Measuring and explaining organizational effectiveness of school districts: Evidence from a robust and conditional Benefit-of-the-Doubt approach

Kristof De Witte, Fritz Schiltz*

*Corresponding author for this work

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Abstract

This paper constructs an innovative approach to measure school district organizational effectiveness. We use the fully nonparametric Benefit-of-the-Doubt approach to construct a composite indicator which reduces subjectivity in choosing weights attached to different functions of school districts. The model is extended to reduce the influence of outliers (robust) and to account for the exogenous environment (conditional). We apply the suggested technique to unique and self-collected data from surveys and interviews taken from school board members and principals. We illustrate why accounting for respondent characteristics is crucial when evaluating school districts. Next, we analyze the obtained aggregate measures to identify which organizational structures, board characteristics and management styles are of importance for the organizational effectiveness of school districts. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1172-1181
Number of pages10
JournalEuropean Journal of Operational Research
Volume267
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 16 Jun 2018

Keywords

  • Education
  • School district
  • Organizational effectiveness
  • Economics of education
  • Empirical management
  • DATA ENVELOPMENT ANALYSIS
  • NONPARAMETRIC FRONTIER MODELS
  • ENVIRONMENTAL VARIABLES
  • COMPOSITE INDICATORS
  • STUDENT-ACHIEVEMENT
  • EFFICIENCY
  • PERFORMANCE
  • EDUCATION
  • DEA
  • MANAGEMENT

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