Abstract
The purpose of this research was to investigate the process on the effect of principals' leadership on the autonomous school management, focusing on the mediating effect of school social capital, and how these organizational factors interacted with each other in order to facilitate a school's autonomous management. A questionnaire was distributed to 547 teachers in a total of 22 elementary and junior high schools in city A in Tokyo. Valid responses were received from 320 teachers. Following the survey, interviews with 5 principals were conducted to gain an understanding of their leadership style. This study examined the hypothesis that the autonomous school is facilitated by two factors: (1) a principal's leadership, in particular one that is facilitative and charismatic; (2) school social capital, that is, qualitative social capital and network social capital. In addition, the hypothesis that the relationship between the principal's leadership and the autonomous management is mediated by the social capital was also investigated. A structural model was developed on the basis of these hypotheses and tested by covariance structure analysis. First, the results indicated that facilitative leadership had positive effects on autonomous school management. Second, school social capital, especially horizontal social capital and vertical social capital between teachers and middle management teachers, had a positive influence on autonomous school management. Third, these social capital were found to mediate relationships between facilitative leadership and school autonomous management. Especially, horizontal social capital had a strong mediating effect, therefore it is suggested that it is more effective for a principal intending to increase such social capital for the purpose of building school capacity. In conclusion, it indicated that facilitative leadership is an appropriate leadership approach in constructing an autonomous management school in Japan.
