Loose and tight coupling in educational organizations – an integrative literature review
| Date | 09 April 2018 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JEA-03-2017-0027 |
| Published date | 09 April 2018 |
| Author | Tanja Hautala,Jaakko Helander,Vesa Korhonen |
| Subject Matter | Education,Administration & policy in education,School administration/policy,Educational administration,Leadership in education |
Loose and tight coupling in
educational organizations –an
integrative literature review
Tanja Hautala
Faculty of Education, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland
Jaakko Helander
School of Professional Teacher Education, Häme University of Applied Sciences,
Hämeenlinna, Finland, and
Vesa Korhonen
Faculty of Education, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to review and synthesize the attributesof loose and tight coupling in
educational organizations. In addition, it is aimed to determine whether this phenomenon has value and
strategies to offer for the current educational administration and research.
Design/methodology/approach –Integrative literature review and content analysis, assisted by
Atlas.ti software, were used as the methods of this paper. Review data included 32 articles from peer
reviewed journals.
Findings –Conceptual framework of continuum of organizational couplings in educational organizations
was generated. Elements of the framework include the features of coupling concepts within the continuum,
components of couplings, contributory types of organizational couplings and the elements of leadership and
change process with emerging strategies, as well as the element of cultural context. In this paper, elements of
continuum of couplings and leadership will be emphasized.
Practical implications –Findings have practical implications for the management and leadership in
educational organizations, and for the researchers in the field for future research purposes.
Social implications –Findings have social implications for both teaching staff and administration in
educational organizations, by highlighting the attributes of loose and tight coupling, and their connections
with leadership, change process and cultural context.
Originality/value –The paper presents a distinctive synopsis of the educational administration literature,
in the context of loose and tight coupling, with the time span of four decades.
Keywords Leadership, Change process, Educational organizations, Loose coupling,
Organizational couplings, Tight coupling
Paper type Literature review
Loose coupling, with its counterpart tight coupling, has been a topic of academic debate for four
decades. Until 1960s and 1970s, the prevailing image was that elements in organizations are
coupled through dense, tight linkages. In 1976, K.E. Weick proposed that organizational
elements are often tied together loosely and frequently, and used educational organizations as
a case in point. Before Weick, in 1965 Bidwell had suggested that school systems tend to exhibit
a“looseness of articulation among the sub-units,”and “loose coupling”as a phrase had appeared
in the literature in 1973 by Glassman, and in 1975 by March and Olsen (Weick, 1976, p. 3).
In the literature, terms loose and tight coupling usually appear together, in a relative
sense (Pang, 2010). Loose coupling concept highlights the potentiality that organizations are
held together by shared beliefs, norms and institutionalized expectations (Meyer, 2002b).
Tight coupling, on the contrary, refers to standardization, strong interdependence and
centralized authority in organizations (Burke, 2014; Weick, 1976). Coupling terms have,
Journal of Educational
Administration
Vol. 56 No. 2, 2018
pp. 236-258
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0957-8234
DOI 10.1108/JEA-03-2017-0027
Received 14 March 2017
Revised 20 September 2017
Accepted 26 September 2017
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0957-8234.htm
The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments.
236
JEA
56,2
however, been criticized for their ambiguity (e.g. Firestone, 1985; Meyer, 2002b; Tyler, 1987;
Willower, 1981; Yair, 1997) and varying definitions (Pang, 2003).
At the beginning of the new millennia, Rowan (2002) argued that education systems
seem to have become far more bureaucratized and rationalized around the world than
during the emergence of the loose coupling concept, and a decade later, Dimmock and
Tan (2013, p. 323) stated that educational organizations have evolved into complex systems
“that often defy simple characterization as either tightly or loosely coupled”(see also
Goldspink, 2007; Orton and Weick, 1990; Rowan, 2002). Additionally, according to scholars
(e.g. Hökkä and Vähäsantanen, 2014; Shen et al., 2016; Vuori, 2015), there is current evidence
that educational organizations are facing increasing demands for accountability, and hence,
for tightening the loose coupling in order to meet challenges of the current era. However,
for example Hallett (2010) has illustrated that environmentally defined regimes for
accountability, leading to recoupling of loosely coupled practices, have created perturbation
in educational organization. Hence, it seems unclear whether endeavoring loose, or tight
coupling aspects, serves more beneficial goal for educational administration.
To date, no integrative review has been done about loose and tight coupling in
educational organizations. Thus, the main purpose of this paper is to synthesize the
attributes of loose and tight coupling phenomenon in educational organizations.
In addition, it is aimed to determine whether this phenomenon has value and strategies to
offer for the current educational administration and research. The paper addresses
following research questions:
RQ1. How are the concepts of loose coupling and tight coupling attributed in the
educational administration literature?
RQ2. What does literature in this context suggest about educational administration
strategies and effects, and what potential suggestions there are for conducting
research?
RQ3. In what ways are coupling concepts connected to other organizational phenomena
in educational context?
In the findings, new conceptual framework, in this context, will be presented. In this paper,
framework elements of continuum of couplings and leadership will be emphasized.
Background
The contradictory nature of coupling concepts is prominent. Some researchers have
regarded loose coupling as a natural characteristic which should be taken advance of
(e.g. Goldspink, 2007), while other researchers (e.g. de Lima, 2007; Morley and Rassool, 2000)
have regarded loose coupling as a problem to be solved (see also Shen et al., 2016; Weick,
1976). Loose coupling, with several “relaxed”meanings, has been seen as a difficult concept,
and one obstacle for operationalizing loose coupling “is the lack of agreement among those
who write about it”(Firestone, 1985, p. 7; see also Willower, 1981). Moreover, already Weick
(1976, p. 15) has stated that under certain conditions “the same components might be at one
moment tightly coupled and at the next moment loosely coupled.”
Organizational couplings are connected to the management of organizational change and
improvement, and here the contradictory between loose and tight coupling is
distinguishable. Tight coupling operates in educational systems “through formalization
along with reliance on rules and procedures to direct the behaviour of teachers and pupils”
(Cheng, 2009, p. 67), and it is stated that tightly coupled organizations are easier to control
and change from the top (Hargreaves, 2011; see also, e.g. Firestone, 1985; Hökkä and
Vähäsantanen, 2014). In the case of loose coupling, changes in school structure have limited
impact on classroom activities (Gamoran, 2008), and in overall, resistance to change is a
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Loose and
tight coupling
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