In society, courage gets associated with soldiers, police, firefighters--those men and women who risk their lives in ways that are public and visible and immediate. For school heads also, as a different dictionary definition puts it, courage is demonstrated through "strength in the face of pain or grief" and the ability to do something that…

Purpose: The literature indicates the advantages of decisions formulated through intuition, as well as the limitations, such as lack of consistency in similar situations. The principle of consistency (invariance), requiring that two equivalent versions of choice-problems will produce the same preference, is violated in intuitive judgment. This…

This publication defines and illustrates approximately 80 terms and concepts that are crucial to understanding the Educational Management Project, a comprehensive inservice program for educational administrators that was developed by the Tucson Public Schools. Annotations for the individual terms vary in length from approximately 30 to 350 words…

This paper defines and discuss a number of basic concepts relevant to educational administration that form the basis for the Educational Management Project, a comprehensive inservice program for educational administrators that was developed by the Tucson Public Schools. Major topics discussed include educational management, the difference between…

This publication is intended to aid practicing educators in reviewing and utilizing current principles of problem-solving and decision-making. The booklet is organized in five short sections that briefly discuss different aspects of organizational problem-solving and outline suggested steps to guide educators in applying problem-solving techniques…

Most educational management systems currently define organizational roles in terms of the operations to be performed. A more efficient manner of organization might be one that operates in terms of objectives to be reached. One way of implementing such a problem solving structure, would be to assign a particular problem to administrative personnel…

An annotated bibliography of 40 articles on participative decision making (PDM) published from 1968 through 1975 is presented. The following categories were used in summarizing each article: description, sample, type of study, variables, PDM variables, results and discussion. An introduction to the bibliography discusses some issues related to…

This paper discusses the financial crisis facing public education in the United States today and argues that the most effective response to this crisis is to improve the decision-making skills of educational administrators. Based on a review of the literature on administrative decision-making and organizational change, the author examines several…

A theoretical analysis of embedded organizations (parts of a larger organization) is developed and eight propositions relative to the use of modifying responses by such organizational units are offered. Research was conducted on the responses of two colleges within a university to their respective growing/declining resource environments over an…

Moral choice for educational administrators involves using conventional democratic principles as well as postconventional actions grounded in principles valued by administrators that are not covered by conventional morality. Presents two case studies involving the application of democratic principles and the formation of independent judgment in…

Outlines the problem-solving team training process used at Harvard University (Massachusetts), including the size and formation of teams, roles, and time commitment. Components of the process are explained, including introduction to Total Quality Management (TQM), customer satisfaction, meeting management, Parker Team Player Survey, interactive…

Research on the utilizations of evaluations was based on a followup of 20 Federal health program evaluations to assess the degree to which the evaluations had been used and to identify the factors that affected varying degrees of utilization. Interviews were conducted with project officers or people they identified as decisionmakers who would…

This book is directed toward students in organizational-theory and problem-analysis classes and their professors, as well as school administrators seeking to examine their problems and policies from new perspectives. It explains and illustrates methodology for describing, documenting, and analyzing organizational problems. Part I, "Methodology,"…

This guide, which is intended for new supervisors and managers to use in an independent study setting, deals with the key points of effective management. The following topics are discussed in the individual sections: understanding what a manager is and why managers are appointed; setting objectives and achieving results; planning and controlling…