USING LINKAGE THEORY TO ADDRESS THE STUDENT VOICE ORGANIZATIONAL IMPROVEMENT PARADOX

Abstract

The organizational improvement paradox occurs when change agents anticipate that a particular change initiative will spread to other areas of the organization, but those anticipations are never realized. That is, positive outcomes in one part of the firm may happen, but they might also fail to translate into gains elsewhere in the organization. Change agents such as youth and adult collaborators in schools often experience this improvement paradox, which also contributes to issues of sustainment. In response, this paper offers linkage theory as an analytical tool to gauge how designers of student voice work might better spread the benefits of their change initiative to other areas of the school and get others to take ownership. A multi-site qualitative case study of Youth Court is analyzed to illustrate how linkage analysis might be leveraged to proliferate change and foster sustainment in school reform efforts.