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This paper seeks to heighten and expand understanding of the important role of business education and scholarship in innovation, and consequentially on how this innovation enables business schools to contribute to economic growth and prosperity.

While the foundation of this paper is a new report on the role of business schools in innovation issued by AACSB International, this paper extends the results by integrating more recent studies and reports on innovation.

The report concludes that management and leadership are essential aspects of the innovation lifecycle, and that business schools play a significant role in developing the cadre of individuals with these skill sets.

This paper draws on and synthesizes the most recent literature on innovation, as well as relating innovation to issues of economic development and prosperity. In doing this, it calls for business schools to proactively define their unique contributions to innovate and to become advocates for the significance of management and leadership in competitive success.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of collective teacher efficacy, academic press and faculty trust, all of which are components of academic optimism (AO), in predicting school innovation. In addition, the authors explored the extent to which faculty trust mediates the association between collective teacher efficacy and academic press with school innovation.

In all, 1,009 teachers from 79 schools in Northern Israel completed anonymous questionnaires about AO and innovation. Aggregation, descriptive statistics, bivariate correlation analyses and mediation analysis were performed to analyze the data.

Results showed that the components of AO, i.e., collective teacher efficacy, academic press and trust, were positively correlated to school innovation, and that trust mediated the relationship between collective teacher efficacy and school innovation. The study results confirmed that AO holds a significant predictive value in school innovation and highlights the importance of trust in supporting innovation.

As school leaders are challenged to foster innovative new practices in their schools, the findings suggest that they will need to know how to cultivate collective teacher efficacy, academic press and faculty trust.

This is the first study to examine the role of the components of AO in predicting innovation. By using a robust sample, the authors were able to examine the proposed school-level model with respect to the factors that affect school innovation. Originality also lies in the organizational approach to educational innovation in relation to faculty’s beliefs and behaviors.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the implications of implementing innovation in experimental schools (focussing on R & D) for school effectiveness post-intervention (five years). Based on theoretical models of social exchange and “conservation of resources” (Hobfoll, 1989), the authors focussed on assessing the effects of implementing innovation on individual outcomes (strain) and school level outcomes (social cohesion, emotional conflict, organizational innovation). The authors compared three types of schools: schools that have completed the implementation process (after), schools still in the implementation process (during) and schools not participating in the implementation process (control group).

A sample of 75 schools (23 non-experimental, 25 during the experiment, 27 post-experiment) was used. Data were collected from teachers and principals to avoid a single source bias.

MANOVA analyses suggest that the process of implementation of innovation contributes to organizational effectiveness: differences were found between the control group and the two groups of experimental schools. The two groups of experimental schools showed higher levels of organizational innovation and social cohesion and lower levels of emotional conflict and strain as compared to the control group.

This study concentrated on the question of the direct links between the study variables – the effects of the implementation of innovation on school functioning. It would be interesting to examine the limit conditions (encourage – discourage factors) for these relations.

Findings suggest that a structured process of implementing innovation contributes not only to the outcome of innovation in school, but also enhances overall school functioning.

Permits the authors to deepen the knowledge of the potential of organizational processes of innovation in schools over time (pre-during-post process).

The purpose of this paper is to argue that school innovation is a complex process requiring a detailed accounting of the relational activity characterising everyday innovating activity. It is further proposed that complex accounts of innovation practice that describe social factors only are insufficient.

Using a case study methodology, a focus on ideas of resistance and tension is used to explore the character of actual innovating experiences. Underpinned by assumptions of relationality and indicative of a poststructuralist and postmodern perspective, Actor‐Network Theory is applied as an analytical tool to investigate the sociomaterial character of everyday enactments of innovation practice in four independent boys' schools in Australia.

Four data stories describe multiple patterns of innovating activity that cannot accurately be accounted for in terms of a general notion of resistance. The idea that tension enables innovation practice is proposed.

Approaches to school innovation that assume difference should be smoothed out or there is a risk of obstructing its practical accomplishment.

This paper provides a case for school leaders to expect and cultivate conditions that enable innovative tension and the co‐presence of multiple patterns of innovating activity.

In addition to critically viewing managerial notions of school innovation, this paper draws on the cross‐disciplinary research to include materiality as an active agent shaping, as opposed to providing a context for, innovating in schools.

Due to the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, primary and secondary schools worldwide are deploying online teaching/learning practices, fostering and thus innovation practices. The purpose of this study is to determine the degree to which practices reflecting educational innovation are implemented in the Greek public primary and secondary schools operating under conditions characterized by the COVID-19 pandemic. Determining the relationship among these educational innovation practices is also an aim of the present study.

A research study was conducted in the Greek public primary and secondary schools. 522 teachers fully completed a structured questionnaire. Descriptive statistics, exploratory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were applied to analyze the data.

The findings reveal that administration-related innovation practices, teaching-related innovation practices and online teaching/learning practices are implemented to some extent in primary and secondary schools in Greece, but there is still scope for continued development. The online teaching/learning practices set the foundations for further developing a culture of fully adopting other educational innovation practices in these schools to improve education.

Limited research concerning educational innovation practices has focused on primary and secondary schools. The need for more studies on teaching and learning innovations that have resulted from the COVID-19 crisis is highlighted by the literature. The results of this study support the fact that online teaching/learning implemented in primary and secondary schools is positively associated with administration-related and teaching-related innovation practices, concluding that this forced change in the educational process can act as a catalyst for more changes and innovative actions.

In organisational and innovation research, the term “open innovation” refers to the inflow and outflow of knowledge to and from organisations: with open innovation theory suggesting active exchanges of knowledge with external actors leads to the development of exploitable new ideas. In the field of education, however, the exchange of knowledge with external parties represents a paradigm shift. In response, this article presents findings from research design to explore the nature and composition of school innovation networks, and the effects of such these networks on knowledge mobilisation.

The study draws on data from a representative random sample of 411 German school leaders. Respondents were asked to detail their engagement in open and closed innovation activity and their school's external collaborations during the last 12 months. A latent class distal outcome model was developed to examine whether different types of collaboration associate with different knowledge mobilisation processes.

The study findings suggest that schools in Germany mainly use internal knowledge for innovation, with external knowledge exchange taking place on a very limited basis. Knowledge mobilisation varies depending on the innovation network. The authors use the findings to indicate new insights for how schools can further innovate learning and teaching in future.

Although there is increasing discussion on Professional Learning Networks in schools, the discourse on knowledge mobilisation within educational networks is limited, making concept of open innovation so far completely absent from discourses on school improvement. This paper initiates the population of this new research space.

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the dialectical interplay between centralisation and decentralisation forces so as to understand how schools leverage on its autonomous pedagogical space, influence the diffusion of innovations in the educational landscape of Singapore and how a centralised-decentralised system supports (or impedes) pedagogical reform for twenty-first century learning.

The paper first outlines the evolutionary stance of Singapore’s decentralisation from its past to present trajectories, thus providing a broader social-historical interpretation to its tight-loose-tight coupling of the education system; followed by situating the context of reform within the national narrative of Ministry of Education’s (MOE) twenty-first century competencies framework. The authors examine how school autonomy should be accompanied by systemic enabling mechanisms, through two case illustrations of whole-school reforms.

There are four carryover effects that the authors have observed: structural, socio-cultural, economic and epistemic. Middle managers from the two schools act as a pedagogical, socio-technological and financial broker outside the formal collaborative structures organised by the MOE. Such a “middle-out” approach, complemented by centralised mechanisms for “coeval sensing mechanism”, has resulted in boundary-spanning linkages and multiplier effects in terms of knowledge spillovers.

Socio-cultural context matters; and what constitutes as co-learning between policymakers and practitioners in Singapore may be construed as policing that stifles innovations in other contexts.

In addition to the conceptualisation of how school autonomy may lead to school-based innovations, the paper provided some preliminary empirical evidence of how the co-production of knowledge has been engendered within, across and beyond individual Singapore schools through the mechanism of innovation diffusion. The unit of analysis is innovation ecosystem.

The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize the implementation of educational reform processes by applying the concept of social innovation. The paper proposes a model of social innovation and test its applicability in the context of Estonian vocational education reform using two case studies of the school re-organization as an example.

A case study approach has been applied in the empirical study. Different data collection methods have been used including semi-structured interviews with the various change actors, observations and analysis of written documents.

The integrated model of social innovation proved to be a fruitful analytical tool. By focusing on five central aspects – the trigger of change, central change agents, social mechanisms facilitating the adoption of change, implications and social gains – it was possible to explain two school re-organization processes and the reasons behind their success or complications.

The analysis of the cases outlined some lessons that can be learned for the future planning and implementation of school reforms. School changes are more easily adopted if actors experience it as useful and rational, school staff are involved in the process as early as possible and the adoption is facilitated by building certain social mechanisms and network structures into the policy implementation process.

The paper makes a contribution to the literature on educational reform by applying the concept of social innovation. Up until now, the concept of social innovation has remained rather underused to explain the process of implementing and adopting reforms, and in particular, it is rarely used in the context of analyzing educational reforms.

Schools struggle with sustaining their educational innovations (Cohen and Mehta, 2017; Askell-Williams and Koh, 2020) and may benefit from concrete and practical guidance (Askell-Williams and Koh, 2020). A dialogue between staff within schools can be a way to promote self-evaluation regarding the innovation. Therefore, a self-evaluation tool for educators was developed: The Sustainability Meter (TSM). The purpose of the tool is to gain insight into the different perspectives and experiences of stakeholders within the school organization regarding the innovation, as a basis for improvement-directed actions to promote sustainable educational innovation.

In this small-scale study, the authors explored conceptual and instrumental use of the Sustainability Meter in two phases, and also examined user satisfaction. In phase 1, the tool was used under the guidance of the researcher (first author), who supported the chairs in taking steps before the group dialogue took place, and who then guided the dialogue itself as a moderator. In phase 2, work with TSM was organized independently by the schools themselves, supported by the manual. Data were collected in the form of observations of the dialogue, group interviews and documents generated by the participants.

In terms of conceptual use, in general, participants gained better understanding of each other's perspectives and backgrounds with regard to the (sustainability of the) innovation. The dialogue also led to insights into challenges for growth toward sustainable innovation. For instrumental use, the results of the analysis were incorporated in a plan of action in the majority of the participants' schools. In terms of user satisfaction, participants in all groups perceived TSM as an enjoyable support for high-quality dialogue. This research provides some indications that the tool might lead to sustainable educational innovations.

Next to developing an action plan based on the results of the school, the tool also appeared to help breaking up the process in smaller, clearer and more feasible improvement-directed actions. The results of this study further show that the authors could distinguish between three types of instrumental use. The improvement-directed actions in this research often were a combination of this three types: initial solutions, short-term and longer-term measures. This research provides some indications that the tool might lead to sustainable educational innovations.

Examines the nature of transformational leadership and its relation to teachers’ changed practices within the context of Dutch large‐scale innovation. Presents two qualitative studies and a survey. The qualitative studies produced three dimensions of transformational leadership: vision, individual consideration, and intellectual stimulation. Within the framework of the survey, these dimensions were further operationalized and exploratively related to teachers’ concerns, teachers’ learning activities, and teachers’ changed practices. The results indicate the significance of the dimensions of transformational leadership in relation to changed teacher practices. The results also suggest the significance of intervening constructs for future research into the impact of leadership on changed teacher practices.