The Organisational Evolution of Contemporary International Schools

Abstract

Whereas growth in international school numbers is widely reported, less attention has been given to how these schools have developed as organisations. Drawing on organisational life-cycle models (Greiner, 1972) and the work of DiMaggio and Powell (1983), this paper addresses that gap. As international schools grow individually, and as the field expands collectively, processes of institutionalism are affecting the legitimacy of claims to ‘international’ status and, this paper argues, are also normalising organisational shape, structure, form and function. Schools (and their leaders) face isomorphic pressures to mimic each other, are being coerced into similar form and are adopting field-wide normative practices. The paper concludes, however, by showing that culturalist perspectives and institutional entrepreneurship offer an alternative. Reproduction of organisational form may to some extent be inevitable, but that reproduction is moderated by diversity and can be manipulated and resisted by school leaders strong enough to escape the iron cage.

Keywords

international schools institutionalisation isomorphism legitimacy organisational behaviour

Introduction

International schools, and new ones especially, can be stimulating places to work. Despite the potential for continual change, the probable disorganisation, the ever-evolving policies, and the possibility of long hours, they are places where leaders and teachers can often make a real impact. New international schools enjoy the flexibility of a ‘blank canvas’ and can be energetic and exciting. Longer term however, as elucidated below, organisational theory (here, primarily, the work of Greiner (1972), and DiMaggio and Powell (1983)) and, for many international school educators, lived experience, suggest that new schools evolve into more bureaucratic and less dynamic versions of their former selves: cries of ‘this place isn’t what it used to be’ are likely familiar to anyone who has lived through the evolution of an international school from start-up to maturity. This paper is an examination of these evolutionary process.

The paper proceeds in three distinct parts. Considered first are the potential stages of evolution. Using organisational life-cycle theory (Greiner, 1972), attention is given to whether evolutionary stages are predictable, and knowledge of them useful, in helping school leaders to prepare for change. Relevant to readers of this journal, organisational life-cycle theory offers a useful analytical genealogy of how, at the level of the individual school, the ‘iron cage’ of bureaucracy might take hold (Weber, 1946, pp. 181-82). For Greiner, through a definable series of growth phases, the informal and entrepreneurial spirit of a start-up gives way to more formal lines of reporting, to more rigid lines of communication, to greater control through systems and structure, to professional management practice and to greater managerial accountability. This insight is significant, especially for school leaders, because as spans of control expand, as expertise is stretched, as people and systems buckle under increased load, life-cycle dynamics can cause previously effective managers to make mistakes. Consequently, understanding the stages of organisational evolution allows the potential for errors to be avoided, and the turbulence of change calmed.

Examined second are the pressures affecting how international schools are evolving. Taking cues from work by Bunnell, Fertig and James (2016), institutional theory (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983; Greenwood and Suddaby, 2006; Scott, 2014) is used to consider the pressures international schools face to mimic each other, the coercion of these schools into similar form and the adoption of field-wide normative practices (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983). It is argued that, just as natural selection weeds out less successful genotypes, so too for organisations does institutionalism – field-wide ‘interrelated rules and routines that define appropriate actions’ (March and Olsen, 1989, p.160). Thus, while the first international schools to emerge from the primordial soup of early globalisation may have been free to evolve according to the whims of their initial founders and the ideals of their early-stage managers, globally homogenous processes of institutionalism are, arguably, creating an increasingly similar ‘species’ of international school. As this paper notes, not only are individual schools subject to the ‘iron cage’ of bureaucracy (op. cit.), for international schools collectively the organisational forms that cage produces look increasingly alike (Hallinger and Heck, 2002; MacDonald, 2007).

Finally, attention turns to institutional entrepreneurship; the paper concludes that, whilst schools may face mimetic, coercive and normative pressures, those pressures are subject to (indeed, born from) the actions of agentic individuals. Evolution may be inevitable, and with it reproduction of organisational form, but that reproduction can go awry and can be manipulated, coerced, resisted and changed by individual action. That possibility is important, and relevant to readers, because it focuses attention on the manner in which individual actors can strategically influence their institutional environments via pedagogic or market leadership, and through lobbying for regulatory change: to some extent, the iron cage is malleable.

Whilst the focus of this paper is more closely related to the boardroom than to the classroom, these discussions, shedding light on historical, contemporary and potential future changes in organisational dynamics, will be of interest to international school leaders, governors and researchers concerned with field-level affects on the development of these schools as organisations.

Terms of Reference

With no single organisation granting rights to the label ‘international’ (Hayden, 2006) and with no restriction upon its use (Murphy, 2000; Walker, 2004), the variety and range of so-called ‘international schools’ is enormous. ISC Research, a consultancy which reports on the sector, suggest that an ‘international school’ delivers a curriculum to any combination of pre-school, primary or secondary students, wholly or partly in English outside an English-speaking country (ISC Research, 2018a). Whilst the brevity and scope of that definition is questionable (Hayden and Thompson, 2016; Machin, 2017), it is sufficient to convey market growth. In 2008 there were fewer than 5,000 international schools; today there are close to 10,000 (ISC Research, 2018b). Resultantly, such is the rate of expansion according to Hayden and Thompson, that ‘what exactly is meant by the term “international school” seems to be changing by the week’ (2017, p.1).

Definitional difficulties aside, as stated, the interest of this paper is in these schools as organisations – their structure, form, policies, procedures, decision-making processes and operational norms. Growth in their number is relevant only insofar as it highlights the prevalence of young schools: some 50% of these schools have been established within the last decade. Without apology, it is these newer ‘Type C’ schools (Hayden and Thompson, 2013) that are focussed on here; international schools established within the last decade or so. Whereas Type A (Traditional) schools serve ‘the children of globally mobile parents’, and (often) have ‘a large cultural mix of children’ (Mayer, 1968 p.10), and Type B (Ideological) schools are those committed to education for global peace and/or the philosophy of Kurt Hahn, the newer Type C (Non-Traditional) schools, often privately owned, are frequently operated for-profit and are predominantly populated with local nationals (Hayden and Thompson, 2013), and typify fundamental changes in the character and nature of international schooling (Hallgarten, Tabberer and McCarthy, 2015 p.7). These newer schools, many still in the first decade of life, have undergone/are undergoing the transformations common to young organisations, with (as will be discussed below) maturity occurring as these schools settle somewhat as organisations in their second decade and beyond.

All of which is to highlight that international schooling is varied and dynamic. No one theory or model can capture all of its nuances, gradations and distinctions – and this paper makes no such claim. Indeed, the focus here is not the nature of these schools; rather, the purview is organisational development as it affects school form, function, structure, and strategic choices. Critically, bracketed out of the analysis is educational change. This is not a review of the impetus for, and implications of, curriculum policy shifts, adjustments in modes of examination or the adoption of new assessment methodologies. Nor is the intent to engage with the debate surrounding what it means to be an ‘international school’ (that debate being authoritatively covered in this journal and in many others). Of interest is how these newer schools, whether large or small, profit or not-for-profit, privately-owned or publicly-traded, evolve as organisations; how they are managed and led, by what mechanisms and with what structural and administrative outcomes. As will be shown, this is significant because understanding the inherent pressures of evolutionary change is the first step to ensuring that those pressures are known, managed and mitigated – allowing school management to lead through, and not be led by, those pressures.

Organisational Life-Cycle Theory

Analogous to biological development in so much as ‘organisations are born, grow, and decline’ (Kimberly and Miles, 1980, p. ix), organisational life-cycle theory considers the configuration of variables around which, based on enterprise size, age, growth rate and the focal tasks or challenges faced, organisations are continually structured and restructured (Greiner, 1972). In his 1972 paper ‘Evolution and Revolution as Organisations Grow’, Larry Greiner, then Associate Professor of Organisational Behaviour at Harvard Business School, postulated that evolving/aging organisations go through definable periods of development followed by predictable crisis, whereupon major structural and strategic change is needed to maintain momentum. Transition through each stage and each crisis, Greiner argued, is characterised by new demands on management. Echoing Weber’s inescapable ‘iron cage’ of bureaucratisation (Weber, 1946, p. 181-82), for Greiner organisational development begets more policies and procedures, with each crisis legitimating the need for renewed management structures and systems. Table 1 summarises Greiner’s life-cycle phases, while Table 2 summarises indicative management actions/foci at each phase. (Note that Greiner added ‘Phase 6’ in a 1998 update to his original paper; it does not appear in his original table of actions/foci).

Table 1.

Greiner’s Life-Cycle Phases.

	DEVELOPMENT PHASE			RESULTANT CRISIS
TIME ↓	Phase 1	Development Through Creativity	LEADING TO	Crisis of Leadership
	Phase 2	Development Through Direction		Crisis of Autonomy
	Phase 3	Development Through Delegation		Crisis of Control
	Phase 4	Development Through Coordination		Crisis of Red Tape
	Phase 5	Development Through Collaboration		Crisis of Growth
	Phase 6	Development Through Extra-Organisational Solutions		Crisis of Identity

Table 2.

Common organisational practices during evolutionary stages.

Category	Phase 1	Phase 2	Phase 3	Phase 4	Phase 5
Management Style	Individualistic Entrepreneurial	Directive	Delegative	Watchdog	Participative
Management Focus	Creativity	Efficiency	Expansion	Consolidation	Problem solving
Organisation Structure	Informal	Centralised and functional	Decentralised	Specialised Hierarchical	Team-based
Control System	Market results	Standards	Reports and systems	Long-term plans	Goal setting

In some senses these stages, changes and actions might seem obvious and unremarkable. Yet this is likely with the benefit of hindsight. Readers who have been through a developmental sequence may only now empathise with the Greiner’s stages and crisis, perhaps with a knowing nod or wry smile. Post-hoc, the reflexive reader may, however, be able to recall the limits of their own understanding at each stage of evolution; as Greiner offers, ‘perhaps they resisted desirable changes or were even swept emotionally into a revolution without being able to propose constructive solutions’ (op. cit., p.9). Like many such models, the value of Greiner’s thinking is in its encouragement of reflection. For this reason, the description below of each phase is kept deliberately general, the modest hope being that readers will reflect on, transpose and extrapolate Greiner’s thinking as it might apply to the lived experiences of a Type C international school undergoing organisational change from start-up (Phase 1) to maturity (Phase 6).

Phase 1 - Development Through Creativity

In the first of Greiner’s stages, the school is often small; growth is fuelled by the enthusiasm and creativity of its founder/s and early teachers. Communication, management procedures, and interactions with parents, are likely informal and ad hoc. These individualistic and creative activities are essential for the school to survive its first few years, but therein lies the problem. As student roll grows, as more staff join, and as more capital is injected (movement to a purpose-built site or second-phase development, for example), the requirement for formal systems and procedures increases. Increased numbers of students, teachers and administrative staff cannot be managed exclusively through informal communication. Nor can marketing, accounts, and operational systems be run in an improvisational manner. To ensure consistency and quality, management control is required. At this point a crisis of leadership occurs. Shifting pressures require the organisation to temper ad hoc processes in favour of more planned and more systematic leadership; the casualness that characterised the school’s early days will be moderated in favour of greater formality. To cope with these new demands, early school leaders find themselves burdened with increasing responsibilities – they must take on tasks they are unfamiliar with and, potentially, uninclined towards. Eventually, evolutionary pressures require the recruitment of additional managers, Heads of Department and Heads of Phase/Year, for example, who provide development through direction.

Phase 2 - Development Through Direction

The appointment of new leaders, and the new management structures which accompany them, supports further development. Separation of the school, and of tasks and roles, into functions (pastoral, academic, phase, marketing, finance, operations and so on) allows for specialisation. Communication becomes more formal and impersonal as a hierarchy of titles and positions builds. Budgets and defined work standards are likely to be adopted. At this stage, the school will determine or reaffirm its strategic direction (perhaps linked to a formal strategic plan) and may begin to consider appropriate inspection/accreditation regimes. Benefitting from more formal leadership, the school is likely to enjoy a period of (renewed) development. Making these organisational adjustments requires a change in management style, away from informality and towards systems, procedures, consistency and uniformity. However, the original managers may have neither the ability nor the desire to take on more complex leadership roles. Some may long for the casualness of the ‘good old days’, trying to manage as they did in the past. New leaders, with different skill-sets, may be required to move the school to its next stage of development. Managers appointed early in the school’s life may be perfect for a start-up, less so for a growing school. Hence, so-called ‘start-up Heads’. Adept at overcoming the challenges of establishing new schools, after the early start-up years these Heads quickly move on to new challenges leaving on-going development to a new Head; one with different managerial capabilities. However, as the number of systems and procedures grows, there comes a point where, even for the most competent managers, there is just too much for any one person to know and do. For Greiner (op. cit.), further organisational progress requires development through delegation.

Phase 3 - Development Through Delegation

This evolutionary step occurs through application of decentralised organisation structures. Greater responsibility is given to mid-level managers, in theory freeing senior leaders to focus on strategy and long-term growth. The popularity of middle-leadership courses, and the predominance of distributed leadership within international schools (Harris, 2007; Harris and DeFlaminis, 2016), shows how significant this stage of development can be. Empowering middle management does, however, have disadvantages. Over time, the school risks becoming fragmented. Where once the school was a singular and cohesive unit, it is now a series of smaller components. Each of the constituent parts may be organised, but the whole risks becoming disorganised. This erodes consistency. A parent’s experience in one part of the school may be vastly different to that in others. As middle-leaders defend their turf the school also becomes highly political, slowing down decision-making whilst making cohesive whole-school management increasingly inefficient. These inefficiencies often reduce economies of scale (the benefits of being a larger school). Purchasing decisions might, for example, be made without the benefit of a central procurement function which can secure the best prices. The school is facing a crisis of control.

Phase 4 - Development Through Coordination

The crisis of control is arrested through increased centralisation, increased use of standard operating procedures, and the appointment of managers with experience of more complex schools. Formal procedures for achieving greater coordination will be introduced, bringing together disparate units, exerting control and direction over policy and practice. New financial systems may be introduced to monitor and manage expenditure, and while middle-managers may still retain significant authority, they learn to justify their actions within more rigid frameworks. However, the proliferation of systems and processes has the potential to exceed its utility. Middle managers, for example, increasingly resent direction and control from those who are not familiar with local conditions. Senior managers, on the other hand, complain about uncooperative and uninformed middle-managers; both groups criticise the bureaucratic, officious and often cumbersome organisation that has evolved. Procedures take precedence over problem solving, and innovation is stifled. In short, the organisation has become too large and complex to be managed through formal and rigid systems – it faces a crisis of red tape.

Phase 5 - Development Through Collaboration

Paradoxically, breaking through the bureaucratic red tape requires, in part, a return to the earlier days of flexibility. Systems are streamlined, team-working introduced, and flexible management structures used to recapture the collaborative nature of a start-up. Large schools are often broken up into distinct units, with sectional leaders given almost complete autonomy (perhaps under the guidance of an Executive Principal or similar). Following the trajectory of Greiner’s model, once a school has addressed excessive red tape, ongoing development relates to the limits of internal growth; further growth may only be achieved through mergers, outsourcing, or joint ventures; i.e. the individual school needs to look beyond its own internal capabilities, and the capacity of its core markets, and seek external growth.

Phase 6 - Development Through Extra-Organisational Solutions

Added in 1998, Greiner’s last stage considers what happens when an organisation reaches the peak of its natural evolution. Where previous development was internal, here it is fuelled by external solutions: for example access to the benefits of scale, access to best practice, access to improved expertise, and access to additional finance. For international schools, achieving these benefits may involve joining an alliance. This could be a group such as the East Asia Regional Council of Schools (EARCOS), the Council of British International Schools (COBIS) or the Federation of British International Schools in Asia (FOBISIA). Or, it might mean becoming part of a corporate group such as Nord Anglia or Cognita. In the US and UK, many private (and state) schools have formed Federations that achieve similar ends. Connecting this work to that of Bunnell, Fertig and James (2016), throughout these stages schools need to continually (re)affirm and formalise their legitimacy. With the recent and substantial growth in the number of international schools calling into question the credibility of newer schools as ‘international’, active conformity to institutional requirements (Scott, 2014) reduces any dissonance between the school and its institutional environment. Thus, as the next section will explore, whereas the specifics of organisational development might be localised, such development takes place through a series of normative field-wide isomorphic pressures – the social, political, legal, and cultural processes which determine what counts as legitimate organisational behaviour (Mahony, 2000). In this regard, a school may feel that it is alone on its evolutionary journey – but in reality, knowingly or unknowingly, international schools journey together.

Growing Together, Apart: Institutional Theory

Organisational life-cycle models explain why more complex organisations require more management and why, even in economically static organisations, evolution brings with it more formal systems and policies. It does not, though, explain why those systems and polices might be similar across different organisations. If organisations are formed by local conditions and local cultural dynamics then, especially in the globally diverse body of international schools, we should be seeing diverse, diverging and differing responses to evolutionary pressures. In contrast, previous research suggests that, curriculum differences aside, many international schools share similar themes and appear to share many structural similarities (Hallinger and Heck, 2002; MacDonald, 2007); they are ‘atolls in a coral sea’ (Allen, 2002, p.131), relatively homogenous organisational forms existent within an ocean of heterogeneity. Institutional theory is useful in considering why this might be the case.

Institutional theory sees individual organisations nested within, and shaped by, field-wide arrangements (Scott, 2014), where a field is those organisations that, in aggregate, constitute a recognised area of institutional life (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983). Operating covertly and overtly, through formal doctrine and informal networks, these arrangements bind individual organisations to ‘interrelated rules and routines that define appropriate actions’ (March and Olsen, 1989, p. 160). Thus, rather than being formed by local conditions, institutional theory suggests that organisational development is determined by field-wide social, political, legal, and financial processes that put into motion ‘institutional patterns or event chains with deterministic qualities’ (Mahony, 2000, p. 507). These deterministic qualities result in the adoption of organisational behaviours that conform to normative demands beyond those of the individual organisation. As DiMaggio and Powell claim:

‘Once a set of organisations emerges as a field, a paradox arises: rational actors make their organisations increasingly similar as they try to change them.’ (op. cit., p.147)

From this perspective, instead of being rational local formations, organisations evolve as a result of their institutionalised environments, their structure expressing the isomorphism of field-wide conceptions about legitimate form, shape and function. Critically, it is through isomorphism that legitimacy travels across organisations, thereby becoming institutionalised. Or, as DiMaggio and Powell frame it, becoming the ‘constraining process that forces one unit in a population to resemble other units that face the same set of environmental conditions’ (p.149). Seeking legitimacy then, each individual organisation’s claim to institutional belonging is tested, measured and proven against these isomorphic forces. To be seen as a legitimate member of the field an organisation must be shaped and must function according to formal and informal, spoken and unspoken, institutional ‘rules’.

For international schools, the notion of legitimacy is acute. In their application of institutional theory to the international school context, Bunnell, Fertig and James (2016) find tension and debate. For these authors legitimacy is assessed in terms of a school’s claim to ‘international’ status, their paper discussing the processes and outcomes which make such claims possible. The challenges this presents are authoritatively covered by Bunnell, Fertig and James; relevant here are their discussions of the normative and cultural-cognitive pillars of institutionalisation. The normative pillar relates to the prescriptive, evaluative and obligatory dimensions of institutional life. It comprises values and norms, ‘together with the construction of standards to which existing structures and behaviours can be compared or assessed’ (Scott, 2014, p. 64). The cultural-cognitive pillar is concerned with mutual understandings of reality and sense-making apparatus which enables meaning-making and interpretation (Bunnell, Fertig and James, 2016). Contended here is that responses to the normative and cultural-cognitive pillars play out not only in a school’s claim to international status, but also in how it is organised, shaped, structured, managed and governed. Lacking defined criteria for legitimacy, international schools are under isomorphic pressure to adopt normatively and cultural–cognitively expressed forms of organisational behaviour, both in how ‘being international’ is manifest and in a myriad of other organisational decisions.

Arguably, this need for legitimacy helps to explain the apparent contradiction of relatively uniform international school development set against significant cultural diversity. At the risk of over-simplification, school calendars illustrate these effects. Aside from those which implement a southern hemisphere calendar, many international schools follow broadly similar academic years, having a ‘traditional’ long summer break, for example. Yet the lengthy school summer holiday is an antiquated relic of the Victorian era; a necessity of nineteenth century agricultural economies, long summer holidays enabling children to toil in the fields (Ballinger, 1998; Epstein, 2017) - hardly relevant to today’s international schools. Moreover, in places where international schools are common, notably the Middle East and South-East Asia (ISC Research, 2018b), the notion of a distinct ‘summer’ is something of an oddity. Nevertheless, despite questionable contextual relevance, the practice persists. According to institutional theory, the long summer break endures because field-wide isomorphic pressures determine so; schools conform to this institution, even if it is of little contextual relevance. Useful here then, isomorphism helps to explain why international schools might progress similarly through Greiner’s life-cycle stages, adopting organisational practices beyond any contextual or economic need (and, indeed, explains why they would adopt practices that may be economically disadvantageous). DiMaggio and Powell (op. cit.) suggest that at the heart of isomorphism are three forces: coercive, mimetic and normative. As with Greiner’s life-cycle model, attempt is made here to apply those forces to the context of international schools.

The Coercive Domain

DiMaggio and Powell describe coercive isomorphism as ‘the result of pressures exerted on organisations by other organisations upon which they are dependent’ (op. cit., p. 150). For international schools, those pressures come from accreditation agencies, examination bodies and other associations to whose rules and regulations they must adhere. For example, in meeting the authorising, credentialing and legalising precepts of accreditation, international schools are submitting to authority relationships that, ultimately, contribute to the adoption of common organisational processes, systems, and procedures. By way of illustration, in the Council of International Schools (CIS) Accreditation Standards 2016, Standard F5 makes it a core requirement that a school’s:

‘appraisal/performance management system is defined and implemented for all faculty and staff, based on pre-determined, explicit criteria, and is supported by a programme of professional development and/or training, which is linked to appraisal outcomes and other school priorities for students’ learning.’

(CIS, 2016, p. 33)

Whilst CIS accreditation documentation makes it clear that its standards ‘do not presuppose any specific model of excellence’ (CIS, 2013, p. 6), standard F5 dictates: i) that schools will have an appraisal process, ii) that this process will be linked to professional development, and iii) that it will be linked to student learning. By no means are these suggested as ignoble aims, quite the contrary. However, from the perspective of isomorphism, such requirements can be seen to coerce schools towards a particular mould of experience and towards distinct value systems, providing strong guidance as to the kind of organisational systems required for accreditation (Fertig, 2007), thereby contributing to homogenisation across the field.

The Mimetic Domain

Not all organisational isomorphism derives from coercive authority. Expanding on the writings of March and Olsen, DiMaggio and Powell suggest that:

‘When organisational technologies are poorly understood (March and Olsen, 1976), when goals are ambiguous, or when environments create symbolic uncertainty, organisations may model themselves on other organisations’.

(1983, p. 151)

In other words, faced with uncertainty, rather than pursue strategies of differentiation, organisations model themselves after other organisations in their field/network whose structures have proven legitimate, the reward for similarity being credibility.

Given the literature pointing to the uncertainties of the school environment (Ball, 2012) and, in particular, the ambiguities of operating internationally (Hayden, 2006; Bates, 2011), mimetic isomorphism is intensely relevant to international schools. As noted above, for international schools there are pressures relating to the activities and norms of acceptable behaviour when clarity of appropriate organisational behaviour is lacking. This is especially true in new markets and where parents, teachers, students and school owners are working through what it means to be ‘international’. Thus for fledgling international schools operating in unproven environments, it is only prudent to mimic the structures, form and processes of their more established brethren – thereby establishing their legitimate claim to international school status. In practice, this plays out in all manner of domains: reporting systems, the structure of the school day, pedagogical style and after-school activity programmes, for example, all become increasing facsimiles across schools.

These arguments also help to explain the existence of non-optimal forms of organisation. Firstly, institutional complementarity across a field ensures that ‘the presence of one [firm] increases the returns of others’ (Hall and Soskice, 2001, p. 17); the more international schools there are, paradoxically, the more each benefits from the legitimacy of the field in the eyes of parents. Secondly, although alternative structures may be more economically efficient, any such benefit is likely to be mitigated by a perceived lack of credibility within the field. Smaller class sizes, for example, do not necessarily lead to improved learning (Hattie, 2017) and are economically inefficient. They persist though, and are promoted by schools as a differentiator, because they capture legitimacy in the eyes of the customer and because that legitimacy has gained institutional traction. Moreover, not only do these mimetic pressures contribute to the development of homogenous organisational behaviours, they also accelerate those behaviours. If a new school wishes to capture legitimacy, it must adopt the precepts of the field (promoting low class sizes or its compliance with other field-wide norms, for example), thereby contributing to a self-perpetuating cycle of imitation that, with each new start-up, further embeds and further legitimises particular modes and methods of organisation. In other words, mimetic pressures are multiplied by each and every new school start-up.

Finally, where networks are densely connected (as is arguably the case with international schools via associative bodies such as FOBISIA, EARCOS, and COBIS), the rapid diffusion of information about behaviours, and the power of such networks as reputation-building mechanisms, contributes significantly to mimetic behaviour. Institutional actors seek to cooperate, keeping their organisations apart from people or practices seen to be following opposing or competing logics (Greenwood and Suddaby, 2006). Deviant behaviour is quickly identified and sanctioned and, resultantly, as the predictability of inter- and intra-firm behaviour increases, self-seeking opportunism is constrained and cooperation between actors enabled; the more dense and ‘closed’ the network, the more cooperative, the less competitive, and the more mimetic the field becomes (Walker, Kogut and Shan, 1997).

The Normative Domain

The last of DiMaggio and Powell’s isomorphic mechanisms are normative; again they use the work of another author, in this case Larson (1977), to illustrate:

‘the collective struggle of members of an occupation to define the conditions and methods of their work, to control ‘the production of producers’ (Larson, 1977:49-52), and to establish a cognitive base and legitimation for their occupational autonomy.’

(DiMaggio and Powell, 1983, p. 152)

In essence, DiMaggio and Powell are referring to professional networks, and to professionals themselves, as subject to the same coercive and mimetic isomorphic pressures as the organisations to which they belong. In an argument echoed by Bunnell, Fertig and James (2016), DiMaggio and Powell note that staff within an organisational field are often chosen via a common set of regulatory attributes (the coercive domain) and that individuals within that field often undergo cultural-cognitive socialisation to common expectations about personal behaviour, appropriate dress, vocabulary and standard professional protocols (i.e. the mimetic domain). Cognitive how-to rules and taken-for-granted scripts structure the actions of professionals, constrain what actors perceive to be reasonable and appropriate, and thereby limit the range of options for organisational design. The mechanisms of professionalism act, through an interchangeable pool of like-minded individuals, to override local variations that may otherwise shape organisational processes (Perrow, 1974), and instead create normative isomorphic forces across the field.

These mechanisms are particularly powerful because they govern both organisations and the individuals within. Referencing what Kanter calls the ‘homosocial and homosexual reproduction’ of management (Kanter, 1977, p. 48), school leaders are under pressure not only to shape their schools according to accepted norms but also to subsume their own selves to a professionally defined normative identity. From this perspective, international schools are adopting the edicts of particular organisational systems not (solely) because life-cycle evolution demands, nor (exclusively) because of economic necessities, but rather because the designers of school structures, school leaders, are themselves (also) subject to, and users of, isomorphic pressures. As leaders move from school to school, they take with them their successes, their understandings, their sense of professionalism, and their normative educational models. Using this ‘baggage’, for better or for worse, they shape – or at least attempt to shape, their new schools into a form that mirrors a collective professionalised subjectivity about good schooling. In turn, bound by these subjectivities, and by literature which reports, celebrates and reinforces those subjectivities, schools converge on organisational practices (such as distributed leadership), producing future leaders whose view of schooling has been normatively fashioned – and so the cycle repeats.

Discussion

Significantly, in adopting an isomorphic view of organisational change, emphasis is shifted from economics as a structuring agent towards network forces. In opposition to a corporatised view of natural selection – that is, the rational economic view that non-optimal forms of organisation are selected out of a field – DiMaggio and Powell’s work on isomorphism suggests that homogenisation occurs across organisational types unlinked by competition or rational need because of structuration of the organisational field itself. Thus, where in the initial stages of its life cycle an organisational field displays considerable diversity in approach and form (as was evident with the early international schools), once the field is established there is an inexorable push towards homogenisation of practice (as is arguably the case with contemporary international schools).

Institutional theory has, however, come under attack for its inadequate treatment of agency and power (Clegg, 2010). Contra to theories of isomorphism, the extent of the iron cage and the inferred lack of control that leaders have over organisational form are points of debate. Two alternative perspectives offer insight. The first, the culturalist perspective, assumes that differences are located in the beliefs and values of people (Schwartz, 1994; Hofstede, 2001). For culturalists, environmental variance affects organisational behaviour. Pertinent here, this perspective suggests difference rather than similarity in organisational form. As global institutions, international schools are geographically and culturally diverse; they are staffed by people of different colours and different creeds and they are managed by people with different credentials, different educational experiences and different social backgrounds. From a culturalist standpoint, based on the unique values and beliefs of the managers within, international schools will provide different organisational solutions to the evolutionary challenges they face. The second, institutional entrepreneurship, suggests that we are not (entirely) prisoners of our environments. Rather, as DiMaggio argues in a later work, individuals can change organisations in agentic and often creative ways (DiMaggio, 1988). First to introduce the notion, Eisenstadt (1980) characterised institutional entrepreneurs as those who serve as catalysts for, give direction to, and take the lead in institutional change. DiMaggio (op. cit.), building on Eisenstadt, characterised institutional entrepreneurs as individuals who contribute to the genesis of new/reformed institutions and thereby to novel organisational arrangements. The concept of institutional entrepreneurship is important because it explains how actors, particularly those with access to strategic resources or other forms of power (i.e. school Heads and governors), can shape organisations despite the aforementioned pressures of isomorphism.

The argument therefore that organisations mature over time as a result of predictable life-cycle changes and isomorphic pressures is not a fallacy, but it ignores (or at least sidesteps) the fact that it is individuals who are the agents (intentionally or unintentionally) of these changes. This close relationship between the legitimising potentials of the individuals who make up the organisation and the institutional environment, both separately and collectively, is significant (Drori and Honig, 2013). Thus, rather than seeing culturalist and institutionalist approaches as radical opposites, as Sorge (2004) argues, they cannot (and should not) be separated. The gap is bridged, he argues, because an individual’s values and beliefs and organisational structure are reciprocally constituted – there is, after all, no organisation without its constituent individuals. Acknowledging this, in more recent work institutional theory has morphed into theories of communities of practice and social learning systems – terms which echo the prevalence and popularity of ‘professional learning communities’ within international schools (Stuart, 2017). Relevant here, these theories give more prominence to agentic power. Whilst nodding towards DiMaggio and Powell, Wenger (2000), for example, argues that communities of practice are bound together by individuals’ collective understandings of what their community is about (the normative domain) and that members hold each other accountable to a sense of mutuality and joint enterprise (the coercive domain). That is, they exercise power over each other and, through this power, shape not only their individual organisations, but also the field more generally. The mimetic domain also features; Wenger describes a ‘shared repertoire of language, routines, sensibilities, artefacts, tools, stories and styles’ (ibid, p. 229), with belonging and identification the product of an individual’s competence (having what it takes to engage effectively in mutuality) and experience (understanding the terms of the mutuality). For the savvy observer, these communities of practice, their influence, and the centrality of institutional entrepreneurs to them, can be seen at work in the numerous trends, fads, tendencies and fashions which fill conference agendas and colour the international school landscape.

Critical for school leaders then, rather than a reading of Greiner and of DiMaggio and Powell that sees organisations within a field becoming inescapably isomorphic with each other, incorporating a cultural perspective alongside recognition of institutional entrepreneurship acknowledges that isomorphic behaviours are kept in place by the individuals who, whilst adhering to them, are also (re)shaping them. As organisations, international schools face, and are formed by, field-wide pressures. Yet, at the same time, organisational shape and structure is also determined by local-cultural dynamics and by entrepreneurial and progressive school leaders who can make pedagogic, strategic and organisational advances independent of the crowd – to some extent, the iron cage is malleable.

Future Potentials

Projecting the findings of this paper onwards, a number of areas warrant further research. Firstly, where this work has suggested that international school organisational structures are consistent with Greiner’s life-cycle theory, there is scope for this to be developed empirically. Elaboration of evolutionary indicators for international schools may help move the usefulness of Greiner’s model beyond retrospective rationalisation, the outcome being a functional set of indicators through which international school leaders might better understand their organisations. Secondly, where Bunnell, Fertig and James (2016) consider the development of an institutionalised International Baccalaureate school identity, suggested here is that further study (or more likely studies) could consider points of convergence and divergence across international schools of different types and within different cultural settings. That is, to what extent are the suggested isomorphic pressures restricted to definable groups of schools (categorised, perhaps, by associative body memberships, curriculum offering, profit-orientation, location and so forth) vis-à-vis forces that might be applicable field-wide?

Finally, institutional entrepreneurship itself merits further attention. With 80% of international schools now operating for-profit (ISC Research, 2018b), there are complex questions regarding what constitutes institutional (and professional) legitimacy. If institutional entrepreneurs, particularly those with access to strategic resources or other forms of power (school owners especially), can change individual organisations and alter field-wide dynamics, what happens to schools, school leaders and isomorphic forces where the ‘institutional primary task’ (Bunnell, Fertig and James, 2016) and certainly a school’s raison d’être, is no longer solely educational? As Machin (2017) asks, can (for example) school Heads retain credibility as educational specialists occupying important classroom-focused (if not classroom-based) roles while achieving primary tasks that are (also) commercially-orientated?

Summary

It may be that ‘this place isn’t what it used to be’ is a familiar cry but, as this paper has highlighted, evolution is a natural feature of organisational life. This is especially true in the international school sector, rapid growth producing a prevalence of relatively young schools (many currently less than a decade old). The youthfulness of this sector provides a unique opportunity to apply life-cycle theory to a set of schools undergoing organisational maturation. Importantly, key to the applicability of this paper’s findings, these processes of evolution are not exclusively determined by the need for greater economic efficiency. Seen through the lens of Greiner and from the perspective of DiMaggio and Powell, organisational life-cycle dynamics and isomorphic pressures affect all international schools (indeed, all schools), whether for-profit or not. This paper thereby raises issues for consideration in analysing the organisational development and institutionalisation of schools in a range of settings, international and national.

For Greiner, evolution is precipitated by inflexion points which signal critical transformations in organisational dynamics: creativity gives way to direction and to the introduction of management structures, which gives way to delegation only to be later replaced by control and coordination. This demonstrates a basic truism: management problems are rooted in time, and today’s solutions are tomorrow’s problems (Greiner, 1972). Greiner’s point, and the value of his theory for school leaders, is that ‘management must be prepared to dismantle current structures before the revolutionary stage becomes too turbulent’ (ibid., p. 10). Although the specifics and extent of this turbulence will be unique to context, in broad terms it is relatively predictable. Awareness of Greiner’s model has the potential then to facilitate longer-term decision-making; school leaders can make decisions cognisant of future organisational possibilities. Greiner’s model also provides a framework against which leaders can reflect on their own competences. A leader suited to the creative freedoms of start-up schools may be ill-suited to a more systems-driven mature school; and vice versa for the leader who prefers certainty and structure. Knowledge of the stages may also free leaders to focus on the real business of schooling – education. Rather than rail against the pains of growth, an understanding of organisational life-cycle constructs allows the informed leader to make better sense of their environment, perhaps enabling them to swim with the evolutionary tide, rather than against it. At the very least, school leaders can take solace from recognition that the dismantling of structures which may have been only recently introduced is not failure, but rather is the nature of organisational evolution.

Of course, such knowledge and reflection is moot if, as DiMaggio and Powell argue, isomorphic pressures inexorably cause ‘units in a population [to] resemble other units’ (1983, p. 150). However, as argued, the concept of institutional entrepreneurship offers an alternative. Schools (and their leaders) may face mimetic, coercive and normative pressures but those pressures are subject to (indeed, born from) the actions of agentic individuals. Reproduction of organisational form may, to some extent, be inevitable, but that reproduction can go awry and can be manipulated, coerced, resisted and changed by individual action. The concept of institutional entrepreneurship is important because it explains how school leaders can shape organisations despite the aforementioned pressures of isomorphism. That possibility is critical, especially as the field debates what it means to be legitimately ‘international’, because it focuses attention on the manner in which individual actors can strategically influence their institutional environments via pedagogic or market leadership and through lobbying for regulatory change. Institutional entrepreneurship allows theoretical and empirical space for notions of legitimacy to be extended and/or shifted. In turn, the extent to which the processes and practices of a school can, or should, be aligned with ideas about ‘what is [considered] proper or appropriate’ organisational behaviour (Drori and Honig, 2013, p. 349) is open for (re)interpretation by school leaders imaginative enough and strong enough to break from the iron cage.

The contemporary international school is a product of its evolving environment. Rapid growth has produced a young field, ripe for study. Developing from the work of Bunnell, Fertig and James (2016), this paper has shown how individual schools might respond/have responded to increasing organisational maturity and, as highlighted above, to isomorphic pressures requiring conformity to institutional norms. There remains further scope for developing our understanding of these processes and pressures; as encouraged above, other researchers are invited to join the conversation. Case-studies of young schools in the throes of evolution, empirically testing the theorisations above, would be a useful starting point; ditto a historical analysis of a now mature school, reflecting on the impacts of isomorphism. After all, understanding why a school is not what it used to be is the first step to ensuring the organisation becomes what a school leader wants it to be.

Footnotes

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author biography

Dr Denry Machin is an Associate Director of Strategic Management for Asia International School Limited, the operator of the Harrow International schools. His research interests include corporate influences on education, educational markets, school leadership and management, and headship in international schools.

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