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Organizational learning (OL) has been conceptualized as a critical component in school change processes. Nevertheless, OL in the school context is still somewhat obscure and difficult to comprehend, thus it is rarely translated into operational structures and processes and later permanently sustained. The purpose of this study is to present the organizational learning mechanisms (OLMs) framework as an institutionalized arrangement for collecting, disseminating, analyzing, storing, retrieving and using information that is relevant to the performance of school systems.

First, the authors examine the previous research on OLMs as a conceptual framework for OL in schools; then the authors present the various validated measures of OLMs in schools; and finally, the authors suggest implications for principals, as well as future explorations of the issue.

While the literature on OL in schools acknowledges the mystification of the term and the difficulty in translating it into operative procedures in dynamic and complex contexts, OLMs, as an integration of structural and cultural frameworks, are conceptualized as scaffolding for the development of learning schools.

The OLMs’ (structural and cultural) framework of information processing may help schools develop and sustain learning communities aimed at fostering the continuous growth of students and faculty members alike.

The current study seeks first to examine the prediction of school functioning in crises during the COVID-19 pandemic by school principals’ self-efficacy; second, to explore the differences in all dimensions of self-efficacy and school functioning during crises in Arab and Jewish schools in Israel and third, to determine which of school principals’ self-efficacy dimensions best predicted school functioning during the COVID-19 crisis.

Data were aggregated at the school level for structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis using AMOS analysis of 103 middle schools across Israel, 53 from Jewish and 50 from Arab society. Participants included 103 school principals (who answered the school principals’ self-efficacy questionnaire) and 1,031 teachers who answered the school functioning during crises questionnaire (477 Jewish teachers and 554 Arab teachers).

The findings showed that the principals’ self-efficacy positively predicted school functioning during the crisis. Among the five self-efficacy dimensions (general management efficacy, leadership efficacy, human relations efficacy, efficacy in managing external relations and pedagogical management efficacy), significant differences were found only in “external relations efficacy,” which was higher for “Arab” school principals; the only dimension that predicted school functioning during crises in both societies was “human relations efficacy.”

The current results emphasize the importance of principals’ self-efficacy in general and specifically caring leadership practices “human relations efficacy” in their relations with the school staff, the students and the parents for effective school coping and functioning during crises in two societies in Israel: Arab and Jewish. Further, no previous studies have explored this correlation.

The purpose of this paper is to test an innovative model for exploring the direct and indirect relationships between principals’ cognitive complexity (CC), schools’ absorptive capacity (ACAP), a teacher’s affective commitment and a teacher’s intent to leave.

Data were collected from a survey of 1,664 teachers at 107 Arab elementary schools, randomly selected from the database of the Israeli educational system. To test the proposed model, multilevel structural equation modeling was conducted.

The analysis confirmed that schools’ ACAP and a teacher’s affective commitment are prominent mediators between principals’ CC and a teacher’s intent to leave.

Understanding the factors that contribute to a teacher’s intent to leave could help school principals and policy makers retain effective teachers in today’s schools.

This study adds to the body of research directed at identifying school principals’ characteristics, as well as work-related factors, which may decrease a teacher’s intent to leave and are amenable to leadership intervention.

Collective teacher efficacy (CTE) is a promising construct for understanding how schools can foster student achievement. Although much of the early research on CTE took place in North America, researchers from other parts of the world are now delving into this topic. The current study explores whether these powerful collective beliefs function similarly across diverse cultural and linguistic groups: Arab and Jewish teachers in Israel, and teachers in Turkey and the USA.

Participants included 4,216 teachers from Israel, Turkey and the USA, representing four cultures: Arab, Jewish, Turkish and American. We tested configural invariance using multigroup confirmatory factor analysis (AMOS) and alignment optimization (Mplus) to identify the groups in which specific parameters are noninvariant, and to compare the latent factor means.

Configural invariance showed adequate fit of the model structure across the four groups. Based on invariance tests, using the alignment optimization method, CTE scales held different meanings for specific items across the four cultures, where the USA and Arab cultures were the sources of these differences. Furthermore, in comparing the two-dimensional CTE belief scale across the four groups, latent means revealed the highest mean ranking for the USA and the lowest for Turkey.

This research makes a significant theoretical contribution by examining and comparing the concept of teachers' collective efficacy in multiple cultures. This comparison can also contribute to instructional teaching practices worldwide.

This study explores a conceptual framework that addresses a school principal's self-regulated learning (SPSRL) as well as possible avenues for future conceptualization of, and research into this issue.

The conceptual framework of SPSRL is based on an extensive literature review of the research on student’s and teacher’s self-regulated learning models.

A novel conceptual and practical SPSRL framework for planning, performing, monitoring and self-reflection is elaborated.

This novel SPSRL conceptual framework provides school principals with a means to shape and develop processes, strategies and structures to monitor and evaluate their learning, enabling them to react effectively in uncertain and dynamic environments. This framework may open the way to future research into possible contributions of the SPSRL construct with other variables related to principal effectiveness. The suggested framework should be examined empirically in various sociocultural contexts, possibly substantiating its conceptual validity.

The SPSRL conceptual framework can improve school learning, which might connect the individual (the school principal) and organizational (teachers) learning levels.

This conceptual paper explores a novel model explaining teachers' perceptions of their effective leader through the lens of implicit leadership theory (ILT), using the concepts of school principals' sense-making and cognitive complexity (CC).

The sense-making framework and CC theory were used to explain ILT, which focuses on individuals' perceptions of leaders' prototypical and anti-prototypical attributes.

The theoretical model suggests that school principals as sense-makers with high levels of CC will be perceived by teachers as effective in terms of leadership prototypes, whereas teachers' perceptions of principals with low levels of CC will be related to leadership anti-prototypes.

This paper suggests a model for a multidimensional understanding of the relationship between principals' sense-making and CC and their influence on teachers' perceptions of an effective leader.

Opening avenues for future research into employee perceptions of different leadership characteristics, this model emphasizes the cognitive aspects of school principals within implicit leadership theories. This theoretical model should be further examined empirically, and other types of CC, such as social and behavioral aspects, or affective complexity and self-complexity, should be considered.

The notion of organizational learning remains murky and difficult to comprehend, and it is rarely translated into sustained operational structures and processes in school reality. The purpose of this article is to lay out the mystifying concept of organizational learning and, then, to suggest an alternative framework for schools’ development as learning organizations.

After discussing the profound confusion about what organizational learning is and its feasibility, the article presents the notion of organizational learning mechanisms as a possible framework for analyzing schools as learning organizations.

The article presents limitations, implications, and avenues for future research regarding organizational learning mechanisms.

The framework of organizational learning mechanisms may help schools develop processes, strategies, and structures that would enable them to learn and react effectively in uncertain and dynamic environments.

This study aims to test the conceptual model of the factors of learning organization and explore the degree of mediation of organizational culture in the relationship between leadership styles, personal commitment, and learning organization in school education.

The learning organization profile (LOP) and OCTAPACE profile served to measure learning organization and organizational culture, respectively. The researchers developed scales to measure principals’ leadership styles and teachers’ personal commitment. Data included 750 school teachers.

This study found a good fit in the proposed conceptual model. The organizational culture had a significant mediating effect on the path of leadership styles and learning organization and a significant mediating effect on the path of personal commitment and learning organization.

To promote a more comprehensive learning culture, school principals should consider two specific organizational mechanisms: the intangible cultural components (such as corporate values, beliefs, and norms) and the tangible structural components (such as organizational structure and workflow systems). These two domains play a crucial role in creating a conducive learning environment.