The sources and consequences of organic management in public elementary and secondary schools.

A great deal of research in educational administration focuses on the purported benefits of organic forms of management, that is, professional forms of management that involve high levels of staff cooperation and collegiality, teachers' participation in school decision making, and supportive leadership by school principals. Using contingency theory as an orienting perspective, this thesis examines patterns of organic management that emerge across elementary- and secondary schools, and the effects of organic management on students' reading and mathematics achievement at these two schooling levels. The research was conducted using several large-scale databases: 1994 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS), National Educational Longitudinal Study - 1988 (NELS: 88), and Prospects: The Congressionally Mandated Study of Educational Opportunity. This quantitative study employs an extensive series of Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) analyses, which includes 3-level growth models (HLM/3L) of student achievement at the elementary and secondary levels of schooling. Data presented in the dissertation show that elementary and secondary schools do differ in patterns of organic management, although not precisely in the ways contingency theory would predict. The study also reveals that contrary to contingency theory, patterns of organic management have virtually no direct effects on students' achievement growth. The implications of these findings for the continued development of contingency theory in the field of educational administration are discussed.Ph.D.EducationEducational administrationUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/124138/2/3122002.pd