Why the leadership of change is especially difficult for Chinese principals

Abstract

Purpose – There is research evidence emerging to show that Chinese principal leadership appears to have a limited effect on the large-scale and deep school changes, but reasons for this have not been well explored. The purpose of this paper is to offer a conceptually framed explanation. By using China as an illustrative case, the authors propose using a macro-institutional framework to examine how principal leadership is mediated institutionally and why the leadership of change is especially difficult for Chinese principals. Design/methodology/approach – In order to facilitate a contextualized understanding, the three institutional pillars developed by Scott's (2001) were used as a macro-institutional framework to explain difficulties confronting principal leadership in China when making deep and sustainable school changes from regulative, normative and cognitive perspectives. Findings – The appeared change inertia and school changes on surface can partially be attributed to the cultural and institutional contexts of Chinese principal leadership. For principals, professional incentives and their change initiatives are institutionally and culturally constrained. Consequently, Chinese principals are left with very limited professional space to focus on making visible and endurable student-centered school changes. Originality/value – This is a first macro-institutional application to address principal leadership of change from the context of China. The regulative, normative and cognitive aspects are analytically useful to differentiate and manifest the institutional complexity and intricacy which are mediating principal leadership impact on school changes. This also illuminates the exploration of context sensitive leadership research to capture context features and understand context-embedded logics.

A Review of Empirical Research on Transformational School Leadership in China (2010–2019)

“…This implies that studies on transformational leadership in Chinese school context are becoming more indigenous. However, leadership should be situated in both institutional and cultural settings (Chen & Ke, 2014), and the role of Chinese principals may be different from the managers in Chinese enterprises and their counterparts in the Western countries. In this sense, TSL may have different patterns of manifestation in Chinese K–12 settings.…”

School leaders’ actions and hybridity when carrying out reform and confronting teachers’ responses: institutional and organisational perspectives

“…Several scholars claim that researchers, mainly in the field of education, neglect some of the theoretical lenses that are used in this paper (see Burch, 2007;Chen & Ke, 2014;Kraatz, 2009;Raffaelli & Glynn, 2015;Washington et al, 2008). This paper attempts to contribute to their call by contextualising the relationship between the concepts of organisations and institutions, mainly the interactive processes taking place between the two.…”

“…The paper has a practical orientation for policy makers and school personnel particularly when implementing reform. At the same time, it contributes to the theoretical arsenal by making use of institutional theories within education (Burch, 2007;Chen & Ke, 2014), adding to their scope. The research questions are as follows:…”

Organizational Change in Elementary School. Does Teacher Commitment Important?

“…Ideologically, technologically and demographically changing society, changing individual needs of children and families are all reflected in the development of curricula regarding personal and social education. Therefore, environmental changes had played an important role in education (Chen & Ke, 2014), In other words, 'change' which is defined as a move from one state to another. (Hargreaves, 2005), is conceptualized as organizational involvement in response to increasing diversity of people, advances in information and communication technology, increased information processing, market competition and government regulations that are changing dynamic and extensive.…”