiveness may be maintained only if organizations change and adjust their routines and increase their fit to the newly created circumstances (Gordon et al., 2000). 

While routines guide and stabilize organizational behavior in all organizations, in some sectors, routines may have a more traditional and widespread nature. This seems to be the case of public schools, which have maintained their basic routines unchanged for decades. This feature seems to be related to the stability of schools' organizational environment characterized by state sponsorship regulations and laws (Mayer & Rowan, 1977). Consequently, domesticated organizations (Carlson, 1964) such as public schools face little pressure to change (Cuban, 2013).

The arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 created circumstances that forced schools to change their basic and traditional routines. Many considered his event an opportunity to alter school routines and introduce deep changes in schools' traditional processes.

This study attempts to assess the impact of an environmentalcrisis on the routines characterizing traditional institutions such as public schools. Specifically, it attempts to answer two questions: (1). what were school leaders' preferred coping strategies while attempting to establish stability for their school communities during the pandemic, and (2). to what extent they considered the extreme conditions of uncertainty and turbulence as a catalyst for altering school future routines? 

Method Eleven interviews were conducted with eight elementary and three high school principals leading schools in the Israeli centralized public educational system. Each interview lasted between 30 and 60 minutes. Some of the interviews were conducted virtually through Zoom software while others were conducted over the phone. Interviews were chosen as the major data collection method to enable large amounts of data about interviewees' perspectives to be collected relatively quickly and the immediate follow-up and clarification of equivocal issues to be accomplished (Taylor et al., 2015). The interviews were conducted as "in-depth," open conversations to "allow the researcher to respond to the situation at hand, to the emerging worldview of the respondent, and new ideas on the topic" (Merriam, 2009, p. 90). At the beginning of each interview, school leaders were asked to talk about their daily reality during the pandemic and its impact on their thoughts and feelings. Towards the end of each interview, the researcher asked the interviewees two questions referring to the core issues of the current study: a) What measures did you take to maintain stability in your school; and b) Following your experiences during the pandemic, are you planning to introduce changes in school and, if so, what will be their nature? Data were analyzed based on the classification of various issues mentioned by the interviewees producing a set of themes. This stage was data-driven and not theory-driven to allow direct examination of the perspectives articulated by the interviewees (Rossman & Rallis, 2012).

Results School leaders shared the notion that it is impossible to maintain their typical leadership patterns in these newly created circumstances. They introduced changes in their managerial orientation in five areas: (a). They changed school priorities making the safety and health of teachers and students their priority; (b). They took measures intending to reduce stress and pressure: (c). They decreased their centralized management (d). They supported and encouraged their teachers and created a criticism-free discourse; (e). And, they attempted to avoid rumors by establishing a clear and reliable source of information for teachers, students, and parents. When asked to reflect on the future, school leaders considered the pandemic an opportunity for change and innovation. Nevertheless, all of them shared the notion that future changes in schools are likely to be minor. They provided two main arguments for that: (a). the tendency to return to previous habits and, (b). the Ministry of Education's conservativeness evident in its tendency to maintain centralized control over schools and preserve patterns that existed before the pandemic. Conclusions Although many school leaders considered the unique circumstances brought by the pandemic an opportunity for change, they shared that it would not lead to dramatic changes in school practices and routines. Now, after the pandemic is over, it seems that they were right: schools seem to act according to the guiding assumptions of the structural inertia theory returning to their traditional routines. Hence, it appears that an environmental crisis is not sufficient to change the routines of traditional institutions such as public schools. It must be followed and reinforced by the system's support evident in legislation and a significant increase in the degrees of freedom granted to school-level educators. This will allow schools to alter traditional routines and design educational processes according to the changing circumstances and local needs.

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