Running head: ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY #1
Annotated Bibliography #1
Julia Renberg
EDLE 801
George Mason University
July 3, 2012
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Focus of Research
My current research interests are positioned within the field of organizational theory. In
particular, I am concerned with behaviors of local public school districts in response to policies
mandated by the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE). By blending theoretical models
derived from hard and soft sciences, I hope to construct a conceptual framework appropriate for
exploring whether the primary driving force behind observed actions is the affinity of a system to
buffer disturbances of external stress factors and re-establish its dynamic equilibrium. Hmm.
You may want to tease this out further (i.e., what are the questions lurking here – there may be a
short series about how leaders perceive mandates; whether these result in stress; how they react)
Bibliographic Entries
1. Rorrer, A. K., Skrla, L., & Scheurich, J. J. (2008). Districts as institutional actors in
educational reform. Educational Administration Quarterly, 44(3), 307-358.
The purpose of this work was to address the issue of sporadic attention paid by
researchers to school districts as the unit of study. The authors found this neglect highly
objectionable, given that districts continue to function as the dominant local governance structure
for U.S. schooling. Rorrer et al. were hopeful to remediate the situation by (a) providing a
synthesis of previous findings, (b) proposing a theory of districts as institutional actors, and (c)
suggesting specific areas for future research. Relying primarily upon empirical scholarship
within past 20 years, the researchers were able to locate 81 relevant studies. The authors chose a
narrative synthesis method to analyze collected data and produced four broad themes of districts’
action in terms of educational reform: providing instructional leadership, re-orienting the
organization, establishing policy coherence, and maintaining an equity focus. Next, the authors
used the processes described by Dubin (1976) and Weick (1976) to enact a theory of districts as
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institutional actors, explicating the variability in coupling, nonlinearity, and complexity of
organizational behavior. Although Rorrer et al. acknowledged that this theory is yet to be
confirmed, they claimed a need for a coherent conceptual model that would bridge organizational
development and policy implementation. For future research on how and under what
circumstances the variable coupling among district roles (as well as nonlinearity, feedback and
multi-directionality of change) can improve achievement, the authors recommended to use a
mixed-methods design that is longitudinal, contextual and comparative in nature. The team also
suggested that for probing macro-level changes caused by external factors of districts’
environment, organizations should be viewed as open dynamic systems of adaptation. Great
conclusion for your perspective.
I assessed this paper to be truly advantageous to my work because it (a) highlighted needs
for further inquiry focused on school districts as the units of study; (b) signified the worth of
such research for scholars and practitioners; (c) offered a synthesis of theoretical and empirical
work on the phenomenon; and (d) provided useful suggestions for advancing scholarship in
terms of development of conceptual framework and application of appropriate methodology.
2. Weick, K. E. (1976). Educational organizations as loosely coupled systems. Administrative
Science Quarterly, 21(1), 1-19.
This paper was one of the pioneer publications to favor the concept of loose coupling as
compared to the image of organizations functioning through tight linkages. Thus, the main
purpose of this work was to advocate the alternative way of looking at organizations that would
allow researchers to “notice and question things that had previously been taken for granted” (p.
2). To accomplish this goal, Weick applied the theory of loose coupling to educational
organizations, demonstrating how systems survive amidst uncertainties and adapt to their
environments. Loosely connected events and systems, he wrote, are informal and chaotic, yet
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somehow productive: foster perseverance, cultivate high level of sensitivity to environmental
changes, localize adaptations and seal off breakdowns, retain a greater number of mutations and
novel solutions, increase autonomy and uniqueness, and reduce cost for operations. At the same
time, Weick examined dysfunctions of loosely coupled organizations (lack of coordination,
absence of regulations, slow feedback times, situations where several means can produce the
same result), and concluded that these systems lack in resources for sense making. Therefore, he
explained, the predominant activity observed by a researcher under conditions of loose coupling
would be work dedicated to the construction of social realities. Lastly, Weick acknowledged that
additional studies should "examine the possibility that educational organizations are most
usefully viewed as loosely coupled systems" (p. 16), outlined the priorities for further research,
and recommended methodology to be comparative, contextual, and devoted equally to loose
coupling as dependent and independent variables.
I chose to become well-acquainted with this paper not only because "the concept of loose
coupling was developed for, and first applied to, educational institutions" (Bush, 2003, p. 136),
but also and chiefly due to its usefulness, and current extensive application to the issues related
to an organizational environment and a systems' capacity for adapting to external stress factors.
We’ll connect this to neo-institutional theories, which may help you further.
3. Orton, J.D., Weick, K. E. (1990). Loosely coupled systems: A reconceptualization.
Academy of Management Review, 15(2), 203-223.
In this paper, Orton and Weick focused on the problem of diverse interpretation of the
model of loosely coupled systems by scholars. Thus, they pursued two objectives: to analyze
and organize the literature, and to re-direct research toward more precise, complex, and
productive uses of this concept. First, Orton and Weick identified five distinct voices in
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published studies in relation to loose coupling (causation, typology, effects, compensations, and
organizational outcomes) and combined them as "five latent-variable-like construct changes"
(p.216) into a compact and sequential model. Throughout the article, the authors emphasized the
dialectical nature of the concept as a fairly distinctive and beneficial feature, asserting its
potential to "illuminate the answers to several organizational puzzles that have eluded
organization theorists" (p. 216), such as: the definition for organization, measurement and
interpretation of interpretive systems, and the understanding of organizational structure. The
authors advocated for researchers to continue modifying methodology to serve this theory, and
suggested several suitable ideas: the translation of bipolar variables to two-variable matrices,
regression of a concept into contradictory independent variables, use of deviation-regulating
loops in which variables shift values as the cycle progresses. Orton and Weick emphasized that
the dialectical interpretation of loose coupling can be strengthened through examination of the
processes (rather than static descriptions) within systems, purposeful disregard of apparent
connectedness within organizations, exploitation of the concept as the starting point of the
discussion (rather than the conclusion), and observation of organizations that are routinely
labeled as loosely coupled systems. Finally, the authors stated that “greater familiarity with a
few systems is currently more valuable than lesser familiarity with many” (p. 219).
For me, this follow-up article refined several theoretical aspects of loose coupling and,
most importantly, accentuated the essence of the concept by transmitting the theme of dialectical
analysis throughout the paper. The work outlined well what the studies on loose coupling should
and should not be, and provided plenty of practical suggestions for further inquiry into this
phenomenon. Furthermore, the literature review of the article was consistently inclusive of the
topic of organizational environment, providing sturdy validation of my own research interests.
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Thus, the paper cemented my original intent to use the model of loosely coupled educational
organizations as a base for constructing the conceptual frame for my future research.
You
might also want to become familiar with the political theorists’ critique of loose coupling, i.e.,
that it is nothing more than coalitions exerting influence on each other…
4. Burch, P. (2007). Educational policy and practice from the perspective of institutional
theory: Crafting a wider lens. Educational Researcher, 36(2), 84-95.
The purpose of this study was to highlight how constructing new conceptual frames
through incorporation of recent contributions to organizational theory may enable educational
researchers to understand more clearly the factors that affect the implementation of instructional
reforms. The author initiated the discussion by endorsing several core ideas central to
institutional analysis of adoption of policies and practices by schools and governing agencies:
reflection of the rules and structures present in wider society, tendency to reach legitimacy
through achieving structural isomorphism, and loose coupling between the realities of
implemented reforms and the original intentions of policy makers. Burch, however, advocated
for three additional interrelated domains: application of organizational ecology, examination of
“bottom-up” processes of organizational change, and an understanding of long-term indirect
effects of reforms. Strategically, the author situated her discussions within a case study of one
district’s efforts to improve instruction in literacy and mathematics. Burch collected
demographic and historical data for this district, identified and interviewed key players in these
reforms - 34 central office staff members, and 48 administrators and teachers across 10 schools.
The data analysis lead to a conclusion that (1) the organizational field boundaries reflect shared
understandings of influential actors and established practices resulting in differences in
implementation of the same overarching theory; (2) less established individuals and agencies
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working at the local level are able to initiate the institutional transformation and have a number
of strategies to build legitimacy for alternative approaches; and (3) although the reforms often
fail in predictable ways, they stimulate field-level interactions that help advance the original
intentions of these policies. Finally, the author asserted that “more work is needed to understand
the areas divergence and convergence between organizational theories and educational research”
(p.91) and recommended the use of mixed methods for future studies.
This article was valuable to me because of its core message – not only organizational
theory offers important insights for understanding developments in education, whether initiated
by district or at other level, but integration of newly emerged constructs into commonly used
conceptual frames can “elaborate and strengthen contemporary institutional thinking” (p.93).
Among the newly introduced domains, I found the concepts of organizational ecology and the
“bottom-up” model of institutional change to be relevant and, perhaps, usable in my own study.
Good!
5. Dodds, Stanford, B. (1996). The self-organizing system in theory and practice: The
experience of the collaboratives for humanities and arts teaching. Journal of
Curriculum and Supervision, 11(3), 249-266.
The paper explored the possibility of transferring the concept of self-organizing systems
developed by hard sciences to the world of education. The model was proposed by Ilya
Prigogine, who won the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1977 for his studies in the thermodynamics
of evolution, and stated that “even in the nonliving domains and under conditions far from
equilibrium, fluctuations and feedback processes could create order out of chaos” through
interaction of the components that organize and re-organize themselves to the higher levels of
complexity as their environment changes. This model appeared in later research under names
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“complex adaptive system,” “learning organization,” and “artificial life.” The author of this
study utilized this model as the conceptual framework for analyzing the story of the
Collaboratives for Humanities and Arts Teaching (CHART) – “a network of projects initiated by
the Rockefeller Foundation to improve curriculum and teaching in humanities” (p. 249). She
analyzed internal documents provided by the headquarters of CHART and concluded that all of
the elements and processes characteristic of self-organizing systems were clearly visible in the
CHART’s history: it was designed as an open and consuming system, grew as a network of selforganizing and resistant to change semiautonomous projects, yet was able to adapt and reorganize itself as a system. The author seemed to be cautiously optimistic in terms of the
usefulness of this theoretical model, questioning “How widespread are the educational
phenomena that it models effectively? Is it useful for research and evaluation?” (p. 265).
Nevertheless, Dodds Stanford ended the article on a positive note, sending an encouraging
message that the self-organizing systems paradigm could make it possible for a new relationship
between science and the humanities.
Several statements in relation to a self-organizing system attracted my close attention as
the points “worthy” of being integrated into the conceptual frame of my future research: (1) the
complex, adaptive systems develop to a particular form due to what Prigogine called “the action
of balancing and reinforcing feedback loops”; (2) a self-organizing system can absorb
tremendous disruptions and thus, under constant external conditions, a system is very resistant to
change; (3) paradoxically, transition is possible when the environmental stress factors are too
great for a system to absorb; (4) at the early stages of transition, a system becomes disorganized,
with its future neither predictable or controllable, as the components try a wide range of new
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behaviors; and (5) if a system survives, only one set of new choices wins, and it is not
necessarily the best of the competing forms (p. 255).
6. Berger, M.A., (1982). Stages in decline: How an educational organization scales
down. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational
Research Association, New York, NY, 19-23 March.
This work used a biological “life cycle” metaphor to study the late stages of
organizational development. The author of this study noted that scholarship dedicated to these
questions often fails to specify the stages within the decline phase through which an educational
organization reaches a new equilibrium, overemphasizes the most divisive issue of decline –
school closings, and investigates the events in one district, significantly reducing the capacity for
generalization of these studies. Thus, the purpose of this work was to overcome these
deficiencies by proposing a developmental perspective on retrenchment and applying it to
multiple school districts with reported decline in enrollment. The retrenchment theory tested in
this study was grounded in the work by Selznick (1957), who argued that an organizational
character has four attributes: historical (habitual ways of reacting), integrated (enduring
structures and patterns of behavior), functional (erected barriers from the outside world), and
dynamic (new forces to abandon old ways and create new ones when change is required). The
theory of revolutionary adaptation also declared that although gradual changes may be the
dominant tendency in organizational development, it is interrupted by dramatic periods of
change in many elements of structure and strategy (p. 6). To make it operational, Berger built in
five chronological stages into the phase of decline: pre-response, emerging awareness and
buying time, alarm and relatively safe responses, crisis and confrontation, and post-crisis
equilibrium (p. 1). The author analyzed the 1970-1980 data, available from various publications,
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on structural and strategic changes in a non-random sample of 53 school districts. The author
employed the case survey method to collect data, followed by an interviewing procedure, reassigning 36 of the 53 cases to a second analysis to control for unreliable checklist applications.
Berger examined fifteen variables and applied five statistical tests (ANOVA, Cochran Q Test,
Newman-Keuls multiple comparison, chi square, and binominal tests) to conclude that the data
showed (1) a tendency toward rigidity, (2) abrupt change over various stages of decline, (3) late
utilization of strategic responses to declining enrollment, and (4) revolutionary scope of
adaptation. In the conclusion, the author stated that “additional research is needed to determine
whether it is true that educational leaders require increasing amounts of threat before they
destroy the old gestalts and create new ones” (p. 21) and suggested that his theory could help to
locate organizations in the process of retrenchment, enable leaders to predict the crises and
develop strategies to smooth their occurrences.
This 20-year-old paper was, probably, one of the early empirical studies devoted to the
issue of organizational responses to external stress factors. Interestingly, the research design of
this study incorporated many of the characteristics recommended by the contemporary scholars
noted earlier in this bibliography. The work appealed to me in its intent to investigate the
response of a system as a fragmented process, attempting to (1) localize the moment of shift
from simple absorption of undesired disturbances to transformational change, and (2) question
whether the intensity of stress has a causal effect on the nature of organizational response. The
“life cycle” research may be of use to you, though much of it is very macro in focus (as in, from
the population ecology framework; see Hannan & Freeman or Aldrich, among others)
Conclusion
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The early inquiry into the published literature surfaced multiple facets of theoretical and
empirical work relevant to my research interests. Distinctively, the concepts of loosely coupled
and self-organizing systems seemed to be promising and well-aligned with my intent to explore
organizational behaviors in response to environmental stress factors. The idea of employing
models from hard science, as well as integrating newly emerged constructs of organizational
theory, appeared to be supported by a rich and long history of such precedents. It looked like
the planned focus on districts as the unit of study would bring an atypical, yet desirable angle to
my work. Lastly, the reviewed studies were quite analogous in terms of recommended research
design and practical suggestions on adequate and effective approaches to study this phenomenon.
References
Berger, M.A., (1982). Stages in decline: How an educational organization scales
down. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational
Research Association, New York, NY, 19-23 March.
Burch, P. (2007). Educational policy and practice from the perspective of institutional
theory: Crafting a wider lens. Educational Researcher, 36(2), 84-95.
Bush, T. (2003). Educational leadership and management . (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks,
California: SAGE Publications Ltd.
Dodds Stanford, B. (1996). The self-organizing system in theory and practice: The
experience of the collaboratives for humanities and arts teaching. Journal of
Curriculum and Supervision, 11(3), 249-266.
Dubin, R. (1976). Theory building in applied areas. In M. D. Dunnette (Ed.), Handbook of
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industrial and organisational psychology (pp. 17-39). New York: Wiley.
Orton, J.D., Weick, K. E. (1990). Loosely coupled systems: A reconceptualization.
Academy of Management Review, 15(2), 203-223.
Selznick, P. (1957). Leadership in administration. New York: Harper and Row.
Weick, K. (1976). Educational organizations as loosely coupled systems. Administrative
Science Quarterly, 21(1), 1-19.
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