EAD 800
Organization Theory
Valbonne
Summer 2004 Group A
Professor Susan Printy
412 Erickson Hall
Phone: 517.355.4508
Fax: 517.353.6393 (Be sure to put my name on fax)
Email: sprinty@msu.edu
Office hours: Thursday, 3-5, or by appointment
Course Overview:
We spend most of our lives in organizational settings. Organizations influence how we
think about the world around us. They can shape our interactions with others, the conduct of our
work, and the values we hold. For these reasons, the study of organizations has flourished, and
organization theory is a fundamental component of graduate study for many disciplines.
The focus of this course is organizational theory for educational organizations. We will
examine how the school organization impacts administrators, teachers, students, parents, and
even community members. We will take a close look at topics such as formal and informal
leadership, school culture, structural arrangements of schooling, school governance, the
organization of instruction, and the production of student achievement. The study of relevant
organizational theories will provide you with knowledge about the historical and theoretical
foundations of educational administration. These theories will be used in two fundamental ways:
1) to generate research hypotheses for future thinking and/or study; and 2) to solve problems of
practice.
Course Objectives:
In this course, students will:
 gain knowledge about the structural, cultural, political, and individual elements of
school organizations;
 gain knowledge about the part theory plays in both research and practice;
 gain an understanding of variables and hypotheses in scientific research;
 develop a set of original hypotheses;
 apply the knowledge gained from theoretical perspectives to solving actual
administrative problems; and
 integrate new learnings through a reflective process.
Required Text:
Bolman, L. G. & Deal, T. E. (2003). Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice, and
Leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Coursepack
Note: students using older editions of the text are responsible for “filling the gaps” before class.
Course Requirements:
For many of you, this is the first graduate level course in a degree program. As such, the
course comes with new demands of you as an advanced student. It is important that you read
the text and try to connect the key concepts with your own experience of schools. I will augment
the reading each session with brief lectures and graphic organizers intended to help you
understand the complex material.
Regular attendance and informed participation are crucial to your own development, but
they are equally important to the progress made by the rest of the class, particularly because we
are working in a compressed timeframe. You must make every effort to attend class regularly.
If you find yourself in the situation of having to miss class but have an alternative idea in mind,
please speak with me in advance.
Writing is an important part of graduate study. I find that I often don’t really know what
I think about something until I have occasion to write about it. You will do some brief writing
for most every class, which might be collected and read, but not graded per se. Frequently, these
will be quick reflections on the reading.
General writing advice:
You will be learning to do new kinds of writing for this course. Some assignments have
certain conventions that you must follow. For all assignments, it is important that your work be
crisp and clean, without redundancy or grammatical and spelling errors. Some helpful hints for
extended prose: First, writing needs a strong organizational plan. 1) Tell me what you are going
to tell me. 2) Tell me. 3) Tell me what you have told me. Second, don’t expect your reader to
“fill in the blanks.” Make sure that everything that is in your mind finds its way to the paper.
Third, remember that you want to remain in charge of what your reader is thinking and you want
to direct her thinking, by providing “traffic signs” or “guideposts.” You do this by using
transitions such as “in summary,” “on the other hand,” or “most importantly.” These should not
be forced, but they are important. I have high expectations for your work and you should take
advantage of opportunities for consultation so that you meet these expectations. Get me to
expand on these ideas in class before papers are due!
Another bit of advice – read your work out loud. Your ears can help you locate those
mistakes that your eyes miss. Everything counts.
For all papers, I am looking for clear, logical expression, free of jargon and informal
speech patterns. You should follow APA style (check Google). I am very approachable and
willing to provide feedback on your writing.
The Written Assignments:
Hypotheses: You will be asked to develop a set of original hypotheses. Five will be
turned in at one time (July 12) and five will be turned in at another (July 22). Each hypothesis
will be introduced by a brief rationale, including minimal reference to other research or theory,
as explained and modeled in class.
Case studies: We will examine several case studies in class. You will write two original
case studies in the class. You will analyze the first case using the structural and/or human
resources frames. This analysis is due on July 14. The second case, analyzed using the political
and symbolic frames, is due July 23. In writing your cases, you want to present a realistic yet
complex situation conducive to examination using the relevant organizational lenses. Cases
should be no more than 2 single-spaced pages, with 2 additional single-spaced pages of analysis
(or 7-8 double-spaced pages).
Reflective Paper: This final paper will require that you do two things: 1) synthesize
information from throughout the course and 2) reflect on how this new learning has contributed
to your personal view of organizations. You will discuss organizational theories that you judge to
be useful to your future administrative practice or that are particularly applicable to your current
work place and professional lives. Comment on how these theories “opened your eyes”
regarding your typical practice or gave you new insight into organizational dilemmas.
Rather than just rambling about, you must craft a thesis statement that expresses the
central idea of the paper. Everything else should support this statement. Referring to above
comments, the thesis tells me “what you are going to say,” the body of the paper “says it,” and,
of course, you will have a summary/conclusion that “says that you said it.” I hope you are all
getting this point.
Continuing, it is very important that your paper be focused. You can’t deal with
everything we have talked about in class. But you can distill something that had an effect on
your thinking, and potentially, on how you (will) act in your work setting. Also, your reasoning
needs to be grounded in the “literature.” This means you need citations. You don’t have to go
out and find new material to read, but you do have to integrate the material we have studied in
the class. A final bit of advice – good writing is re-writing. Of all the pieces for this course, I’d
like you to give this one some re-writing attention.
Participation:
It goes without saying that active involvement in discussion is important. Each day, 1 or
2 students will take charge of a “My Turn” segment. You will engage the rest of the class in
discussion/activity on one topic in the reading. This should be no more than 15 minutes! If two
are scheduled, you can partner up or work separately, but be sure to check out the topics first so
we don’t have duplication.
Grading:
Work is expected when due. Contact me about difficulties. Everyone starts out with an
A!
Class Participation and My Turn:
Hypotheses Set I:
Hypothesis Set II:
Case Study Analysis I :
Case Study Analysis II:
Reflection Paper
15%
15%
15%
15%
15%
25%
The grading scale for MSU is 2.5, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0. I might use intermediate scores on occasion, but
these are the final grade categories. A 4.0 indicates excellent work, nearly free of critique. A 3.5
would be assigned to good work that satisfactorily completes the assignment. A 3.0 would be
given for completed work that is marked by some inadequacies. A grade below 3.0 is a sign of
serious problems. All of the work is then weighted by the above percentages.
Monday, July 5
Topics:
Meyers-Briggs Classification
Overview of Course and Text
What is theory?
Class Activity:
Complete and discuss Myers-Briggs
Hypotheses
Tuesday, July 6
Assignment:
Read Bolman & Deal, Pt. 1 (pp. 1-40)
Topics:
Organizational Learning
Systems Thinking
Wednesday, July 7
Assignment:
Read B & D Part 2 (pp. 41-110)
Hoy & Sweetland, School Bureaucracies That Work
Topics:
Formalization
Weberian Bureaucracy
Loose Coupling
Friday, July 9
Assignment:
Read B & D Part 3 (pp. 111-180)
Read Kruse, Louis & Bryk, An Emerging Framework for Analyzing School-Based
Professional Community
No My Turn this day
Topics:
Professionalism
Restructuring
Groups and Teams
Monday, July 12
Assignment:
5 Hypotheses Due
Read Blasé & Blasé, Principals’ Instructional Leadership and Teacher Development
Topics:
Instructional Leadership
Decision Making Models
Wednesday, July 14
Assignment:
First case study and analysis paper due
Read B & D, (pp 181-201)
Topics:
Legitimate power
Thursday, July 15
Assignment:
Read B & D, 202-238
Read Lindle, Micropolitics
Topics:
Micropolitics
Monday, July 19
Assignment:
Read Chubb & Moe, An Institutional Perspective
Topics:
Information Environment
Resource Environment
Institutional Environment
Tuesday, July 20
Assignment:
Read B & Deal, Part 5 (pp. 239-300)
Read Donaldson, The Planetary Culture of Schools
Topics:
School Culture
Thursday, July 22
Assignment:
5 Hypotheses due
Read Hoy & Hoy, Assessing and Changing School Culture
Topics:
Culture and Climate
Friday, July 23
Assignment:
Second case study and analysis paper due
Read B & D, (pp 301-333)
Topic:
Reframing
Tuesday, July 27
Assignment:
Read B & D, pp. 334-365
Read Duffy, High Performance Organizations
Topic:
Change and Leadership
High Performance Organizations
Wednesday, July 28
Assignment:
Read B & D, pp 409-433
Topics:
Bringing it all together
Friday, July 30
Assignment:
Reflection paper due
Topics:
Wrap up and reflection