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The organizational culture of innovative schools: The role of the Principal.
Authors: Juan Carlos Riveras-León, Marina Tomàs-Folch
Number of views: 136
Social and technological changes demand constant updating, this implies that schools must be
prepared to face these changes. As a result, they need to have the capacity to innovate as part of
their organizational culture. Although it is true, that not all schools are examples of innovative
organizations, it is possible to identify some that have a more innovative organizational culture than
others. In the generation of that capacity, the principal’s leadership plays an essential role, they are
ones called to face the challenge of developing competences and skills to lead the change. Existing
research confirms the importance of the school’s leadership in the development of educational
centers, OECD reports already ratified this, stating how vital it is to have good principals to lead
schools (2009). In this study, schools have been chosen that have certain characteristics that are
considered stand out for the Chilean educational system. By applying a questionnaire, the innovative
potential of the centers being studied and their organizational culture to favor this are analyzed,
the latter from the point of view of the principal’s actions. The results allow confirming the
innovative potential the studied centers have, the most substantial practices of the principal’s
actions that favor innovation are identified, as well as the key role the principal’s leadership plays
within these centers. At the same time, questions arise that limit the development of certain
innovative actions, such as, the search and pressure for results originated essentially from
standardized testing, like SIMCE, which is applied in Chile.