Antecedents of continuous change in educational organizations

Purpose Drawing on and theorizing continuous change, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the antecedents of continuous change behavior in schools. Relying on conceptual discussions about organizational change (OC), three sets of variables including context (workload, participatory management, trust), process (knowledge sharing, social interaction) and outcome (job satisfaction) were identified as antecedents of continuous change. Design/methodology/approach To test the predictive value of the antecedents for continuous change, a correlational study was design and structural equation modeling was used to test the direct and indirect relationships among study variables. The data were collected from a sample of 648 primary and secondary public school teachers. Findings The results showed that context, outcome, and process factors function through direct and indirect paths to contribute to the prediction of continuous change behavior. Moreover, knowledge sharing either directly or indirectly played a central role in the prediction of continuous change behavior. Research limitations/implications These results suggested that a widened knowledge base provides the basis for ongoing experimentation with, alteration, and modification of work categories in schools. Providing such factors in schools seems to facilitate the ongoing improvement of work practices in schools, even in the absence of a planned change intervention. Originality/value This study is one of the first empirical studies tested the predictive value of antecedents of continuous change in school organizational context, where OC is the norm and change failures are very common.