As part of the current requirements for school-based management, there is a demand for the simultaneous attainment of homogenization and spontaneous improvement of physical education lessons in individual schools. Conducting lessons is an individual task based on the teacher's knowledge. Thus, in order to attain both the homogenization and spontaneous improvement of physical education lessons, it is necessary to ensure individuality and variety in lesson contents. This management challenge can be recast as the challenge of simultaneously improving the commonality and modifiability of knowledge in regard to physical education lessons. Against the background of school management reforms, research on school organization has recently attracted attention, particularly with respect to the management of knowledge. The present study aimed to identify communication strategies that are effective in simultaneously improving the commonality and modifiability of knowledge in regard to physical education lessons. Participating physical education departments were selected at random from half of the total number of Japanese public junior and senior high schools with ≥480 and ≥520 students, respectively, and all junior and senior high schools affiliated with a national university(junior high schools, 982; senior high schools, 932; total, 1914). All participating schools had ≥3 staff members. The following two findings were obtained from the results of the analysis: 1) All of the communication strategies (socialization, externalization, combination and linking with external information) are necessary in order to simultaneously attain sharing and updating of knowledge. 2) Differences were observed in the communication strategy for sharing knowledge in physical education departments in which sharing and updating of knowledge were not concurrently established. These differences were based on the level of knowledge abstractness. Linking with external information is important for highly abstract knowledge and all communication strategies are important for moderately abstract knowledge. Conversely, minimally abstract knowledge is not affected by communication strategy.

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The present research aimed to clarify the changes in financial expenditures and the number of users of public sport centers before and after the introduction of compulsory competitive tendering (CCT) in one city in Japan as a case study, and to compare performance data before and after the introduction of CCT. The "before CCT" data were collected in 2003, 2004 and 2005, and the "post-CCT" data were collected in 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009. The mean number of users of public sport centers after CCT was significantly higher than that before CCT. Mean financial expenditures after CCT were significantly lower than those before CCT.

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