copyright © allyn & bacon 20071 organizational change chapter 7 this multimedia product and its...

Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2007 1

Organizational ChangeChapter 7

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Organizational Change

Educational organizations are expected to be vehicles for social change, as well as preserving and transmitting values.

Thus schools must integrate stability and change.

In 1990, Seymour B. Sarason wrote The Predictable Failure of Educational Reform: Can We Change Before It’s Too late? To change schools, we must change the power

relationships in schools.


Aims of Educational Reform

Sarason listed five aims that would constitute major change in the inner core of assumptions that are difficult to bring about: To reduce the achievement gap among social classes and

racial groups. To get students to enjoy school. To enable students to acquire knowledge and skills in ways

that relate learning and give purpose to each student. To engender interest in human accomplishments, past and

present, and to enlarge their own identities: personal, social, and as citizens.

To acquaint students with the domain of career options and how schooling relates to the fast-changing world of work.


The Tradition of Change in American Education Paul Mort indicated, in late1950s, that change in

education proceeded very slowly. He noted that schools were generally 25 years behind the

best practices of the time. Example: Kindergartens.

Mort’s work led to viewing higher per pupil expenditures as reliable indicators of change and superior school output.

Other researchers noted, however, that there is most likely a curvilinear relationship where after an optimum funding point increases in school output slow.


Three Strategies of Planned Change

Robert Chin’s taxonomy of change strategies is used in this book. I. Empirical-rational strategies. II. Power-coercive strategies. III. Normative-reeducative strategies.


I. Empirical-Rational Strategies for Change This approach to change is based on planned,

managed dissemination intended to spread new ideas and practices swiftly.

This is often supported through state and federal grants or through companies that are willing to fund the production of knowledge for profit potential.

This is known broadly as KPU (Knowledge, Production, and Utilization).


Research, Development, and Diffusion (R, D, and D) Development Phase: Research and development, or R

& D, includes translating research into products that are practical.

Diffusion Phase: RD& D includes marketing the new products and making them attractive at a reasonable cost.

Adoption Phase: RDDA, which usually includes Dick Clark and Egon Guba’s three-stage process: a trial, installation of the program, the institutionalization of the program as part of the system.

See Figure 7.1 for a depiction of RDDA.


The Agricultural Model

Using the US Department of Agriculture as a model to more quickly disseminate KPU educational innovations, the following occurred from late 1950s to 1980. National Defense Education Act (1958) supported

innovative curriculum packages. Title IV of ESEA (1965) created 20 regional educational

laboratories and 10 Educational Research and Development Centers.

ERIC was created to help disseminate information. National Institute of Education was created (1972). The Department of Education was made a cabinet-level

department (1979).


Assumptions and Implications of KPU Approaches to Change New products will be perceived by potential adopters

as desirable. Adopters will do what is desirable because it is in

their own interest. KPU and RDDA focus on innovations, yet the term

has been debased through misuse in which innovations have been tried then abandoned.

The strategy for change in schools using KPU and RDDA assumes that good ideas are developed outside the school and later installed in the school.


II. Power-CoerciveStrategies for Change One Power-Coercive strategy uses the behavioral

psychology concept of the carrot and stick approach: Both rewards (financial) and sanctions (political, financial,

moral) are used to obtain compliance from adopters. Most recent example is NCLB.

Robert Chin and Kenneth Benne described the restructuring of power elites to bring about change. Example: minority group efforts to gain representation in

decision making. Example: coalitions of disabled who lobbied for series of

laws and judicial decisions in their favor.


III. Normative-Reeducative or Organizational Self-Renewal Strategies

Empirical-rational and Power-coercive strategies share two assumptions: (a) good ideas are developed outside the organization; (b) the organization is the target of external forces for change. Normative-reeducative differs.

In 1975, the NIE indicated that billions of dollars have been spent on education with little difference in improved school outputs.

In response, the Rand Corporation studied 293 federally sponsored programs: Found that the successes of empirical-rational and power-coercive

strategies for change are related to school and school district effectiveness and their capacities for change.


Rand Study found that successful schools:

Rejected rigidly packaged innovations that did not permit local adaptations.

Developed their own local materials. Engaged in continuous planning and

replanning, rather than one-shot planning. Had ongoing training and technical assistance,

not one-shot training. Had strong support from key administrators in

the school and district.


Normative-Reeducative Strategies (continued) Defined as a strategy that believes the norms of the

organization's interaction-influence system (attitudes, beliefs, and values--in other words, culture) can be deliberately shifted to more productive norms by collaborative action of the people.

As Chris Argyris noted, a healthy organization performs three core activities over time: Achieves its goals. Maintains itself internally. Adapts to its environment.


Organizational Health

Indicators of organizational health from Matthew Miles: Goal focus. Communication adequacy. Optimal power equalization. Human resources utilization. Cohesiveness. Morale. Innovativeness. Autonomy. Adaptation. Problem-solving adequacy.


Organizational Self-Renewal

Organizational Self-Renewal postulates that effective change cannot be imposed on a school. It seeks to develop internal capacity to: Sense and identify emerging problems. Establish goals, objectives, and priorities. Generate valid alternative solutions. Implement the selected alternatives.

The optimal unit for change is the single school with its pupils, teachers, and principal as primary participants.


The Learning Organization

A Learning Organization adapts to unfolding changes in the environment. This process is often called organizational development (OD).

OD is an approach to increasing the self-renewal capability of school districts and schools.


OD Involves at Least 10 Concepts

The goal of OD. System renewal. A systems approach. A focus on people. An educational strategy. Learning through experience. Dealing with real problems. A planned strategy. Change agent. Involvement of top-level administration.


The Sociotechnical View

What OD strives to do is to seek a new and more functional basis for: Task analysis. Structural arrangements. Selection and use of technology. Selection and professional development of people

and groups.

(See Chapter 4, specifically Figures 4.15 & 4.16).


Force-Field Analysis

This is a technique to analyze the sociotechnical aspects of the organization.

Kurt Lewin indicated that an organization can analyze its ability to change by the following:

The Key to change is to analyze the forces for and the forces against change.

If they are in balance, then we have equilibrium—no change (Figure 7.2).

When one or the other is removed or weakened, then equilibrium is upset and change occurs (figure 7.3).


Force-Field Analysis (continued)

Force-field analysis led Kurt Lewin to develop a popular three-step change process. In order to effect change something must happen to first unfreeze the organization, then the organization can move toward change, and finally re-freezing the system brings it back to equilibrium.

Unfreeze

Moving toward change Re-freeze



It is not productive for an administrator to use coercion in trying to make the driving forces dominant. This only produces a strong reaction against change.

In school situations it is likely to be more effective to help bring the restraining forces into the open as legitimate in the process of change.

Leaders should create a culture in which feelings can be expressed instead of secretly harbored. By promoting opening communication and valuing the right to question and challenge, the level of resistance to change will decrease.



The best change occurs when people not only learn about the innovation, but also when they learn by doing.

In this way, people are truly reeducated. There are no quick and easy solutions to change. And remember Hersey and Blanchard’s

admonition, “Changes in knowledge are the easiest to make, followed by changes in attitudes.”


Research on the Effective of OD

Philip Runkel and Richard Schmuck findings on OD include: Success is more likely when the school faculty senses a

readiness to change and welcomes the OD project. Entering OD is the most critical phase and requires a skilled

and experienced OD consultant. Open, active support from administrators is critical. OD is more likely to be successful when the staff is in

agreement on goals. An OD project has four main phases: entry, diagnosis of

problems, institutionalization, and maintenance.


Research on the Effective of OD

John Goodlad suggested that the school culture should be the focus of changing teacher behavior to effect improvement in student outcomes.

Goodlad’s DDAE schools used his OD model: dialogue, decision making, action, and evaluation.

Goodlad’s DDAE schools are characteristic of self-renewing schools. They are growing and developing organizations. They are continuously engaged in systematic problem solving, and they are able to select appropriate technology from all that is available.

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