28 E838 Effective Leadership and Management in Education

SECTION 3
UNDERSTANDING EDUCATIONAL
ORGANIZATIONS
Studying Section 3 should take you about 18 hours.
Section 3 mainly addresses key questions 1 and 2: on the nature of leadership
and management, and when they are effective.
After studying this section you should:
• be able to analyse the context within which your personal professional
development must take place in terms of your organization's structure,
the distribution of power resources, and its culture;
• be able to discuss some traditional management models in terms of
these ideas;
• understand the different implications of various interpretations of
organizations on the ways we define and assess their effectiveness.
All the readings for this section are in Reader 3, Part 1.

3.1 THE CHARACTERISTICS OF AN ORGANIZATION

This section will introduce you to the key elements of the public propositional
knowledge about organizations, and will outline some ideas that you can use to
help you analyse your own and others' managerial practice. First, I look at the
characteristics of an organization.
Organizations are difficult to define in an all-embracing way, but a number of
generally acknowledged characteristics can be identified. First, organizations have
members. Membership may be voluntary, as in a social club, or compulsory, as in
a professional body, which can revoke a member's licence to practice. In
between is membership as a paid employee. Members accept certain obligations
in the shape of rules and regulations to follow, and there are also informal
expectations - norms - to be observed. A network of relationships develops
between members. Equally, managers should take account of the needs of the
organization's members.
Second, organizations have a purpose, which gives rise to the core task or tasks in
which its members are engaged, and the technology or technologies through
which these are carried out. The purpose may be clearly defined and easily
identified: a social club is created to provide social and leisure activities for its
members, while a trade union defends its members' interests and tries to improve
pay and conditions. Sometimes purposes are hard to state unambiguously: a
national medical association to which all doctors must belong exists to preserve
high standards of professional conduct and expertise, but may also function as a
trade union. Purposes can change: a manufacturing company may change what it
produces when demand for its original product falls away, which may suggest
that its purpose is to survive and make a profit for its owners. Further, managers
have to be aware that while an organization may have publicly stated goals,
these may not be shared by all its members. Employees may join a company in
order to earn money rather than, say, to make motor cars. But although the
precise purpose may be difficult to establish beyond question, it is generally
acknowledged that without a purpose an organization will eventually cease to
exist. Consequently, we can consider that some organizations are effective, in that
they achieve their purpose, while others are not.
Section 3 Understanding educational organizations 29

Organizational purposes are sometimes defined as surviving and gaining

'legitimacy' by conforming to the demands of broader social 'institutions'.
Schools, for example, will run into trouble if their publicly stated goals are at
odds with the prevailing values of 'education'. This institutional model of
organization, which has implications for our analysis of leadership, is taken up at
the start of the next section and so, although it is very important, it is not
developed here.
Third, organizations have to acquire and retain resources. These may come
through members' subscriptions or through exchanging or buying and selling in
market. Resources may be material, or may be members' skills and knowledge.
Skills and knowledge may be donated or have to be bought through salaries and
wages. Without resources, organizations cannot function, and since resources
carry a cost, they can be used more or less efficiently. Consequently, we should
consider organizations in their context, not in isolation.
Fourth, organizations will have some kind of structure which is intended to
ensure that they can deliver the activities needed to fulfil their purposes and
exploit their resources. Structures imply that tasks and responsibilities have to be
allocated, and that resources can be used well or poorly. They also imply that
some members can influence or direct the work of others: that power exists
within organizations and is not necessarily spread evenly among their members.
Last, it is increasingly being recognized that even when organizations are
apparently similar in size, purpose, resourcing and structure, they have
differences. No two schools are identical, for example, even when they have
similar numbers of pupils from similar backgrounds, similar staffing structures
and similar buildings. Over time they build up distinctive cultures - the norms,
values and expectations that shape and influence individuals' actions and identify
what is right and proper in a given situation.
It is easy for one dimension of an organization to dominate our thinking, and
how we judge the competence of its management and its overall effectiveness.
We might focus our attention on its structure at the expense of its purpose, or on
its processes of resource use at the expense of the needs of its members.
and Deal (1991) suggest that the different dimensions of organizations are
'frames', each of which illuminates different elements of organizational activity
but cannot give a comprehensive picture on its own. Their four frames are:
• structural ('structure'), which relates the structure of an organization to
its goals, tasks and content. They argue that an organization's structure
should depend upon what is being done, and where;
• human resource ('members'), which relates the organization to its
workforce. You consider this in detail in Sections 4 and 5 so I only
mention it here;
• political ('purpose' and 'resources'), which acknowledges the competing
and diffuse nature of individual and organizational goals, and examines
the ways in which individuals pursue their own goals within
organizations. It also explores the nature of power relationships
between individuals, and the basis on which people are persuaded to
act;
• symbolic ('culture'), which explores the assumptions, norms and values
through which activities are deemed appropriate, and which give each
organization its distinctive character.
Schools and colleges are clearly complex organizations. They have members, but
not all are equal, nor of the same type. Academic and support staff are
employee-members; school pupils are legally obliged to be members; college
students are volunteers, technically able to leave at any time. They have purposes
that guide the work of the members, but there is rarely consensus about them,
unless they are expressed in fuzzy, general language. Because the organization's
purposes are matters of debate, there is neither a clear core task nor a uniformly
accepted technology through which members' work is carried out. They acquire
30 E838 Effective Leadership and Management in Education

resources, and have to find ways of deploying them to maximum effect, although
this can be difficult since their purposes are uncertain, and they have structures
to assist in this, although their nature and effectiveness are neither uniform nor
clearly assessed.
Just as organizations exist in environments that influence their purpose and their
ability to acquire resources, so their members live in wider social settings. They
are influenced by factors such as their background, education and professional
training. Government policies and political debate can influence the values that
individuals bring to their analysis of the organizational environment, and thence
to the policies that the organizations develop in response. Organizational context
is therefore important, too.

3.2 MACHINES OR ORGANISMS?

Burns and Stalker (1961) distinguish between mechanistic and organic views of
organizations. The mechanistic view underpinned the 'scientific management'
models of Taylor (1911) and (1949) outlined by Bennett in Chapter 5 of
Reader Mechanistic organizations rest upon detailed task specification,
routinized work, uniform procedures and absolute consistency. They are
constructions, which might be overhauled and altered, but cannot develop lives
of their own. Because they are constructed on the principles of mechanical
efficiency, they cannot adapt to changing circumstances. Instead, their managers,
who act towards the workforce as a machine operative acts towards the machine,
must redesign and rebuild them to face the new demands of the changed
environment. Thus the mechanistic view emphasizes the structural and purpose-
related elements of organizations, and judges their effectiveness accordingly. The
organic view, in contrast, sees organizations as made up of human beings who
are engaged in processes rather than tasks. From this perspective, organizations
can adapt and grow through their everyday operations, and not just through
deliberate rebuilding by managers. They are therefore more suited to a changing
or turbulent environment than mechanistic organizations. Further, managers are
engaged in their organizations as members rather than appearing to stand outside
them as operators, as in the mechanistic view. Organic views acknowledge the
importance of organizational members, and consider the effectiveness of
processes as well as outcomes. Sergiovanni (Reader 3, Chapter 21; see Section 7)
suggests we should view organizations as communities.

3.3 THREE BASIC CONCEPTS

I now examine three concepts that will recur continually in the analysis that
follows, and that underpin the rest of this As you go through the section,
consider them critically and try to apply them to the process of analysing your
own organization, and management practice within it. The concepts are:
• the organization as an open system;
• power within organizations;
• organizational culture.

The organization as an open system

The open systems model is the basis of the school and college effectiveness
movements, which emphasize the transformation of inputs into outputs and the
importance of 'value added', by which is meant the extent to which a student's
achievement has improved by more than might have been predicted given their
prior attainment and background factors that affect achievement. The model
emphasizes a number of points.
Section 3 Understanding educational organizations 31

• Resources are important, and are processed by members of the

organization.
• The different elements of an organization, sometimes referred to as its
structure, are always to some extent interrelated and interdependent.
• Organizations are to some extent interdependent.
• Organizations need to be kept in a reasonably stable condition.
• Each part of an organization needs to be kept informed of what is
going on elsewhere that might affect what it does.
• Management is therefore a continuing and dynamic process, not a
question of maintaining a static situation. Organizational structures are
therefore relatively fluid, not fixed and unchanging.

Reading 1
Please read Chapter 2 by Hanna in Reader 3. Note the emphasis on interrelationships
and interdependencies between sections of the organization, and the importance of
processes to maintain the different elements in equilibrium. What messages does this
emphasis provide for the task of management?

The strength of this model, I believe, is its emphasis on the holistic nature of
management. From this perspective, all managers are concerned to ensure that
everything works well together, and that no one set of needs or demands takes
precedence over others to the detriment of the requirements of the whole. As
Hanna presents the model, it also combines individual, group and task-related
concerns. However, it needs detailed development to enable us to put it into
action. So although it alerts us to the dynamic, situated nature of organizations,
we need to look in detail at the processes of dynamic homeostasis, negative
entropy and which Hanna outlines, and explore their particular
characteristics in a given setting.
Some writers have discussed organizations as systems without adopting open
systems theory. Scott (1987), for example, identifies rational, natural and open
systems. A rational system is 'oriented to the pursuit of relatively specific goals'
and exhibits 'a relatively highly formalized' social structure, whereas in a natural
system participants are little affected by the formal structure or official goals but
'share a common interest in the survival of the system and ... engage in collective
activities, informally structured, to secure this end'. In an open system, the
environment's impact reduces the fluidity of organizational structure, but the
organization remains a 'coalition of shifting interest groups that develop goals by
negotiation; the structure of the coalition, its activities, and its outcomes are
strongly influenced by environmental factors' (Scott, 1987, pp. 22-3).
Scott's view of an open system as a 'coalition' is less structured than Hanna's, but
shares the principle that the different elements within the organization -
individuals or subunits such as departments - must maintain a level of harmony
and recognize their interdependence. The question of how this is done is partly
addressed through my second key concept: power.

Power within organizations

Power is a means of explaining how people or forces exercise influence over the
actions of others. Put another way, some members of an organization have more
power than others to shape and determine the nature of action within it. Power
has exercised philosophers and political scientists at least since Aristotle. Is power
the same as influence? When does it become authority? Is its nature affected by
the way in which it is exercised? When is its exercise considered legitimate, and
when not? What considerations affect people's responses to attempts to exercise
influence over them? Can we define the limits of a person's power, or can we
define only the limits of their authority?
32 E838 Effective Leadership and Management in Education

In the next reading, Hales suggests that power is a resource, and its use to prevail
upon someone else to do something is what we mean by influence. Power is
therefore always latent: the basis of action rather than the action itself. Further,
although power is not equally distributed between members of an organization,
no one is entirely powerless, even if we can exercise what power we have only
through non-compliance. The extent to which the use of power resources results
in compliance, and whether this is willing or unwilling, depends on how far the
power resources used are seen as legitimate.

Reading 2
Please read Chapter 3 by Hales in Reader 3. Look carefully at the distinctions he draws
between forms of power resource and their potential use by managers; forms of
compliance; and the circumstances that influence them.

Activity 1
Use the two figures in the chapter to reflect on your recent experience at work. Can
you identify examples of each mode of influence being employed, and your response
to them? Are you deploying power resources or is someone deploying theirs to
influence you? Does the idea of a different kind of power underpinning each attempt at
exercising influence help you to understand why it succeeded or failed?

Organizational culture
Knowledge and normative power resources depend on the knowledge and
norms being acknowledged by those whom you seek to influence. The concept
of organizational culture enables us to investigate this question. It examines the
beliefs and values that guide organizational members when they are participating
in organizational activities, and how these are established, communicated and
influenced. In management literature it is frequently taken to mean, in Bower's
(1966) succinct definition, 'the way we do things around here' - a kind of 'social
glue' (Alvesson, 1995).
Myths, stories and rituals articulate the particular values and beliefs that are
valued by 'the organization'. Managers influence these by telling stories that
demonstrate the values they wish to promote. Thus a new headteacher who
wishes to demonstrate that openness and professional dialogue is to be valued in
the school might start telling stories about having sought advice from people after
handling a difficult classroom situation poorly. However, if the prevailing stories
in the staffroom all focus on successes and avoid admitting to failure or
problems, and all of the headteacher's stories focus on asking for help, staff may
see their head as 'weak' and unable to cope.
This suggests that organizational culture may be more than just 'the way we do
things around here'. It may be a deliberately manipulated set of values by which
management - or another dominant group - 'closes out' undesirable or hostile
values and implants its own set instead (Knights and 1987). Alvesson
(1995, pp. 18-24) identifies ten different metaphors through which the term
'culture' is used in the literature, including the following 'management-related'
metaphors.
• Culture as 'exchange-regulator': a control mechanism to replace the
need for close monitoring of subordinates' work by persuading them
that they believe in what you want them to do.
• Culture as 'compass': certain values are presented as supportive of
achieving organizational goals, while others are barriers to their
achievement.
• Culture as 'sacred cow': when individual or group values restrict
flexibility of thought by providing deeply held, unchallengeable bases
for action.
Section 3 Understanding educational organizations 33

This discussion suggests that organizational culture is primarily an integrative

device, drawing members together through some kind of collective, shared
consciousness or through deliberate managerial activity. But 'social glue' need not
be integrative, and, in the next reading, Meyerson and Martin suggest that an
organization may have a culture of differentiation, where a multiplicity of
different but clearly definable cultural pressures - sometimes called subcultures -
are at work, or even a culture of ambiguity, in which the relationships between
the different cultural elements cannot be discerned with any clarity. Some would
argue that a culture of ambiguity is no culture at all, but Martin (1987) points out
that the fact that an organization has become complex and fragmented does not
mean that it has no culture.
Meyerson and Martin refer to their three kinds of culture as paradigms, which
they define as 'alternative points of view that members and researchers bring to
their experience'. A paradigm is more than just a personal point of view though:
it incorporates a range of concepts and ideas that lead its adherents to
understand phenomena in a particular way and prevent them from recognizing
possible alternative interpretations. Like and Deal (1991), who argue that
each frame provides only a partial realization of the whole picture, Meyerson and
Martin maintain that each paradigm blinds us to important dimensions of reality
that others illuminate. Thus, an analyst looking for an integrative culture is likely
to overlook key elements of the organization that a colleague searching for
ambiguity would notice, and vice versa. Once again, we are concerned with
different ways of seeing a set of phenomena, not right or wrong answers.

Reading 3
Please read Chapter 4 by Meyerson and Martin in Reader 3. Make sure that you have a
good grasp of each cultural paradigm. When you have finished reading the chapter,
look back at the two tables in it. What implications can you identify for you, as a team
leader or manager, of working in each kind of organizational culture? Keep your notes
on this to refer to when working on Section 5.

Individuals are not members of one organization only but of several, and may
have to cope with conflicting organizational cultures. For example, I am a
member of the Open University, various academic associations and the Church of
England. Influences on practice do not occur by osmosis but are transacted
(Archer, 1981). Stories convey messages and values only by being told, and
rituals transmit meaning only by being enacted. Individuals bring a range of
perceptions and loyalties to bear on a particular situation, and the values and
beliefs they bring in from their other cultural memberships interact with and may
conflict with those of colleagues, and with prevailing organizational norms. These
'imports' may relate to prevailing 'institutional' imperatives. Thus the development
of an organizational culture is a constant process, and the culture itself is fluid
even as it appears to be strong and dominant. One way in which this interaction
of multiple influences and perceptions may work is to be found in the next
reading.

Reading 4
Please read Chapter 5 by Bennett in Reader 3. It identifies three elements that could
influence an individual's perception of the relationship between teachers and managers.
After completing the chapter, you might consider how your stance on each element
would affect your response to a school or college in which there is a strong emphasis
on control and direction, and one in which the prevailing expectation is that teachers or
lecturers get on with their work with a minimum of direction.
34 E838 Effective Leadership and Management in Education

3.4 PUTTING THE CONCEPTS TO WORK

The structural discussion of open systems theory, power and culture addresses
different elements of organizational analysis, and it would be easy to focus on
one rather than another. Similarly, mechanistic and organic concepts of
management stress different dimensions of organizational activity. To examine
these ideas in use, I am going to look at some more conventional analysis of
organizations. Since I have not yet paid much attention to issues of structure,
I will start with some writings that emphasize this 'frame'.

The structural frame

Hierarchies
Organizational models that stress structures usually examine organizations as
bureaucracies or hierarchies. Whichever term they use, most models have the
following characteristics.
• They presume a clear logic between an organization's goals and the
actions needed to achieve them. Organizations are therefore believed to
be rational.
• Responsibilities and duties are clearly laid down and distinguished,
producing a highly specialized workforce.
• Decision making is therefore strongly centralized at the most senior
levels of the organization, so that all the disparate specialisms work in
harmony.
• Clear rules of procedure are therefore laid down centrally for the
specialists to follow.
• A hierarchy of staff is established to transmit and enforce these rules.
Since a primary function of more senior posts in the hierarchy is to
supervise the work of less senior postholders, hierarchies are typically
pyramidal in form.
• Clear lines of accountability are drawn between the different levels in
the hierarchy.
• An individual's accountability is as a holder of an office, and to a holder
of another office, and not between individuals.
• Hierarchical structures of differentiated specialists encourage vertical
communication through the system rather than direct horizontal
communication between specialists.
These characteristics, which map comfortably on to Scott's 'rational system',
contain both strengths and weaknesses, and which is which will vary depending
on the circumstances.

Reading 5
Now read Chapter 6 by Fidler in Reader 3. As well as outlining the characteristics of
hierarchies, he explores Mintzberg's concept of a professional bureaucracy. As you
read the chapter, make notes on which of the characteristics listed above are
presented as strengths and which as weaknesses, and relate this discussion to your
own perception of your work organization. What kinds of power and culture are
acknowledged? Again, keep these notes for reference in Section 5.

Hierarchies emphasize the duties of the postholders rather than their personal
and professional needs, and assume that managers influence others through the
exercise of economic and knowledge power, resulting in the danger of alienative
compliance if this is not deemed legitimate. They also assume integrative
cultures, driven and directed by senior management, if they make any reference
Section 3 Understanding educational organizations 35

to this issue at all. Senior management decides the direction of action and polices
what is done. Although many teachers are resistant to this approach (Bennett,
1995; The Open University, 1993a), there is evidence (Glover et al., 1996a, b) that
this model is becoming the preferred official view of school management within
England and Wales, just as it is being challenged in Australia and the USA (Wildy
and Wallace, 1994; Murphy, 1994).

Collegial models
I treat collegiality as a structural model because its fundamental concern is with
how decisions ought to be taken. As you will see, in many ways it equates with
Scott's 'natural system'. The key characteristics of collegiality can be summarized
as follows.
• Employees are autonomous individuals, needing a minimum of rules or
guidance.
• Individuals influence others on the basis of expertise and knowledge
rather than formal position.
• Because they are autonomous, employees have to consent to the
minimum of rules that exist.
• Autonomous individuals share common goals and purposes, which can
be regarded as the goals and purposes of their work organization.
Shared fundamental basic values create a common understanding of
what each person does and their areas of responsibility.
• The ultimate authority for taking decisions rests with each autonomous
individual working as part of a collectivity, and not at some central or
senior point within a hierarchy or network.
• Decisions must therefore be taken by consensus by that collective of
individuals, because only in this way can their commitment to, and
acceptance of, a decision be guaranteed.
• Because each individual is autonomous and working under a minimum
of regulation, the only basis on which decisions can be taken is rational
debate. Collegial organizations are therefore rational organizations.

Reading 6
You should now study Bush's discussion of collegiality as a management theory in
Chapter 7 of Reader 3. Note in particular the key features identified, how the model
interprets goals, structure, environment and leadership, and the idea of 'contrived
collegiality'.

Activity 2
Compare your notes on Readings 5 and 6, and the summary of collegiality that
precedes Reading 6.
• Which model of organization and management best fits existing practice in
your workplace, and which would you prefer?
• How does the role of a manager in a collegial organization differ from that in
a hierarchy?

Structure or non-structure? 'Ambiguity' models

Hierarchies and collegia are approaches to the structuring of decisions and
responsibility. Although they are quite different, they both hold an essentially
rational concept of management and an integrative view of culture, even though
hierarchies tend to the mechanistic view of the organization whilst collegia are
firmly organic. There is, however, an alternative way of looking at organizations
through the structural frame, which denies the rationality on which hierarchical
36 E838 Effective Leadership and Management Education

and collegial structures rest. This is frequently referred to as the 'ambiguity'

perspective. As befits the name, it exists in more than one formulation, but the
models share some common characteristics.
• Educational organizations are non-rational, since we cannot
demonstrate an indisputable relationship between cause and effect -
that is, between what is done ('technology') and the achievement of
goals. Deciding to do X to achieve Y is therefore ultimately our act of
faith.
• Because it is often unclear how the actions of one subunit of a school
or college relate to those of others, it can be difficult to show whether
the activities of each subgroup make up a coherent set of activities for
the organization as a whole.
• Educational goals are subject to debate, and those formally declared for
any educational organization will be rejected by some or all of its staff.
• Staff participation in decision making varies. Some people always get
involved, while others never do. Many participate only when the issue
being decided has direct relevance to their personal work and when it
is important enough to take precedence over other activities.
• The rational model of problem solving, wherein we identify a problem,
search for alternatives and choose the 'best' solution, does not happen
in practice. Instead, a range of problems, possible choices and solutions
exist simultaneously in individual perceptions and both private and
public debate. Which ones get acknowledged and chosen depends on
who is participating in the decision-making process at the time.
• Individuals and groups often have particular goals of their own, and
'pet solutions' that they wish to see implemented. Consequently, the
'solutions' chosen may bear little or no relation to the 'original'
problem.
In spite of the apparent chaos they describe, ambiguity models can recognize
substantial levels of co-operation and co-ordination, placing them within Scott's
natural systems model.

Reading 7
Please read Chapter 8 by Scheerens in Reader 3. Note the difference between the two
main ambiguity models, 'organized anarchies' and 'loosely coupled systems', and how
Scheerens suggests that seeing schools as 'professional bureaucracies' successfully
overcomes the problems identified within loose coupling. Do you think that professional
bureaucracies fit into the ambiguity perspective, or is Fidler right to discuss them in
Chapter 6?

The political frame

My summary of ambiguity models moved away from the principle of consensus
towards a view of organizations as collections of individuals whose values may
not be universally shared and whose personal and ideological goals may be at
odds with those formally expressed on behalf of the organization as a whole.
They therefore acknowledge the possibility of differentiated or ambiguity
cultures, and of conflict. Political models assume conflict to be a normal aspect of
organizational life. They make the following assumptions.
• There is no consensus among an organization's staff over its goals or
ideology. Therefore we must start our organizational analysis with
individual members rather than the organization as a whole.
Section 3 Understanding educational organizations 37

• The distribution of power resources, especially knowledge and

normative resources, is contentious, since the goals and ideology of
the organization are not universally agreed. Staff who favour the
organization's formal goals will tend to acknowledge the influence of
colleagues whose knowledge supports their realization and deny it
to colleagues whose knowledge appears to favour alternative goals.
• Since there is no consensus, individuals pursue individual goals and
seek ways of improving their chances of achieving them. Coalitions of
like-minded staff therefore develop as interest groups, whose activities
form the basis of political activity.
• Because goals are not shared and power resources are not uniformly
recognized as valid by individuals and interest groups, conflict over
what is proper action in any situation is normal.
• Interest groups seek to increase their power resources, especially
normative resources, which are usually seen as legitimate by colleagues,
but also their economic resources, which can increase others'
dependency upon them.
• Interest groups may derive from both formal groupings, such as
departments, and informal groupings, such as staff teaching over many
years in an annexe, or sharing political beliefs. Such groups may be
secure and apparently permanent or temporary alliances for particular
issues. The strongest and most enduring interest groups are those that
are brought together by common ideological and economic bonds.
• Although conflict is normal and accepted behaviour in a political
model, informal rules and norms lay down the limits of acceptable
behaviour in bargaining and negotiation as individuals and groups
pursue their goals.
• Decisions are accepted only to the extent that they are seen as
matching individual interests or open to amendment at a later date.
All decisions should therefore be regarded as temporary truces rather
than final.
This frame, then, assumes that power is the basis of all action, and that
calculative, individual self-interest rather than any kind of overarching
organizational interest governs actions. But political models also make some clear
cultural assumptions. Even though there might be a range of interests, creating
what at first sight appears to be a strongly differentiated culture with powerful
subcultural units, political models actually presume a very strong and coherent
unifying culture, which must underpin, guide and set the boundaries of the
routine and everyday conflict through which decisions get made. In the next
reading, Wallace and Hall have therefore attempted to fuse together the political
and symbolic (cultural) frames of and Deal in order to study the
workings of secondary school senior management teams.

Reading 8
Please read Chapter 9 by Wallace and Hall in Reader 3. Note that in this chapter the
authors use an integrative concept of culture.

Activity 3
Compare Wallace and Hall's analysis of power in Reading 8 with that of Hales
(Reading 2), and their concept of culture with that of Meyerson and Martin (Reading 3).
What would happen to their synthesis if they employed a differentiation or ambiguity
paradigm of culture? Would the political dimension simply be subsumed into the
concept of the organization's culture?
38 E838 Effective Leadership and Management in Education

3.5 MEASURING EFFECTIVENESS

To prepare you for the discussion of 'effectiveness' in Section 6, your last reading
looks at the concept of organizational effectiveness. Scott explores how
effectiveness might be defined and judged, and how differences in criteria for
organizational effectiveness might be explained.

Reading 9
Please read Chapter 10 by Scott in Reader 3. It raises important questions to consider
when assessing effectiveness. What dimensions of performance will you assess? Who
is to judge? On what basis? What kinds of standards should be set, and which
indicators selected? Each question is considered in relation to the concept of
organization adopted and its relationship to its environment.

Activity 4
When you have finished Reading 9, try to apply the principles Scott sets out to your
own place of work.
• How is its effectiveness assessed?
• Using Scott's analysis, how do you think its effectiveness should be
assessed?

3.6 CONCLUSION
This section introduced you to key elements of the public propositional
knowledge concerning organizations, and outlined some central ideas to use in
your analysis of your own and others' managerial practice. The first characteristic
of organizations I identified was their membership, but although I have discussed
the workings of power relations and cultures I have not explored the members/
human resource frame explicitly. Before you go on to develop your
understanding of organizational effectiveness, you must examine the people in
organizations. Sections 4 and 5 do this now.