Scholars of transformational leadership literature assert that school-based management teams are a vital component in transforming schools. Many of these works focus heavily on the roles of principals and teachers, ignoring the contribution of Assistant Principals (APs). More attention is now being given to the unique role that Assistant Principals play in school leadership teams (see for example, Muijs & Harris, 2002). While there is a good amount of literature on what APs do in terms of their roles and responsibilities, what remains unclear; is how and why they enact their role in particular ways, especially under the umbrella of urban school reform. This work will address this gap by examining: how Urban High School Assistant Principals come to understand their role as both leader and staff, particularly in the context of transformational models of leadership? Guided by the theoretical framework of middle management, this study utilized a qualitative case study approach to interview seven Assistant Principals in three urban high schools in a large Northeast coast school district. Additionally, a one-time 15 minute interview with the principals and direct reports to the APs was employed to gain a better understanding of the leadership dynamic within the schools. The interviews were transcribed and coded by the researcher using Atlas.Ti. Through the lens of middle management theory, this work focused on a specific group of Assistant Principals working under a distributed leadership model. The findings revealed that the role of the AP is nebulous position that when not appropriately defined can cause professional difficulties that impede the leadership capacity of APs and the growth of school success. As such, stakeholders involved in schooling need to gain a greater understanding of the psychological and sociological underpinnings that impact the functionality of their middle leaders (those not operating in senior level positions). The findings of this work speak to the intricacies of the Assistant Principalship and contribute to a growing body of literature centered on how Assistant Principals navigate their space as leader and staff in an educational setting where leadership is more shared and collaborative. / Urban Education

This qualitative case study examined how Madison High School's governance model generated youth-adult collaborations around school problems. This seven-month intensive study collected data through numerous site observations, semi-structured one-on-one interviews with 27 adults and students, focus group interview with 11 students, and document collection. This data collection answered the following research questions: To what extent does Madison High School include students and faculty into the policy decision-making, implementation, and review process? If so, how? Why is it done this way? How do faculty, students, administration, and staff perceive its impact on improving the school policy creation and implementation process? Student voice scholars are still investigating the ways in which student leadership around school reform can be facilitated (Dempster & Lizzio, 2007; Fielding, 2004; Mitra, 2005; Mitra & Gross, 2009; O'Donoghue, Kirshner & McLaughlin, 2002; Zeldin, McDaniel, Topitzes, & Calvert, 2000; Zeldin, 2004a). And scholars are interested in investigating how participants enact leadership when it is distributed to them (Hallinger & Heck, 1996; Spillane, 2001, 2004). This study found that not only does the school's governance model include students in the policy making, implementation, and review processes, it distributed leadership across the school and aided in organizational learning by designing its structures and processes around constitutional principles. / Educational Leadership

In recent years the failures in the exchange of information between different parts of a highly specialized social services sector has been increasingly criticized. Criticism that has pointed out the dangers of these shortcomings within this highly specialized sector. One main characteristic of specialized social services is that the profession's domain is divided into one or more social service authorities and one or more treatment units. This study aims to show the integrative processes that exist within the specialized social services sector and points out the importance that they have. Further this study will show what factors are influencing these integrative processes. The concept of integrative processes describes in general the interaction between different actors, actors that seek collaboration in order to achieve common goals. The work focuses on integrative processes within a highly specialized social services sector which occur during the initiation and implementation of home-based treatment programs. Programs targeted at children and young people who are no older than 17 years and were carried out by the social services' own treatment resources. The reason for this is the high incidence of integrative processes in this phase of work which therefore enables a comprehensive examination of these interactions. The empirical material in this study is made up partly of documents such as operation plans and semi-standardized research interviews. The analysis of the data is carried out within a theoretical framework consisting of a coupling of the Domain Theory and New Institutionalism Organization Theory. The final discussion points out the factors that reinforce a positive impact on integrative processes and their application in the initiation and evaluation of home-based treatment programs.

The aim of this study was to acquire knowledge about leadership and how an organization that describes to be feminist is organized. This was done by studying how everyday tasks and institutionalised practices interact in the construction of the ”feminist” organization and its leadership. This study is a qualitative case-study based on an exploratory and investigative approach. Data was collected through observation, interviews and document study. The organization used in this study is a political youth organization with a feministic and socialistic agenda. This study is based on social constructionistic ontology and combined structural- and process perspectives on leadership and organization. The analysis was preformed using a theoretical framework comprising new institutional organization theory and a ”doing gender”-perspective.Results show that the studied organization can be described as ”feministic.” The analysis shows that there is a gap between the formal organizational structure and the informal organization. The feministic idea within the organization is mainly present at a discursive level where gender is a central aspect. The leadership within the organization is described by its members as a formal and collective leadership based on an equal leadership ideal. But analysis shows that the described leadership is contradictive. The leadership appears to be a male, gender-based construction at a symbolic level while girls in leading positions are seen as divergent as they are gendered in their leadership. The feministic idea's impact on leadership mainly consists of strengthening, supporting and developing girls as authorities within the organization. Furthermore, this study showed no evidence of a specific ”feminist leadership,” suggesting that a feminist organization does not have to bring a feminist leadership. / Syftet med denna studie har varit att utveckla kunskap om organisering och ledarskap i en organisation som beskriver sig vara feministisk. Det har skett genom att undersöka hur vardagligt görande inom organisationer och institutionaliserade praktiker samverkar i konstruktionen av den ”feministiska” organisationen och dess ledarskap. Studien är en kvalitativ fallstudie utifrån en explorativ och utforskande ansats. Data har samlats in genom observation, intervju och dokumentstudie. Organisationen som har studerats är en feministisk, socialistiskt och politisk ungdomsorganisation. Uppsatsen har utgått från en socialkonstruktionistisk ontologi och ett kombinerat struktur- och processperspektiv på ledarskap och organisering. Analysen har skett med stöd av ett teoretiskt ramverk bestående av nyinstitutionell organisationsteori och ett ”doing gender”-perspektiv.Resultaten visar att den studerade organisationen kan beskrivas som ”feministisk”. Genom analysen har det framkommit att det finns ett glapp mellan den formella organisationsstrukturen och den informella organiseringen. Det yttrar sig genom att den feministiska idén främst framträder på en diskursiv nivå inom organisationen där även kön fått en central position. Ledarskapet beskrivs av organisationens medlemmar som ett formellt och kollektivt ledarskap, vilket utgörs av ett jämställt ledarskapsideal. Men analysen har synliggjort att detta ledarskap innefattar ett flertal motsägelser. Ledarskapet framstår som en manligt könsmärkt konstruktion på en symbolisk nivå inom den studerade organisationen. Tjejer i ledandepositioner får därmed en avvikande position eftersom de könas i sitt ledarskap. Den feministiska idéns inverkan på ledarskapet utgörs främst av att de inom organisationen talar om att stärka, stötta och bygga tjejer som auktoriteter. Ett särskilt ”feministisk ledarskap” har heller inte framträtt i studien, vilket visar på att en feministisk organisering inte nödvändigtvis medför ett feministiskt ledarskap.

A partir d'une étude empirique sur la manière dont les universitaires ont adopté ou non de nouvelles pratiques après la réforme des écoles doctorales en France, ma thèse étudie comment une réforme organisationnelle par le haut peut changer les pratiques de professionnels autonomes. Les pratiques nouvelles ne sont effectivement adoptées que lorsqu'elles font sens par rapport à l'identité professionnelle. Or,celle-ci n'évolue pas en réponse à un pilotage précis des réformateurs,mais à la définition, par les professionnels, de problèmes nouveaux justifiant une modification des manières de faire. Par conséquent, un changement radical (impliquant une évolution de l'identité) ne peut être piloté par le haut, mais seulement favorisé à travers la structure de l'organisation : des interactions régulières entre groupes professionnels,et avec les autres parties prenantes de l'organisation (usagers, citoyens,financeurs) créent un terrain favorable à ce changement. Cette thèse discute la marge de manœuvre des réformateurs dans le contexte des organisations professionnelles publiques, ainsi que les leviers de changement à leur disposition. / Based on an empirical study of how academics did or did not adopt new practices after the reform of doctoral school in France, my PhD thesis studies how a top-down organizational reform can change practices among autonomous professionals. New practices are effectively adopted only when they make sense relatively to extant professional identities. The latter do not evolve in response to a precise steering by the reformers, but to new problems definition by the professionals, leading to new ways of doing. Consequently, a radical change of practice implying an evolution of identity cannot be steered from top-down, but only supported by the organizational structure. Regular contacts between professional groups and with other stakeholders (users, citizens, funders) create a favorable context for such a change. My thesis discusses the possible scope of action for reformers in professional public organizations and the levers of change they might rely on.

Over the past 25 years, health care organization scholars have observed the dramatic emergence of hospital-based clusters in local markets throughout the U.S. These important organizational forms require same-system ownership of multiple general, acute care hospitals operating within a single local market, and as such they include multi-hospital systems that are entirely contained in a single urban market as well as clustered extensions or subsystems of larger regional and national systems. However, despite their noted growth as powerful forces in local markets, relatively few studies have examined these clusters, and as a result there remains a significant gap in our knowledge regarding their continued growth or the diverse components and configurations they may exhibit. This study endeavors to both describe and explain the diversity observed across hospital-based clusters. To fulfill this objective, a national inventory of clusters is updated to reflect cluster membership as of 2012, and a catalog of cluster components – including their hospital-based and non-hospital-based sites – is created, acknowledging that clusters today consist of more than just general, acute care hospitals. Cluster analysis methods are then employed to develop a taxonomy of cluster forms, using a sample of 114 clusters from local markets in Florida, Maryland, Nevada, Texas, Virginia, and Washington. Applying a conceptual framework informed by concepts from contingency theory and strategic management theory, cluster analysis methods yield a five-group solution, which is then externally validated using a multi-theoretical perspective synthesizing arguments from population ecology, institutional theory, industrial organization economics, transaction cost economics, and resource dependence theory. Results from descriptive and multinomial logistic regression analyses identify organizational and environmental factors that are significantly associated with various cluster forms. The study’s results suggest that today’s hospital-based clusters continue to grow and vary according to the dimensions of differentiation-configuration and integration-coordination. These findings provide a foundation for future examinations of hospital-based clusters, including their provision of services within and outside of hospital walls. These results also accentuate the importance of accounting for geographic considerations when examining health care organization forms, and they display the utility and value of employing a multi-theoretical perspective to examine and explain such complex forms.

<p>During the autumn of 2007 I carried out an investigation within the bank and finance Sector. The aim of the investigation was to see how informal aspects could be understood in relation to equality within Bank AB? The main question was: Which are the obstacles and opportunities for equality within Bank AB? To answer the main question I asked the following questions to the material: Are there any gender related different within the organization? How are men and women represented within the internal magazine? Which are the conceptions related to sex/gender within the organization? The investigation is based on a survey, the internal magazine was investigated and finally interviews took place. Throughout the investigation I used organization theory in a gender perspective. With the gender organization theory I examined concepts as structures, leadership, symbolism and changes associated with equality. I also used an organization theory based on changing system/non changing system related to equality work. The analysis shows that obstacles related to equality are: masculinity is the norm and therefore is seen as the prototype, focus is on the imbalance between the sexes, direct and indirect discrimination do exist, a risk with internal recruitment are that positions may re-established and equality is placed on the management and staff department. The opportunities related to equality are: improve from management, quantitative aims can improve and contribute for the minority, equality model that has a management position and finally questioning of existing norms and values in the organization.</p> / <p>Hösten 2007 genomfördes denna jämställdhetsutredning inom bank- och finansbranschen.</p><p>Syftet med utredningen var att belysa hur informella aspekter inom Bank AB kunde förstås i relation till jämställdhet. Den konkreta och övergripande frågeställningen är: Vilka hinder och möjligheter framträder för jämställdhet i Bank AB:s organisation? För att besvara den övergripande frågan ställdes följande frågor till mitt material: Framträder det några skillnader inom organisationen som är relaterade till kön/genus? Hur framställs kvinnor och män i interntidningen? Vilka föreställningar finns om kön/genus i organisationen?</p><p>Utredningen utfördes via enkäter, därefter undersöktes personaltidningen och slutligen genomfördes intervjuer. Teoretisk utgångspunkt är organisationsteori med genusperspektiv uppdelat i begrepp som gäller strukturer, ledarskap, symbolism och förändring. Även teoretiska resonemang om systemförändrande/systembevarande jämställdhetsarbete applicerades på materialet. Resultaten visar på hinder för jämställdhet som: mannen ses som norm och blir därmed ”mallen” för dem som ingår i organisationen, för att uppnå jämställdhet fokuseras det på kvantitativ jämn fördelning av kvinnor och män, direkt och indirekt diskriminering förekommer, innehav av positioner riskerar att återskapas genom internrekrytering och slutligen att jämställdhet är förknippat och förflyttat till ledning och personalavdelning. Möjligheter för jämställdhet framträder som: jämställdhetssträvan är förankrat i ledningen, kvantitativa mål kan bidra till och underlätta för det underrepresenterade könet i relation till jämställdhet, förebild i chefsposition och ett ifrågasättande av rådande normer och värderingar kan medverka till en positiv förändringspotential för organisationen.</p>

Understanding the wide range of outcomes achieved by firms trying to implement TQM and similar process improvement initiatives presents a challenge to management science and organization theory: a few firms reap sustained benefits from their programs, but most efforts fail and are abandoned. A defining feature of such techniques is the reliance on the front-line workforce to do the work of improvement, thus creating the possibility of agency problems; different incentives facing managers and workers. Specifically, successfully improving productivity can lead to lay-offs. The literature provides two opposing theories of how agency interacts with the ability of quality-oriented improvement techniques to dramaticlly increase productivity. The 'Drive Out Fear' school argues that firms must commit to job security, while the 'Drive In Fear' school emphasizes the positive role that insecurity plays in motivating change. In this study a contract theoretic model is developed to analyze the role of agency in process improvement. The main insight of the study is that there are two types of job security, internal and external, that have opposite impacts on the firm's abilty to implement improvement initiatives. The distinction is useful in explaining the results of different case studies and can reconcile the two change theories. / National Science Foundation, grant SBR-9422228, the Ford Motor Company and the Harley-Davidson Motor Company. MIT Sloan School of Management, Center for Innovation in Product Development

During the autumn of 2007 I carried out an investigation within the bank and finance Sector. The aim of the investigation was to see how informal aspects could be understood in relation to equality within Bank AB? The main question was: Which are the obstacles and opportunities for equality within Bank AB? To answer the main question I asked the following questions to the material: Are there any gender related different within the organization? How are men and women represented within the internal magazine? Which are the conceptions related to sex/gender within the organization? The investigation is based on a survey, the internal magazine was investigated and finally interviews took place. Throughout the investigation I used organization theory in a gender perspective. With the gender organization theory I examined concepts as structures, leadership, symbolism and changes associated with equality. I also used an organization theory based on changing system/non changing system related to equality work. The analysis shows that obstacles related to equality are: masculinity is the norm and therefore is seen as the prototype, focus is on the imbalance between the sexes, direct and indirect discrimination do exist, a risk with internal recruitment are that positions may re-established and equality is placed on the management and staff department. The opportunities related to equality are: improve from management, quantitative aims can improve and contribute for the minority, equality model that has a management position and finally questioning of existing norms and values in the organization. / Hösten 2007 genomfördes denna jämställdhetsutredning inom bank- och finansbranschen. Syftet med utredningen var att belysa hur informella aspekter inom Bank AB kunde förstås i relation till jämställdhet. Den konkreta och övergripande frågeställningen är: Vilka hinder och möjligheter framträder för jämställdhet i Bank AB:s organisation? För att besvara den övergripande frågan ställdes följande frågor till mitt material: Framträder det några skillnader inom organisationen som är relaterade till kön/genus? Hur framställs kvinnor och män i interntidningen? Vilka föreställningar finns om kön/genus i organisationen? Utredningen utfördes via enkäter, därefter undersöktes personaltidningen och slutligen genomfördes intervjuer. Teoretisk utgångspunkt är organisationsteori med genusperspektiv uppdelat i begrepp som gäller strukturer, ledarskap, symbolism och förändring. Även teoretiska resonemang om systemförändrande/systembevarande jämställdhetsarbete applicerades på materialet. Resultaten visar på hinder för jämställdhet som: mannen ses som norm och blir därmed ”mallen” för dem som ingår i organisationen, för att uppnå jämställdhet fokuseras det på kvantitativ jämn fördelning av kvinnor och män, direkt och indirekt diskriminering förekommer, innehav av positioner riskerar att återskapas genom internrekrytering och slutligen att jämställdhet är förknippat och förflyttat till ledning och personalavdelning. Möjligheter för jämställdhet framträder som: jämställdhetssträvan är förankrat i ledningen, kvantitativa mål kan bidra till och underlätta för det underrepresenterade könet i relation till jämställdhet, förebild i chefsposition och ett ifrågasättande av rådande normer och värderingar kan medverka till en positiv förändringspotential för organisationen.

This thesis traces the history of organization from the society of Ancient Athens, through the medieval Church, the Industrial Age, and the 20th century – the latter characterized by the Bureaucratic, Administratively controlled, and Hierarchical (BAH) organization – until today’s contemporary reality of Ubiquitous Connectivity and Pervasive Proximity (UCaPP). Organizations are rarely, if ever, entirely BAH or entirely UCaPP, but do tend to have tendencies and behaviours that are more consistent with either end of a spectrum delineated by this duality. Valence Theory defines organization as being an emergent entity whose members (individuals or organizations) are connected via two or more of five valence (meaning uniting, bonding, interacting, reacting, combining) relationships. Each of these relationships – Economic, Socio-psychological, Identity, Knowledge, and Ecological – has a fungible (mercantile or tradable) aspect, and a ba-aspect that creates a space-and-place of common, tacit understanding of self-identification-in-relation, mutual sense of purpose, and volition to action. Organizations with more-BAH tendencies will emphasize the fungible valence forms, and primarily tend towards Economic valence dominance; more-UCaPP organizations tend to emphasize ba-valence forms, and are more balanced among the relative valence strengths. The empirical research investigates five organizations spanning the spectrum from über-BAH to archetypal UCaPP and discovers how BAH-organizations replace the complexity of human dynamics in social systems with the complication of machine-analogous procedures that enable structural interdependence, individual responsibility, and leader accountability. In contrast, UCaPP-organizations encourage and enable processes of continual emergence by valuing and promoting complex interactions in an environment of individual autonomy and agency, collective responsibility, and mutual accountability. The consequential differences in how each type of organization operates manifest as the methods through which organizations accommodate change, coordination, evaluation, impetus, power dynamics, sense-making, and view of people. Particular attention is paid to the respective natures of leadership, and effecting organizational transformation from one type to the other. Set in counterpoint against Zen-like, artistically constructed conversations with a thought-provoking interior sensei, the thesis offers a new foundational model of organization for the current cultural epoch that enables people to assume their responsibility in creating relationships and perceiving effects in the context of a UCaPP world.