Pascale Benoliel

The Role of Leader Boundary Activities in Enhancing Interdisciplinary Team Effectiveness

This study examined how leaders’ internal and external activities mediate the relationship of functional heterogeneity and interteam goal interdependence to team effectiveness (in-role performance and innovation) in interdisciplinary teams. The results of the structural equation model from a sample of 92 interdisciplinary teams indicate that leaders’ internal activities fully mediate the relationship of team functional heterogeneity and interteam goal interdependence to team in-role performance. The leaders’ external activities were found to fully mediate the relationship of interteam goal interdependence to team innovation. We discuss the implications of these findings for both theory and practice.

The health and performance effects of participative leadership: Exploring the moderating role of the Big Five personality dimensions

An extensive body of research acknowledges that participative leadership offers a variety of potential benefits, particularly for workers’ mental health and job performance; however, the work intensification, added challenge, and responsibility required may actually be harmful to some employees, creating more pressure engendering psychological strain. Taking a contingency approach and based on the Conservation of Resources theory, the study suggests that participative leadership may yield different results depending on employees’ personality traits from the Big Five typology. The proposed model aimed to investigate the moderating role of the Big Five traits on the participative leadership–inrole performance relationship and on the participative leadership–psychological strain relationship. In a study of 153 employees and their managers, hierarchical regression analyses showed that the personality dimensions of extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism served as moderators in the relation between participative leadership and employee inrole performance and psychological strain. Openness to experience was not found to moderate those relations. This study points to the necessity of including personality factors when considering the impact of participative leadership on employee outcomes.

The implications of the school’s cultural attributes in the relationships between participative leadership and teacher job satisfaction and burnout

Purpose As a result of continuous reforms, increased emphasis has been placed on participative leadership as a means to improving school and teacher outcomes. However, along with the benefits of participative leadership comes the potential for strain and burnout that stem from work intensification. Applying the Implicit Leadership Theory and the Conservation of Resources Theory, we propose that differences in school cultural attributes will influence the emergence of participative leaders and their influence on teachers’ outcomes of job satisfaction and burnout. Design/methodology/approach Data was collected by survey from a sample of 367 teachers in Israel. Findings First, the results of General Linear Model analysis indicated significant differences in the teachers’ perceptions of participative leadership between schools characterized by different cultural attributes. Second, the results of GLM indicated significant differences between the effects of participative leadership on teacher burnout across sc...

Functional heterogeneity and senior management team effectiveness

Purpose – There has been an increasing trend toward the creation of senior management teams (SMTs) which are characterized by a high degree of functional heterogeneity. Although such teams may create better linkages to information, along with the benefits of functional heterogeneity comes the potential for conflicts that stem from the value differences among subcultures in an organization. These conflicts can adversely affect performance. The purpose of this paper is to examine how school leaders’ activities mediate the relationship of SMT functional heterogeneity to SMT effectiveness (in-role performance and innovation). Design/methodology/approach – Data, which were obtained through a survey, was collected from a sample of 92 schools in Israel. Data were collected from two sources (principals and SMT members) to minimize problems associated with same source and common method bias. Data were aggregated at the team level of analysis. Findings – The results of structural equation model indicated that princ...

Teamwork doubting and doubting teamwork

Teams of teachers and administrators have become more and more common as a framework for improving responsiveness to the ever more dynamic educational environment. Although teamwork is often expected to broaden the team’s collective knowledge base, consequently improving team effectiveness, research shows that this potential effectiveness is not always reached. The article seeks to explore the concept of collective doubting – the inquiry into routine and habitual perceptions and assumptions – and its importance to the teamwork processes, a topic that has been vastly under-investigated in the educational context. Specifically, we propose that collective doubting in the teamwork process has a dynamic nature, and that the doubting process should be carefully considered in the context of different stages in team development. Our goal is to increase both theoretical and practical knowledge about the process of collective doubt in such a way as to facilitate team effectiveness. We further seek to delineate the internal and external activities in which principals can engage to promote a constructive doubting process in the team context. Implications for principals, as well as for further avenues of research, are suggested.

Understanding OECD representations of teachers and teaching: a visual discourse analysis of covers in OECD documents

ABSTRACT OECD dominance in the international educational policy discourse in the developed regions of the world, particularly in promoting teaching policy, has been long acknowledged. While many works have explored the organisation’s verbal discourse, no study has considered exploring its visual discourse. To close that gap, we employed a visual discourse analysis on the covers of OECD documents pertaining to teachers and teaching (i.e., TALIS and ISTP). The analysis found that OECD’s covers drew on two discourses, a conservative discourse and a liberal diversity discourse. However, the latter was entangled with constructions which serve to maintain a conservative order.

Marketing teacher quality: critical discourse analysis of OECD documents on effective teaching and TALIS

ABSTRACT This study uses critical discourse analysis (CDA) to examine Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) texts on teacher quality and the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) framework. Specifically, it explores the forewords of documents written by OECD leaders, which we believe are charged with meanings related to the Global Education Reform Movement (GERM) discourse. We suggest that CDA of the texts sheds light on the manner in which OECD leaders attempt to gain normative control in the teacher quality discourse. Based on Fairclough’s three-dimensional framework for studying discourse, our analysis shows that the OECD (a) uses a discourse of fear to market teacher quality in light of global changes, implicitly framing teachers as ‘bad teachers’; (b) advocates reliance on the organization as a protector and (c) promises a remedy by regulating teachers in the name of effectiveness and the knowledge economy. The study offers a nuanced insight into OECD efforts to promote normative control in the teacher quality discourse, using three dimensions of discourse (i.e. the textual micro linguistic dimension, the meso-interdiscursive dimension, and the macro sociocultural dimension) that help gain ideational powers.

Promoting the school learning processes: principals as learning boundary spanners

Purpose The ongoing challenge to sustain school learning and improvement requires schools to explore new ways, and at the same time exploit previous experience. The purpose of this paper is to attempt to expand the knowledge of mechanisms that can facilitate school learning processes by proposing boundary activities and learning mechanisms in which principals can engage to promote learning processes. Design/methodology/approach The authors refer to Bourdieu’s theoretical approach that human actions occur within fields of interaction. The authors delineate principals’ internal and external boundary activities as mechanisms for promoting school learning processes while acknowledging that principals are embedded within competing fields, encompassing demands from the economic, political, and even global fields. The authors discuss how the principal boundary activities can not only facilitate the exploitation of knowledge embedded in the school system, but also the exploration of external knowledge across multiple fields of interaction. The authors then present the principal learning mechanisms as complementary activities to school learning improvement. Findings Promoting school learning processes may require constant management of the school learning boundary so that the school neither becomes isolated from its environment nor loses its capacity for knowledge integration and exploitation. The boundary activities, combined with learning mechanisms, can enable the principal to balance these competing demands. Originality/value The organizational learning processes of exploration and exploitation have been under-investigated in the educational context, as to the role of the principal in balancing the tension between these processes. This study conceptualizes boundary activities and learning mechanisms, suggesting a framework through which principals can engage to promote school learning.

There is no “T” in school improvement: the missing team perspective

Purpose The concept of teams tends to be marginalized in the scholarly discussion of school improvement. The purpose of this paper is to argue that teams play a crucial role in promoting an holistic integration of school operation necessary to support school change. Specifically, the paper outlines the dynamic of effective teams at times of school improvement. Design/methodology/approach The paper presents the concept of teams, elaborates on their central function as a “coupling mechanism,” and describes the reciprocal relations between teams and school change. Findings The paper emphasizes the reciprocal effects of teams and change, suggesting that teams can serve as key change agents in school restructuring processes, specifically when balancing between “coping” and “pushing” forces. Based on the model, effective team leadership and effective school leadership at times of school change are introduced. Practical implications are discussed for school leaders. Originality/value The integration of the concept of teams into the school improvement discourse might assist school leaders to develop processes and procedures that will enable both school teams and schools to react more effectively in times of change and restructuring.

Is It Personal? Teacher's Personality and the Principal's Role in Professional Learning Communities.

Research results have provided evidence of the potential contribution that professional learning communities (PLCs) can make to enhance school outcomes. While numerous organizational and cultural aspects of schools have been recognized as key requirements for PLC success, researchers have noted that a teacher’s ability to share knowledge in the context of school learning interactions requires certain skills. Our goal is to extend the theoretical understanding and practical implications of individual factors that may support and/or constrain PLC development. Specifically, we discuss teachers’ personality traits from the big five typology, namely, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience, as a possible explanation for differences in motivation toward social interactions, knowledge sharing, and the general position of the individual teacher in the PLC network. We also address the principal’s role in promoting the process of knowledge sharing and social relationships in PLCs. Practical implications for school members and principals are suggested.