CHAPTER 5

TRUST, SIZE, AND STABILITY: KEY ENABLERS

EDU 5419 - ADVANCED ORGANIZATIONAL THEORY

Richard Bernato, Ed.D.
Fall 2014

Hayriye Cigdem, Hillary Bromberg, Dawn Mason

ASSERTIONS
Organizational improvement will likely entail a combination of activities aimed at:
strengthening ties to parents and local communities
enabling the professional capabilities of a schools faculty
nurturing and more student-centered learning environment
enhancing the technical core of instruction with new tools, materials, and
instructional routines
Factors shaping trust discernments:
Respectful social exchanges, personal regard, judgments about role competence, and
perceptions about personal integrity
Principals as instructional leaders are expected to be experts in teaching and learning, to
spend the majority of their time in classrooms, and to support improvements in instruction

METHODOLOGIES
School observations and an analysis of results from earlier
attempts at measuring the concept
Teachers reports of discernments towards other teachers,
parents, and principal
Survey questions as to whether respect, personal regard,
integrity, and competence in execution of basic role
responsibilities characterized each role set they were a part.
Cross-validation of past research and field observations

CONCLUSIONS
Relational trust in a school community and two key structural facilitators small
school size and stable student enrollment contribute to improved student
learning by advancing organizational change in the multiple subsystems that form
the social organization of a school.
Baking a cake
If the five essential supports are the key ingredients for
school improvement, then trust represents the the social energy, or ovens heat
for transforming these basic ingredients into comprehensive school change.

THEORIZING

P. 148, Figure 5.4. Conceptual model illustrates how size, stability, and trust may interact to enable improvement in the essential supports.