This document summarizes a course on management and leadership in education. It discusses how schools are open systems that depend on exchanges with their external environments. Schools face influences from various levels of society, including technological developments, political structures, social and economic factors, and demographic trends. The external environment provides both opportunities and threats, so school administrators try to balance minimizing external influences while remaining responsive to demands. Schools must conform to rules from regulatory agencies to maintain legitimacy and access resources from their institutional environments.

1. COURSENOTES
COURSE TITLE: MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP IN EDUCATION
COURSE CODE: EPB2033
PREPARED BY: TENGKU NOORAINUN TENGKU SHAHDAN

2. COURSE: EPB2033: MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP IN EDUCATION
FACULTY: EDUCATION AND SOCIAL SCIENCES
TOPIC 6: External Environments of Schools
(Textbook Chapter 7)
6.0 Introduction
This topic will explain schools as an open system and depend on exchanges with
environmental elements to survive. Multiple environmental influences come from different
levels of society and affect what happens in schools.
6.0.1 Overview
Schools are open systems and depend on exchanges with environmental elements to
survive. Multiple environmental influences come from different levels of society and
affect what happens in schools. School organizations use both internal and external
strategies to minimize the influence of the external environment on their internal
elements.
6.1 Key Contents
6.1.1 External Influences and Constituencies for School Districts
The open-system concept (see Chapter 1) highlights the vulnerability and
interdependence of organizations and their environments. External environments
have an impact as well – they affect the inputs, internal structures and processes, and
outputs or organizations. The larger social, cultural, economic, demographic,
political, and technological trends all influence the internal operations of schools and
districts. For example, the revolutionary developments in computing and information
technology created change in schools as they tried to find ways to purchase and use
the emerging technologies in their administrative. As figure 6.1, multiple
environmental influences come from different levels of society and affect what
happens in schools. Technological and informational developments, political
structures and patter of legal norms, social conditions and cultural values, economic
and market factors, and population and demographic characteristics influence school
structures and process.
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3. COURSE: EPB2033: MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP IN EDUCATION
FACULTY: EDUCATION AND SOCIAL SCIENCES
Figure 6.1 Selected External Influences and Constituencies for School Districts
6.1.2 Task and Institutional Environments
Two types of environments;
• Task environment, which includes all aspects of the environment that may
potentially influence goal setting and achievement, is a useful concept in
understanding external influences on school organization. The basic premise of
task environments is that organizations are created to perform some function or
work in society and to achieve goals.
o Information Perspective.
In the information perspective, the external environment is a source of
information (e.g., about expected goals and levels of performance) that
decision makers use in maintaining or changing the internal structures
and processes of their organizations.
 Environmental Uncertainty.
A primary concern of the information perspective is uncertainty.
Environment uncertainty exists when decision makers in an
organization are unable to make accurate predictions because
existing conditions in the external environment prevent them from
having adequate information (Miliken, 1987). Five problematic
situations might arise:
• Lack of knowledge and skills make it difficult to understand
the information from the environment.
• Preferences regarding possible outcomes become less clear.
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School
District
Taxpayer
Union
Regulatory
agency
Legislature
Accrediting
agency
Educational
Association
Colleges and
University
Parents
Information
Technology
Economic and
Market Forces
Cultural
Values
Societal
Condition
Demographic
Characteristic
Political and
legal Patterns

4. COURSE: EPB2033: MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP IN EDUCATION
FACULTY: EDUCATION AND SOCIAL SCIENCES
• Alternative courses of action and their outcome become
increasingly unpredictable and risky.
• Strategies and tactics become relatively difficult to
communicate and implement.
• Potential outcomes from a decision are not known.
o Resource-Dependence Perspective
Decision makers view the environment as a place to gain scarce resources
for the task and technical processes of the organization.
• The institutional environment, therefore, is characterized by elaborate rules and
requirements to which individual organizations must conform if they are to
receive support and legitimacy. Executive and legislative agencies at the state
and federal levels dealing with education like to create policies and bureaucratic
arrangements that centralize discretion and allow limited autonomy to local
practitioners.
o Types of Conformity
 Coercive – pressures of government mandates and inducements.
 Imitative – adopting standard responses from other sources to
reduce uncertainty and gain legitimacy.
 Normative – professional standards and codes are spread across
organizations.
o Stabilizing forces in education
 Centralized government, professional associations, and coalitions
standardize operating procedures and provide stability (Meyer &
Rowan, 1977).
 Environmental demands, characteristics of inputs and outputs,
technical processes brought under jurisdiction of institutional
meanings and control.
 Support guaranteed by agreements rather than dependent upon
performance.
6.2 Key assumptions and Principles
• When school organizations are confronted with uncertain environments or become
increasingly dependent, additional flexibility in their structural configurations helps
maintain or increase the quality and quantity of their outputs.
• To minimize uncertainty, enhance resources, and gain legitimacy, school organizations
attempt to adapt their structures and processes to correspond with factors in their
environments
• Because school organizations are unable internally to generate the necessary resources to
maintain themselves, they must enter into exchanges with environmental elements to
acquire the needed resources.
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Date: 18/03/2011
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5. COURSE: EPB2033: MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP IN EDUCATION
FACULTY: EDUCATION AND SOCIAL SCIENCES
6.3 Summary
Open-system theory highlights the vulnerability and interdependence of school
organizations and their environments. External environment is important because it
affects the internal structures and processes of organization. Sometimes, because external
environments can threaten organizational autonomy and effectiveness, administrators
often try to minimize external effects on internal school operations.
6.4 Tutorial Activities
6.4.1 Activity 1
Understanding the existing environmental influences is of extreme importance
to school principals. Think of an urban school district and respond to the
following questions;
• What are the trends at the state, national, and international levels that
have a potential to influence the educational programs in the district?
• What are the local issues confronting the school district? What groups
are making or attempting to make the issues silent’s?
• Two or three examples have these influences changed in the past 20
years in your school.
6.5 REFERENCES
Wayne K. H, & Cecil G. M. (2008). Educational Administration: Theory, Research,
and Practice. Eight Edition -International Edition. New York: McGraw – Hill
Companies.
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6. COURSE: EPB2033: MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP IN EDUCATION
FACULTY: EDUCATION AND SOCIAL SCIENCES
6.3 Summary
Open-system theory highlights the vulnerability and interdependence of school
organizations and their environments. External environment is important because it
affects the internal structures and processes of organization. Sometimes, because external
environments can threaten organizational autonomy and effectiveness, administrators
often try to minimize external effects on internal school operations.
6.4 Tutorial Activities
6.4.1 Activity 1
Understanding the existing environmental influences is of extreme importance
to school principals. Think of an urban school district and respond to the
following questions;
• What are the trends at the state, national, and international levels that
have a potential to influence the educational programs in the district?
• What are the local issues confronting the school district? What groups
are making or attempting to make the issues silent’s?
• Two or three examples have these influences changed in the past 20
years in your school.
6.5 REFERENCES
Wayne K. H, & Cecil G. M. (2008). Educational Administration: Theory, Research,
and Practice. Eight Edition -International Edition. New York: McGraw – Hill
Companies.
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Date: 18/03/2011
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