Workplace interruptions are a pervasive challenge, reducing performance, evoking negative emotions, and impacting relationships (Zide et al., 2017). Definitions of interruptions have evolved from Jett and George’s (2003) definition of interruptions as “any disruptive event that impedes progress toward accomplishing the organizational task.” Brixey et al. (2007) added the dimension of the suspension of goal-directed action. Later, Werner and Holden (2015) considered interruptions through a systems-based lens rather than as a single “event.” Recently, Puranik et al. (2020) added the unexpectedness of its occurrence to the definition of a “work interruption.”. Interruptions interfere with performance by moving the attentional focus from the planned work task (Puranik, 2020) and can engender negative emotional responses (Poirel et al., 2014).

Although School principals are “eminently interruptible” (Philips 1991), there is in general a conspicuous lack of specific research on interruptions experienced by educational leaders. Based on the literature regarding interruptions (Jett & George, 2003; Brumby et al., 2019; Puranik et al., 2020), one might presume school principals’ responses to interruptions would be similar to those of other types of managers. Even though interruptions potentially expose educational leaders to short- and long-term deleterious effects, school principals often view interruptions as time invested (Hunter et al., 2019). The goal of this study was to map the patterns and sources of interruptions that school principals face and to explore the typical responses to those interruptions.

The study focused on how school principals perceive an interruption in terms of the source of the interruption. The study explores how principals perceive the various sources of an interruption and how their perceptions can influence the interpretation of an unexpected event. Given this aim, the following research questions were proposed. (1) What do principals define as an interruption event in their job? (2) Who are the key stakeholders who are the source of these interruption events? (3) How does the source of the interruption affect the principals' interpretation of the event? (4) What determines whether a stakeholder or event is considered an interruption?

Principals are interrupted by various stakeholders (such as students, parents, teachers, and officials from the local municipality). The study shows that these stakeholders can be divided into extrinsic and intrinsic categories. Principals categorize interruptions based on how they align with or contradict their role definition, evaluating the event and the stakeholders based on their affinity to the principals’ core goals. Extrinsic sources not aligned with these core goals are most likely to be considered interruptions. For example, when the Ministry of Education makes an ad hoc request for data it is always considered an interruption as the principals perceived this request as not advancing their goal of concern for student welfare. By contrast, stakeholders aligned with their core goals are mostly considered an intrinsic source. For instance, parents asking for an emergency meeting to unexpectedly help a student would be considered intrinsic stakeholders because of their strong affinity to principals' core goals - such an event would not be considered an interruption.

The methodology was based on constructivist grounded theory, which offered the most significant way to understand principals’ subjective definition of interruptions. The data was collected in semi-structured, in-depth interviews. The study applied a qualitative paradigm selected to gain insight into the principals’ internal attributions (Denzin & Lincoln, 2006), and what constitutes an interruption for them within their specific organizational frameworks. This method facilitated an open-ended dialogue instead of merely attempting to confirm predetermined themes. The study mapped the sources of interruptions defined by school principals with regard to their workday experiences and how they responded to these interruptions. The Specific methodology was as follows: Twelve school principals were carefully identified through criterion sampling, The following criteria were utilized for this study: 1. Currently an elementary, middle, or high school principal. 2. A school principal for at least five consecutive years. 3. Principals from various educational subsystems in Israel. The participants represented the education school system from first grade through 12th grade. Their experience as principals ranged from five to 27 years (an average of 12 years). Due to the multi-cultural nature of Israeli society, schools are divided into three groups within the national system: secular and religious state schools in which the language of instruction is Hebrew and schools for Arab students in Arabic language of instruction. Principals were interviewed from all three types of schools to provide a more comprehensive and diverse perspective on how the school principals perceive the sources of interruptions. The data was collected through semi-structured, in-depth interviews conducted in 2021-2022. The structured component of the interview explored how principals view their job description, define their job as a metaphor, define interruptions, their sources, and their reactions to them in different environments. An Iterative protocol was applied: (1) interviews were transcribed and coded in an open coding, including an initial marking of topics, emotions, metaphors, and ideas that recurred within each interview (2) Interview was re-examined in its entirety to identify metaphors, repetitive words as well as similar types of descriptions between interviews and other key themes that emerged from each interview (3) the topics to emerge from the interviews were repeated and re-classified into different categories. All ethical considerations were approved by the ethics committee.

The study reveals several insights regarding how school principals interpret the source of an interruption. Principals experience interruptions like other managers as abrupt, unexpected, and extraordinary workflow disruptions with similar cognitive and affective implications to other managers. But Principals consider the source of the interruption in terms of both the interruption event and the stakeholders who generated the event. Stakeholders are evaluated based on their affinity to the principals' core goals. Interruptions by extrinsic stakeholders (not aligned with the core goals) are likely to be considered an interruption. Stakeholders can become differentiated over time; students, teachers, and parents are generally intrinsic stakeholders, whereas the Department of Education is consistently considered an extrinsic stakeholder. At initial perusal, this study seems to follow the same concept, considering stakeholder types as modifiers. However, whereas Puranik views an external interruption source as unchanged, with only the outcome being influenced by the mediator, this study suggests that the interruption event, i.e., the source itself, may be reclassified as not an interruption when there is an alignment between the surprise event and the core goals of the principal. This finding appears to depart from studies that show that events are consistently perceived as interruptions when they have interruption characteristics. The contribution of this study is that it sheds light on how principals evaluate whether an unexpected event is considered an interruption. A principal may not consider an event to be an interruption—even though it has interruption-like characteristics—provided the stakeholder who is the source of the interruption is strongly aligned with the principal’s core goals.

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