The digital transformation is one of the great challenges for educational organizations and their future development (EU, 2020; Kampylis et al., 2015). In schools the digital transformation affects two areas (Dörner & Rundel, 2021): (1.) the curricular implementation of digital education, which aims to develop students' skills and competencies, and (2.) changes in the internal work of the organization with digital technologies, which changes bureaucratic and administrative processes. From an international perspective, there are strong differences in the use of digital technologies and the digital school development (Fraillon & Rožman, 2025), and in the educational policies and strategies that influence school development (Gabriel et al., 2022).Therefore, the future organizational development of schools in the digital transformation will be heterogeneous and complex, with challenges and tensions. Leadership models (Ilomäki & Lakkala, 2018), organizational development frameworks (Kampylis et al., 2015), mission statements on how to deal with the digital transformation (EU, 2020), and competency models (KMK 2017; Vuorikari et al., 2022) are used to set a strategic path into an uncharted future and make the digital school development predictable. However, there is a difference between organizational strategy and organizational practice. Research in organizational education and school development have clearly and repeatedly revealed that school development depends on implicit and tacit knowledge and on experience, routines, and socialization (Amling, 2021; Göhlich et al., 2014; Weick & Westley, 1996). In contrast to these findings, research on digital school development is dominated by leadership models and strategic approaches that are primarily based on explicit knowledge and deliberate reflection processes (Al Nuaimi et al., 2024; Asante & Novak, 2024; Lin, 2024). The related problem of researching and conceptualizing digital school development is exacerbated by the complexity of the school organization (Hadjar & Gross, 2016; Herzig, 2022; Xiong, 2024). Thus, strategic processes and decisions of schools are not only bound to the individual organization of a school. Rather, a wide range of other (education policy) organizations influence the development of the individual school. In the field of digital education, for example, this includes organizations that make educational policy decisions about the broad strategic perspectives of schools in the form of guidelines and policy papers; organizations that are responsible for the technical equipment in schools; organizations that provide technical and pedagogical support for digital school development in the form of consulting; and organizations that provide teacher training. These organizations, their actors and their tacit experiences, routines, practices, and interactions with individual schools are highly relevant in shaping future school development. However, their influence on and interdependence with practices in context of digital technologies in individual schools is empirically underexposed (Engec, 2022; Schulze et al., 2022), although there is some evidence that these interaction processes are perceived by teachers and school leaders as quite complex and not always effective (Dertinger & Bärnreuther, 2024; Herfurth & Fereidooni, 2022).

The paper discusses the influence of a specific sector of school administration on the digital school development. Therefore, educational support systems for digital school development in Germany are examined. According to Terhart (2001), these are educational policy organizations that have an advisory and supportive influence on the work in schools. In Germany, these are, for example, media centers or advisors for digital education who support schools in school development and the pedagogical use of digital technologies. The paper presents research findings on the experiences and implicit knowledge of these actors in the school administration, and outlines how their orientations (Bohnsack, 2017) shape the advice and support provided to schools. This provides insight into the relationship between implicit knowledge and the structural conditions of the school system that shape future school development.

The paper presents the first results of a study to be carried out in early 2025. Twelve guided interviews will be conducted with stakeholders from support systems of the school administration in the context of digital school development. The interviewees will be selected from two German federal states, which differ significantly in terms of the structure of these support systems (Kruse, 2015). The selection of the two federal states is based on a previous analysis of the federal structures of school administration. Interviewees are selected who work in support systems, that are important to the two federal states. This provides an insight into central areas of the relevant support systems. In the interviews, participants will talk about their experiences and aims in working with schools from their own perspective. The interview questions are designed to elicit self-explanatory narratives. The interviews are analysed using the documentary method (Nohl, 2010). Therefore, a thematic overview will be created and the interviews will be categorised by text type, distinguishing between narration, description, argumentation and valuation. Relevant passages are selected on the basis of research interest and interactive density (Bohnsack, 2010). They are analysed using the formulating and reflective interpretation (Bohnsack, 2010; Nohl, 2010; Przyborski, 2024). The documentary method is used to analyse the actor-specific and implicit relationship between explicit and implicit/tacit knowledge that shapes an actor's practice (Przyborski, 2024). Using this approach, the study reconstructs normative ideals and concepts of normality (orientation schemata) as well as habitual orientations that shape and guide the practices of actors in the support systems of school administration. In addition, the interview data can be used to reconstruct experiences of advisory situations in the context of digital school development, which may include confusing and stressful experiences that have influenced further advisory practice. The study aims to generate a typology out of the reconstructed orientation frames.

The paper provides insights into a relevant but under-explored topic of digital school development. It does so from two perspectives. On the one hand, it focuses on the implicit practices, routines and informal processes that guide digital school development and form the underlying structure of explicit and strategic decisions of the organization. On the other hand, the research examines support structures external to the organization, which are so far rarely the subject of research. Through this approach, the study provides access to the knowledge and orientations of the actors in the support system of the school administration. As a result, the study reconstructs normative and ideal conceptions in the form of orientation schemes and habitual orientations that shape and guide practice in interaction with schools. The reconstructed orientations influence both levels of digital school development: the implementation of digital education at school and the change of work in the organizations through digital technology (Dörner & Rundel, 2021). Further research can build on this important foundation and, on the basis of the reconstructed orientations, take a closer look at the concrete interaction between internal and external actors. The paper discusses the findings in relation to existing approaches of organizational development (Argyris & Schön, 1978; Göhlich, 2018; Weick & Westley, 1996) in order to gain a more nuanced understanding of the complex interrelationship between organizational strategy and organizational practice. With a view to international concepts of strategy-driven organizational development (e.g. Kampylis et al., 2015), the results can be seen as a contrasting foil against which country specifics can be discussed and compared.

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