Challenges and Adaptations in Continuous Improvement: How Improvement Leaders Adapt Continuous Improvement to Sustain Collective Involvement

• In Event: Advancing Continuous Improvement in Theory and Practice

Abstract

Continuous improvement is a collaborative approach to managing the complexities of school improvement-- one that harnesses the collective wisdom of stakeholders and is sustained through the actions, reflections, and capacity of the community. Those who lead continuous improvement efforts are charged with bringing together frontline workers and community members in disciplined inquiry. Using data from interviews with fifteen improvement leaders, study explores what occurs as practitioners bring continuous improvement to their organizations, and attempt to establish its principles and practices as routines within the organization. It also explores the way practitioners exercise agency in the face of constraint, adapting their ambitions and practices to sustain collective involvement in continuous improvement.

Author

• Mary-Louise Leger, University of California - Los Angeles
  Presenting Author