‘Al Faza’a’ leadership: An implicit cultural barrier to distributed leadership in Jordanian public schools

Abstract

In 2003, the Jordanian government launched an ‘education reform for knowledge economy’ leadership programme in Jordanian public schools. The programme transformed school leadership structures by advocating patterns of distributed leadership. However, growing evidence in cross-cultural research shows the influence of local culture on implementation of foreign reform programmes. This paper aims to examine a culture-bound leadership practice during the implementation of the education reform for knowledge economy programme and the tensions it holds to the intent of distributed leadership. This leadership practice was identified by Jordanian school principals who participated in qualitative research to examine factors affecting the implementation of the education reform for knowledge economy programme. The research employed a grounded theory methodology for data collection and analysis. Principals termed this leadership practice ‘al faza’a’ leadership which is anchored in al faza’a social practice of Jordanian tribes. Findings demonstrate that Jordanian tribal leadership styles are seen in Jordanian public schools. ‘Al faza’a’ hegemonic leadership practices in the Jordanian public schools signify the embodiment of the tribal social and cultural values of solidarity and kinship. These values can be incongruent with the core values underlying the education reform for knowledge economy’s advocated distributed leadership programme. This paper concludes that ‘al faza’a’ practice can represent an implicit leadership theory in Jordanian schools.

Resistance behaviour among Indonesian academics experiencing policy change on international peer-review publication

“…In most organisations, including academic organisations, dispositional resistance to change has often been used to measure employees' inclination to accept or resist change (Arciniega and Maldonado, 2011; Oreg, 2006). Dispositional resistance to change reveals the tendencies of academic employees who seek routine and predictable, procedural, monotonous jobs while avoiding dynamic jobs (Oreg, 2018; Hashem, 2020). Dispositional resistance has also been used to determine academic employees' tendencies to resist changing the way they do their jobs, specifically, their tendencies to seek innovative jobs or conservative and conventional jobs (Arciniega and Maldonado, 2011).…”

“…Lack of trust due to management's incapability to adopt change affects employee resistance. For example, employees who see their university fail to implement a support system (Smith, 2010) or leaders who provide poor role models for change implementation (Colman, 2021; Hashem, 2020) tend to resist new policies. Management's inability to see the future clearly (myopia) and poor decisions on the part of management also have an effect on resistance (del Val and Martínez Fuentes, 2003; Sato, 2015).…”

“…Whilst previous studies represent substantial contributions to the international literature on educational management, some research gaps remain. Firstly, some studies focus only on discovering resistance triggers such as political triggers (Colman, 2021) and leadership culture (Hashem, 2020). The extant research provides limited evidence regarding resistance behaviour at the individual level, for instance, investigating employee attitudes.…”

“…Colman (2021) discussed the micropolitics of resistance to the hyper-enactment of policy in schools in deprived areas in the UK. Hashem (2020) found structural resistance on the part of school leadership based on a deep-rooted leadership culture in the Jordanian educational system. Dunn (2018) reported resistance to school privatisation as indicated by teacher turnover in the USA.…”

“…Secondly, most previous studies on resistance include a section on the source of resistance. Gearin (2017) and Hashem (2020) identified leadership and systemic academic change as sources of resistance. Earlier research has also highlighted other antecedents.…”