National contexts influencing principals' time use and allocation: economic development, societal culture, and educational system

This study examines the impact of macro-context factors on the behavior of school principals. More specifically, the article illuminates how a nation's level of economic development, societal culture, and educational system influence the amount of time principals devote to their job role and shape their allocation of time to instructional leadership, administration, and management of relationships with parents and community. The study employed a 2-level hierarchical linear model (HLM) to analyze data on 5,927 principals in 34 societies drawn from the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) 2006. The results support the proposition that principal time use and allocation varies substantially across societies and that these patterns of behavior are influenced by economic, sociocultural and institutional features of their societies. The study contributes to a growing body of research that seeks to understand how the practice of school leadership is shaped by the organizational and cultural context.