Growth Enhancing Environments: Human Resources Development

1. Growth Enhancing Environments: Human Resources Development • One can act through two theoretical approaches: • Classical Organizational or Bureaucratic • Human Resources Development (Organizational Behavior) • The latter taps the higher order motivational needs of the people in the school.

2. School Climate • Different schools have distinct personalities due to the particular social system of each school. • This social system has a CLIMATE that is the defined as the “characteristics of the total environments in a school building” (Owens, p. 162). • Renato Tagiuri’s model identifies four elements that comprise climate.

4. Type A (American): Short Term Employment Type J (Japanese): Lifetime employment Type Z (Modified American): Long-term employment Research on Climate (Wm. Ouchi): Theory Z

5. Type A: Individual decision making Type J: Consensual decision making Type Z: Consensual decision making Type A: Specialized career path Type J: Nonspecialized career path Type Z: Moderately specialized career path Research on Climate (Wm. Ouchi): Theory Z

6. Research showed that successful organizations, including schools, had a consistent theme: “the power of values and culture in these corporations rather than procedures and control systems, provides the glue that holds them together, stimulates commitment to a common mission, and galvanizes the creativity and energy of their participants.” (Owens, p. 164). Tom Peters: In Search of Excellence

7. Culture is based on norms, values, and belief systems And this leads to behaviors and artifacts based on these norms, values, and belief systems Schein’s Model of Levels of Culture (p. 168)

8. Climate is measured by assessing the perceptions of individuals concerning the aspects of climate: culture, ecology, organization, and milieu. We must remember that schools and districts will have multiple cultures. Organizational Climate

9. Likert’s analysis led him to conclude that there are causal variables under the control of the principal that affect climate and organization performance : Organization structure: bureaucratic or flexible Leadership style: authoritative or democratic Philosophy of operation: consensus decision making or not Rensis Likert’s Cause and Effect

10. These choices are critical to determining the nature of the management system in the organization. That is, Likert’s System 1, 2, 3, or 4. System 4 is the only effective System. This is directly related to student achievement level increases. Rensis Likert’s Cause and Effect

11. Various instruments can measure climate, one of the earliest being the OCDQ by Halpin and Croft. The accreditation process requires schools to use climate instruments, and then to develop a plan to improve those areas that are weak. Climate Studies

12. Likert noted that any effective System 4 will need to break into work groups that are: small enough to work and communicate together, and close enough to the problem to make effective, creative decisions. This requires the pyramidal structure depicted on p. 191 in which there is someone linked to groups above and below a group’s place on the organization chart. <The End> Likert’s Linking Pin Concept