The Effect of School Structure and School Culture on the Implementation of Planned Change.

This paper investigates the impact of school structure and culture on the implementation of planned change. In addition to simply locating effective predictors of implementation, an attempt is made to examine the relative impact of variables associated with two theoretical perspectives--social psychology (school culture) and sociological (school structure)--and to synthesize the two. The structure and culture variables have unique contributions to make to the understanding of change outcomes, although they are differentially effective in predicting two dimensions of change: quality ("how different") and quantity ("how much"). In addition, there are interactions between the structure and culture variables that have a significant impact on the change process. It is impossible to develop an adequate theory of planned change in schools without paying attention to both significant structure features of the organization, such as pattern of authority, size, and teaching technology, and to characteristics of the internal organizational environment, such collegiality, morale, and tension or conflict. The finding that quality of change and quantity of change are best predicted by different sets of variables adds testimony to the need to develop a more sophisticated conceptualization of the outcomes of the change process. (Author/IRT)