Conference Agenda

School principals internationally are leading in increasingly complex governance environments marked by accountability pressures, staff shortages, multi-agency student support needs, and intensified stakeholder expectations. These conditions heighten risks of overload and burnout, and make relational resources—who principals can rely on, for what, and under which conditions—an urgent international concern. Yet research often treats social capital (the structure of relationships and networks) and social support (the functional help exchanged within those relationships) separately. This separation limits our ability to explain how principals’ networks translate into concrete support and when those networks instead become sources of strain.

This presentation addresses that gap by integrating social capital and social support in a single analytical framework to examine principals’ perceived relational resources. The study asks:

1. What social capital networks are available to principals? (internal vs. external; bonding/bridging/linking ties)

2. What forms of social support do principals receive (emotional, informational, instrumental), and how are these functionally linked to different networks?

Social capital is conceptualised as actual and potential resources embedded in relationships and accessible through networks (Adler & Kwon, 2002; Leana & Pil, 2006). We distinguish internal social capital (ties within the school organisation) from external social capital (ties beyond the school, including professional networks and institutional actors). To refine the relational quality and reach of these ties, we also draw on bonding, bridging, and linking distinctions (e.g., Szreter & Woolcock, 2004), which help to interpret whether resources flow through close-knit trust relations, cross-group connections, or vertical relationships across hierarchies.

Social support is conceptualised as multidimensional functional assistance available through relationships (House et al., 1988; Schwarzer & Knoll, 2007), with particular attention to emotional, informational, and instrumental support (e.g., Cutrona & Russell, 1991; Langford et al., 1997). Finally, we use a stress-and-coping lens (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984) to clarify why perceived availability of support matters: in appraisal processes, it is not only the presence of networks but the perceived accessibility and usefulness of support that shapes coping with demanding situations.

European/international dimension. Although the empirical setting is Finland, the contribution is explicitly international in two ways. First, the proposed integration of structural (social capital) and functional (social support) perspectives offers a transferable framework for studying principal support across European/international systems with varying governance structures, municipality/district arrangements, and multi-agency service models. Second, the findings speak to a shared European challenge: aligning expanding expectations for school leadership with adequate, well-resourced support ecosystems (within schools, across peer networks, and in external services). The study therefore contributes to international debates on sustainable school leadership by showing how relational resources function as enabling capacity—but only when reciprocity, resourcing, and contextual fit are present.

Research has established educational leadership as a critical in-school influence on teaching quality and student learning, second only to classroom instruction (Harris & Jones, 2023; Leithwood et al., 2019). However, leadership impact is complex, largely indirect, and deeply contextual, operating through multiple layers of practice or “webs of leading” (Nehez et al., 2022) rather than linear cause–effect relationships (Kemethofer et al., 2025). While decades of research consistently affirm leadership’s importance, it exposes a persistent conceptual and empirical gap: although leadership matters, far less is known about 'how' leadership influence is accomplished in the day-to-day flow of school practices (Leithwood et al., 2019).

Recent scholarship increasingly conceptualises leadership as a multifaceted, ecological phenomenon dispersed across senior and middle leaders, each contributing differently to school improvement (Harris & Jones, 2023). Principals primarily shape the conditions, goals and professional cultures that enable improvement, while middle leaders - positioned closest to classrooms - play a pivotal role in translating policy and development initiatives into teaching practices (Grootenboer et al., 2020). Policy enactment and leadership research consistently show that through translation work leadership influence becomes most visible and consequential for teaching and learning (Skerritt et al., 2023).

Despite this recognition, empirical evidence tracing leadership influence beyond teaching to students’ learning practices remains limited (Cruickshank, 2017). Practice-oriented research suggests that leadership influence occurs as practices travel—through shared language, activities and relationships—across professional learning, teaching and student learning. Yet these flows of influence have rarely been systematically traced (Leithwood et al., 2023).

Responding directly to this gap, the study adopts a practice lens to follow the flow of leadership influence from policy and school development initiatives, through senior and middle leadership practices, into classrooms and student learning practices. Rather than focusing on substantive outcomes alone, the study maps chains of evidence across leadership, professional learning, teaching and student learning. In doing so, it provides insight into how leadership accomplishes learning in practice and advances an ecological understanding of educational leadership, demonstrating that improvement depends not on isolated leadership actions, but on the coherence and alignment of interdependent leading practices that shape what teachers and students actually do in schools.

Conceptual framework

The conceptual position draws on three complementary practice theories: the theory of practice architectures (Kemmis et al., 2014), the theory of ecologies of practices (Kemmis et al., 2012), and the notion of travelling practices (Czarniawska & Sevón, 2005). Together, these perspectives reframe educational leadership influence through a practice-theoretical lens, viewing leading not as the actions of individual actors, but as socially, materially and discursively constituted practices that unfold within specific sites (Grootenboer & Edwards-Groves, 2024).

From a practice architectures perspective, leadership is understood as shaping the cultural-discursive, material-economic and social-political conditions that enable and constrain teaching and learning practices (Kemmis et al., 2014). These conditions are realised within ecologies of practices, where leading, professional learning, teaching and student learning are interdependent and mutually shaping. The concept of travelling practices further explains how leadership practices are translated as they move across practicescapes—from policy to principals, middle leaders, teachers and ultimately students—through shared language, activities and relationships.

Czarniawska and Sevón (2005) argue practices do not travel through simple diffusion, but through processes of translation in which ideas and actions are interpreted, adapted and reshaped as they are taken up in new sites of practice. Language, activity and ways of relating are central to this translation, flowing into new contexts and taking shape in ways responsive to local conditions (Edwards-Groves & Rönnerman, 2021). Understanding leadership practices as travelling foregrounds their temporal and site-based character, offering insight into how leadership influence emerges, evolves and reaches student learning practices (Schatzki, 2010).

Schools across the globe are operating under conditions of increasing uncertainty driven by rapid technological change, demographic diversification, and evolving societal expectations (Campbell et al., 2023; Schechter & Asher, 2012). Despite this, much of the leadership literature remains grounded in relatively stable environments and traditional managerial models, offering limited guidance on how school leaders can respond to future uncertainty while simultaneously fostering organizational learning culture in school settings (Gurr & Drysdale, 2020). Responding to this gap, recent scholarship has advanced the concept of Future-Ready School Leadership, which conceptualizes school leadership as a key driver of “future-making schools” through multifaceted, problem-based, adaptive, anticipatory, and system-oriented practices (Fullan, 2023). More precisely, the future-ready school leadership is theorized through four interrelated dimensions: strategic foresight, addressing diversity, technology leadership, and systems thinking (Lu et al., 2025). Together, these dimensions frame school leadership as a future-oriented endeavor that integrates inclusivity, digitalization, outward-looking leadership, and systemic coherence.

In response, educational systems are being called upon to develop adaptive capacities that enable collective learning, innovation, and sustainable improvement (Richardson et al., 2024). Organizational learning culture has therefore emerged as a central construct in educational leadership research, reflecting schools’ capacity to continuously acquire, share, and apply knowledge in ways that support long-term development (Stoll & Kools, 2017). The strong link between school leadership and OL culture fosters shared sense-making among educators, a condition that is particularly vital for preparing schools to navigate innovation and future challenges (Hsiao & Chang, 2011).

Although a long line of prior research has shown that school leadership plays a pivotal role in shaping organizational learning culture. Drawing on social constructionist perspectives (Berger & Luckmann, 1966), leadership effectiveness is not solely determined by leaders’ intentions or self-assessments but is co-constructed through shared interpretations and interactions between leaders and teachers (Coburn, 2005). Accordingly, the (mis)alignment between principals’ and teachers’ perceptions of leadership practices is critical for understanding how it shapes school culture.

Extensive leadership research, especially within the organizational behavior literature, shows that perceptual (in)congruence can determine whether leadership fosters positive organizational outcomes or exacerbates dissonance (Tsai et al., 2022). However, educational leadership research has only recently begun to explore this issue in relation to schoolwide outcomes. Studies indicate that when principals and teachers share similar views of leadership effectiveness, teachers report greater efficacy and engagement (Park & Ham, 2016). In contrast, incongruence, often stemming from leaders overestimating their impact, can foster mistrust and hinder collaboration (Wang et al., 2016). Recent empirical research by Choi et al. (2025) and Wiens et al. (2025) further demonstrates how perceptual (in)congruence relates to organizational outcomes, suggesting that perception cannot be binarily conditioned but exists along a continuum, with varying magnitudes of misalignment carrying different organizational meanings.

To that very end, polynomial regression and response surface analysis are cutting-edge complementary analytical approaches for capturing these nuanced dynamics, allowing scholars to examine both strict congruence (exact alignment) and broad congruence (acceptable ranges of difference) between leader and follower perceptions (Tsai et al., 2022). Using this analytical lens, the present study investigates how perceptual (in)congruence between principals’ and teachers’ perceptions of future-ready school leadership relates to schoolwide organizational learning culture in Hong Kong schools. Specifically, the study addresses three hypotheses:

H₁: Principals tend to rate their own future-ready school leadership higher than teachers do.

H₂: Perceptual incongruence is associated with weaker organizational learning culture.

H₃: Higher levels of principal-teacher congruence on future-ready school leadership are associated with higher teacher-perceived organizational learning culture.

By integrating a future-ready school leadership framework with advanced congruence modelling, the study contributes to ECER Network 26 by offering a relational understanding of leadership in future-oriented school contexts.

School leaders are increasingly expected to lead professional learning by engaging teachers in conversations that surface assumptions, invite critical reflection, and support instructional improvement. However, collaborative arenas for principals often drift toward experience sharing, premature advice-giving, or compliance-oriented talk, rather than inquiry that enables participants to learn from one another’s practice (Earl & Timperley, 2009; Le Fevre & Robinson, 2015). This proposal investigates the role of an external facilitator in modelling and supporting the co-construction of communication and interaction norms in a Principal Professional Learning Community (PPLC).
The study is a sub-study of the research project LeadDig (Leadership and Learning for the Development of Teachers’ Professional Digital Competence). LeadDig focuses on the professional learning of school leaders—both principals and middle leaders—and their capacity to enhance teachers’ professional digital competence. Six schools participate in the project. The principals meet regularly in a PPLC where they share experiences of leading development work within LeadDig. The PPLC is facilitated by a researcher who acts as an external facilitator and is also a researcher who is certified as an open-to learning fasilitator (Robinson, 2016).

The study addresses the following research questions:

1. How does an external facilitator model interactional practices that promote open, inquiry-oriented dialogue in a PPLC?
   
2. What communication and interaction norms become visible over time, and how are they learned, negotiated, and maintained?
   
3. How do these norms support principals’ willingness to explore others’ practices and interrogate their own leadership practice?

The theoretical framework integrates three complementary perspectives. First, Open-to-Learning leadership, grounded in Argyris and Schön’s theory of action (1974, 1978), explains how values such as valid information, respect for self and others, and internal commitment are enacted through specific interactional moves, including disclosure with grounds, paraphrasing and checking, and inquiry into the reasoning underlying practice (Argyris, 1993; Robinson, 2016). These moves counter defensive routines and untested assumptions that often dominate challenging professional conversations.
Second, a Vygotskian perspective conceptualises the facilitator’s modelling and language as mediational means (Vygotsky, 1978, 2000). The shared metalanguage for analysing practice and providing feedback functions as a cultural tool that scaffolds participants’ engagement within a collective zone of proximal development (Engeström, 1987). Over time, this language and these practices are internalised and become interactional norms that guide participation beyond the facilitated meetings.
Third, Engeström’s activity theory (1987, 2001) is used to examine how communication norms (rules), shared tools (e.g., transcripts, evidence protocols, and a shared learning leadership language), the division of labour (self-, peer-, and facilitator-led analysis), and the object of activity (improving data-informed leadership practice) co-evolve within the PPLC. Recurrent tensions—such as a drift toward praise-only feedback or reluctance to disclose and test assumptions—are conceptualised as contradictions that can drive expansive learning when they are made explicit and collectively addressed.