Educational Organizations as Loosely Cou

Educational Organizations as Loosely Coupled Systems Weick

When elements in a medium become either fewer in number and/or more internally constrained and/or more interdependent, their abilityto represent some remote thing is decreased. Thus sand is a better medium to display wind currents than are rocks, the reason being A good system for localized adaptation

If one adopts an evolutionary epis- temology, then over time one expects that entities develop a more exquisite fit with their ecological niches. Given that assumption, one then argues that if loosely coupled systems exist and if they have existed for sometime, then they be- stow some net advantage to their inhabitants and/or their constituencies. Itis not obvious, however, what these advan- tages are. A set of studies showing how schools benefit and suffer given their structure as loosely coupled systems should do much to improve the quality of thinking devoted to organi- zational analysis.