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The role of principal empowerment within a site-based management environment: empirical testing of a structural model

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Abstract

A model examining psychological empowerment, transformational leadership and innovation for school principals is proposed and tested within a Site (School)-Based Management environment. Developed from management literature, the model was adapted for state school principals experiencing increased decision-making powers and accountability. Empirical results provide a level of support for the model. ‘Role clarity’ and ‘access to resources’ were found to exert a positive influence on principals’ feelings of empowerment, though the value placed by principals on strategic information was found to have a slightly negative influence. The influence of empowerment on transformational leadership was not found to be as strong as anticipated. The paper includes a discussion of the implications of these findings for theory and policy development.

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Notes

  1. Steve Marshall is the former Director of Educational and Lifelong Learning for Wales and former Chief Executive of Education and Children’s Services for South Australia.

  2. This form of SBM is identified by Leithwood and Menzies (1998) as ‘administrative control’, whereby SBM gives school principals, with the assistance of their school councils, authority over budgets, personnel and curriculum.

  3. Site (School)-Based Management can be considered one form of New Public Management (NPM) that is reforming public sectors internationally. As a form of decentralisation, SBM creates a ‘quasi-market’ for public sector managers whereby a level of competition is introduced into their organisations (McLaughlin, Osborne, & Ferlie, 2002).

  4. Certain variables thought to influence psychological empowerment (e.g. locus of control, self-esteem) and transformational leadership (e.g risk profile, need for achievement) were not included in the final model due to their failure to achieve construct validity.

  5. It is necessary to distinguish two forms of empowerment. ‘Situational’ (or ‘relational’) empowerment (Conger & Kanungo, 1988) involves the bureaucratic transfer of decision-making power to individual managers and the perceived power that an individual actor or organisational unit possesses (e.g under SBM initiatives). ‘Psychological’ empowerment (Spreitzer, 1995), the focus of this paper, represents the extent to which a principal feels empowered to run his or her school.

  6. Conversely, individuals’ power needs are frustrated when they feel that they lack power or when they believe that they are unable to cope with the physical and social demands of the environment (Spreitzer, et al. 1997; Conger & Kanungo, 1988).

  7. Within the Victorian VDET, Principal Class Officers are personnel who occupy principal roles within its schools; they include principals and assistant principals.

  8. Role ambiguity (the converse of role clarity) has also been linked with low levels of intrinsic motivation (Luzzo, 1993).

  9. Following the introduction of Schools of the Future, it is anticipated that school principals will have varying perceptions of clarity relating to their new role.

  10. The School Charter has (since the time of data collection) been incorporated into VDET’s Blueprint.

  11. Spreitzer studied a sample of insurance (i.e. private sector) managers.

  12. Although the focus in this study was on transformational leadership, the author is aware of the importance of ‘instructional leadership’ within education. The latter was not included in this study, however, due to a desire (a) to identify relationships that could be generalised beyond educational organisations and (b) to incorporate dimensions of instructional leadership into other parts of the hypothesised model.

  13. Other conceptualisations of good leadership are not considered in this paper since they are not change-oriented. They include ‘transactional’ leadership (Bass & Avolio, 1994), ‘instructional’ leadership (Hallinger, 2003) and ‘transformative’ leadership (Weiner, 2003).

  14. Other opinions on the usefulness of ‘transformational leadership’ differ. Allix and Gronn (2005), for example, question the usefulness of theory building based on the current epistemology and believe more consideration should be given to contingency-based approach, considering broader organisational contexts.

  15. Leithwood, for example, used six indicators of transformational leadership for a series of studies into school leader effectiveness (Leithwood, 1994; Leithwood & Jantzi, 1999, 2000). While there is considerable overlap between the set of factors used in those studies and the four chosen in the research described here, there are two differences. These arise mainly from the orientation and conceptualisation of the model used in this study—concerned, as it is in the main, with leadership behaviours that are expected to lead to innovation within the school. Leithwood’s ‘offering individualised support’ is not the type of leadership behaviour that could be expected to lead to innovation (i.e. change) and was therefore excluded from the model. The other omitted dimension, ‘developing structures to foster participation in school decisions’ could not be included as a measure of transformational leadership since it fits more conceptually with measurement of the hypothesised outcome variable in the model, management innovation.

  16. The dimension ‘providing individualised support’ has been excluded from this analysis following the conclusions reached by Yukl (1999) who stated, ‘... there does not seem to be a good rationale to include supporting as a core transformational behaviour’ (p. 288).

  17. This was determined, in part, with reference to a small pilot study involving principals, assistant principals and one former regional manager.

  18. A level of caution is necessary with the inclusion of this factor in the measurement of transformational leadership, however. A recent education study supported the view that charisma may not be relevant in stable environments (Lunenburg, 2003).

  19. This conceptualisation of innovation was adapted from Woodman, Sawyer, and Griffin (1993).

  20. Other school-relevant domains of innovation identified by Caldwell relate to curriculum, school design and pedagogy. Similar changes may well be experienced within these domains.

  21. This precaution allowed principals to view the instrument sent to APs.

  22. Assistant Principals were chosen as raters of principals’ levels of transformational leadership and innovation. Using principals’ responses to these questions would lead to (justifiable) concerns of over-rating on these questions (i.e. the ‘halo’ effect).

  23. Management of complexity is a key concern in this paper. Principals of small schools do not deal with management issues of a sufficient magnitude. In addition, small schools are being phased out within VDET following a policy of amalgamation and consolidation.

  24. About 1,051 in total.

  25. This approach was deemed appropriate since the population is relatively small and readily accessible (Gay & Diehl, 1992).

  26. It is not surprising that PCOs in schools demonstrate high levels of ‘meaningfulness’ in the roles they fill in this ‘helping’ profession. Their employment orientation is expected to demonstrate marked differences when compared with the insurance managers investigated by Spreitzer (1995).

  27. In the survey instruments measurement items were randomised.

  28. Variables reporting only one degree of freedom were modified to the extent that two error terms closely approximating each other’s size were set to equal in order to maintain appropriate model specification.

  29. Elimination of these two dimensions from consideration in this study does not imply that they should not be included as measurements of their overarching constructs. For this study, however, data analysis does not support their inclusion.

  30. Care is required in the interpretation of the WLS results. Despite the large sample size from which these indices are generated (539 matched pairs), WLS requires responses in excess of 5,000 in number (Hu & Bentler 1995).

  31. This finding supports the findings of Hallinger and Heck (1998), following a review of the literature on principal effectiveness, who concluded principals exercise a measurable, though indirect effect on school effectiveness and student achievement. They stated: While [the indirect influence of principals] is relatively small, it is statistically significant and supports the general belief among educators that principals contribute to school effectiveness and improvement (p. 157).

  32. Williams (2001), for example, identified the reluctance of appropriate personnel willing to take up the role of principal in Canada.

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Acknowledgements

I gratefully acknowledge the support of principal class officers of the Victorian State Department of Education and Training who provided me with data for this study and to the president of the Victorian Association of Secondary School Principals, Mr E. G. (Ted) Brierley, AM. Gratitude for assistance with this research is extended to my Ph.D. supervisor Professor Kim Langfield-Smith (Monash University), Professor Louise Kloot (Swinburne University of Technology) and to Dr Ian Harriss and other colleagues at Charles Sturt University, as well as to an anonymous reviewer for their valuable and insightful comments. Thanks to Charles Sturt University’s Centre for Graduate Studies and Monash University’s Department of Accounting and Finance for funding assistance.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Business and Information Technology, Faculty of Business, Charles Sturt University, PO Box 789, Albury, NSW, 2640, Australia

    Graeme C. Rose

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  1. Graeme C. Rose
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Correspondence to Graeme C. Rose.

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Graeme C. Rose BCom, TSTC Melbourne, MEc UNE, Ph.D. Monash.

Dr. Rose has been employed as an accounting academic at Charles Sturt University since 1991. He teaches accounting theory, auditing, taxation law, external reporting and a number of masters level units. He also supervises postgraduate (MBA, DBA and Ph.D.) students. Prior employment posts include secondary school teaching and accounting practice.

Appendices

Appendix A: Abbreviations

This appendix contains a list of abbreviations and their explanations.

  • AP Assistant principal

  • CFA Confirmatory factor analysis

  • VDET Victorian state department of education & training (formerly the department of education, employment and training)

  • LISREL A statistical program designed to run SEM analyses (among other things)

  • ML Maximum likelihood (an estimation method commonly used in SEM)

  • OECD Organisation for economic co-operation and development

  • PCO Principal class officer (the collection of principals and assistant principals)

  • SBM School-based management (or site-based management)

  • SEM Structural equation modelling.

PCO This is the collective name given to officers of the Victorian Department of Education & Training who occupy principal or assistant principal positions.

  • WLS Weighted least squares (an estimation method used in SEM that takes account of high levels of non-normality)

Appendix B: Measurement questions

This appendix contains the measurement questions used for the indicators of the items used to test the structural model. The indicators are grouped according to their hypothesised latent variable, although in survey forms these items were randomised. Raters (principals or APs) are indicated in parentheses.

Dimensions of psychological empowerment (principals)

Competence

  • COMP1 I am confident about my ability to perform my job as a school principal.

  • COMP2 My job as school principal is within the scope of my abilities.

  • COMP3 I am self-assured about my capabilities to perform my work as a school principal.

  • COMP4 I have not yet mastered the skills necessary for my job as a school principal.

Impact

  • IMPACT1 My impact as school principal on what happens in this school is considerable.

  • IMPACT2 I do not have much control over what happens in my school.

  • IMPACT3 I have influence over what happens in my school.

  • IMPACT4 My opinion counts in decision-making within my school.

Meaning

  • MEANING1 The work that I do as a school principal is important to me.

  • MEANING2 My job activities as school principal are not personally meaningful to me.

  • MEANING3 I care about what I do in my job as school principal.

  • MEANING4 The work I do as school principal is meaningful to me.

Self-determination

  • SLFDET1 I have autonomy in determining how I do my job as a school principal.

  • SLFDET2 As a school principal, I can decide how to go about doing my work.

  • SLFDET3 I have little opportunity for independence in how I carry out my job as a school principal.

  • SLFDET4 I use personal initiative in carrying out my work as a school principal.

Antecedents to psychological empowerment (principals).

Value of strategic information

  • INFO1 I believe that goals of the school, as set out in the School Charter, are appropriate signposts to success.

  • INFO2 I value information that indicates whether the goals set out in the School Charter have been attained.

  • INFO3 The School Charter and Triennial Review are valuable events in the operating cycle of this school.

  • INFO4 I rely on the information fed back to me during the Triennial Review process.

Role clarity

  • ROLCLAR1 I feel certain about how much authority I have in my job as principal.

  • ROLCLAR2 I am not sure what my responsibilities are as a principal.

  • ROLCLAR3 I know what is expected of me in my role as principal.

  • ROLCLAR4 The explanation given to me concerning the role of principal is clear to me.

Availability of adequate resources

  • RESOURC1 When I need additional resources to do my job, I can usually get them.

  • RESOURC2 I have access to the resources I need to do my job well.

  • RESOURC3 I can obtain the resources necessary to support the implementation of new ideas.

  • RESOURC4 Lack of resources is a barrier to proper management of my school.

Dimensions of Transformational leadership (APs).

Charisma

  • CHARIS1 The principal displays power and confidence.

  • CHARIS2 The principal emphasises the collective mission (School Charter).

  • CHARIS3 The principal arouses awareness about important issues.

  • CHARIS4 The principal talks of values.

Intellectual stimulation

  • INTELL1 The principal seeks different views about how the school should operate.

  • INTELL2 The principal suggests new ways of doing things within the school.

  • INTELL3 The principal encourages me to develop/review professional goals consistent with school goals.

  • INTELL4 The principal facilitates opportunities for staff to learn from each other.

Strategic vision and articulation

  • VISION1 The principal consistently generates new ideas for the future of the school.

  • VISION2 The principal is inspirational, able to motivate by articulating effectively the importance of what members of the school community are doing.

  • VISION3 The principal has vision, often brings up ideas about possibilities for the future.

  • VISION4 The principal is entrepreneurial; seizes new opportunities in order to achieve goals.

Inspiring subordinates

  • INSPIRE1 The principal has a capacity to excite people with a vision of what might be accomplished if they work together.

  • INSPIRE2 The principal exhibits a capacity to get staff and students to believe they can overcome anything.

  • INSPIRE3 The principal has a capacity to provide a source of inspiration for others within the school.

  • INSPIRE4 The principal has a capacity to raise people to new levels of effort.

Measure of principal innovation (APs)

  • INMGT The principal actively promotes innovation in management structures within this school.

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Rose, G.C. The role of principal empowerment within a site-based management environment: empirical testing of a structural model. J Educ Change 8, 207–233 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10833-007-9023-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10833-007-9023-0

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