Identity orientation and stakeholder engagement—the corporatisation of elite schools

• Author: Jennifer Bartlett,Barbara Pini,Paula McDonald
• Published date: 01 May 2015
• Date: 01 May 2015
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1510

■Academic Paper

Identity orientation and stakeholder

engagement—the corporatisation of

elite schools

Jennifer Bartlett

1

*, Paula McDonald

1

and Barbara Pini

2

1

QUT Business School, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia

2

Griffith University, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

Identity orientation provides a means to understand the social motivations of organisational relationships and

organisational policy and practices. This study uses identity orientation to understand the highly marketised context

of independent ‘elite’schools in Australia and how they relate to stakeholders to straddle their roles as social institu-

tions that are increasingly required to operate in a corporate manner. Interviews with managers in quite new school

roles such as marketing communication and business management were conducted in non-government schools to

understand the schools’external orientations, coveted internal member traits, and frames of reference. The study

shows that, in contrast to existing literature on the rhetoric of schools as focusing on ‘the child’, there was a strong

emphasis on individualistic orientations in schools that saw stakeholders in instrumental terms of resources and

connections, saw teachers as providing an innovative and leading edge, and used other prestigious schools as their

frame of reference. To a lesser extent, schools would also be interested in the relationships with families, teachers, and

the community for their own means. There were very few instances where the identity orientation was contributing

to society, instead, focusing on university and network outcomes for pupils. Using identity orientation provides a

theoretical lens to connect organisational governancet o stakeholderengagement by providing insights into an organisation’s

identity including practices and behaviours, in relation to others. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Keywords: Identity, Stakeholder engagement, Governance, Schools

Recent debates around the configuration of educa-

tion in Australia, including concerns related to

teaching quality, funding models, national curricu-

lum, and standardised testing, have been highly

contested. Despite this, the internal management

of schools has remained largely outside the gaze of

even educational researchers, much less scholars of

communication and organisational studies. Australia’s

education system is characterised by funding and

governance models that are unique in the world.

Whereas comparable countries such as Canada and

the UK are part of a worldwide movement of parental

choice and privatisation in education, around 34% of

Australian school students attend non-government or

‘independent’schools compared with around 6–7% of

students in Canada and the UK (Australia, 2012).

Schools and educators have both shaped and

responded to the reconfigured educational environ-

ment in ‘business-like’ways. For example, in order

to differentiate themselves and attract students,

government, and community support, schools have

adopted a consciousness about their reputation and

engaged in corporate managerialist practices such as

entrepreneurism and competitiveness (Cribb & Ball,

2005). However,schools also face a number of inherent

*Correspondence to:Jennifer Bartlett,School of AMPR, Queensland

University of Technology, Level 10 Gardens Point, 2 George St,

Brisbane, Australia, 4000.

E-mail: j.bartlett@qut.edu.au

Journal of Public Affairs

Volume 15 Number 2 pp 201–209 (2015)

Published online 19 February 2014 in Wiley Online Library

(www.wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/pa.1510

Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.