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This study aims to explore the extent to which schools principals serving disadvantaged communities in Germany are able to set appropriate goals and choose suitable measures for improving their schools according to the specific challenges they face. The authors determine whether principals are able to identify their schools' challenges or whether they merely follow “universal recipes” of the school effectiveness research paradigm regardless of their particular school context. This effectiveness-driven accountability approach requires an in-depth evaluation of the school and its stakeholders and might lead to a new attitude toward failure that sees it as an essential part of developing effective school improvement plans.

The authors conducted descriptive and correlative analyses as well as exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses using longitudinal data of 164 school principals. Through cross-sectional analyses, the authors investigated the connection among challenges, goals and measures and how they correlated with (self-reported) improvements.

From a leadership perspective, priorities for school improvement should be aligned with the school-specific challenges they identify and the goals they set to address them.

The extent to which legislation concerning individual school quality development programs can translate into feasible and effective actions is unclear. Caution should be taken when interpreting the findings of this study, as they reflect school principals' self-selected evaluation measures and therefore might be biased.

In future research, emphasis should be placed on school management processes, in particular, the development of strategic decision-making, structuring of target perspectives and derivation of steps in school improvement and instructional development. The authors recommend the government offer school principals appropriate and adequate training and support services to prevent them from overburdening their staff.

This paper contributes to a deeper understanding of processes concerning strategic leadership, as opposed to operative management, of schools by revealing context-sensitive considerations.

In an era of increased autonomy and accountability in education, school principals have been given the responsibility for many tasks that used to be centralized, such as hiring and managing personnel, ensuring that the curriculum is followed and that the development of the school is on the right path. In this study an exploration is attempted into the associations among institutional context, school leadership, school climate and student outcomes.

The authors analyze data from the Programme of International Student Assessment study 2015 to identify variations in institutional context (autonomy and accountability) among education systems to determine whether and how institutional context is associated with leadership and whether education systems, in turn, are associated with school climate and students' achievement in reading. To account for the hierarchical structure of the education systems under investigation, a three-level structural equation modeling (SEM) approach was employed to analyze the data gathered on the institutions, schools and students.

No association was found between the degree of autonomy of an education system and leadership behavior; however, accountability and leadership seemed to go together. Achievement in reading competencies was greater in school systems in which principals had more autonomy. At the school level, a relationship was found between leadership and opportunities for parental involvement.

The results of this study indicate the need of strong leadership in order to have better results when there is more accountability. In this sense, the authors' findings also point to the increased importance of context-sensitive leadership skills.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the potential effects of the so-called sharing economy on growing city tourism as well as on urban property markets.

Official statistical data and a geo-information system (GIS) are used on a small scale in order to identify concentration processes among overnight visitors and the potential concomitant conflicts with other interest groups.

Currently, the effects of the sharing economy on housing markets and city tourism are barely measurable and are limited to a few central locations. However, a growing demand can be discerned in housing-like accommodation concepts which can be operated via booking platforms. As there is likely to be strong future growth in this area, continuous market observation (monitoring) is urgently advised.

Official statistics only allow an analysis of overnight guests staying with larger accommodation providers. Booking platforms for holiday homes and other temporary accommodation options have such little interest in data transparency that the overall phenomenon of city tourism can be addressed only in part.

Associating various data within the GIS enables municipal administrators and urban planners to identify potential sources of conflict within the property markets in good time and effectively counteract these where possible.

Increases in property prices directly attributable to growing city tourism may lead to the displacement of less financially secure members of the established population as well as businesses.

The sharing economy is a relatively new research topic which will become increasingly important in future. The identification of potential sources of conflict due to tourist accommodation has therefore not yet been comprehensively carried out on a small scale.

The overall purpose of the European Union‐funded Leadership Improvement for Student Achievement (LISA) project was to explore how leadership styles, as conceptualized in the developed dynamic holistic leadership framework, directly or indirectly affect student achievement at the lower secondary level of education in seven European countries. This paper seeks to address this issue.

In its methodological design the study is a mixture of research methods and collaborative action research shared by acting school leaders and researchers. A series of statistical analyses was carried out in order to gather evidence whether the data from the LISA project supported the initially developed holistic leadership theoretical framework. Consequently, first some descriptive statistics are introduced in order to acquaint the reader with the kind of data the survey used from the schoolteacher questionnaires. Further, some explanations are laid out with regard to the methodologies employed in order to analyze the data, such as the treatment of missing data and exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis structural equation models (SEM); then, a description of the main findings is offered through the analyses, which were conducted in order to predict school performance level from the relevant leadership style, followed by between‐countries comparisons and analyses. Finally, an in‐depth discussion and interpretations of the main findings – both integrative and concludive in nature – are offered.

The quantitative analyses stemming from confirmatory factor analysis and SEM identified five robust underlying dimensions of practised leadership styles across the seven participating European countries. Furthermore, the findings stemming from the logistic regression analyses pointed out clearly the complementary inter‐relationships of the main research questions of the study and analytical strands, especially with regard to the impact of certain intermediate variables on student achievement.

The expected results of this approach are predominantly assumed/seen as an enrichment in the grounding of hypothetical and theoretical ideas as well as professional development for both school principals and researchers. Such an equal contribution of school leaders and school leaders' organizations and researchers could probably provide a model for future professional development programs for both groups of professionals.

School leadership is considered a central agent in the implementation of “New Governance” concepts which have been introduced in Germany by means of accountability measures, decentralization and a growth of autonomy and competition. With the adjustment of policies, rights and duties of school leaders have changed considerably. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to leadership research by providing descriptive evidence on the relevance of specific areas of leadership activity reported by school principals and their actual priorities in terms of day-to-day workload. In particular, the authors analyze whether individually reported priorities are reflected in the actual distribution of workload in a daily routine.

The empirical analysis uses data collected in the German SHaRP study (“School leaders’ activities between more responsibility and more power”). Based on a sample of 153 school leaders from six German federal states the authors perform regression models to determine the association between workload in specific fields of leadership activity, individually reported relevance of management tasks and systemic and contextual conditions at school.

As expected, organizational and personnel management and development are stated to be most important for leadership activity. These priorities are not at least reflected in the observed distribution of workload over fields of activity. Rather, a vast amount of time – as far as it is not absorbed by lessons – is spent on administrative tasks. A shift of workload from teaching responsibilities to governmental tasks is mainly achieved by longer working hours and appears to depend primarily on the system context.

The results highlight the relevance of organizational skills and the need to develop conceptual foundations for strategic leadership at schools. Further research should focus not only on the contextual setting and system characteristics, but on the interplay of contextual characteristics and leadership strategies. In times of increasing budgetary constraints leadership research needs to consider outcome measures in terms of quality of schooling to identify determinants of effective leadership.

The paper contributes to leadership research by a quantitative analysis of the individually reported relevance of organizational, curricular and human resources management and development for leadership activity. The authors provide descriptive evidence on a significant gap between these claims and reality in terms of actual day-to-day workload.

The purpose of this paper is to present the findings of (Co‐LEAD) (Commonwealth project on leadership in education assessment and development), the overall purpose of which was to find out school leaders' training needs around the Commonwealth in order to provide some answers with regards to the professional development needs of school principals.

A mixed methods approach (e.g. both qualitative as well as quantitative) was utilized in order to carry out this study. The questionnaire consisted of 46 statements which make reference to the main functions of school leadership, such as, School Climate and School Improvement, Instructional Leadership and Human Resource Management, as well as Relations with Parents and the Community. The gap analysis method was used for the questionnaire items. Finally, complimentary to the questionnaires, it was decided to have on‐site visitations and interviews with “real people” on the ground.

Based on the authors' analyses and interpretations, it seems that the greatest needs for leadership improvement and training are in three areas: Trust Building and Collaboration which includes Relations with Parents and the Community, promotion of cooperation with other organizations and businesses from the community so that students' needs are addressed and initiation of trust building activities within the local community; Encouraging Instructional Leadership and Human Resource Development which includes Instructional Leadership and Human Resource Management and systematic monitoring of instructional and managerial processes to ensure that program activities are related to program outcomes; and Initiating School Improvement and Development which includes the application of research findings to facilitate school improvement, the development of budgets based upon documented program needs, and the provision of opportunities to students to participate actively in school management issues.

This piece of research extends knowledge with regards to the expressed needs for leadership training and improvement for school principals. It documents that if such an endeavor is to be successful, it has to be contextualized and therefore, training should be region and country specific.