Yin Cheong Cheng

Profiles of Organizational Culture and Effective Schools

ABSTRACT This study intends to investigate how school organizational culture is related to important organizational characteristics and observe how the profiles of strong culture‐effective schools are different from those of weak culture‐ineffective schools in terms of organizational variables (such as principals leadership, organizational structure, and teachers’ social interactions), teachers’ job attitudes, and school effectiveness criteria. It is a cross‐sectional survey research involving 54 randomly sampled Hong Kong secondary schools and 588 teachers. The unit of analysis is the school. Organizational ideology index was found to be substantially correlated with schools’ perceived organizational effectiveness. Among the 10 measures of these organizational variables, teachers’ esprit and principals charismatic leadership can contribute substantially to the prediction of schools strength of organizational culture. The organizational profile of perceived strong culture‐effective schools is contrasti...

Principal's Leadership as a Critical Factor for School Performance: Evidence from Multi‐Levels of Primary Schools 1

ABSTRACT This study aims to investigate how principals leadership is related to school performance in terms of multi‐level indicators such as schools organizational characteristics, teachers’ gro...

Hong Kong educational reforms in the last decade: reform syndrome and new developments

Purpose – This paper aims to analyse the reform syndrome, bottle‐neck effects and their impacts on teachers and school education in the last ten years and highlight the direction of new developments.Design/methodology/approach – The paper examines educational reforms in Hong Kong in the last decade.Findings – Echoing the international trends of educational reforms, Hong Kong, as an international city, has initiated a series of educational reforms in the past decades. The experiences of educational reforms in Hong Kong may provide a good case for understanding the dynamics of educational reforms and drawing theoretical and practical implications for research, policy formulation and implementation not only in Hong Kong but also in other international communities.Originality/value – From the analysis of the reform syndrome, particularly the bottle‐neck effect, there should be seven key aspects for policy‐makers, educators and stakeholders in Hong Kong to address the emergent key issues in educational reforms...

Perceptions of women principals’ leadership and teachers’ work attitudes

Investigates the relationship between perceptions of women principals’ leadership (in terms of sex‐role orientation and leadership functions) and teachers’ work attitudes (in terms of sense of efficacy, sense of community and sense of professional interest) by controlling teachers’ personal demographics in a sample of teachers under the administration of women principals in secondary schools. Gives the results of Pearson and canonical correlation analyses, which indicated that, according to teachers’ perceptions, among the measures of perceived women principals’ leadership, human leadership, political leadership, symbolic leadership, structural leadership, educational leadership, androgynous orientation and undifferentiated orientation (negatively) were strong predictors of a teacher’s work attitudes. The findings of this study support the advocacy of the five leadership dimensions and androgynous orientation in women principals’ leadership. Advances implications for further study and practice.

Teacher Leadership Style: A Classroom‐level Study

Borrowing the ideas from the theories of adult organizations, investigates how teacher leadership style is related to use of power, social climate, student‐affective performance in a sample of 678 classrooms in 190 Hong Kong primary schools. Finds that class teacher′s leadership and use of power are interrelated in process of leading a class of students. Leadership style was found to be strongly related to social climate and student‐affective performance. The leadership style of “high initiating structure and high consideration” should be preferable and effective in terms of nearly all of the climate and affective measures. The findings support the importance of balanced leadership style not only in adults organizations, but also in classrooms. The profiles of the four leadership styles provide a useful pattern for developing teacher leadership as well as classroom environment for better students′ outcomes. The findings support the possibility of generalization of the concepts of organization and manageme...

The Theory and Characteristics of School‐based Management

Aims to develop the conception and theory of school‐based management and map its characteristics of school functioning for facilitating the ongoing discussion and effort for school management reforms in local or international contexts. School‐based management employs theories of “equifinality” and “decentralization”, assumes that “school is a self‐managing system” and regards “initiative of human factor” and “improvement of internal process” as important. When compared with externally‐controlled schools, the characteristics of school‐based managing schools are very different in school functioning. They should have clear school mission and strong organizational culture. In these schools, managing strategies should encourage participation and give full play to members′ initiative; there should also be considerable autonomy of procuring and using resources to solve problems in time; the role of people concerned should be active and developmental; human relationship is open, co‐operative with mutual commitmen...

Total teacher effectiveness: new conception and improvement

Based on the traditional conception of teacher effectiveness, proposes three strategies for improving it: short‐term, long‐term and dynamic strategies. Argues that the dynamic strategy is preferable, but that all of them have strong limitations because they ignore the complexity of teacher effectiveness and narrow the concept to the individual teacher, particularly in a classroom context. Proposes a new conceptual framework of total teacher effectiveness, whereby the total quality of the teacher competence layer contributes to the total quality of the teacher performance layer and the latter contributes to the total quality of the student learning experience layer and then to the quality of the student learning outcomes layer. Explains that the framework suggests a holistic approach to improving teacher effectiveness with the emphasis on the improvement of whole layers of teacher competence and performance instead of fragmentary improvement of teaching behaviour. Advises that in order to ensure total layer quality and maximize teacher effectiveness, a congruence development cycle should be established within the teacher layers to ensure congruence and pursue total teacher effectiveness. Suggests that the proposed conceptual framework can provide a new direction for studying and improving teacher effectiveness in particular and school effectiveness in general.

The Changing Context of School Leadership: Implications for Paradigm Shift

The context of school leadership has been rapidly changing in the past three decades, particularly reflected in numerous past and ongoing educational reforms and school restructuring movements not only in the Western countries such as Canada, USA, and UK, but also in the Asia-Pacific regions such as Australia, New Zealand, Mainland China, Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong (Cheng & Townsend, 2000; Chapman, Sackney, & Aspin; 1999; Fullan, 1998; Lieberman, 1998). The search for effective schools, the shift to school-based management, the emphasis on development planning in schools, education quality assurance, the implementation of new curriculum programs and the application of information technology in education are examples of efforts in these reform movements (Caldwell & Hayward, 1998; Cheng, 1996a, b; Cheng, 1999a; Cheng & Townsend, 2000; MacGilchrist, et al., 1995; Murphy & Beek, 1995; Stringfield, Ross, & Smith, 1997).

Fostering local knowledge and human development in globalization of education

Since there are increasing international concerns with both the positive and negative impacts of globalization on indigenous and national development, how to manage the realities and practices of globalization and localization in education for maximizing the benefits and minimizing the disadvantages for the development of individuals and their local community inevitably becomes a key issue in educational development particularly in the developing countries. Proposes a typology of multiple theories of fostering local knowledge and human development to address this key concern. These theories have varied emphasis on global dependence and local orientation and therefore they have their own characteristics, strengths, and limitations. The typology can provide a wide spectrum of alternatives for policy‐makers and educators to conceptualize and formulate their strategies and practices in developing local education. Also presents how to facilitate individual learning and organizational learning in fast‐changing local and global environments and how to foster both individual knowledge and institutional knowledge in schools as the major contribution to the growth of local knowledge and local development. It is hoped that the theories and ideas raised in this paper can benefit the ongoing international efforts for globalization and localization in education for the future of our next generations in the new millennium.

Development of a regional education hub: the case of Hong Kong

Purpose – This paper aims to review and analyze the functions, strategies and related issues of developing a regional education hub in the trends of education development in China as well as the Asian Pacific region.Design/methodology/approach – Taking Hong Kong as an emerging case, it examines through literature and international comparison the relationship between education hub development and higher education development as well as the strategic functions of an education hub to the future development of Hong Kong.Findings – The development of an education hub was found closely linked to the demand for higher education in the Asian Pacific region as well as the internal dynamic of higher education and society in Hong Kong. The mode of education hub development in Hong Kong should be driven by soft‐power building instead of industrialization. The requirements for successful implementation include the huge demands for higher education in the region, the strengths of the higher education sector, the suppor...