As a consequence of deregulation and decentralization, schools determine their own direction and more accountable for their policymaking. Coping with these changes becomes a key determinant for school organizations to survive. Researchers and practitioners agree that developing capacity to change is a necessary condition for organizations to be flexible and innovative. However, despite increased attention among both researchers and practitioners, an understanding of the concept and the underlying mechanisms remain underdeveloped, and a unified or commonly accepted definition of change capacity is missing (Meyer & Stensaker, 2006).

   Literature on change and organizational development primarily focuses on the balance between change and stability during the implementation of change to understand the concept of change capacity. Taking this into account, change capacity not only refers to the ability to change successfully, also to the capability to maintain daily operations and implement subsequent or simultaneous change processes (Meyer & Stensaker, 2006). Bennebroek Gravenhorst, Werkman and Boonstra (2003) conclude that a focus on multiple aspects of an organisation leads to a better understanding of the change capacity of organizations than research to a single aspect.

   A focus on multiple aspects of an organisation also matters in research on organizational change within school organizations. Within this field of research, schools’ capacity for managing change usually refers to conditions for school improvement. Although early studies to the capacity of schools to change use different concepts such as innovative capacity (Geijsel, van den Berg, & Sleegers, 1999; Sleegers, van den Berg, & Geijsel, 1997; van den Berg & Sleegers, 1996) and schools’ internal capacity (Hopkins, 2001; Hopkins & Harris, 1997; Stoll, 1999), generally schools’ capacity to change refer to conditions such as transformational leadership practices, teacher collaboration, participative decision-making, teacher motivation and teacher professional learning (e.g. Geijsel, Sleegers, van den Berg, & Kelchtermans, 2001; Geijsel, Sleegers, Stoel, & Krüger, 2009; Hopkins, 2001; Kwakman, 2003; Thoonen, Sleegers, Oort, & Peetsma, 2009a).

   Contrary to organizations that operate in a free and open market competition and which viability depends on their output, non-profit organizations like schools also have to cope with contextual forces but are less judged on their output. Neo-institutional theorists consider these contextual forces of non-profit organizations as social and cultural pressures that forces non-profit organizations to conform to conventional beliefs for an increased probability of survival (Scott, 1992). Following neo-institutional theorists, this leads to a homogenization of school organizations: institutional isomorphism. Yet, empirical studies to schools’ responses to changing contexts in terms of building change capacity change are missing. This study aimed to gain insight into the change capacity of schools, by describing the development of aspects of change capacity over time and examining deviations. We expect that schools’ capacity to change develops over time in response to changing contexts, and institutional isomorphic mechanisms result in homogenization of school organizations.

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