The multilevel effect of administration on technical output in public schools: A cross-national study of managerial behavior and individual performance

This cross-national analysis considers the influence of administrative performance accountability on technical output in public schools through the implementation of rigorous standards and administrative centralization. As a public and compulsory social institution in most nations, schools are among the most permeable public organizations in the world. This study suggests that school administrators follow legitimate models of managerial behavior, but that managerial behavior varies between and within school systems with different levels of administrative centralization. Using a three-level multivariate regression, this study finds evidence that variation in school administrators' managerial behaviors has little consistent or significant influence on variation in the technical output of the organization. The evidence also suggests that models determined by degree of administrative centralization at the national system level add little to the influence of school administrators' managerial behavior on the technical output of school organizations.