Enabling Innovation Through Mindset : Private Schools in Dubai, United Arab Emirates

The purpose of this thesis was to understand the mindset of leaders, teachers and students towards innovation. In doing so, it set out to find what schools know about, and how they respond to innovation, which skills enable innovation and what barriers prevent it from becoming systematic in schools. Qualitative research, in the form of semi-structured interviews, was conducted with leaders of innovation in ten schools. Innovation leaders, who volunteered to be interviewed, represented a relatively broad sample of schools. Results analysed show that a key barrier to innovation is how misunderstood it is and how it is often inextricably linked to technology. Other factors such as time and curriculum constraints are also cited as a barriers. Whereas growth mindset, and leaders who instilled a culture of innovation, were the key factors that enabled innovation. Skills of innovative students and staff were analysed and compared to skills of innovators at organisation level. The findings indicate that the first step in enabling innovation in schools is for all stakeholders to have a deeper understanding of what it is. The literature review combined with analysis of results show that mindset and school culture can enable innovation. Further research, combining quantitative data with a wider range of stakeholders, would benefit a future study