Conference Agenda

The increasing complexity and socio-cultural volatility of public organizations in the 21st century creates growing governance challenges. In higher education, universities and colleges increasingly rely on academic middle managers—deans, department chairs, and program heads—to navigate these complexities and lead professional learning communities that sustain high-performance learning environments. Leadership thus becomes a critical component of middle management, shaping institutional functioning and success (Barnett and Kim, 2024; Tamir and Machovcová, 2025).

Research on leadership in higher education has largely focused on identifying leadership styles, especially transformational and servant leadership. Transformational leadership emphasizes vision, inspiration, and the capacity to challenge existing assumptions in pursuit of shared goals, whereas servant leadership prioritizes care, empowerment, and responsiveness to subordinates’ needs. Recent studies associate transformational leadership with staff satisfaction, organizational commitment, and innovation, and servant leadership with wellbeing, a sense of community, and resilience among academic staff; yet much of this literature still presents a dichotomous, simplified view that assumes a single “optimal” model for academic middle management (Dul et al., 2024; Ghamrawi et al., 2024).

At the same time, scholarship on academic middle leaders shows that their work is embedded in dense relational networks and requires continuously balancing competing expectations from senior management and frontline staff. While research on heads of departments and deans has expanded, program heads in teacher education remain underexplored, especially where they are responsible both for practicum-based training in schools and for leading teams of pedagogical instructors; this study addresses that gap by examining program heads in Israeli colleges of education as academic middle leaders whose work is shaped by distinctive structural and emotional demands (Turnet, 2022; Awais et al., 2024).

examination of the program head role shows that existing leadership models do not fully capture the specificity of leadership in teacher education. Program heads mediate between academia and schools, manage fluctuating instructor workloads, and face intensified relational and ethical challenges. This study examines how their leadership models respond to these demands.

The study aims to: (1) conceptualize program heads' leadership trajectories as academic middle leaders in Israeli teacher education; (2) identify formative events and situations shaping their leadership models; and (3) generate insights to inform preparation, professional development, and institutional support structures for middle leadership.

The findings reveal that, unlike the relatively stable leadership models of other academic middle leaders, program heads in teacher education enact flexible leadership that evolves with staff needs and practicum dynamics. The study proposes a three-phase dynamic model: (1) the vision phase—prior to assuming office, program heads perceive themselves as transformational leaders with ambitious pedagogical visions; (2) the transition phase—upon entry, they shift toward servant leadership, focusing on emotional support and relationship-building; and (3) the balancing phase—some program heads realize their transformative vision while maintaining servant leadership, enacting a hybrid model integrating both paradigms.

This dynamic trajectory is explained by the unique demands of the program head role in the Israeli teacher education context. The study contributes a context-sensitive conceptualization of academic middle leadership, demonstrating that transformational and servant leadership function not as fixed styles but as evolving phases shaped by role-specific constraints and opportunities.

Research Questions

1. What types of leadership do program heads in teacher education colleges employ over the course of their tenure?
2. What constitutive events and significant situations shape their leadership into a three-phase dynamic model (vision, transition, balancing)?
3. How do program heads retrospectively interpret their leadership trajectories, and what insights do they offer for future program heads and for institutional preparation of academic middle leaders?

The overall objective of this thesis is to advance knowledge of educational leadership in upper secondary vocational education and training (VET) and to deepen understanding of collaborative leadership practices by examining how they are enacted in practice and shaped by different actors and conditions. Through its empirical focus and theoretical framing, the study aims to contribute both nationally and internationally to a more nuanced understanding of leadership as a complex, practice-based, and collaborative phenomenon.

Vocational education and training plays a central role in education systems across Europe. In Finland, around 40% of students transition directly into upper secondary VET after basic education (Statistics Finland, 2025), and across OECD countries, approximately 68% of upper secondary students are enrolled in vocational programs (OECD, 2023). VET is therefore a key policy area and a crucial component of European and international efforts to support employability, social inclusion, and lifelong learning. At the same time, the VET sector across Europe has undergone extensive reforms involving organizational restructuring, changing governance arrangements, and increasing demands for responsiveness to labour market needs, often accompanied by efficiency pressures and resource constraints (Cedefop, 2011; OECD, 2021).

These changes have intensified demands on educational leadership, particularly regarding how leadership is organized, distributed, and shared across organizational levels. Despite growing research interest, leadership practices in upper secondary VET remain relatively underexplored (Cedefop, 2011; OECD, 2021; Kumar & Mehta, 2025). In particular, how unit managers – who coordinate and lead programs and teams across organizational levels – experience and enact leadership practices remains largely unknown. Understanding their perspectives is crucial for examining how leadership practices are distributed, negotiated, and shaped in daily work.

This study focuses specifically on unit managers’ views and experiences of leadership practices. It examines how they describe these practices in their everyday work and identifies the organizational conditions and arrangements that shape them. The study is guided by two research questions:

1. How do unit managers describe leadership practices in their everyday work within upper secondary VET?
2. Which organizational arrangements enable or constrain these leadership practices?

Organizational conditions are analyzed through the lens of complexity leadership theory (CLT) (Uhl-Bien et al., 2007; Uhl-Bien & Arena, 2017), which frames schools as complex adaptive systems where leadership emerges at the intersection of multiple actors, institutional logics, and external demands (MqCuillan et al, 2025). CLT distinguishes between administrative, adaptive, and enabling leadership, providing a conceptual framework for examining how leadership is structured, distributed, and enacted across formal and informal organizational levels (Uhl-Bien et al., 2007; Uhl-Bien & Arena, 2017). Arrangements, such as cultural-discursive, material-economic, or social-political mechanisms, are interpreted through practice architecture theory (Kemmis & Grootenboer, 2008; Kemmis, 2019, 2022) to explore how they enable or constrain leadership practices without being analyzed systematically.

Transnational schooling has become a significant feature of contemporary education systems, raising critical questions about leadership, culture, and educational purpose. British Columbia (B.C.) certified offshore schools in China exemplify these dynamics, delivering a Canadian curriculum under provincial accountability frameworks while operating within China’s sociocultural and political context. Educational leaders in these schools must navigate competing expectations related to pedagogy, governance, accountability, and values.

This paper examines how educational leaders in B.C. offshore schools understand and respond to cross-cultural challenges in their daily practice. It addresses three research questions:

1. What cross-cultural challenges do educational leaders encounter in B.C. offshore schools in China?
2. How do leaders interpret and respond to these challenges in ways that shape ethical decision-making and leadership practice?
3. What institutional supports or changes do leaders identify as necessary for strengthening culturally responsive leadership?

The study is informed by three complementary theoretical frameworks. The Social Identity Approach conceptualizes leadership as a relational process grounded in shared group identities, highlighting how leaders must align with multiple stakeholder communities. An Intersectional Leadership Identity framework foregrounds how overlapping professional, cultural, and institutional identities shape leaders’ sense-making and ethical judgments. A Critical Policy and Coloniality perspective situates offshore schooling within broader geopolitical and historical relations, drawing attention to power, policy mobility, and epistemic hierarchies.

Methodologically, the study employs a qualitative narrative case study design across four to six B.C. offshore schools in China. Narrative interviews, document analysis, and observations are used to examine how leaders interpret cross-cultural challenges and negotiate competing educational aims. Narrative and thematic analysis illuminate how leadership practice is shaped by identity, institutional constraints, and moral reasoning.

Aligned with ECER 2026’s theme of Knowing and Acting, this paper contributes to international educational research by demonstrating how leadership knowledge is produced through practice, interpretation, and ethical action. The study advances understanding of educational leadership in transnational contexts and offers insights relevant to leadership preparation, policy development, and international education research.

Higher education institutions (HEIs) operate as complex adaptive systems (CAS), characterised by interdependence, non-linearity, and emergent behaviours that challenge traditional change models (Mason, 2008). Unlike mechanistic organisations, HEIs comprise multiple interacting agents—academic staff, administrators, students, and external stakeholders—whose decisions and behaviours influence institutional outcomes in unpredictable ways. These interactions create feedback loops and emergent patterns that cannot be fully controlled or forecasted. External pressures such as globalisation, digitalisation, and neoliberal policy agendas further amplify this complexity, demanding agility and responsiveness from HEIs. Irish Technological Universities (TUs), particularly during post-merger integration, exemplify these challenges, as leaders navigate cultural convergence, governance restructuring, and technological transformation while maintaining academic integrity and stakeholder trust.
Traditional change frameworks, such as Kotter’s eight-step process, assume stability and predictability. While useful in certain contexts, these models often fail in environments where change is emergent and adaptive rather than planned and linear (Fullan, 2020). Their reliance on top-down control can lead to resistance, fragmentation, and unintended consequences. This paper addresses the research question: How can complexity theory inform leadership approaches to manage change effectively in higher education?
Complexity theory offers a compelling lens for understanding these dynamics. It emphasises principles such as self-organisation, emergence, feedback loops, and adaptive capacity, which contrast sharply with hierarchical paradigms. Rather than imposing rigid plans, complexity-informed leadership seeks to create conditions that enable innovation and distributed decision-making. Uhl-Bien and Arena’s (2018) Complexity Leadership Theory (CLT) is particularly relevant. CLT conceptualises leadership as an enabling force rather than a controlling mechanism, comprising three interrelated roles:
• Entrepreneurial leadership, fostering novelty and experimentation.
• Enabling leadership, creating adaptive spaces for collaboration and learning.
• Operational leadership, ensuring stability and alignment with institutional priorities.
This study integrates CLT with a change leadership framework developed through empirical research, encompassing five themes: strategy, culture, relationships, capability, and tactics (McSharry, 2025). Doctoral findings revealed that while strategic clarity and cultural alignment were highly valued, enabling behaviours—such as fostering collaboration and adaptive spaces—were less evident in practice. This gap underscores the need for leadership approaches that embrace complexity rather than resist it. Furthermore, the research highlights cultural tensions between hierarchical control and collaborative flexibility, reinforcing the importance of relational trust and distributed influence. By synthesising these perspectives, the paper advances a holistic model for leading change in HEIs as learning organisations (Barnett, 2000). The proposed framework not only addresses theoretical gaps but also offers practical guidance for leaders seeking to balance emergent and planned change in supercomplex environments. It advocates for leadership development programmes that embed complexity principles and diagnostic tools to assess organisational adaptability.