Search results
1 – 10 of over 5000Tanja Hautala, Jaakko Helander and Vesa Korhonen
The purpose of this paper is to review and synthesize the attributes of loose and tight coupling in educational organizations. In addition, it is aimed to determine whether this…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to review and synthesize the attributes of loose and tight coupling in educational organizations. In addition, it is aimed to determine whether this phenomenon has value and strategies to offer for the current educational administration and research.
Design/methodology/approach
Integrative literature review and content analysis, assisted by Atlas.ti software, were used as the methods of this paper. Review data included 32 articles from peer reviewed journals.
Findings
Conceptual framework of continuum of organizational couplings in educational organizations was generated. Elements of the framework include the features of coupling concepts within the continuum, components of couplings, contributory types of organizational couplings and the elements of leadership and change process with emerging strategies, as well as the element of cultural context. In this paper, elements of continuum of couplings and leadership will be emphasized.
Practical implications
Findings have practical implications for the management and leadership in educational organizations, and for the researchers in the field for future research purposes.
Social implications
Findings have social implications for both teaching staff and administration in educational organizations, by highlighting the attributes of loose and tight coupling, and their connections with leadership, change process and cultural context.
Originality/value
The paper presents a distinctive synopsis of the educational administration literature, in the context of loose and tight coupling, with the time span of four decades.
Details
Keywords
Shows how methodological choices are not theoretically neutral. Draws attention to ways in which different analyses of the same data may affect inferences about teachers’ policy…
Abstract
Shows how methodological choices are not theoretically neutral. Draws attention to ways in which different analyses of the same data may affect inferences about teachers’ policy coupling in school systems. In this case study of the Jerusalem school system the authors used three statistical procedures to assess teachers’ perceived policy alignment among three organizational levels (teachers; schools; and the Israel Ministry of Education (IMOE)). Analyses using descriptive statistics show that the perceived policies at the three levels are similar, thus giving some support to the theory of tight coupling. Smallest Space Analysis shows that there are close connections between the teachers’ own policies and those they impute to schools, but not those they impute to the IMOE. These findings support a moderate view of organizational coupling. Finally, variance component analyses find almost no consensus in schools regarding policies. In contrast to the other approaches, these models support a loose coupling hypothesis. In overview, shows how methodological choices affect the support given to rival theoretical hypotheses. Suggests that theoretical looseness with regard to explicit falsification conditions is at the root of contrasting evidence about teacher coupling in school systems.
Mari Elken and Martina Vukasovic
The term “loose coupling” has been widely employed in higher education research. Building partly on the “garbage can model” of decision-making, it proposed an alternative to…
Abstract
The term “loose coupling” has been widely employed in higher education research. Building partly on the “garbage can model” of decision-making, it proposed an alternative to rational and linear views on organizing and governing, emphasizing instead ambiguity and complexity. The review of higher education research literature presented in this chapter demonstrates that the concept of loose coupling has frequently been used as a background concept, often taken for-granted either as a point of departure for studies of organizational processes in higher education or as a diagnosis of the complexity of higher education organization that inhibits implementation of reforms. This chapter provides systematization and critical examination of how the term “loose coupling”/“loosely coupled systems” has been employed in journal articles focusing on higher education in the last 40 years. It presents a broad mapping of 209 articles and a more detailed qualitative review of 22 articles, which employed loose coupling as more than a background concept.
Details
Keywords
Connie S. Logan, Chad D. Ellett and Joseph W. Licata
Explores the relationships between teacher perceptions of thestructural coupling in their schools and their perceptions of schoolrobustness and effectiveness in a research study…
Abstract
Explores the relationships between teacher perceptions of the structural coupling in their schools and their perceptions of school robustness and effectiveness in a research study of 73 participating schools. Pearson product‐moment correlations of mean scores from each school produced significant relationships, suggesting that teacher perceptions of relatively tight coupling of goal direction/vision and work supervision structures, and relatively loose coupling of manipulative control structures, are associated with their positive perceptions of school robustness and effectiveness as well as student achievement and attendance.
Details
Keywords
Stefano Brusoni and Andrea Prencipe
This chapter adopts a problem-solving perspective to analyze the competitive dynamics of innovation ecosystems. We argue that features such as uncertainty, complexity, and…
Abstract
This chapter adopts a problem-solving perspective to analyze the competitive dynamics of innovation ecosystems. We argue that features such as uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity, entail different knowledge requirements which explain the varying abilities of focal firms to coordinate the ecosystem and benefit from the activities of their suppliers, complementors, and users. We develop an analytical framework to interpret various instances of coupling patterns and identify four archetypical types of innovation ecosystems.
Details
Keywords
Matias Laine, Janne T. Järvinen, Timo Hyvönen and Hannele Kantola
Voluntary corporate social responsibility reporting has developed into an everyday activity for many commercial organizations, and scholarly interest in these practices continues…
Abstract
Purpose
Voluntary corporate social responsibility reporting has developed into an everyday activity for many commercial organizations, and scholarly interest in these practices continues to increase. This paper focusses on one subset of these disclosures, namely the figures relating to environmental expenditures and investments published by various organizations. The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into the nature, role and significance of such financial environmental information. Despite their seeming accuracy and preciseness, little is known about how such financial environmental information is constructed and subsequently used in organizational settings.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is based on a qualitative case study focussing on a Finnish energy company. The authors build the investigation primarily on 26 semi-structured interviews with employees at all organizational levels, which the authors supplement with various documentary sources. The interpretation draws on the notion of loose coupling, which the authors use as a method theory to provide a better understanding of this complex organizational practice.
Findings
The authors highlight the ambiguous and imprecise nature of the outwardly accurate figures provided by the company. The authors argue that disclosed financial environmental information is only loosely coupled with various dimensions, including the organization’s actual activities, its environmental impacts and organizational decision making.
Originality/value
The findings contrast with those of some prior research, which has considered financial environmental information highly valuable. As for broader implications, the paper discusses the accuracy of public records based on such ambiguous organizational figures.
Details
Keywords
Ivo Pontes Domingues and José Cunha Machado
The purpose of this paper is to examine the recursive perspective that emphasizes bureaucracy as a source of officers’ stress, explain officers’ stress as a loosely coupled…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the recursive perspective that emphasizes bureaucracy as a source of officers’ stress, explain officers’ stress as a loosely coupled effect, examine the positive effects of loose coupling and legitimize the necessity of improving context management as a stress-reduction factor.
Design/methodology/approach
The research methodology uses a quantitative perspective; the members of two police forces constituted the universe; the sampling technique was not random and accidental; and an exploratory factor analysis and an invariance measure were performed.
Findings
The stress phenomenon is common and similar in both police forces, which means that it is indifferent to their organizational differences and has common causes. Loose coupling is present in both police work settings and entails significant stress; and the search for an explanation of the stress caused by loosely coupled elements should focus on both the value chain and the processes.
Practical implications
Addressing this phenomenon should entail a twofold improvement strategy: the correction of loosely coupled organizational factors by revising the management processes that cause stress and the prevention of loosely coupled effects by using professional training to enhance adaptive behavior within specific contexts.
Originality/value
Police organizations are addressed as loosely coupled (anarchic organized) systems instead of tightly coupled (bureaucratic) systems. The loosely coupled factors that emerge inside bureaucratic organizations cause significant stress among officers and complementary research is necessary to analyze the fallacious nature of the recursive attribution of police stress to bureaucratic characteristics.
Details
Keywords
Rodney T. Ogawa and Samantha Paredes Scribner
This article brings together the issues of leadership and organization. We begin by discussing the concept of leadership, emphasizing the importance of the context in which…
Abstract
This article brings together the issues of leadership and organization. We begin by discussing the concept of leadership, emphasizing the importance of the context in which leadership occurs. Because the type of leadership addressed in this paper occurs in the context of formal organizations, we revisit the concept of “loose‐coupling”, which reveals the rational and institutional dimensions of organization, explaining how each dimension provides a different form of determinacy on and through which leadership can act. We end by drawing on a study in which we are currently engaged to examine the forms that leadership may take in the rational and institutional dimensions of organizations.
Details
Keywords
This article examines the loosely coupled nature of the US educational system and explores recent systemic reform initiatives designed to improve education through more tightly…
Abstract
This article examines the loosely coupled nature of the US educational system and explores recent systemic reform initiatives designed to improve education through more tightly coupled education policy and practice. The utility and limitations of loose coupling as an organizational construct are examined and critiqued. A number of significant forces are exerting ever‐greater pressure on policymakers to more tightly couple US education, including environmental pressures, the emergence of powerful new institutional actors, an emergent institutional capacity, and institutional isomorphism. After reviewing the effectiveness of systemic reform initiatives in several states, the article concludes that education in the USA is moving toward a system of fragmented centralization in which policymakers have greater opportunity to craft more coherent, systemic education policy amidst competing demands for limited resources.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the accounting performance measurement (PM) change process in a Finnish city.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the accounting performance measurement (PM) change process in a Finnish city.
Design/methodology/approach
Interpretive case study. Data consisted of 16 semi‐structured interviews. Analysis was based on institutional theory, particularly on “new institutional sociology” (NIS) studies.
Findings
Budgeting and accounting PM became coupled into action when various intertwined (mostly institutional) pressures affecting change converged. Perceived crises were found to accelerate accounting change by deinstitutionalization, i.e. by breaking (drastically) existing routines and myths. Further, accounting rules and routines changed somewhat independently. Further, the notion of “distance” between rules and routines clarifies the dynamic nature of coupling of institutional rules and routines. Further, analysis of both internal and external institutional pressures facilitates understanding of the case events.
Research limitations/implications
Case studies cannot be generalized and so further research on public sector PM change is encouraged.
Practical implications
Understanding of the interplay of various organizational pressures, deinstitutionalization and institutionslization of routines may facilitate management of PM change processes.
Originality/value
This analysis of the pressures and rationales of PM change in a Finnish city contributes to the accounting literature by noting the complexity of public sector change pressures. For example, some changes in accounting PM in the municipal field only occur when several non‐dominant pressures align.
Details