John Pisapia

The Strategic Thinking Skills of Hong Kong School Leaders: Usage and Effectiveness

The purpose of this study was to identify strategic thinking skills that distinguish effective school leaders in Hong Kong. Three constructs framed the study: strategic thinking skills, organizational-personal characteristics, and school leader effectiveness. This study used a quantitative non-experimental design, and univariate and correlation techniques to identify the relationships between the variables examined. Five hundred and forty-three (543) school leaders participated in the study. The factor structure of the strategic thinking questionnaire (STQ) in the Chinese context was validated. The results confirmed that a link between use of strategic thinking skills and leader effectiveness exists. The strategic thinking skills profile of Hong Kong school leaders is formed around systems thinking; it is the strongest predictor of leader effectiveness. This thinking profile changes depending on role assignment, school type, and environmental complexity. Principals use systems thinking and reframing in tandem. Vice-principals use reframing more often than the other skills. Senior masters use strategic thinking skills significantly less often than principals and vice-principals.

Fostering interdisciplinary research in universities: a case study of leadership, alignment and support

The aim of this paper is to describe actions designed to foster interdisciplinary research efforts at a major university in the UK. The study employed a descriptive mixed method case study approach to collecting and analysing the data used to draw its conclusions. One hundred and twenty-seven academic staff responded to the survey. The results of the survey were verified by 25 interviews with heads of colleges, heads of schools, research coordinators, research team leaders, and team members. These interviews were supported by document review to support the findings. Leadership is important at the college and university levels if interdisciplinarity is to thrive. According to the data, this seems to have not yet occurred at this particular institution. The university has done well with most of the big structures that enrich and support interdisciplinarity. However, ‘small’ structures such as clarity of meaning, motivation of staff, misalignment of old structures, time and workload, and loss of identify have impeded the move to university wide interdisciplinarity. A series of three recommendations are made to move the interdisciplinary project forward: stay clear on focus, extend the benefits of serendipity to more people, and remember that one size does not fit all.

Influence Actions of School Principals in Hong Kong, Mainland China and the United States: A Cross-Cultural Perspective.

The aim of the study was to determine if Chinese school principals use influence actions differently from US principals. The concepts framing this study are leader influence actions, societal and local culture. The analysis was conducted with data from two independent studies conducted in each country using the strategic leadership questionnaire (SLQTM). The data suggest that (1) managing and transforming actions are universal, (2) relationship influence actions (bonding, bridging and bartering) are culturally sensitive and (3) societal values are less important than local values in determining which influence actions principals employ.

The Foundations of Strategic Thinking: Effectual, Strategic, and Causal Reasoning

In this chapter, we dissect the differences between strategic planning and strategic thinking and suggest that traditional methods of planning no longer yield the benefits as in the past. Our analysis lays this failure on the use of a causal reasoning logic that alone no longer benefits organizations. Then we also examine foundational beliefs underpinning strategic thinking by examining the connections among the logic of entrepreneurial, causal, and strategic reasoning. In this analysis we distinguish two binary forms of thinking—causal and effectual—to frame our discussion, and then in the Hegelian tradition we press on to form a higher category of transcendent reconciliation through dialectic synthesis to introduce strategic reasoning. We end by picturing how strategic thinking concepts can form a new organizational change model that supersedes traditional planning. We call this model the strategic thinking protocol, which incorporates the logics of yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

How to Deal with Complaints.

Pisapia proposes a six-phase procedure that en ables principals to systematically deal with com plaints or grievances. With prompt and tactful attention, he feels, many grievance cases can be resolved.

Strategic change in the academy: controlling and/or enabling strategies

ABSTRACT This study describes the strategic change efforts of a university in the United Kingdom which changed its form and resource deployments to focus on the production of interdisciplinary research. A problem-oriented case study method was used to chronicle and analyse the leadership strategies and tactics employed and their consequences. We found that the reliance on a vertical leadership (controlling) strategy led to external legitimization but not internal legitimacy. We also found instances these strategies created unintended consequences which inhibited the strategic change initiative. In particular, horizontal leadership (enabling) strategies that spoke to the academic heartland were muted. We concluded that in universities undertaking major strategic change efforts controlling influence actions may be necessary but they are insufficient to levers of strategic change. The study is particularly important because it contributes to an understanding of strategic change in universities at a time when most such efforts fail to meet their objectives and there is a limited empirical literature to draw upon.

The preparation of cognitively agile principals for turnaround schools: a leadership preparation programme study

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to examine the ability of two educational leadership university programmes to improve the cognitive agility of their graduates. The research looked to discover whether the aspiring principals exited the programmes with an increased ability to employ cognitive agility – the ability to use the multiple thinking skills of systems thinking, reflecting, and reframing – when engaged in their professional work and solving problems. Both Masters programmes were in School Leadership, offered through the same university department and following the same core curriculum leading to Level 1 educational leadership certification. The results indicate that of the two programmes studied, the Principal Rapid Orientation and Preparation in Educational Leadership (PROPEL) programme, designed to prepare leaders for turnaround schools, produced more cognitively agile graduates than the traditional Master’s programme. The mediating variables of participants’ years of experience and budget responsibility increased the level of cognitive agility of both programme’s graduates.

Building Bridges Between Entrepreneurship and Strategic Thinking

In this chapter, we present two bridges linking entrepreneurial and strategic thinking. The first bridge links the research of individual entrepreneurial behavior and strategic thinking skills. We found that systems thinking was the strongest predictor of all three elements of individual entrepreneurial behavior (risk-taking, innovativeness, and proactiveness). The more often the entrepreneurs in our sample used systems thinking, the higher was their predisposition for risk-taking, innovativeness, and proactiveness. Furthermore, all subscales of strategic thinking (systems thinking, reframing, and reflecting) significantly influenced proactiveness. These links enable entrepreneurs to decide how to respond, act, and/or exploit possibilities. The links we found between strategic thinking skills and entrepreneurial behavior were strong enough to recommend that strategic thinking skills should be learned, trained, and practiced by entrepreneurs, leaders, and managers at all levels of the organization. The second bridge positions strategic thinking as a link between the effectual and causal reasoning continuum. The strategic thinking research suggests that strategic thinkers employ cognitive ambidexterity. It suggests that strategic thinkers use strategic reasoning skills in analytical, critical, synthetic, integrative, adaptive, and creative, and innovative thinking to switch back and forth between causal and effectual reasoning and thus are able to gather as much information about situations as possible before acting. We concluded that by linking entrepreneurship and strategic thinking, we gain a clearer understanding of the gap between entrepreneurial thinking and action, as well as strengthening the ability to see and recognize opportunities. The chapter concludes with five propositions to further develop the links between entrepreneurship and strategic thinking.

Administrator Protections in Negotiated Contracts

After analyzing a national sampling of administrator collec tive bargaining agree ments, the authors present here ex amples of provisions contained in those agreements to describe the con cerns of many school administrators today.