Over the recent decades ‘educational restructuring’ has become a world-wide movement. This can be seen in the transformation in patterns of governance, deregulation, marketization, consumerism and the introduction of management principles derived from the world of business (Goodson & Lindbland, 2010). In terms of management, there is an evident movement from loosely coupled educational organisations to tightly coupled organisations in line with new public management principles (e.g. Meyer, 2002).  Traditional loosely coupled organisations consist of small-scale separated and self-governing groups. In such organisations, individuals and groups are thus tied together loosely, although they can interact with each other. Management operates via a "flat" management culture, i.e. one in which weak control is exercised and the strong autonomy of teachers is emphasised. Individuals have the opportunities to oppose social suggestions and reforms, with the likelihood that any changes within such an organisational set-up will be slow and steady (Meyer & Rowan, 1977; Weick, 1976). In tightly coupled organisations, the emphasis is increasingly on strong, strategy-oriented control and management, aiming at maximum profitability (Meyer, 2002; Moos, 2005). Thus, teachers are being increasingly supervised and monitored, to the extent that external evaluations now control the work of the individual teacher.  Different professional groups also have to co-operate closely with each other and with upper levels of administration. Educational organisations are seen as accountable, and they are expected to implement continuous external reforms (Meyer, 2002; Moos, 2005).

Although the new management principles have been widely adopted in educational organisations, we do not yet have a great deal of evidence of what this implies for teachers and their work. In particular, there is clearly a need to understand how teachers can practice their professional orientations and develop at work, how they commit to work organisations, and what kind of teachers’ well-being is in the present changing and challenging climate in educational organisations. In this paper, we examine how two educational organisations with different management cultures provide constraints and possibilities for teachers’ agency. In theoretical terms, we understand that practising agency means that teachers actively negotiate and renegotiate the conditions and the contents of their own work, and that they have an influence on community and organisational issues (Billett, Harteis & Eteläpelto, 2008). Furthermore, we address how the degree of teachers’ agency is related to i) the organisational and educational transformations, ii) teachers’ professional identity negotiations and development, and iii) teachers’ commitment to work organisation and well-being at work.

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