Purpose Informal, non-systematic processes often referred to as tapping historically have been how school districts identify prospective school leaders. This study first considers the degree to which tapping remains relevant as districts increasingly adopt formal leadership pipelines and explores multiple dimensions of tapping. Design/methodology/approach We explore school leaders' experiences with tapping across urban and rural districts in two USA states. These districts vary in the degree to which they have formal leadership pipeline programs. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 51 early-career principals, we take a grounded theory approach to examine how tapping shapes leaders' career trajectories. Findings Tapping remained a common practice in districts both with and without formal leadership pipelines. School leaders' experiences with tapping varied along six dimensions: who did the tapping, what positions leaders were tapped into, when and how often leaders were tapped, whether they were tapped generally for leadership or into specific positions and why leaders were tapped. Originality/value We extend tapping research into districts with formal leadership pipeline programs, thereby presenting a more comprehensive conceptualization of tapping.
Purpose - This study examined how collective human capital is cultivated and mobilised to support sustainable school change. Drawing on an integrated conceptual framework combining human capital theory, the resource-based view and dynamic capabilities perspectives, it investigated the organisational processes through which school leaders in Cyprus transform professional expertise into durable reform capacity. Design/methodology/approach - A qualitative cross-case study was conducted across eight primary schools operating within the centralised public education system of Cyprus. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with principals and teachers, non-participant observations of collaborative practices and document analysis. Cross-case analysis was used to identify recurring mechanisms associated with reform sustainability. Findings - Sustainable instructional change was characterised by three interrelated leadership-mediated processes: structuring professional coherence through shared language and aligned routines, embedding collective expertise within recurring organisational practices and institutionalising adaptive feedback cycles that enable coordinated responses to implementation challenges. Schools in which these mechanisms were deeply embedded demonstrated more durable reform trajectories, even under structural constraints associated with centralised staffing systems. Originality/value - The study reconceptualises collective human capital as a leadership-constructed organisational capability rather than an aggregate of individual teacher competencies. By clarifying the mediating processes linking leadership practice, organisational capability and instructional reform sustainability within a centralised primary education context, the findings contribute to educational administration research on capacity-building and sustainable change.
Purpose - The purpose of this study was to understand how leaders enact justice in their discipline decisions using organizational justice (consisting of procedural, distributive and interactional justice) and restorative justice as analytic categories for leader's actions. Design/methodology/approach - This study drew on semi-structured interview data of 50 school leaders in a single US state. Leaders worked in a heterogeneous set of schools with respect to size, urbanicity/rurality and grade level, and varied in experience. Data was analyzed with respect to preestablished categories of justice; findings are reported by theme themes with leaders' actions are evaluated for alignment and divergence from scholarly accounts. Findings - We find that leaders attended strongly to relationships, in keeping with interactional justice, but focused on cameras and protocols for procedural justice and on a preventative approach for distributive justice which are less well aligned with ideal descriptions of these categories. Originality/value - While many studies have examined leaders' approaches to student discipline, this is the first study that has examined leaders' actions using multiple preestablished categories of justice to characterize leaders' actions. The substantive contribution of this piece is the revelation that satisfying one dimension of justice can mask structural failures in another.
Purpose PK–12 equity directors (EDs) are tasked with addressing systemic inequities. This study examines how institutional logics – taken-for-granted beliefs, norms, and rules that guide action – in ED district hiring documents, including job descriptions and postings, shape their competencies and responsibilities. Although prior research highlights the need to better understand ED roles, limited scholarship has examined how institutional logics shape the qualifications and duties associated with this role. Design/methodology/approach This study employs an institutional logic framework and content analysis to examine 34 ED hiring documents identified through a nationwide relevance search in the United States. Findings The most common qualifications for ED positions include holding administrative credentials and experience (e.g. principalship or superintendency), reflecting a dominant bureaucratic logic. In contrast, responsibilities frame EDs as strategic advisors who counsel school and department leaders, reflecting a hybrid relational and professional logic. This misalignment may lead systems to prioritize qualifications that reinforce managerial orientations while positioning EDs to rely primarily on influence rather than positional authority to advance equity. Originality/value Prior empirical studies of ED roles have primarily focused on the experiences and perspectives of individuals who have held these positions. This study addresses a gap in the literature by identifying how school districts construct the ED role through institutional logics.
Purpose Using data to inform educational decisions is increasingly expected of schools but remains challenging for principals and teachers. This challenge is particularly relevant in Germany, where schools have considerable autonomy in organising data use practices. Although organisational structures are widely recommended to foster data use culture, less is known about whether such approaches are jointly implemented and how they relate to principal- and teacher-perceived data use culture. This paper aims to address the aforementioned research gap. Design/methodology/approach We collected questionnaire data from 115 German schools (nprincipals = 115, nteachers = 1,691) and combined descriptive analyses, network analysis and (multilevel) regressions to investigate the co-occurrence, interrelations and associations of four organisational structures with data use culture, controlling for innovation readiness and professional experience. Findings About 71% of schools had implemented at least one organisational structure; 46% implemented two or more. Data meetings were most prevalent and frequently co-occurred with data teams. Internal data coaches were conditionally associated with both data meetings and data teams, whereas external data coaches showed no unique associations. In regression models, data teams and internal data coaches were uniquely associated with principals' perceptions of data use culture. Only innovation readiness was associated with teachers' perceptions. Originality/value This study advances research on organisational support for data use by examining multiple organisational structures in concert and by distinguishing principals' from teachers' perceptions. Findings do not suggest that any specific organisational structure is universally preferable or that schools should implement as many as possible. Rather, they point to the need to consider which structures address whose data-related needs and to foster innovation readiness within existing structures.
