Innovation in the Management of Educational Institutions

2. 
The research coordinates
The socio-educational reality claims the need of identifying valid answers regarding the efficiency of educational 
management that is reflected in the quality of the didactic act. Hence, our aim is to make an inventory of the means 
of manifesting innovation at the level of school institution management and the effects produced by them regarding 
the partnership dimensions school-community, the school-elaborated curriculum and the teaching staff appointment 
to educational positions. 
Firstly, we used the survey based on semi-structured interview that was applied to a number of 15 educational 
managers occupying different ranks in the educational system: national level- MEN general inspector (2 people), 
county level- general school inspector (3 people), speciality school inspector (6 people), and local level- school 
manager (4 people). Our target was to sketch landmarks and to throw light upon the structure of the questionnaire 
that will provide the basis of conducting the investigation. The procedure resulted in elaborating a questionnaire 
consisting of 8 items with multiple choice answers. The questionnaire was applied to a sample made of 65 subjects, 
school unit managers with juridical personality from the preuniversity educational system; institutions located both 
in the rural and urban space, from three counties in the north western region of Romania. We must mention that the 
managers were randomly selected. The results of the questionnaire were statistically processed at the level of 61 
subjects, four questionnaires being rejected due to completion errors, and the subsequent percentages for each item 
and answer options are synthetically presented in a table format.
3. Presentation and interpretation of results

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 Adriana Denisa Manea / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 209 ( 2015 ) 310 – 315 
The first item of the questionnaire aimed to identify the degree of innovation production within educational 
management, the obtained data being presented in Table 1. The analysis of the results indicates the fact that the 
majority of respondents, 41% appreciate the high degree of innovation production, while 19.68% of them see it as 
very high. These results are good, because the 60% share of the level of innovation production within educational 
management at high and very high standards implicitly means quality and progress at the level of secondary 
education. There are however institutions where innovation is produced to a small scale (26.22%) or even not at all 
(13.11%). This may be explained by the reticence, conservatism or the reduced level of motivation that some 
decision-making agents and/or the teaching staff in those schools may have. 
Table 1. The degree of innovation production
Item
Very high 
degree
High 
degree
Low 
degree
None at 
all
Total
State the degree in which innovation is 
produced in your institution
12
19.68%
25
41.00%
16
26.22%
8
13.11%
61
100%
Given that the acceptance, correct management of changes is a good indicator of institutional/school 
performances, the second item was meant to identify the level of acceptance, respectively the refusal of change 
within the school organisation. As one can observe in Table 2, there is a high level (42.62%) and even a very high 
one (39.34%) in accepting change. By correlating the obtained results, we could observe a synchronisation of 
answers, which allows us to state that change is inevitable for innovative production, the dependency being clearly 
indicated in the data presented in the two tables, 1 and 2. At the opposite pole sits the acceptance of change 
production, at a low level, confirmed by 14.75% of the organisations. Even if there are situations in which change is 
refused, the number of such cases is however reduced. (3.28%). The refusal and the acceptance of producing even a 
small change may have informational causes (insufficient information, incomplete explanations), economic-
financial causes (lack of resources), subjective causes (lack of motivation, anticipation of losing privileges), 
managerial causes (erroneous decisions, rigid procedures and difficult to apply).
Table 2. Accepting change
Item
A very high level 
A high level
A low level
Not at all
Total
At which level is change 
accepted in your organisation?
24
39.34%
26
42.62%
9
14.75%
2
3.28%
61
100%
Another item of the questionnaire underlines the aspects related to managerial strategies, respectively to effective 
means of developing the educational institution. Therefore, according to the centralised answers-presented in Table 
3- one of the means that 26.22 % of respondents appreciated as effective in institutional development is