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The theoretical and practical significance of the concept of subordinate loyalty to immediate superior is developed, and then, an empirical exploration of administration behavior that best predicts subordinate loyalty to elementary and secondary principals is undertaken. Data were collected from the principals and faculties in eighty public schools. Those characteristics of principal behavior accounting for the greatest explanation of loyalty are Thrust, Consideration, Initiating Structure, and Nonauthoritarianism; however, somewhat contrasting profiles emerge in predicting teacher loyalty in elementary and secondary schools. While Initiating Structure of the principal has high value in the secondary schools, it is Consideration, not Initiating Structure, which is most salient in elementary schools.

The task of changing the organizational climate of a school is only one tiny example of the fundamental issue of permanence and change. This example can only be understood in the light of a broad social and intellectual matrix. Two prime questions are: Under what conditions can the organizational climate be changed? If it can be changed, what approach is most appropriate? There is a great deal that is not known about organizational climate. Research is needed into the development of norms, the control of variables in experimental situations, the effects of size and “human density” and the influence of bureaucracy. Though we may be anxious to change organizational climate, one thing is clear—social change takes place slowly. To force its growth “out of phase” is to invite unanticipated social consequences. If the nature of social change is to be understood the planners, scientists, technologists need to maintain dialogue with each other. We must create in our society an “open” organizational climate that encourages the human dialogue.

In the United States in 1957 a fresh intellectual excitement emerged within the field of educational administration; high hopes were held for the potential contribution of theory‐oriented research. But in retrospect from 1967 the promise of the decade does not appear to have been fulfilled. Vast Federal funding has proven to be only a mixed blessing. An obsessional preoccupation with “change” has diverted efforts away from basic research, has induced intellectual homogenization within the academic community, and has bombarded administrators with so many exigencies that their planning efforts have been increasingly concentrated upon short‐term perspectives, at best. Never before have politics, education and welfare been commingled so incestuously. Four serious concerns that must now be dealt with in our graduate programs are: the mythology of human motivations; the juggernant of “the Technological Society”; the mythology of change; and the impact of existentialism upon modern man.

Research into educational organizations is usually concerned with one of two distinct connotations—investigation into the patterns of deploying teachers and pupils, as in team teaching, or investigations into the nature of the organizations themselves. The latter approach has great promise for providing insights into administrative behaviour. The work of Katz and Kahn, Presthus and Carlson helps to provide such insights. Much attention is now being paid to the initiation of organizational change, especially as it affects the organizational climate. The results of a recent project in this area suggest that administrators who wish to change organizational climate may 1. “Thicken the mix” through freeing communication; 2. Sharpen perception through training in interpersonal awareness; S. Improve output by not tinkering with the statics of the organization.

Too frequently in our discussions, we school administrators show an interest in administration as a “way of doing things” or as a means towards greater efficiency. Unless we become more interested in the theory of administration and in the setting of clearly defined goals, we are likely to find that, whilst more and more administrators show an interest in learning their craft, our schools will suffer as teachers continue to develop an attitude that is more concerned with the maintenance of the institution for its own sake than with the provision of a service to education as a whole.

Organization Development, as widely practiced in schools, is characterised by a diagnosis of organizational problems that is carried out collaboratively by facilitator and client. The design of the Organization Development intervention is presumably based upon this diagnosis. Since Organization Development is a planned, sustained effort to change the organization's culture in significant ways one might expect the diagnostic procedures to utilise systematic techniques for assessing organization culture. Further, these diagnostic techniques should reflect a conceptually unambiguous understanding of the nature of organizational culture and its elements. An enquiry of 83 American Organization Development consultants with experience as facilitators in public schools indicated that only seven reported using one or more of the recognised assessment techniques for which there are published data concerning factor structure, reliability and validity. Others reported utilising various combinations of interviews and paper‐and‐pencil techniques developed for local use. The authors discuss the implications of their findings in terms of Organization Development technology through scientific efforts.

This paper reports on the construct validity of an instrument initially developed to measure five dimensions of morale among Australian teachers. Using factor analysis, the authors confirm earlier findings that this instrument (the Staff Morale Questionnaire) taps only three dimensions—cohesive pride, leadership synergy, and personal challenge. The dimensional structure appears also to be stable across different samples of teachers.

Sound administrative theory and research may ultimately provide the knowledge whereby administrative leaders in education can function most effectively. Such knowledge will never tell us, however, whether it is desirable to take a particular administrative action in any society at any time. Thus, an administrator should understand his personal philosophical foundations and value system, and do his best to construct a philosophical position that is as consistent and logical as possible. Five such positions, reconstructionism, experimentalism, idealism, realism, and existentialism, can serve as guidelines. Each position, whether it is basically progressivistic or essentialistic, has a reasonably distinct approach to the nature of reality, educational aims and objectives, and the educative process. The development of language analysis as philosophy's most important contribution to man is discussed briefly. A self‐evaluation check list has been developed, which may be employed by an administrator to assess his present philosophy of educational administration.

The classical dichotomy between success and failure is hardly applicable in the analysis of organisational behaviour, performance and outcomes in complex social roles, such as those in education. A unique approach has to be developed. Hence, a threefold classification has been pursued here: unequivocal failure, “satisficing”, and unequivocal success. Although viewed as existing along a continuum, they are marked out by failure and success thresholds. Four basic role climates, transpiring from four basic failure‐success configurations, have been identified and analysed: “apathetic”, “frustrating”, “tense”, and “tranquil” role climates, from which preliminary hypotheses of organisational behaviour have been derived. Application of the analytical framework developed here was restricted to the school principal, a complex role, with many components which are characterised by different and often conflicting role climates. Tentative propositions relating to school principal role climates and organisational behaviour were postulated on the basis of this analytical framework.

This paper is devoted to the topic of how mathematics might be more efficiently used in educational administration. The position taken here is that mathematics is a branch of philosophy whose subject matter is a set of abstract entities and identified operational rules. It is a vocabulary of symbols that can be used to label objects and, more importantly, a set of grammatical rules for using the vocabulary. The paper begins with a review of some recent developments reported in the social science literature on the uses of mathematics in political science, sociology and economics, and ends with some illustrations of how these developments could lead to similar applications in both the practice and theory domains of educational administration.