Organising for School Improvement at the Middle Tier. Studies in Temporary Organisation

This thesis explores local education authorities (LEAs) as translators and local organisers of a nationwide curriculum reform in Sweden. Of particular focus is an analys is of how LEAs in one municipality use the temporary organisation as an approach to local implementation. Data are extracted from semi-structured interviews and group interviews with representatives at various levels of a temporary project organisa-tion. Communications by the Swedish National Agency for Education that aim to direct local municipalities areanalysed together with documents produced in the municipal administration. Digitally taped observations are also conducted, from which selected parts are transcribed and directly integrated in to the analysis. Four results become important to emphasise. Firstly, regulative, normative and cultural-cognitive directives in the National Agency’s communications generated a local translation process of assimilation, loose coupling and transformation. The lack of regulative directives, such as on divisions of labour, decision-making, mandates and developmental roles, reduced the potential for LEAs to become an influential actor in organising the local implementation. Secondly, regarding the design of temporary organisations, the theoretical concepts of time, task, team and transition and the balance between techno- and socio-structure qualities within these concepts is important to consider. Thirdly, leaders of improvement efforts who work in a temporary organisation must pay attention to sense-making processes and, in particular, to elements of pragmatic task interpretation and complexity reduction to maintain a more open-ended and innovative work process. Fourthly, the concepts of boundary objects (closed and open-ended) and brokering (non-formal and formal) provide a point of departure for understanding knowledge transfer between temporary and permanent school organisations. The overall results imply that institutionalised logic and understandings within this organisational field impinge on the work process of the temporary organisation in focus. That is, former ideas about LEAs’ functions and position in the education system and constricted viewpoints concerning school improvement prevail. This phenomenon affects LEAs’ translations, their design work, the sense-makingprocess and the knowledge transfer links. These results are important to reflect on, particularly if temporary organisations should have an innovative purpose and serve as a catalyst for local school improvement.