Nicholas Sun-Keung Pang

School values and teachers’ feelings: a LISREL model

Based on a sample of 101 teachers from 14 aided secondary schools in Hong Kong, a survey was conducted in March‐April 1994 to collect data about organizational values in schools and teachers’ feelings. Two new instruments, the “School values inventory” and the “Teachers’ feelings questionnaire”, were developed for this study. Using LISREL computer program to analyse the data, builds a linear structural equation model of school values and teachers’ feelings. The result is a LISREL model of school values and teachers’ feelings which indicates that cultural linkage in schools promotes teachers’ feelings of commitment, job satisfaction, sense of community and order and discipline, whereas bureaucratic linkage undermines such feelings. Implies that school principals should resort more to cultural linkages as the strategies to bind people together and to give people meaning in their work.

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.

The binding forces that hold school organizations together

As part of a major study, an attempt was made to examine the organizational values of secondary schools in Hong Kong with a self‐constructed, standardised instrument, the School Values Inventory. Values are chosen, because organizations are not only theory‐laden, but are also value‐laden and the sharing of organizational values are the binding forces that hold an organization together. Using LISREL confirmatory factor analytic modelling techniques and based on a sample of 554 teachers from 44 secondary schools in Hong Kong, a four‐factor model of organizational values was developed. The model which, precisely and concisely, concludes binding forces in Hong Kong schools as bureaucratic linkage, cultural linkage, tight coupling, and loose coupling provides an insight to understand school administration and organizational cultures.

Binding Forces and Teachers' School Life: A Recursive Model.

Attempts were made to formulate a theoretical framework of binding forces in school organizations and to examine their effects on teachers’ feelings about school life. After a series of tests with factor analyses, 4 major scales of organizational binding forces were confirmed, that is, bureaucratic linkage, cultural linkage, tight coupling, and loose coupling. An implication of the study is that school administrators should make full use of the 4 binding forces to bind people together in schools and resort more to cultural linkage, loose coupling, and tight coupling to enhance school effectiveness and to give people meanings in their work.

Investigating the development of professional learning communities: compare schools in Shanghai and Southwest China

Abstract This quantitative study investigated and compared the development of professional learning communities in schools located in two Chinese cities, namely, Shanghai and Mianyang. The two cities have significant differences in terms of educational, economic, social, and cultural development. While Shanghai is a directly controlled municipality in East China, Mianyang is a city of Sichuan Province in Southwest China. Based on the literature review and an analysis of the Chinese context, the authors developed a questionnaire to explore and compare the professional learning community (PLC) practices of schools in the two cities. Findings show that schools in Mianyang had more PLCs practices than those sampled schools in Shanghai, in terms of collaborative learning and facilitative leadership. Such differences could be explained by the educational, economic, social, and cultural differences between the two cities. Practical implications for school development in both Shanghai and Mianyang as well as suggestions for future research are provided.

Educational reforms and the practices of professional learning community in Hong Kong primary schools

Abstract This study explored the characteristics of professional learning communities (PLCs) in Hong Kong primary schools. It investigated the profiles of the strengths of professional learning community in schools under study and particularly examined the practices in schools which were identified as strong PLCs. It extends research on PLCs in the Hong Kong context and formulates a quantitative perspective to compare and validate PLC variables across schools in Hong Kong. The Professional Learning Community Questionnaire (PLCQ) for Hong Kong schools was developed to assess the PLC practices in six different areas: leadership for teacher learning, collaborative learning capacity, student-focused orientation, a culture of sharing, mutual understanding and support, and continuous professional development. A composite construct, the Professional Learning Community Index (PLCI) expressed in quantitative terms was utilized to assess the strength of PLC in a school. The research findings show that within the schools which were identified as strong professional learning communities, both the school leaders and teachers had strong emphases on the six subscales of the PLC practices.

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.

Professional learning communities: Research and practices across six educational systems in the Asia-Pacific region

The world is changing at seemingly breakneck speed. Many nations around the world are undertaking wide-ranging reforms of curriculum, instruction, and assessment to prepare students for increasingly complex demands of life and work and develop the ability to compete effectively in a knowledge-based economy. Teachers are the single biggest in-school influence on student achievement and teacher quality is therefore central to improving education systems around the world. This challenge grows ever more acute as the demands on education systems become more ambitious – to prepare all students with the knowledge, skills, and dispositions for success in an increasingly globalized and digital world (Asia Society, 2012). We live in a globalizing world where organizations are faced with an evolving new era fuelled by unrestrained, accelerated expansion of ideas, technology, competition, culture, and democracy, all captured under the banner of “globalization” (Pang, 2006). The main characteristic of this world is quicksilver – a world of fluidity – sometimes fickleness – where sudden and unpredictable change can occur (Pisapia, 2009). This uncertainty creates a web of tensions that challenge organizational leaders to meet new demands in the face of international, national, and local constraints. Because the main bases of globalization are knowledge intensive information and innovation, globalization has profound impacts on education (Carnoy, 2002). Educational systems across the globe are now under pressure to produce individuals prepared for global competition and individuals who can themselves compete for their own positions in the global context (Daun & Strömqvist, 2011). Globalization has brought a paradigm shift in educational management, administration, and governance in many countries (Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business International, 2011). The search for evidence to develop high quality education systems continues to intensify as national economies seek to compete globally in the twenty-first century. Under this circumstance, school education systems have to respond to the challenges and transform in a changing world. In recent years, as the role of education in driving economic and social development grows ever more apparent, international benchmarking of educational best practices has become an increasingly valuable tool for policymaking (Stewart, 2012). The supranational organizations including the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) come to play an increasingly important role within the global education policy field through a so called “globalizing empiricism”. In a global economy, success is no longer measured against national standards alone, but against the best-performing and most rapidly improving education systems. More and more countries are starting to look outward and utilize reference societies and international benchmarks, such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), and Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), as levers to increase their competitiveness in the global knowledge economies (Sellar & Lingard, 2013). More countries and education systems are looking beyond their own borders for evidence of the most successful and efficient educational policies and practices (OECD, 2013). The connections among nations at multiple levels and dimensions are unprecedented. Hence, there is much to learn through critical and comparative perspectives on school transformation in different socio-cultural contexts.

How Higher Education Systems in Asia-Pacific Respond to the Challenges Posed by Globalization

The potential effects of globalization on education are many and far-reaching due to education’s scale and nature. This chapter aims to investigate how globalization has been affecting higher education and how higher education has been responding to the challenges that have arisen from globalization. It first outlines what is meant by globalization, the impacts on education, and principal changes which have come about. More specifically, there are reviews of development of higher education in the Asia-Pacific region and how higher education in mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Singapore and Vietnam have been responding to globalization. When educational systems in the Asia-Pacific region are open to globalization, their traditional cultures and values of collectivism, humanism, self-cultivation, trust, compassion, grace, and honesty in educational governance, administration, management and leadership have changed into those neo-liberal values of contract, market, choice, competition, efficiency, flexibility, managerialism, and accountability.

The Organizational Values of Gimnazija in Slovenia

This article assesses the organizational values of gimnazija in Slovenia and examines the factors that contribute to the building of quality management. The theoretical framework is built on Schein’s model of levels of culture, Sathe’s interpretation of organizational culture and Getzels and Guba’s model of organizational behaviour. Based on the data collected from a sample of 289 teachers from 23 gimnazija randomly selected in Slovenia, a 58-item instrument, the school values inventory (SVI), was developed. If school administrators are to build quality management in gimnazija, they should decentralize school management to the level of the teacher and emphasize rationality, participation, collaboration, collegiality, goal orientation, communication, consensus, professional orientation and teacher autonomy in their daily managerial practices