Against the background of expanding parental choices and declining global birth rates, schools are experiencing rising competition regarding student enrolment. Schools have responded by strategically presenting information about their students’ academic achievement and whole-person development orientation in the hope of attracting parents’ interest. However, few studies have investigated the impact of these factors on student enrollment, particularly in the context of diverse school types and educational orientations. Accordingly, this study utilized data from 327 secondary schools in Hong Kong to examine the effects of academic achievement orientation and whole-person development orientation on student intake. Using hierarchical regression analysis, we found a positive association between high whole-person development orientation and student intake in aided schools with a strong academic development orientation. The result implies parents are increasingly concerned about their children’s academic achievement and whole-person development at school. The study contributes to a broader understanding of the factors influencing parental choice in high-performing education systems, providing valuable insights for policymakers and educators seeking to improve educational offerings, enhance school transparency, and be better aligned with parental expectations. Copyright © 2024 The Author(s).

The quasi-market condition of education intensified the need to seek ongoing school improvements, manage uncertainty, and innovate school-wide pedagogy and curricula. Sequentially, interest in teachers’ entrepreneurial behavior (TEB) has grown rapidly in recent years, which established the importance of entrepreneurial behavior as an effective response to the changing, uncertain, and increasing demanding context in the education system. However, the notion of TEB has not been clearly conceptualized or operationalized. This study attempted to offer a clear definition of TEB and identify its conceptual components. We first offered a semi-systematic literature review of entrepreneurial behavior, and then conducted a multiple-site case study at three schools in Hong Kong. We identified three competency components and three attribute components of TEB, from which we established a conceptual definition of TEB. This clarification of TEB and its components enabled the linkage to prior literature and future research. Copyright © 2021 Springer Nature B.V.

This chapter focuses on work enjoyment, a typical form of positive emotions, experienced by teacher leaders and examines its influence on their daily workplace creativity beyond the classroom. The chapter also investigates whether quality recovery precedes work enjoyment.Drawing on multiple theoretical perspectives and rich literature from psychology, organizational behavior and education disciplines, a general theoretical model was proposed and tested with Experience Sampling Method (ESM) data collected from teacher leaders in Hong Kong and Shanghai. Cross-lagged path analysis results revealed that work enjoyment creates a critical emotional state bridging personal resources and teacher leaders' creativity. Copyright © 2021 selection and editorial matter, Junjun Chen and Ronnel B. King; individual chapters, the contributors.

In this paper, we review the challenges of sustaining effective teacher professional learning in Hong Kong and propose that professional learning could enable teacher innovation, and teacher innovation reversely rejuvenates professional learning. We also argue that greater exploration is needed of how professional learning is theorised in relation to broader themes that influence it. These key themes explored have significant implications for both organisational and wider systemic culture and practice both in Hong Kong and in systems around the world. Copyright © 2020 IPDA.

Purpose: This study aims to understand of the role that teacher entrepreneurial behavior plays in developing teacher professional capital. The extant concepts around school leadership mostly encompass the transformative and instructional roles of school leaders in managing, mobilizing and supporting teachers for student achievement. However, school leadership has not focused strongly on promoting innovation and risk-taking for schools in a knowledge economy. As a timely promising response to the increasingly demanding and competitive school context, teacher entrepreneurial behaviour (TEB), which emphasizes teachers' willingness to take risks and be daring, has started to gain recognition in the school leadership literature, yet a nuanced understanding of TEB's potential impacts on schools is lacking.Design/methodology/approach: Based on a combined consideration of institutionalized recognition and expert judgement, this study identified three innovative entrepreneurial teachers/teacher groups that had won the most competitive teaching award in Hong Kong. Employing a multiple-site case study design, this study conducted semi-structured interviews with 23 informants and collected supplementary school documents and records.Findings: This study found that TEB enables the implementation of innovation and promotes cross-subject alignment. It cultivates trusting and coherent relationships among teachers. Teachers with TEB scaled up innovation among other teachers. Furthermore, entrepreneurial teachers enhance school attractiveness by creating competitive advantages.Originality/value: This analysis showed that TEB enables formal and informal school leaders to bring forth critical school outcomes. This study elaborates how TEB enhances teachers' professional capital through building trusting and coherent relationships. It also adds to the research on school innovation by demonstrating that TEB fosters teachers' capacity for bottom-up innovation in the community. Copyright © 2020

Despite the crucial importance of teacher impact for a wide range of student and teacher outcomes, it is not clear whether any individual-level factors precede teacher passion and if so how. Drawing on self-regulation theory and the self-regulatory strength model, I propose a theoretical reciprocal model in which teachers’ sleep quality predicts their work enjoyment and engagement in cooperative interaction with others in school, both of which lead to greater work passion. In turn, higher levels of work passion have a reciprocal effect on the teachers’ sleep quality. The model is tested using experience sampling method (ESM) data collected from 137 teacher leaders in Hong Kong and 79 teacher leaders in Shanghai. Teacher leaders responded to short ESM questionnaires three times a day for ten consecutive working days. The results of cross-lagged path analysis support the hypothetical model. The results are interpreted as that nurturing teacher passion is partly a within-person process; teachers’ passion can stem from their own work enjoyment and positive interaction with others in schools, for both of which good quality sleep is helpful. Copyright © 2019 De La Salle University.

Under-examination of the notion of competition between schools has created a considerable asymmetry between the reality and the literature of schooling. Therefore, this study investigates the validity of school competition and verifies the propositions regarding the effects of school marketing practices in literature, particularly DSS and aided schools in Hong Kong. It tests the relationships between student intake and school academic performance and school marketing practices. It also compares the pattern of the relationships between the Direct Subsidy Scheme (DSS) and aided secondary schools. Secondary data from 441 secondary schools were retrieved from a popular secondary school admission magazine in Hong Kong and from the schools’ websites. Hierarchical regression analysis revealed that the school’s academic performance was positively related to discretionary student intake. In addition, marketing school academic performance, but not marketing school features, was positively related to student intake. Lastly, it was found that marketing school academic performance intensified the relationship between the school’s academic performance and student intake in aided schools but not in DSS schools. The results were interpreted as demonstrating that school competition in Hong Kong is a battle of lifting academic performance. Copyright © 2019 Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

The importance of expanding the leadership capacity of schools as a means of supporting education reform has been recognized by school system globally over the past decade. This has Ied to an intensified focus on school-based management, teacher leadership, distributed leadership, and shared leadership as potentially efficacious approaches to achieving this goal. This has been the case as well in Hong Kong where the formal adoption of school based management over a decade ago has Ied to the use of ‘school management teams’ as a vehicle for leading schools. In this study, we examine how levels of cooperation and constructive controversy evidenced within school management teams (SMT) relate to a broader levels of collaboration among teachers. Dyad survey data was collected from SMT members and teachers at 32 primary schools in Hong Kong. Results of multilevel regression analysis indicated that cooperation among members in these SMTs was positively related to levels of teacher collaboration. Moreover, the use of constructive controversy within SMTs mediated the path and contributed additional variance explained to the level of school-wide teacher collaboration. These findings affirm that the leadership dynamics of School Management Teams in Hong Kong primary schools do appear to have a positive influence on potentially important school level conditions. Notably the findings are also consistent with findings from similar studies of senior management teams in private sector organizations in China. If substantiated in further studies, the results suggest that investments in building broader leadership capacity in Hong Kong’s schools are achieving some system-level goals.

The forms and dynamics of school leadership team remain a “blank spot” in literature. Our study investigated school leadership teams at 14 local schools in Hong Kong and 10 local schools in Shanghai. The interview results suggested that most important decisions at schools at both places go through a stepwise consultation process. School principals at both places tend to present important decisions as a result of collective decision rather than a decision made by the principal alone. The extent to which SLT members participate in initiating agenda and contributing to the discussion at regular SLT meetings is closely related with the extent to which their respective responsibility domain. The mobility of school leadership membership is low in schools at both places, which are perceived by some schools as an important hindrance to school innovation. A notable difference was found that the team composition in terms of size, position, and expertise domain of members is more diverse in Hong Kong than that in Shanghai, we argue that distinct educational administration systems at the two place may be accounted for the divergence.