From Politics to Performance: How Perceived Support Matters for Public Organizations

ABSTRACT

Research on support for educational institutions has ebbed and flowed with much of the focus directed toward internal mechanisms including teachers, administrators, and staff. This study stresses the importance of support from external environments and tests its influence on student achievement. Using panel data from over 1000 public schools, empirical results suggest that support increases test scores and daily attendance. The findings encourage scholars to consider the politics of educational environments and delve deeper into the consequences of external drivers for the performance of public schools.

KEYWORDS:

• Education
• organizational performance
• perceived environmental support
• public management

Notes

^1. Tung (1979) provides a clear explanation of the external environment: “The external environment refers to all those things outside organizations, such as customers, clients, competitors, suppliers, governments, and trade unions…each of these factors and components comprising the external environment could be treated as a stimulus to which the focal unit is exposed and which may, alone or in conjunction with several others, elicit or affect the actions taken by that unit.”

^2. These statements come from elite interviews conducted by Melton (2011) in Texas from December 2009 to May 2010. Interviews ranged from 33 min to 2.5 h. Content included verification of responses to the Superintendent Management Survey Project as well as a battery of 30 questions to capture the antecedents of support. Ten superintendents provided their perceptions of supportive actions in district environments. They explained current levels and trends as well as sources of support. Interviews were recorded for response verification and coding purposes. Three persons verified response translation and coding scheme. Numerous validation procedures such as question randomization and response recall were conducted to eliminate potential priming or leading effects.

^3. “Independent” refers to the district’s autonomous position, as its elects its own board, set budgets, and tax rates and acquires bonding authority by a vote of residents in the district (Goerdel, 2005; Meier & O’Toole, 2001, 2003).

^4. This is a general summary of the data employed for this analysis. Specific information on chosen measures is detailed in the following section.

^5. Student eligibility for free or reduced lunch in Texas schools was based on 130% of the federal poverty guidelines for reduced and 185% for free lunch and milk programs.