Thinking Outside the Box: How Social Capital Enables Principals' Institutional Entrepreneurship

• In Event: Organizational Theory in Research and Practice

Abstract

Entrepreneurial leadership is often considered the silver bullet solution to decades of stagnation in U.S. public schools. The kind of innovation involved in entrepreneurial leadership can be rare in public schools, which have long been described as ‘highly institutionalized’. In this mixed-methods study, we ask how the resources and patterns of relationships in principals’ collegial advice networks influence their tendency to conform to standard professional structures and practices or to be more entrepreneurial when solving school problems. Our preliminary findings suggest that principals with stronger ties to colleagues may be less likely to conform. Thus, districts should carefully consider how they form collegial networks since their composition may influence principals’ ability to be institutional entrepreneurs.

Authors

• Ebony N. Bridwell-Mitchell, Harvard University

• Maxwell Yurkofsky, Harvard University