Thesis--University of Southern California. / Bibliography: leaves 265-287.

Decision making is the essence of an administrator's job. While planning, organizing, staffing, directing, coordinating, reporting and budgeting are the basic traditional "functions" of management, each of these clearly involves decisions---decisions as to which plan to implement, what goals to pursue, and how best to achieve the desirable ends. / Empirical findings support the hypothesized relationship between perceived external environments by individual school administrators and the types of decision-making models they adopted in schools. In particular, the level of perceived constraint from the external environments' 'linguistic orientation' and 'resource policy' greatly influences the types of decision-making models chosen by individual administrators in schools. Furthermore, the pattern of adopting decision models in a perceived less-constrained environment (i.e., demography and resource policy) correlates with the pattern in a perceived highly constrained environment (i.e., social values, funding, and linguistic orientation), except for the environment of 'control'. This suggests that the decision-making experience gained from a less-constrained environment can serve as a reference frame for the highly constrained environment. Supplementary interview data support the validity of the self-reported decision-making questionnaire. / Given the fact that little is known about how issues arising from external constraint affect the administrative decision-making process, this study focuses specifically on their intricate relationships to broaden our understanding on the ever-expanding arena of administrative decision making in a turbulently growing working environment. / In the past, schools were instrumental in maintaining the existing social order, and as such, they were kept in status quo. However, the globalized reform movement has vastly reshaped schools' external environment, compelling the whole education system to undergo radical change as well. In this context, school administrators have to be more proactive to the changing environment to ensure the viability of their schools. / This research investigates the relationship between the perceived external environment by individual school administrators and the decision-making models they adopted in schools. This study adopts the construct of Lam (1985) which delineates the perceived external environment into four domains: political, economic, social, and cultural domains. Factor analysis on local data yielded six external variables, namely, demography, funding, linguistic orientation, social values, control, and resource policy, and these were perceived to exert varying degrees of constraint in the operation of schools. Issues arising from these external variables were identified. The conceptual rationale and procedures of resolving the issues constitute the basis of pinpointing the decision-making models that school administrators adopt. / Law Chan Fai. / "November 2005." / Adviser: Nicholas Sun Keung Pang. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-11, Section: A, page: 4053. / Thesis (Ed.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 200-217). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / School code: 1307.

These qualitative case studies explore the experiences of leaders of local and international secondary schools in Hong Kong. The research questions guiding this study centre on Principal leadership during times of crisis and sought to explore how crisis was managed effectively and how if faced with a similar crisis could be improved. The author was interested in finding a similarity between the participant’s responses and whether external influences may have played a significant part their decision-making. The study also explores the relationship of leadership under crisis communication between Principal and staff and Principal and parents. The primary focus of this research is to understand if there was anything learnt during these crisis experiences among the participants as they relate to leadership development. The analysis of data resulted in the emergence of six primary themes: 1) the impact and extent of effective decision making under crises, 2) the quality of leadership after crisis experience and the ensuing consideration of what leadership means, 3) the role of teachers and administrators throughout the crisis, 4) the experiences related to improved leadership development and 5) correct communication among stakeholders, parents, students and staff. These themes were synthesized into three areas of discussion. First, the experiences and perspectives of the participants offer a unique, first hand, framework for exploring what leadership means in a time of crisis. Second, these same experiences begin to shed new light on the role of Principals in times of crisis. Third, the participants’ reflections on experiences related to leadership development provide a bridge between the ideas related to how leadership is learned and how these experiences become meaningful during times of crisis. The results reflect a need for further qualitative research into Principal crisis leadership as well as the opportunity to further examine the leadership role of educational leaders in crisis situations. / published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

published_or_final_version / Public Administration / Master / Master of Social Sciences

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Florida, 1975. / Description based on print version record. Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

No description available.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1966. / Vita. Typescript. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

M.Ed. (Educational Management) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

Not available / text

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