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Contrasting perspectives on organizational culture change in schools

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Abstract

The concept of organizational culture continues to be widely used for descriptive and explanatory purposes in academic, policy, and managerial debates in education and other contexts. The range of perspectives on its meaning, which are readily apparent in both educational and non-educational literature, is directly relevant to the analysis of organizational culture change. This article contributes to organizational culture change theory in education by conceptualizing different perspectives on organizational culture—external reality, interpretation, organization, competing subcultures, and process. It then analyzes aspects of an 8-year culture change process in a school staff group using the different perspectives to illustrate their utility. In the paper, we describe the methodology, outline the case study, explain each perspective, and explore the culture change process from that perspective. The paper concludes with a discussion of the usefulness of the analysis for understanding and organizing culture change in educational settings.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the reviewers of our original article for their perceptive comments which were of considerable help in developing the final version. We would also like to thank the respondents whose views demonstrated both their deep professional commitment and their considerable insight.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Glamorgan, Pontypridd, Wales, UK

    Michael Connolly & Bill Beales

  2. Department of Education, University of Bath, Claverton Down, Bath, BA2 7AY, UK

    Chris James

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  1. Michael Connolly
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  2. Chris James
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  3. Bill Beales
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Correspondence to Chris James.

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Connolly, M., James, C. & Beales, B. Contrasting perspectives on organizational culture change in schools. J Educ Change 12, 421–439 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10833-011-9166-x

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