Principal Proactivity: School Principals' Proactive Behavior Forms and Their Levels of Display

Principal Proactivity: School Principals' Proactive Behavior Forms and Their Levels of Display

Tuncer Fidan, Ali Balcı
Copyright: © 2016 |Pages: 30
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-0460-3.ch003
OnDemand:
(Individual Chapters)
Available
$37.50
Current Special Offers
No Current Special Offers
TOTAL SAVINGS: $37.50

Abstract

Increasing environmental complexity and ambiguity require organizations to rely on their members' proactive behaviors to deal with potential chaotic occurences surrounding the organizational functioning. Individuals respond these occurences by displaying various proactive behavior forms to build predictability islands in ocean of uncertainty. In this context, principal proactivity is one of key determinants of effectiveness of schools functioning in complex and anarchic environments. In this study, numerous forms of proactive behaviour were categorized under six general dimensions as innovativeness, issue selling, social networking, strategic scanning, strategic learning and feedback seeking. A causal comparative design was used to determine levels of general forms of proactive behavior performed by school principals. The data were collected from school principals working at different levels of public and private schools in Istanbul Province during 2014-2015 year. According to the results of study, the most frequent form of proactive behaviour displayed by school principals was strategic learning.
Chapter Preview
Top

Introduction

The uncertainties led by the complexity and dynamism of organizational environments and the increasingly decentralized structures of organizations require the organizations to empower their members and extend the decision-making responsibilities throughout their organizational structures. A high level of environmental uncertainty brings limitations to the predictability of the direction of the change. Due to this uncertainty, organizations have increasingly been obliged to rely on the initiatives of their members to overcome the problems they face and to take advantage of the forthcoming opportunities. Instead of remaining reactive, individuals’ performing proactive behaviors to deal with the opportunities and problems in internal and external environments of the organization has become an important determinant of organizational effectiveness (Crant, 2000; Russell & Russell, 1992; Frese & Fay, 2001).

Complete Chapter List

Search this Book:
Reset