The Institutionalization of Stewardship: Theory, Propositions, and Insights from Change in the Edmonton Public Schools

Abstract

Prior scholarship on stewardship as a principle of administration largely portrays stewardship as too idealistic and dependent upon situational factors to be institutionalized in large-scale organizations. Through a case study of the Edmonton Public Schools, this study explores the extent to which stewardship can be institutionalized as a central organizing principle, thereby ensuring performance and checking corruption in ways that are consistent with the primacy of intrinsic motivation. The study deepens our understanding of the challenges that managers face in reconciling stewardship with a bureaucratic context, documents practices that have been used to deal with these challenges, and more broadly discusses how it might be possible for islands of stewardship to emerge in a world governed by assumptions of human opportunism. To this end the paper develops a model of the choice that organization members face in deciding to elect a principal-agent or a stewardship posture within large-scale organizations. This model draws on assumptions of human ambivalence in choosing between self-serving and altruistic modes of conduct.

Are Family Firms Good Employers?

“…For instance, our study extends agency and stewardship theory work from its prior focus on managerial compensation (Combs et al, 2010;Gómez-Mejía et al, 2003, 2001, to a wider set of employment practices that apply to the workforce as a whole. In doing so, our study untangles the theoretical mechanisms that explain the respective presence or absence of financial and organizational stewardship and helps resolve some of the ambiguity in the existing literature about the differential impact of agency and stewardship on organizations (Hernandez, 2008(Hernandez, , 2012Segal & Lehrer, 2012).…”

“…The resulting relationship-centered behaviors foster a culture of commitment to the business around which the family can build an enduring relationship with its employees, nurture a sense of responsibility among employees to one another and to the enterprise as a whole. Hernandez (2008Hernandez ( , 2012 and others (Segal & Lehrer, 2012) identify other antecedents, and suggest that shared leadership, ongoing investment in employee development and training, promotion of a long-term perspective, and affective commitment to and psychological ownership of the firm also motivate the emergence and institutionalization of stewardship.…”

Corporate heritage identity stewardship: a corporate marketing perspective

“…th February, 2014 Similarly, within the academic domain of management, stewardship theory has been conceptually discussed as an alternative approach to corporate governance, which is underpinned by particular situational and psychological factors that facilitate stewardship behaviour amongst managers or employees (Davis et al, 1997;Hernandez, 2012) but has not yet provided sufficient empirical evidence of institutionalised forms of management stewardship characteristic for particular types of organisations especially in the private sector (Segal and Lehrer, 2012).…”

“…Furthermore, regional and familyowned companies may have a utility in shedding light on management stewardship in general (Segal and Lehrer, 2012).…”

Reviewing and Theorizing the Unintended Consequences of Performance Management Systems

“…In the literature, a PMS has been broadly defined as a set of management control mechanisms used by executives and employees with the overall purpose of facilitating the delivery of organizational goals by influencing people's behaviour and performance (Broadbent and Laughlin 2009;Ferreira and Otley 2009;Malmi and Brown 2008). (Berry et al 2009;Broadbent and Laughlin 2009;Chenhall 2003;Ferreira and Otley 2009;Franco-Santos et al 2012;Malmi and Brown 2008;Otley 1999Otley , 2016Otley et al 1995 Definition of review questions Scoping study: Argyris (1953), Ridgway (1956), Smith (1995a), Jensen (2003), Mannion and Braithwaite (2012) and Segal and Lehrer (2012 It should be noted that the term 'PMS' 1 is of relatively recent origin and has emerged from a previous stream of literature that discussed what are known as 'management control systems' (Ferreira and Otley 2009;Otley 1999). bonuses) or intrinsic (e.g.…”