Organizational Theory in Education, April 16, 2015

Journal of Organizational Theory in Education, April 16, 2015. Volume 1, Number 1. 9

Organizational Theory: Around the Block Again? Moving Forward? Or Both?

KAREN SEASHORE LOUIS COLLEGE OF EDUCATION AND HUMAN SERVICES - UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA

Abstract: Tracing organizational theory (OT) early framings (Perrow, 1970) to more recent applications in schools, this essay suggests organizational change may be a productive central focus for future OT thinking. Positing that organizations exist so that mutually agreed upon outcomes may be generated; it is argued that discovering how learning occurs within school organizations has the potential to increase understanding concerning the outcomes of work in school organizations. The work concludes with a call for the field to move beyond the development of a theory of school organization to a focus on theorizing around the core issues that school leaders face in order to provide direction toward achieving valued outcomes.

Louis, K. (2015). Organizational theory: Around the block again? Moving forward? Or both? Journal of Organizational Theory in Education 1(1). Retrieved from www.organizationaltheoryineducation.com.

In the Beginning... behavior and sociological studies of bureaucracy.

Most sociologists point to Max Weber’s description of During these early years, however, the study of the basic functions and structures of a bureaucracy as schools as organizations was quite limited. Education as a the invention of organizational theory (Weber, 1968). research field was dominated by psychologists and a Others credit the Functions of the Executive, which laid focus on child development well beyond the nascence out a social psychological theory of the structures and of OT. Although a few articles that reflected the in- behaviors that would induce people to cooperate to creasing interest in organizational structures appeared achieve a goal set by formal supervisors (Barnard, in major educational journals starting in the mid- 1968). Political scientists and economists entered the 1950s, much of the focus was on the increasing reor- organizational theory scene as they began to value ganization of school districts rather than theorizing studies of public administration as well as electoral schools (or school districts) as organizations. The bodies (Boulding, 1952; Smithburg, 1951), while eth- Educational Administration Quarterly, founded in 1961, nographers jumped on the new bandwagon with de- was created to provide a better niche for investiga- scriptive studies such as Dynamics of Bureaucracy and tions of school organization, but like all new journals Patterns of Industrial Bureaucracy (Blau, 1955; Gouldner, took some time to become established. During the 1954). The Administrative Science Quarterly (arguably the time when I was in graduate school (late 1960s and premier journal publishing empirical organizational early 1970s), organizational theory was a core feature theory research) was launched in 1956, which suggests of the sociology curriculum, but its application to that the middle of the last century was a turning point schools and educational organizations was still limited. for the development of a “field” of organizational theory that was distinguished from a slightly longer tradi -tion of research around administrative and employee

Journal of Organizational Theory in Education, April 16, 2015. Volume 1, Number 1. 10 Fragmentation in Organizational Theory (1993) adopted a human relations/social psychological perspective. Still others used an institutional frame- Although OT’s history is relatively brief, it has been work that looked at commonalities in “real theoretically fragmented from its earliest days, as al- school” (Rowan & Miskel, 1999)or the common ternatives to Weber’s focus on bureaucracy and struc- “grammar of schooling “ (Tyack & Tobin, 1994). At ture emerged. Some saw changes in OT as evolution- the same time, additional theoretical perspectives on ary. Perrow (1970), for example, identified four de- school organization began to emerge that would gain velopment strands (classical management theory, hu- increasing traction in educational OT, although having man relations, neo-Weberian, institutional theory), a less impact in the OT field more broadly: (1) school view that privileged a particular structural perspective. effectiveness research (Teddlie & Reynolds, 2000), and Another sociologist, Richard Scott, adopted a compati- (2) critical theory, including post-modernism (Maxcy, ble framework in 1981, but labeled the different phases 1995)1 and critical race theory, which examines the or- “rational” “natural” and “open systems” theories (Scott, ganizational residues of past injustice (Tate, 1997).2 1968). Simplicity amid Complexity Other disciplines contributed divergent perspectives that didn’t fit neatly into an evolutionary frame- The proliferation of different organizational theory par- work. Smircich (1983) proposed a cultural perspective adigms in educational research has had less impact on on organizations, while Pfeffer (1981) argued equally published research, where limited sets of frameworks strongly for a perspective that focused on power. Para- are apparent. First, sociological perspectives, both digm diversity rather than easy consensus became the quantitative and qualitative, continue to dominate over norm. By the 1990s, Morgan’s popular Images of Organi- those contributed by other disciplines (law, anthropolo- zation (1991), shaped the teaching of organizational the- gy, social psychology). This is not surprising, because it ory along with Bolman and Deal’s (2003) “frame analy- reflects the general state of organization theory as re- sis,” which identified four dominant paradigms in OT: flected in journals such as Organization Science, Adminis- human relations, structural, political, and symbolic. trative Science Quarterly, or the Academy of Management Perhaps because Bolman and Deal’s text was so acces- journals. Within this general framework, priority is giv- sible (and was initially developed while teaching a class en to: at the Harvard Graduate School of Education), the “let a thousand flowers bloom” perspective quickly domi-  School or department as the unit of analysis; nated introductory courses to OT in many departments of educational leadership and administration. It would  Questions such as "Why is the school organized the be difficult not to agree with Pfeffer’s (1993) observa- way it is?" and "What are the effects of school or- tion that “In general, the field of organizational studies ganization on [student performance, change, etc.]?” is characterized by a fairly low level of paradigm development, particularly as compared to some adjacent  Structure and /or climate/culture as the focus of study social sciences such as psychology, economics, and even political science” (p. 607). These priorities are apparent not only in research that is implicitly or explicitly functionalist in perspec- In sum, within 40 years the new-ish field of OT had tive, but also in investigations that adopt a critical per- splintered, and the application of this theory to educa- spective. For example, even challenges to an old- tion became equally fraught. Any hopes that a unifying school rational model of school behavior, such as theory of how schools could be better organized col- Weick's (1976) classic article on loose coupling, were lapsed: Even a cursory examination of publications predominantly functionalist in their assumption that from the 1980s and early 1990s in highly regarded edu- organizational goals are best met by structures that do cation journals or books that purported to deal with the not look like a "classical Weberian bureaucracy" but are intersection of OT and schooling reveals that some fo- modified webs or networks. The notion that hierarchy cused on politics (Bacharach, Bamberger, & Sharon, is being replaced by networked organizations persists as 1990; Barnett, 1984), others on structure (Rowan, a theme in studies of both schools and other kinds of Raudenbush, & Kang, 1991; Tyler, 1985). Some em- organizations, but the questions associated with net- phasized the importance of culture and/or norms worked analyses typically focus on questions that are (Cheng, 1993), while others, like Hoy & Woolfolk related to the functionalist assumptions indicated

Journal of Organizational Theory in Education, April 16, 2015. Volume 1, Number 1. 11 above. To give just one example, the accumulating However, this is still largely an empty cell in OT: a work on networked schools and districts has focused JSTOR search for the intersection between on the relationship between network structures inside “organizational theory” and “critical theory” found organizational units and information use/change (Daly fewer than 100 published articles. & Finnigan, 2011; Finnigan & Daly, 2012). While the assumptions about structure are different, the underly- In education, a “humanistic” argument that focusing question (relationship between structure and out- es on human and community needs has been a part of come) are classic, and have been incorporated into criti- conversations for some time (Beck, 1994; Noddings, cal organizational perspectives on race and class in U.S. 1992; Passow, 1954), but has not had a deep impact schools (Diamond, 2006; Oakes, 1985). on organization theory. Murphy and Torre (2014) bring the issue back into the conversation but are fo- The dominant models in educational have been cused more on praxis than on organization theory. serviceable, adaptable and have produced a lot of good Organization theory has, in general, failed to include a research, as well as quite a few "useful" findings. For community needs or communitarian perspective, alt- example, the extensive implementation research studies hough it points to a needed value dimension to the conducted in the 70s and early 80s have deeply affected study of organizations that are inherently value-laden the structures and programs that educators attend to and cultural artifacts (Morrill, 2008). However, neither when they design and put innovations into place. To- community nor culture has provided a basis for build- day, investigations of professional community and com- ing a radically new organizational theory—community munities of practice (along with other work on adult and culture address some of the value goals of educa- cultures within schools) have shifted the attention of tion, but not all. A value-based organizational theory administrators away from the “hygiene” conditions of needs to incorporate some attention to competing de- teachers’ work to considerations about how structures mands for different kinds of goal attainment (a public foster social and professional support, while research values approach) that so vividly differentiate the educa- on school cultures has resulted in extensive professional tional sector from many others. Community and cul- development programs that are designed to sensitize ture as metaphors for a theory do not facilitate action to educators to institutional racism. address these demands.

Organizational Theory: So, If It Ain’t Finally, a significant challenge, perhaps best exem- Broke, Why Fix It? plified by the work of Margaret Wheatley (1992, 1996), suggests that OT should be recast around a basis of Even though the structural-functional perspective dom- chaos theory. The core paradigm for organizational inates, its limitations are also apparent in the empirical research that has dominated education "works" in set- research that has emerged over the last several decades tings where rates of expected change are moderate. – much of which has made use of the multiplicity of However, it does not necessarily apply in situations paradigms in ways that do not pose an overt challenge where the demands for change are unremitting and de- as much as a nagging sense of inconsistency. manding of "third order change.” Drawing attention to uncertainty builds on micro-political and “garbage can" Critical theory, although often conducted within a theories that argue that schools work/don't work be- structural functional framework, provides an explicit cause of their non-rational character and the competing challenge to the assumptions that (1) we can find good demands and interests mentioned above. While I enjoy models to explain the sources of “the Gap” (or other reading this work, it has had very limited impact on OT. indicators in inequality), which means that (2) we can Most micro-political work ignores large-scale uncertain- find the mechanisms (structures and programs) to re- ty (preferring a focus on power regimes rather than cha- dress them. Instead, it is argued that racism (or other os and power vacuums), and the applications of the assumptions about class or gender) is so deeply embed- “garbage can” to OT have been relatively minimal, ex- ded in our institutions that they require more than cept in the analysis of internal organizational dynamics. tweaking structural and cultural components that can be Thus, in spite of their popularity, we have limited em- easily identified. A critical theory perspective may re- pirical evidence of their utility in an increasingly uncer- quire looking at the socio-political context differently, tain world. In addition, they ignore values for the most concentrating (for example) on ideology, technology, part (and thus do not address the above challenge); and and praxis in new ways (Steffy & Grimes, 1986). they provide a limited basis for quasi-rational action, except the mild assertions that the accumulation of a-

Journal of Organizational Theory in Education, April 16, 2015. Volume 1, Number 1. 12 rational, self-interested behaviors will be positive (or at Slouching Toward a New Path: least non-detrimental) in the long run. Can OT Be Energized Through a Learning Perspective? 3 A Central Problem and Question for OT The organizational learning frameworks that are popu- Although these challenges are real, I suggest that their lar in both education and business do not provide a so- primary importance is because they draw our attention lution, but suggest some new directions that respond to to the matter of organizational purpose or outcomes. these challenges. Further, focusing on learning and As organizational theorists, we may or may not be com- change can easily incorporate the value and non- fortable with the current focus on measureable student rationality challenges discussed above. Because organi- achievement as the determinant of organizational value. zational learning maintains some features of the "old However, we generally accept that OT exists because paradigm" (a sociological underpinning and emphasis organizations are expected to DO something (typically on school structure and culture) it is likely to be an ac- something that produces social value for some group, ceptable alternative that generates both theorizing and whether legitimate or not) and that what they do will research-to-practice work. generate some CONSEQUENCES. In addition, because we work in an applied field, we hope that what While there are many definitions of organizational we know about organizational doing (and its conse- learning, I like a simple focus on the creation of socially quences) have some practical usefulness. In that sense, constructed interpretations of facts and ideas that enter there is very little traction for a truly post-positivist OT the organization from both the external environment or theory either in the existing literature or on the horizon, are generated within. This definition includes several although a focus on organization action can promote a assumptions: renewed concern with the humanistic and moral side of group work (Harmon & White, 1989).  Adults learn most deeply in their organizational- practice and not in classes or by reading; The central organizational problem for schools is that no matter how educators try to change (only occa-  Learning is a process of forging individual identity sionally based on good research), the global outcomes within an organization/community; don’t appear to improve very much. Schools, more than perhaps any other social institution, are a living  Information gains meaning only within a socially example of “the more things change, the more they stay constructed setting; and the same.”

 Learning and changing are in a dynamic causal rela- Thus, I argue that the central organizational prob- tionship. (Argyris & Schön, 1978; Schön, 1983) lem of education today is change, and that any emer- gent OT in education must take this as its central focus. In order to become a serious contributor to OT, an This is obviously no simple task, and it must respond to organizational learning perspective must contribute to the (now) classic observation that changing schools is addressing what I have identified as the central problem not as easy as contrasting top-down versus bottom up, of identifying DOING and CONSEQUENCES, as nor is it sufficient to increase the complexity and uncer- well as the application of that knowledge in practice tainty of roles and structures, which disrupt traditional (Pettigrew, Woodman, & Cameron, 2001). cultures (distributed leadership, etc.). Railing against neo-liberal policies is popular, but doesn’t actually in- Accumulating research evidence suggests that fo- crease our capacity to understand why systems respond cusing on how information is turned into commonly in different ways to the same stimulus (Louis & van held knowledge that is actionable means thinking about Velzen, 2012). how people work with each other to change. First, in order to create any basis for collective action (whether determined by individual choice or by a plan), there needs to be shared knowledge that contributes to the reshaping and transformation of schooling (Hage, 1999; Simsek & Louis, 1994). Second, whether formally identified or explicit, members of the school community

Journal of Organizational Theory in Education, April 16, 2015. Volume 1, Number 1. 13 must recognize the cognitive understanding and skills that they can access (which is often referred to as absorptive capacity) (Lewin, Massini, & Peeters, 2011; Zahra & George, 2002) . Third, the implicit idea of learning presumes an evolving knowledge base -- ac- quired through random, incremental and more intellec- tual action. Finally, knowledge acquisition behavior will differentiate more effective from less effective teams in schools and other organizations [using broad and multi- ple measures of effectiveness] (Higgins, Weiner, & Young, 2012; Yli-Renko, Autio, & Sapienza, 2001).

But creating patterns of doing that change organizational consequences is not an easy task, even in cutting edge, high tech firms. In schools, which are not organized to be nimble, the challenges are greater. Most schools lack an informal inventory of knowledge and skills, which limits a school's ability to use new ideas Memory intelligently. Schools invest little in research and development (typically hoping to find magic bullets in pur- Memory acts as an essential feature of school culture. chased solutions) and staff development is generally Positive memories from previous learning situations are weak. These characteristics limit the absorptive capaci- attached to current situations. The memories enhance ty of school to take in and use new ideas. Even with change efforts while negative memories, when jointly the recent emphasis on professional learning communi- held by many members of the school organization, act ties, the experience of members in building shared un- as barriers to new learning efforts (Huber, 1991). The derstandings and a subsequent shared knowledge base absence of memory can inhibit change (for example, in is limited and infrequent. Thus, schools change all the schools with very high turnover of teachers, administra- time and most teachers are highly adaptive in their tors and/or students) (Higgins et al., 2012). Without an classrooms, but the changes don’t add up to collective adequate base of experience from which to draw, teach- learning and improvement. ers can be reticent to begin new learning activities. De- veloping memory is a cultural endeavor, typically linked The available empirically based theory to support with story-telling, consultation, and informal exchanges, the development of a focus on learning and change as a particularly with members who have access to the or- place where fragmented elements of OT could find ganizational history (Rusaw, 2004). common ground is in the earliest stages. Sharon Kruse and I have laid out a simple framework for beginning to Knowledge Base think about organizational learning in schools that points to features of both culture and structure that are A knowledge base includes individually held knowledge: important, thus providing links between a new focus of Teachers, through both pre-service and in-service expe- OT on change and improvement and the dominant riences, enter schools equipped with disparate founda- models (S.D. Kruse & Louis, 2009). tions of information related to content and pedagogy. Such individually held knowledge is often difficult for colleagues to access and utilize. It also includes knowledge and vocabulary generated by school-based analysis: The results of self-study efforts can generate commonly-held knowledge about the purposes and goals of schooling that, in turn, can provide a common vocabulary that fosters continued organizational learning process. Schools also search for knowledge, and react to information that is gained by organized search efforts: When school personnel collectively engage in systemat- ic searches for new information to improve perfor-

Journal of Organizational Theory in Education, April 16, 2015. Volume 1, Number 1. 14 mance, knowledge is generated that both further de- to attend to values and to incorporate critical perspec- fines the problem and suggests alternative actions. tives, including attention both to iatrogenic features of Schools may also be provided with information (data) that school cultures, as well as non-rational or a-rational be- becomes grist for interpreting what is known. Alt- haviors of schools and school systems. In addition, or- hough a great deal of emphasis has been placed on for- ganizational learning focuses our attention on aspects of mal data-driven decision making in schools in recent OT that make us relevant to practitioners and policy years, attention to all four kinds of knowledge develop- makers: how schools change and improve. No one ment is important in considering how schools (and dis- who is attached to the big sociological categories of tricts or systems) determine what they do (Nonaka & structure and culture needs to exit or complain of being Georg von, 2009). left out. Even some of the key questions can be familiar -- for example, why are schools organized the way they Information Distribution and Interpretation are, and what is the impact of that organization? Or, how can schools organize to become more responsive Data warehouses may add to the capacity of states and to information and more able to act on it? Finally the districts to provide knowledge from different sources to learning framework points to obvious questions about schools. However, this knowledge will be useless until effects of learning and change on students, teachers, etc. it stimulates new understandings. This means that it The units of analysis can be flexible: We can theorize must be shared and incorporated with other sources of about organizational systems (districts), individual internal and external knowledge. Sharing should not be schools or school types, or even organizational subunits taken for granted, particularly in an age of information (departments, grade levels, etc.). overload. Natural sharing systems in most organizations mean that some people and groups are infor- So, what needs to change? First, organization mation rich, while others are out of the loop, and being theory must be attentive to knowledge/learning, or- out of the loop also means weak learning processes ganizational DOING and the CONSEQUENCES of (Daly & Finnigan, 2011). Beyond simple sharing, doing. This is not a new focus, but it draws our atten- schools need protocols to ensure that information is tion more clearly to the dynamics of organizational processed and interpreted. Information is not neutral, structure and culture, and to a more interpretive per- but lands in or is generated by a specific context, where spective. If we focus on doing, we need to understand it will be processed through individual and collective not only how people behave as they do, but why. We belief structures, frames of reference and organization- also need to understand how they think about their be- ally based social constructions, the cues and feedback havior (as well as the behavior of others). This does not related to organizational symbols and shared under- imply a singular methodology, but it does have implica- standings, or the process of unlearning old, now re- tions for how we conceptualize the basic units of school placed, practices and beliefs (Argote & Miron-Spektor, organization. In addition, a focus on organizational 2011). Because knowledge and “data” in education learning demands more serious attention to conse- (even student achievement data) are usually ambiguous quences. Organizational learning both causes and is a and contestable, the cultural norms about information result of behaviors, but also stimulates teachers, admin- processes are particularly critical (Mahler, 1997). istrators, and pupils to adapt. It is an inherently non- mechanistic perspective that privileges local understand- Reflections on Evolutionary Change in ings, culture and patterns that are present in so much Organizational Theory educational research, but that have been less clearly integrated into OT. One reason to support a focus on organizational learning is that it does not require throwing out what we have In sum, I propose a modest and temporary middle learned about what makes some schools more adaptive ground between comprehensive classifications that inte- and potentially effective, while others remain grates competing or alternative paradigms and celebra- “stuck.” (Rosenholtz, 1991). For example, we know tions of the thousand blooming flowers that we see in that decentralization/shared decision-making is associat- the field. Rather than A THEORY, we need to work ed with both learning and traditional measures of school on creating some common assumptions that help us to effectiveness, as are communication structures, support- THEORIZE core issues facing schools as organiza- ive leadership, stability, and “information richness.” As tions, while helping those who work in and around an adaptive framework, organizational learning allows us them to acquire navigational tools to chart a course in

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17 Zahra, S. A., & George, G. (2002). Absorptive capacity: A review, reconceptualization, and extension. The Academy of Management Review, 27(2), 185-203. doi: 10.2307/4134351

1Post-modernism has had very limited traction in general organizational theory. For example, an article on post-modernist theory in one of the most highly ranked journals (Academy of Management Review) by two well-regarded scholars received only one citation since its publication (Calás & Smircich, 1999).

2Note that critical race theory did not enter the educational research field with any force until Tate’s 1997 review.

3This section draws heavily on work that I have done over many years with Sharon D. Kruse. Some of our conversations have turned into publications in which pieces of these ideas appear (S.D Kruse, 2001; S.D. Kruse & Louis, 1997, 2009); others are influenced by her work, but not co-authored (Louis, 2006, 2010).

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