From “loose coupling” to “tight management”? Making sense of the changing landscape in management and organization theory

This article briefly considers the changes in organizational thinking about schools and colleges as formal organizations over the past 40 years. While there are signs for a “paradigm” shift away from earlier conceptions of “loosely coupled” organizations and even of a growing indifference of organization scholars to the particular problems of managing and organizing education, there are also indications that our ability to organize schools and universities effectively and efficiently is becoming rapidly more important in an increasingly knowledge‐dependent society.