Organisational arrangements, resources and tensions in the enactment of a renewed state curriculum: the entrepreneurial role of principals and superintendents

ABSTRACT

This paper examines how superintendents and school principals enact national policy reform expectations and what characterises their local organisational arrangements. Furthermore, the paper investigates how superintendents and school principals deal with tensions as entrepreneurs. The study builds on qualitative interview data from two municipalities in Norway. Analytically, the study draws on institutional theory, more specifically, on entrepreneurship, which to a limited degree has been applied in educational and empirical studies. The superintendents and principals interviewed referred to various local arrangements and resources that were partly adapted and changed through reform work to better fit local needs. Such arrangements included intra and interorganisational dependency and cooperation with several actors and organisational resources. Superintendents and principals seemed to partly break away from existing patterns of interaction. The entrepreneurial work entailed dealing with several tensions emerging within and across institutional boundaries in the process of enacting national reform policies.

KEYWORDS:

• Curriculum reform
• entrepreneurship/entrepreneurs
• organisational arrangements
• organisational resources
• organisational tensions
• superintendents
• school principals

Introduction

Over time, curriculum reform has come to represent an important part of the inner workings of school districts and individual schools, where superintendents and principals, along with other actors, function as translators of key state policies. Such policy expectations normatively articulate what schools should do, who should participate in the ‘doing’ and how (according to lawmakers and elected political bodies) this should be enacted in local school contexts. However, such enactments require translation and considerable institutional work, where leaders function as entrepreneurs, developing and thus changing organisations (Christensen, Lægreid, and and Røvik 2020). This implies the need to engage in entrepreneurial work in which multiple actors may participate. Entrepreneurial work that involves designing various arrangements and selecting proper resources is highly challenging and involves handling multiple tensions and non-linear processes, both inter- and intra-institutionally (Hall 2017).

The purpose of the present paper is to increase knowledge about entrepreneurship in an educational reform context. The present study draws on cases from a reform context in Norway. Rather than curriculum reform, the study focuses on the process of ‘rolling out’ the renewed curriculum (The Curriculum Renewal LK20) in Norway. Such work requires the involvement of multiple actors and levels engaging in the enactment of expectations and ideological ideas from the central government level and lawmakers (Lundgren 2002), as well as the use of professional judgement and discretion (Molander 2016). As such, this paper focuses on enactment rather than (mere) implementation because the latter is envisaged to be a more linear process (Ball, Maguire, and Braun 2012). By focusing on the enactment of policy expectations and ideas within and across organisational levels locally, it is possible to grasp how policy expectations are interpreted, translated and reconstructed (Ball, Maguire, and Braun 2012).

Crucial to such processes are municipal-level principals and representatives, such as superintendents (Uljens and Ylimaki 2017). The study builds on data from interviews with superintendents and principals, a cohort that we argue can provide information about entrepreneurial work and engagements due to the positions they occupy in their organisations. Research on entrepreneurship is extensive. However, research on entrepreneurship in educational settings is limited, especially concerning the entrepreneurial role of school leaders. The analytical framework applied to this research is grounded in the theory of institutional entrepreneurship (Hardy and Maguire 2017). The data were collected from organisational levels in municipalities/counties in Norway, with education as the main institutional context. The research questions are as follows:

1. What characterises the various local organisational arrangements and the resources selected for reform work?

2. How do superintendents and principals engage as institutional entrepreneurs and how do they deal with tensions?

Situated within a longitudinal research and evaluation project (EVA2020 n.d.), this paper is based on a commissioned report¹ carried out by researchers at the University of Oslo (Ottesen et al. 2021). It draws on a larger body of data consisting of local policy documents, interviews and video observations collected in 2020. More specifically, this paper draws on semi-structured interview material collected from superintendents as representatives from the municipal level and principals from the school level working across four case municipalities² situated in different regions in Norway.

In the next section, a literature review is presented, followed by the presentation of the theoretical framework, the background of the Norwegian case and the methodology. An analysis of the interview data and then a discussion of the study’s implications summarises the contributions of this paper.

Literature review

The field of research on entrepreneurship is quickly growing. This phenomenon has grown in visibility through several reviews (e.g. Hardy and Maguire 2008, 2017; Leca, Battilana, and Boxenbaum 2008; Pacheco et al. 2010; Tiberius, Rietz, and Bouncken 2020), several handbooks (see Williams and Gurtoo 2017; Shally, Hitt, and Zhou 2015) and special issues (see Garud, Hardy, and Maguire 2007; Thompson, Verduijn, and Gartner 2020). This research is primarily positioned in the business and management literature. Garud, Hardy, and Maguire (2007) identified theoretical, conceptual and empirical papers when reviewing the phenomenon’s prevalence in the business and management literature. Studies on entrepreneurship are also part of sociological and policy literature (Thompson, Verduijn, and Gartner 2020). Whether researchers refer to ‘organisational entrepreneurship’ or ‘institutional entrepreneurship’ varies.

The literature on entrepreneurship can be divided into two broad streams: actor-centric research focusing on the deliberate strategies of institutional entrepreneurs and process-centric research focusing on the struggles associated with institutional entrepreneurial activities (Hardy and Maguire 2017). Research corresponding to the actor-centric approach has contributed insights into the characteristics of institutional entrepreneurs, a group likely to be actors who ‘break away from scripted patterns of behaviours’ (Beckert 1999, 786). For example, Dorado described the institutional entrepreneur as an ‘analytically distinguished social type who has the capability to take a reflective position towards institutional practices and can envision alternative ways of getting things done’ (2005, 388). In the present study, we interviewed superintendents and principals regarding their strategic work at the municipal and school levels, respectively, aiming to gain insights from both the actor-centric and process-centric perspectives. It should also be noted that organisations can act as institutional entrepreneurs (cf. Hardy and Maguire 2017).

Several researchers (e.g. Maguire, Hardy, and Lawrence 2004; Levy and Scully 2007; Greenwood and Suddaby 2006) have discussed the potential and problems of being an insider or an outsider of institutions in entrepreneurial work. One argument is that entrepreneurs do not possess power; rather, they occupy subject positions, allowing them to exercise power (Hardy and Maguire 2017). Entrepreneurs may engage in alternative practices via their connections to other institutions through ‘boundary bridging’ (Hardy and Maguire 2017). Maguire (2007) argued that those who are truly embedded in institutions are likely not expected to envisage, desire or realise alternative ways of acting. That said, some so-called ‘dominant actors’ have both the power and the resources needed to realise changes (Maguire 2007).

Institutional work does not come without uncertainty, problems and crises. Institutional entrepreneurs may try to solve problems and crises and reduce uncertainty when bringing about change (Hardy and Maguire 2017), but uncertainty can also follow ‘creative destructions’ of institutional order. While some researchers perceive contradictions and tensions to be unfortunate in institutional work, others have argued that ‘fields in a state of crises may be particularly conducive to entrepreneurship’ (Hardy and Maguire 2017, 267).

To summarise, although there is extensive research on entrepreneurship, there is limited research on entrepreneurship in the education literature.

Analytical framework

This study adopted an institutional theoretical perspective in which institutions refer to ‘regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive pillars that, together with associated activities and resources, provide stability and meaning in social life’ (Scott 2013, 56). Moreover, ‘the regulative, normative and cognitive structures shape the behaviour of organisations and their members in a delimited “field”’ (Palmer et al. 2017, 737), in the present study being education. However, institutions are not fixed; instead, they shape and change the contexts of organisations (Brunsson and Olsen 1998). They are created by individuals and collective actions that can be loosely coupled (Weick 1979). Subsequently, new structures are created, possibly shifting the institutional pillars and the contexts of organisations (Hall 2017).

We collected data from local educational authorities and from schools, which we conceptualise as organisations. As Palmer et al. (2017) explained, ‘most characterise organisations as situated in institutional environments, which consists of social structures that influence the forms that organisations take and the behaviors in which they engage’ (2017, 738). The institutional environment of local educational authorities and schools is created by ongoing processes in education in which national authorities renew a national curriculum. We perceive the ongoing organisational processes carried out in schools and by local educational authorities as manifestations of longitudinal institutional processes of education. Organisations are made in part of processes and actors, while institutions include structure, which may change in the context of internal dynamics.

DiMaggio explained that ‘new institutions arise when organised actors with sufficient resources see in them an opportunity to realise interests that they value highly’ (1988, 14). Hardy and Maguire explained that ‘institutional entrepreneurs are those actors whom the responsibility for new or changed institutions is attributed’ (2017, 261). In public schooling, new institutions are seldom established; instead, leaders at the municipal and school level can be expected to take responsibility for change processes. Institutional entrepreneurs are those who have ‘the capability to take reflective position towards institutionalised practices and can envision alternative modes of getting things done’ (Beckert 1999, 786). Institutional entrepreneurs may create changes and influence rules, norms and belief systems from within (Hardy and Maguire 2008). The concept of institutional entrepreneurship refers to the ‘activities of actors who have an interest in particular institutional arrangements and who leverage resources to create new institutions or transform existing ones’ (Maguire, Hardy, and Lawrence 2004, 657). Our analysis is concerned with what characterises the various local organisational arrangements in which different actors meet to work on specific topics relevant to organisations. The concept of organisational arrangements refers to various ways of organising work in specific organisations. The arrangements can also be inter-organisational (i.e. across single schools) or inter-institutional (i.e. across two institutions, such as schools and universities).

In institutional work, there is a wide range of resources (e.g. political, financial, organisational, material and discursive) in play, but affiliations and networks may also act as resources (cf. Hardy and Maguire 2017).

Municipal and school leaders are charged with the specific responsibility of leading the local processes of realising policy initiatives. The concept of policy enactment refers to processes in which various policy texts become ‘interpreted and translated and reconstructed and remade in different and similar settings, where local resources, material and human, and diffuse sets of discourses and values are deployed in a complex and hybrid process of enactment’ (Ball, Maguire, and Braun 2012, 6).

Specifically, we are concerned with how superintendents and school principals deal with tensions. Tensions can occur between various entities in what is called an ‘activity system’ (Engeström 1999), which refers to institutions with different societal purposes, such as the education or health systems. Engeström and Sannino (2017) argued that tensions are manifestations of social contradictions that may occur between all entities in an activity system. For example, tension may occur between the actors (subjects) and the selection of resources (artefacts) in developmental work, between actors and the ongoing activity or the result, between actors and the rules and regulations and between actors and the division of labour.

Taken together, the analytical framework of the present study consists of the following key concepts: institutions, organisations, institutional entrepreneurs/entrepreneurship, organisational arrangements, resources, policy enactment and organisational tensions.

The policy context of local reform work

In the wake of the ongoing Curriculum Renewal (LK20) in Norway, stakeholders and key actors (e.g. superintendents, principals and teachers) at the regional and local levels are striving to make sense of and enact a renewed version of the former Knowledge Promotion (LK06) programme. The key actors, by and large, seemed to support LK06, but the findings from the evaluation of LK06 revealed that how the reform was enacted locally varied extensively (Aasen et al. 2012). In the wake of LK06, several changes were implemented to ‘seal the holes’. The processes involved strengthening national governance, although the original idea of LK06 was a more local manoeuvre (Aasen et al. 2012).

As stated in the first evaluation report on Curriculum Renewal (LK20), the initial preparation processes surrounding the introduction were based on ideas of involvement, co-creation and coordination (Karseth, Kvamme, and Ottesen 2020). The main idea behind the introduction of LK20 is to give professional actors at the municipal and school levels a great deal of leeway in the interpretation of reform intentions, recognised via non-specific formulations (Karseth, Kvamme, and Ottesen 2020). Furthermore, national educational authorities have set clear expectations for how and when this will happen. Thus, these processes include actors in the enactment of demands put forth via legal standards and curricula, with the latter having status as a regulation of the Education Act (Government Act 1998). This is largely about how local school authorities at the municipal and county levels and how individual school leaders (principals/middle leaders) perceive and interpret these expectations and which tensions and problems may arise when state intentions are to be enacted at the institutional level. The municipal representatives play various roles, such as superintendent and municipal adviser, within the local school administration in the two cases. To preserve their anonymity and to ensure they can continue to carry out vital roles in leading schools within their respective municipalities, they will be referred to as superintendents in this paper.

To help municipal- and local-level institutions meet the expectations to enact the current curriculum, the central and regional governmental levels use a range of resources to support schools’ institutional work. To facilitate the introduction of LK20, the Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training (Directorate) made available a complex set of learning modules termed the ‘competence package’.³ The Directorate developed this package as open online training resources to support local processes. The package provides extensive materials, including seven modules to support the schools in their efforts to use, interpret and understand the new curriculum. Each school can decide which parts to prioritise. Thus, there is headway for local institutional arrangements to adapt based on schools’ needs and preferences. To facilitate such local and regional processes, school administrations have formed partnerships with higher education institutions (HEIs). Often, HEIs are brought in as part of cross-regional or cross-municipal collaboration schemes, where, for example, individual municipalities collectively initiate and realise school development projects by involving researchers from the higher education industry. Such collaborations may also include resources developed by a single HEI. In selecting which HEIs to collaborate with, the decisions are mostly made at the school superintendent level. Together, the competence package and collaboration with HEIs play an important role as resources in pushing forward local curriculum work, where school principals and superintendents actively function and engage as institutional entrepreneurs.

Research methods and case selection

This qualitative study was a multimethod, longitudinal case study in which processes in four municipalities (M1–M4) were assessed for over five years. The research process involved interviews, observations and document analyses (Yin 2009). This paper draws on data from semi-structured interviews conducted during the first round of data collection (Brinkmann and Kvale 2015). Each interview lasted 45–80 min. All were conducted on site at the University of Oslo and facilitated by two members of our research team. The interviews were conducted in February 2020 (shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic broke out) and were transcribed and subjected to content analysis. For this paper, we conducted a re-analysis to contribute to increased knowledge regarding entrepreneurship in an educational reform context, which is the purpose of the present paper.

The cases were strategically selected based on geographical location, type of school and enrolment. Some schools had recently gone through a transition as a result of regional reform where many municipalities and counties were merged, thus resulting in reorganisation processes.⁴ Tables 1 and 2 describe each case and the interviewees included in the report (Ottesen et al. 2021) and in this paper.

Table 1. Cases.

	Municipality 1 (M1)^a	Municipality 2 (M2)	Municipality 3 (M3)	Municipality 4 (M4)
Geographical Location	Northeast	West	North	Southeast
Merged Municipalities	No	No	Yes	Yes
Enrolment	300 students	600 students	100 students	400 students
Year/Level	Years 1–10 (primary and lower-secondary)	Years 11–13 (upper- secondary)	Years 1–10 (primary and lower-secondary)	Years 8–10 (lower-secondary school)

^a To simplify the presentation, all four were treated as municipalities (M1, M2, M3 and M4).

Table 2. Informants.

	Municipality 1 (M1, Northeast)	Municipality 2 (M2, West)	Municipality 3 (M3, North)	Municipality 4 (M4, Southeast)
Superintendent Level	One representative (S1)	One representative (S2)	One representative (S3)	One representative (S4)
School Level	Principal (P1)	Principal (P2)	Principal (P3)	Principal (P4)

In the present study, we selected two of four cases, specifically M1 and M3 (in bold fonts below), for closer analysis.

Case 1 (M1, Northeast) and Case 2 (M3, North) were selected to illustrate all interview materials. Both combined primary and lower-secondary schools. The school in the North was fairly small and rural (100 students in total), and the school in the Northeast was medium-sized, close to a large urban area and had 300 students. At the school level, the principals of both schools were interviewed. At the municipal level, the superintendent of each municipality was interviewed.

Data analysis

The analysis was structured thematically to study the various forms of arrangements and resources, as well as the many tensions that can be found in the data from an actor-focused and a process-focused perspective.

Leaders’ reflections on arrangements in local reform work

Many schools have created a planning group as an organisational arrangement to take care of the school processes affecting organisational learning. Such groups have traditionally included school leaders and some teachers. Principal P1 discussed his planning group:

I think we’ve been very lucky with that planning group and elected officials. We have something called an ‘extended planning group’. Then the SNO coordinator⁵ is with us, the special education coordinator, the union representative [and so forth]. We’ve tried to involve a lot of people. (P1)

Here, the principal referred to the planning group as an organisational arrangement in her school. The principal included more professionals in the planning group and involved specialised expertise to promote the schools’ work with LK20. Including specialised expertise indicates that the principal broke away from a ‘traditional manuscript’ (cf. Dorado 2005, 388) of having merely the school leaders and teachers in the group.

An increasingly prominent practice among superintendents in Norway is inviting principals (and occasionally also assistant principals) to join collaborative school leadership teams at the municipal level. In the interview with the superintendent (S3) from the North, she referred to an extended school leadership team in which she had invited members of the planning teams to create an ‘organisational arrangement’. She explained:

It is important to set up the structure and keep the momentum going, but that is not the only thing that is crucial. The crucial thing is how we manage to anchor it [LK20] at the school level. This is because I think it is well established at the municipality level and at the school leadership level, but I don’t think all the school leaders have succeeded in embedding it in their own schools. (…) It is an important key that we have some teachers on the floor who are part of the thinking and are part of leading the implementation in the schools. (S3)

S3 extended the school leadership team to include actors from the school planning group to ensure that there are teachers at schools who support leaders in enacting LK20. This indicates that working with school leaders, according to her, is not enough. She also needs some teachers on the floor.

Yet another arrangement that the superintendent in M1 addressed was the importance of the so-called learning leadership networks, through which principals and superintendents across municipalities met regularly. While school leadership teams at the municipal level are common, collaborations among leaders across municipalities are not as common. S1 addressed how these networks may work:

These learning leadership networks are one place where you hear and see and participate in the discussions, where one might feel, ‘Okay, they’ve come this far’. But it should also be a safe arena where one can be open and say, ‘We haven’t thought like that, but it was smart’. Or ‘We haven’t come up with this; we’re not there yet.’ (S1)

The way in which S1 reflected on these collaborations indicates that there has been progress in the network regarding sharing and accepting differences.

M3 collaborated with several municipalities in the region to advance developmental work. Specifically, the municipalities are collaborating with an HEI in a school–municipality–HEI partnership. Initially, the collaboration was directed more specifically towards analysing the learning environments in schools. When the schools were expected to implement LK20, the collaboration was adapted to better fit these expectations. To link the local enactment practices, M3, together with other municipalities in the region, appointed a regional coordinator. S3 explained:

This person also represents the superintendents when meetings are held with the county governor and the regional contact person from HEIs. We conceptualise this work as an arrangement that is multi-organisational, as it involves several organisations (schools and local authorities in the municipalities). In addition, we perceived the partnership to be inter-institutional because it included municipalities and schools, as well as an HEI.

Tensions arising from curriculum reform work

The Directorate of Education has provided several resources for teachers’ professional development to enact the LK20 policy expectations. Although the use of these modules is not mandatory, the analysis showed that most municipalities used these modules when introducing LK20, although not all school actors reported welcoming the modules. Superintendent S1 explained that some actors in the leadership learning network expressed these modules (as resources) as ‘a little elaborate, and that it may be a little too similar from time to time’. This matter can be interpreted as tension between professionals (subjects) and the tools being used (cf. Engström and Sannino 2017). Moreover, S1 explained that:

There have been challenges in getting all the employees involved in the work around the preparation and introduction of LK20. For example, this was especially linked to the ‘after-school activities’ organised at each school (‘SFO’). They feel that they are less involved and less included. They also play an important role here. We also need to get to the ‘professional renewal there’. (S1)

The situation reflects challenges and dilemmas related to involving all the professionals working at schools, including those who work in after-school activities, in a shared activity to implement LK20. Thus, there seem to be tensions between the professionals in the organisation. If these processes are to succeed, it is important to establish and maintain a supportive learning environment in schools, as P1 pointed out. The principal argued that sometimes urgent matters that need to be prioritised immediately may get in the way of ongoing school developmental work:

I think that if we’re going to go through with curriculum renewal, we need to have a [positive]learning environment in the school. Otherwise, you can’t come in and discuss a lot of conflicts. This is closely linked. Some feel violated; some feel bullied. Some feel … (P1)

The situation highlighted by P1 indicates that there can be tensions between professionals regarding what specific issues need attention when enacting the reform policy expectation of LK20.

Finally, the principal also addressed the implication of changing the boundaries of school districts in the municipality, meaning that, over time, the student body changes. For example, policies and actors might demand that pupils without Norwegian as their first language be incorporated into the school’s work. This makes it difficult to create a long-term plan; however, this could also be linked to one of the overarching topics in curriculum renewal. P1 argued:

We need to be prepared for diversity […] and then we have to choose in relation to the interdisciplinary topics. […]. I’m a little worried that we don’t have those muscles and resources … . We do have the muscle but not the resources to meet them. […] (P1)

From this principal’s viewpoint, the rising number of recently enrolled pupils with minority backgrounds can become an asset to schools.Still, there is a time issue. The municipal and intermunicipal meetings are a time-consuming and resource-intensive part of the superintendent’s work with LK20. Both the superintendent and principals have intermediate tasks between meetings that take place in and across the municipalities in M3. Superintendent S3 argued that it is sometimes a challenge to collect reports from each school principal, which are requested by the HEI with whom the region is collaborating in a shared project in which both the superintendents and the schools are supposed to do intermediate work, such as collecting data from the students and conducting analyses between the seminars:

Yes, right now, I’m pushing my principals to get an overview of their intermediate work because I’ll use it further in my own intermediate work. What we have been doing lately is that they conducted an extra mapping survey for all students before Christmas. Then, we got the results, and then the principals got to look at it. (S3)

Regarding further work to implement LK20, the superintendent communicated that there is a lot of work remaining before reaching individual schools’ goals. A central part of her task was to motivate the principals to maintain pressure. At the same time, she found it necessary to exercise some control over what takes place at certain schools by, among other strategies, conducting school visits. She revealed that she has used ‘both the whip and the carrot’ to drive schools forward in local development:

We’re just getting started. So, we are really on the starting line now, so it will be important to keep the pressure ahead. From my point of view, there must be regular topics at the principal meetings to ensure that what we have agreed to is done. Then, we, as superintendents, must make arrangements so that we get these things done so that there is no shortage of them. This was done by motivating the principals (S3).

The situation in M3 showed that the superintendent had to balance support and control.

Principal P3 was concerned about being ‘close enough’ to his employees and that there should be minimal distance between the school’s leadership team and the teachers to promote local developmental work around the curriculum renewal (LK20).

Superintendent S3 collaborates with external actors across municipalities and regions, especially from one of the providers of competence packages for HEIs. When Principal P3 was asked about how he sees the role of external partners and central education authorities, he answered:

What can I say, it’s a bit like ‘overkill’ for me. They should read it, and then we should discuss it, in relation to those questions. So it is an excellent tool to ensure that school development is taken seriously in all schools in Norway, but for those who have a tradition regarding school development and who have worked with it and who have insight into it, it is a bit like that ‘being fed with a teaspoon’, these arrangements, if you know what I mean. (P3)

In other words, the principal was not unequivocally positive about how external actors had proceeded regarding their work to implement LK20. As he expressed, it is a little too much, as though the authorities are spoon feeding the local leaders. According to him, a large degree of local adaptations concerning the municipalities’ and schools’ distinctive contexts needs to be considered as well.

The principal believed that there has been too much control-based management in this process, but also acknowledged that the intentions of authorities to bring about development work in connection with the processes of curriculum renewal are good:

I think they are too controlling regarding development work; there is too little room for local differences. But it is we in the steering group who must take it and peel off what does not suit our local environments and our expertise. […] So yes, I understand that these competence packages and all this is good for those who want control over this happening everywhere. I understand that. It is part of the control system—the dilemma that you are in all the time. For me and my way of leading, this is a little too much control. (P3)

P3 further discussed principals’ tasks as translators of central policy intentions and reiterated that competence packages offered to schools could, to a greater extent, be adapted to smaller schools where working methods are different compared to larger, more centrally located schools:

The distance between leadership and grassroots endeavours here is short. At a huge school, you have to have other working methods to get the same thing done. I think maybe if I have to say something about those competence packages, they do not fit as well in the rural schools as they might do in a city school. That is my opinion. (P3)

Part of the challenge the principal experienced was connected to the fact that the principal had the opportunity to actively contribute to the choice of expertise from HEIs and how competence packages should be enacted at the local level. According to the principal (P3), it is important to ensure that everyone is positively involved in the enactment of the curriculum reform policy expectation. Moreover, the school had a strong tradition of involving parents, trade unions and other actors in what happens at the school:

What we have received from the HEIs has been quite controlled, and they have been very careful to include all user groups; we should include all parts of the organisation. Here, we have a great tradition of integrating our parents with us and bringing our union with us. We play on the same team and with the same ball. […] As a leader at the school, I use the parent council very actively in this, both to inform and have it with me and to reflect upon when we have completed the scheme. In this one from [HEIs], we conducted a survey that you may have heard of. There, we involved everyone, both before and after, both the teacher’s union and the parents. (P3)

He added that the student council had been involved in school development work for the first time and pointed out that ‘it is incredibly great to get student voices involved in school development’ (P3).

The choice in HEIs has created discussion according to P3, among other things, since they already had an established collaboration with the university and the college sectors in the region. However, these were not among the active providers of the school development package associated with the state competence packages. He again addressed the selection of HEIs and whether the school’s leadership team participated in this process:

Yes, not at all. Other than that, the superintendent in the steering group decided that. But it’s so obvious to everyone right now what the development project should be. When going into a new curriculum, I would be very surprised if you chose another development project. So, just that choice of theme was not difficult. What created discussion and has been difficult is the choice of an external partner from higher education. For the first time, the region was out ‘shopping’. […] It is a new situation—the fact that we are out shopping for expertise. […] It has created discussions. (P3)

Regarding the tensions connected to the choice of HEI partner, the informant commented on the municipal merger that took place and what significance it had for development work in curriculum renewal (LK20). The merge was a very demanding process for the municipalities as a whole, but in relation to the schools’ enactment of LK20, it was a largely positive development:

I believe in this merger. I just think it will be positive because we are such a small environment in a small municipality. It’s refreshing actually. We are becoming larger, and I think we can add a little to each other. So, I do not think it will be a problem; I do not think it will mean anything for the introduction of curriculum renewal. (P3)

The positive perception of the merger, as P3 indicated, is that it is good for professionals working at small schools to obtain additional assistance through regional collaborations.

Summing up

The analyses revealed that the superintendents and principals were engaged in a range of organisational arrangements in which reform work took place. The arrangements included intra and interorganisational dependency and cooperation with several actors, which can be conceptualised as organisational resources and partly also material resources. The resources being extensively used were first developed by the Directorate and an HEI. Moreover, the analyses also revealed superintendents and principals engaged as institutional entrepreneurs by partly breaking away from existing scripts and adapting the arrangement to better fit local needs to get things done. The entrepreneurial work entailed dealing with several tensions emerging within and across institutional boundaries in the process of enacting national reform policies.

Discussion

In this section, we discuss three issues that are closely connected to the research questions: reform work being situated in a plethora of arrangements, the entrepreneurial role of superintendents and principals and their partial breaking away from scripts and dealing with multiple tensions in ongoing reform work.

Reform work situated in a plethora of arrangements and engagement with resources

The plethora of arrangements that have emerged must be analysed in the context of the space of manoeuvre provided to the municipalities by the government. As already mentioned, the evaluation research on LK06 revealed that how the reform was enacted locally varied extensively (cf. Aasen et al. 2012). The evaluation research conducted during the initial phase of LK20 (Ottesen et al. 2021) showed, similar to the evaluation of LK06, how the reform was enacted locally varied extensively, especially regarding the many arrangements that emerged during the initial phase of LK20. Karseth, Kvamme, and Ottesen (2020) showed through document analysis and interviews that a main idea of LK20 is to give professional actors at the municipal and school level a great deal of leeway. Whether the Directorate will strengthen its grip, as they did with LK06, is an open question for further research. This time, in contrast to the case of LK06, curriculum reform is being regulated by the Education Act (cf. Government Act 1998). LK20 offers a great deal of professional discretion where professionals at the municipal and school levels have room to interpret, negotiate and make sense of national ideas and policies.

The plethora of arrangements that have been adapted to the reform context may strengthen local enactments of LK20 but is of course dependent on whether the professional work taking place is in accordance with the national overall purposes of LK20. When professionals eagerly change the institutional environment of reform work, there is always the danger of not meeting the other conditions. Although LK20 is based on involvement, co-creation and coordination (cf. Karseth, Kvamme, and Ottesen 2020), it is an open question whether the Directorate, similar to the case of LK06, will strengthen its grip in terms of stronger national governance (cf. Aasen et al. 2012) to change the directions of local work.

The principals interviewed expressed that they felt they were being largely governed by the decisions made by HEIs and other external partners employed at the school superintendent level (Henriksen and Paulsen 2021; Møller 2021). Competence packages developed by the Directorate were perceived as useful resources for directing the processes of school development at the local level. These packages represent an example of what Clarke (2014) defined as acts of indirect ‘governing at a distance’, where expectations are set by the central education authorities and left to local and regional levels to carry out in practice. The analysis revealed that the principals appreciated the resources to a varied degree. The resources being developed by the Directorate were first developed for use in the initial phase of LK20. It is an open question whether more resources will be developed as more evaluations are provided regarding the status quo in the reform work, as in the case of LK06, to steer local processes. As already mentioned, external contributors are also developing resources to aid in the realisation of LK20. As in the case of M3, collaborations with HEIs implied work with competence packages developed by the Directorate and the HEI. It is a question whether less dominant actors, such as HEIs, can initiate institutional changes more easily (cf. Hardy and Maguire 2017).

The entrepreneurial role of superintendents and principals breaking away from scripts

Following the ideas of Maguire, Hardy and Lawrence, superintendents can be regarded as actors who have an interest in particular institutional arrangements and who leverage resources to transform existing local school practices to realise curriculum reform intentions (2004). Principals and superintendents seem to act as institutional entrepreneurs, not only having been given the responsibility to change institutions but also to realise changes while preserving existing practices (cf. Hardy and Maguire 2017). However, as shown in our analysis, the role of these actors as entrepreneurs is not considered as sole endeavours but rather as processes that depend on myriad resources and support structures, such as competence packages and external development partners from HEIs. Furthermore, the findings demonstrate that informants’ specific roles in the process of reform enactment can be understood as those of institutional entrepreneurs, especially due to the leeway for interpretation. Nevertheless, regulations established in the Education Act (1998) might restrict them in their actual opportunity to leverage resources to ‘create new institutions and transform existing ones’ (Maguire, Hardy, and Lawrence 2004, 657). All informants pointed out that this form of leadership leaves too little room for manoeuvring and thus can be a challenge for a school’s autonomy (Møller 2021). Room for manoeuvres was encouraged according to the intentions of the reform, and policy enactment seemed to be something to aspire to among the informants. Thus, principals, with the objective of acting as institutional entrepreneurs, may resolve some of these challenges by establishing arenas where policy texts are subject to dynamic, non-linear and complex processes of interpretation and translations enacted and adapted to existing institutional and managerial structures (Ball, Maguire, and Braun 2012, 6).

Dealing with multiple tensions in ongoing reform work

Similar to Hall (2017), this paper illustrated that entrepreneurial work related to designing various arrangements and selecting proper resources is highly challenging and involves managing multiple tensions and non-linear processes that are both inter and interinstitutional (Hall 2017). One key finding is the need for an early start and allocating enough time and resources to ensure progress at the municipal and school levels; several superintendents and principals pointed to time as the decisive factor. As such, time seems to be considered an organisational tension. Superintendents and principals see it as a constant, unsolved constraint. The superintendents highlighted the need for schools to advance at their own pace and to develop a collective culture based on sharing.

The tensions that principals experience in their work with LK20 were found to be related to the leadership involved in the various levels in the process, specifically the state, school superintendent and individual school levels. The principals highlighted many positive aspects of the intentions behind subject renewal and saw the work as an important part of the schools’ pedagogical and developmental work. However, they also expressed concerns and frustrations related to the process. These concerns can be recognised by the fact that professional actors have been given a great deal of leeway in the interpretation processes, coupled with their intention to promote involvement, co-creation and coordination (Karseth, Kvamme, and Ottesen 2020). Thus, the national policy level seems to be inviting actors to collectively ‘break away from scripted patterns of behaviour’ (Dorado 2005, 388). Consequently, this breaking away from scripted patterns seems influenced by the relationship between an individual and the social activities emphasised in previous practices.

The superintendents emphasised that they trusted principals to ensure the realisation of LK20, anchoring policy enactment at the local school level. Here, the value of trust (Tschannen-Moran 2014) was understood as a local human resource, which, in some cases, might even be sufficient as a resource connected to an opportunity to realise the interests they value highly (DiMaggio 1988, 14). According to the interviewees, a key issue here was established: intermunicipal and regional cooperation, such as various forms of leadership networks. As a result, the superintendents across municipalities and counties joined forces to employ professional resource personnel who ensured the integrity, coherence and coordination of professional collaboration. These large organisations can be challenging and resource intensive to work within; however, they rely on interinstitutional collaboration and trust.

Regarding challenges related to LK20, superintendents experienced fewer challenges than school principals. The superintendents highlighted that large leadership groups within schools, including extensive meetings, were challenging for the municipalities to work within when they worked on a comprehensive and coordinated process around curriculum renewal. These leadership meetings often took place as intermunicipal or regional events. In several cases, large leadership groups were created as a result of municipal mergers, which made the situation even more confusing for these actors. They also pointed out that the competence packages being gradually introduced into schools did not fully embrace the needs of basic education.

Concluding remarks

Building on qualitative interview data, the purpose of the present paper was to contribute new knowledge about entrepreneurship in an educational reform context. First, when examining what characterises the various local arrangements being intentionally designed and the resources being selected to perform ongoing institutional reform work, we found that the superintendents and principals were involved in a range of organisational arrangements in which reform work took place. The arrangements included intra and interorganisational dependency and cooperation with several actors, which can be conceptualised as organisational resources and partly also material resources. The resources being extensively used were first developed by the Directorate and an HEI. Second, when examining how superintendents and principals engage as institutional entrepreneurs and how they deal with institutional tensions, we found superintendents and principals engaged as institutional entrepreneurs by partly breaking away from existing scripts to adapt the arrangement to better fit local needs to get things done. The entrepreneurial work involved dealing with several tensions emerging within and across institutional boundaries in the process of enacting national reform policies.

The re-analysis of the data for the present paper assessed two specific cases. One limitation in the study is that being a case study, generalisability cannot be claimed. However, as Yin (2009) points out, case studies may offer rich data which can illuminate the inner lives of organisations, as perceived by key actors involved. Since LK20 is a national renewal of LK06, we presumed that the findings would have relevance beyond the two cases. Reforms are also a global phenomenon; thus, the study may have relevance to other contexts as well. The present analysis was built on principals’ and superintendents’ self-reports. More research is needed to better understand how institutional entrepreneurship affects leadership practices.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by The Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training (UDIR): [Grant Number EVA2020, Evaluering av fagfornyelsen].

Notes on contributors

Jeffrey Brooks Hall

Jeffrey B. Hall (PhD) is Associate Professor at the Department of Teacher Education and School Research, University of Oslo. Hall's research explores policy, governing, education law, educational leadership, curriculum reform and school inspection.

Ann Elisabeth Gunnulfsen

Ann Elisabeth Gunnulfsen (PhD) is Associate Professor at the Department of Teacher Education and School Research, University of Oslo. Gunnulfsen's main interests are within the perspectives of educational leadership, educational policy and change, governance and accountability and curriculum studies.

Ruth Jensen

Ruth Jensen is Professor (PhD) at the Department of Teacher Education and School Research, University of Oslo. Jensen’s main research interests are within educational leadership, professional learning, qualitative methodology, curriculum studies and school development.

Notes

1 The EVA 2020-project (2019–2025) https://www.uv.uio.no/forskning/prosjekter/fagfornyelsen-evaluering/publikasjoner/eva2020-delrapport-2.pdf

2 In the report, the four cases featured three municipalities and one county. The first three were responsible for compulsory education and the fourth handled upper-secondary education.

3 https://www.udir.no/laring-og-trivsel/lareplanverket/stotte/kompetansepakke-for-innforing-av-nytt-lareplanverk/

4 Reform of local government (Government, 2020). https://www.regjeringen.no/no/tema/kommuner-og-regioner/kommunereform/reform-of-local-government/id2548429/

5 A school coordinator responsible for Norwegian as a second language.