How Existing Business Management Concepts Become School Leadership Fashions

Purpose: This article examines the history of three management concepts that originated in the business sector and progressed to the K-12 education sector. Framework: We propose a new conceptual model intended to help illuminate how ideas and strategies originally created for business leadership gain influence in the realm of K-12 school leadership. We build upon existing research into the history of educational reform and relevant studies of organizational management fads and fashions. Methods: We focused on three business management concepts that emerged in the past four decades as school leadership fashions: Management by Objectives, Total Quality Management, and Turnaround. We analyzed relevant data by mapping lines of business management influence on school leadership, tabulating fashion-related document appearances in the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) database, and charting the appearance of business-inspired fashions in consecutive editions of prominent educational leadership textbooks. Findings: An existing business management concept, after a time lag, crosses borders from business to education. Various stakeholders serve as fashion setters who help the incipient innovation become an influential, attention-grabbing school management fashion that receives broad but fleeting attention in K-12 education before fading away as a discarded reform. Over the last four decades, this cyclical process has served as an accumulating fashion trend in which existing (and possibly outdated) business management techniques are routinely positioned as promising, innovative K-12 educational solutions. Implications: We conclude by offering thoughts on implications and suggestions for future study, including asking whether “locally sourced” management innovation can and should exist in K-12 school leadership.

Peck, C., & Reitzug, U. C. (2012). How Existing Business Management Concepts Become School Leadership Fashions. Educational Administration Quarterly, 48(2), 347-381. doi:10.1177/0013161X11432924