In the course of digital transformation, the role of school maintaining bodies is changing from administrative managers to strategic partners in the organisational development of vocational schools. Digitalisation is not seen as an administrative task, but rather as part of a comprehensive school development process that requires close inter-organisational collaboration between the maintaining bodies and the vocational schools. The specific profile and complexity of vocational schools requires a high degree of agility in the school maintaining bodies’ digitalisation management. This is because these changed tasks mean that school maintaining bodies and schools must establish effective multi-professional cooperation structures in order to combine digital education technologies and Open Educational Resources (OER) with educational concepts in a sustainable way (Hermstein 2021). In order for the actors to successfully initiate and implement the process, strategic planning for organisational development at vocational schools is required (Müller-Böling & Krasny 1998). This presentation addresses this issue and examines the question: What promotes or hinders the role of school maintaining bodies as strategic partners in school organisational development at vocational schools?

The promoter model will be used as the theoretical basis. This model assumes that innovation processes must be actively initiated, driven forward and terminated by various stakeholders (Hölzle & Gemünden 2011). The work involved in the innovation process is divided up among the various players, each of whom makes specific contributions based on their personality, motivation, and the nature of their role as promoters. In their various roles, school maintaining bodies employees work as power promoters, specialist promoters, process promoters and relationship promoters (Niermann & Palmas 2017; Witte 1973). By working together, all these key players can drive innovation forward. While power promoters can provide resources and protect the strategic development of digitalisation management to their high hierarchical potential, specialist promoters provide the necessary expertise for innovation. Process promoters are familiar with processes and structures within organisations and support the innovation process through coordination, planning, and control. Relationship promoters act as a link across the organisation and mediate between individuals and organisations (Gemünden & Walter 1999; Hauschildt & Gemünden 1999; Hölzle & Gemünden 2011; Hauschildt & Kirchmann 1999; Witte 1999; Witte 1973). Since they work on different aspects of the innovation and development process, it is particularly important for strategic planning that the individual aspects are meaningfully linked in a controlled (change)process (Müller-Böling 1998).

The data was collected as part of a project in germany. The project aims to reflect on digitalisation processes at vocational schools and to (further) develop strategies for digitalisation management among school maintaining bodies in rural districts. The focus is on providing needs-based support to school maintaining bodies in rural districts during an extensive organisational development process in the context of digitalisation management for vocational schools. The data is based on a quantitative online survey in five federal states (valid cases: n=135) and interviews with employees of the school maintaining bodies (n=11; pers.:29) and stakeholders of vocational schools in three federal states (n=6; pers.:9). Further interviews are currently being conducted with school administrators and teachers with roles in the field of digitalisation, which will also be included in the analysis. The mixed-methods design provides initial insights into the organisational structures and processes in the rural district governance-level in the field of education, the (legal, financial, and institutional) framework conditions for digitalisation management for vocational schools, and initial findings on the digital education infrastructure in the rural districts. The evaluation is carried out using quantitative methods and a qualitative content analysis of the interviews, based on the promoter model.

The quantitative survey results show that the work of school maintaining bodies as actors at the interface of a multi-level educational system is challenging, as they operate between the requirements of the federal states and the needs of the vocational schools. In addition, there are technical and financial bottlenecks as well as differing objectives between school maintaining bodies and vocational schools, which make collaboration difficult. The starting point for building a future-oriented infrastructure is the development of a cross-stakeholder vision that synergistically links technical action and pedagogical school development. This is where the results of the qualitative content analysis come into play. The administrative heads of the school maintaining bodies act as power promoters, although there are already differences in their knowledge of the complexity of digitally-driven school development processes. IT staff serve as specialist and relationship promoters. As specialists, they have high knowledge of digital infrastructure, the digital technical requirements of certain systems, and implementation and solution strategies, among other things. As relationship promoters, they must strike a balance between the short-term needs of teachers in schools and the tasks to be fulfilled when visiting schools. They also coordinate with external providers to ensure infrastructure functionality, requiring constant communication across all levels. It is apparent that school maintaining bodies in the districts combine their promoter roles in different ways and interact in daily practice in multi-professional actor constellations. Some districts focus on targeted cooperation within the school maintaining bodies organisation in order to provide targeted support to vocational schools as strategic partners. This is achieved by pooling and managing the knowledge and skills of the individual actors in their role as promoters. Others, however, have difficulty penetrating the hierarchical levels of their own organisation. As a result, valuable knowledge that would be important for supporting vocational schools is lost.

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