Article
Economic Journal

Does Management Matter in Schools?

By: Nicholas Bloom, Renata Lemos, Raffaella Sadun and John Van Reenen

Format:Print

Abstract

We collect data on operations, targets and human resources management practices in over 1,800 schools educating 15-year-olds in eight countries. Overall, we show that higher management quality is strongly associated with better educational outcomes. The UK, Sweden, Canada and the U.S. obtain the highest management scores closely followed by Germany, with a gap to Italy, Brazil and then finally India. We also show that autonomous government schools (i.e. government funded but with substantial independence like UK academies and U.S.charters) have significantly higher management scores than regular government schools and private schools. Almost half of the difference between the management scores of autonomous government schools and regular government schools is accounted for by differences in leadership of the principal and better governance.

Keywords

Management; Education; Business Strategy; Education Industry; Germany; Sweden; India; Canada; Italy; Brazil; United Kingdom; United States

Citation

Bloom, Nicholas, Renata Lemos, Raffaella Sadun, and John Van Reenen. "Does Management Matter in Schools?" Economic Journal 125, no. 584 (May 2015): 647–674.