While many studies on external accountability forms have illustrated the impact on the prevailing conceptions and values about the nature of school organizations, still little is known about the active role of school leaders as sense-makers who deal with conflicting accountability demands. We argue that while multiple external accountability forms driven by policies often manifest in apparently conflicting ways in school organizations, recent findings suggest that some school leaders have come to understand and adapt strategically and reconcile these logics in practice over time. In this article, we seek to highlight the institutional complexity that school leaders face when attempting to make sense of, interpret reconcile and/or counterbalance competing accountability demands from multiple and incompatible logics while considering their schools’ needs and conditions. We develop a conceptual framework that unpacks the intersection of the institutional complexity triggered by multiple institutional logics and school leaders’ sense-making about reform. This framework could illuminate how and why the multiple logics in the institutional environment shape and are being shaped by school leaders’ sense-making in the complex policy implementation processes that lead to different policy outcomes.

中文翻译：

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制度的复杂性和多重问责制的紧张：用于分析学校领导者对竞争需求的解释的概念框架

尽管许多关于外部问责制形式的研究已经说明了对学校组织性质的主流观念和价值观的影响，但对于领导者作为负责解决冲突问责制要求的决策者的积极作用知之甚少。我们认为，虽然由政策驱动的多种外部问责形式通常在学校组织中以明显矛盾的方式表现出来，但最近的发现表明，一些学校领导者已经逐渐了解并进行了战略调整，并在实践中调和了这些逻辑。在本文中，我们试图强调学校领导者在试图理解，在考虑学校的需求和条件的同时，解释和解和/或平衡来自多种不兼容逻辑的竞争问责制要求。我们建立了一个概念框架，揭示了由多种制度逻辑和学校领导者对改革的理解引发的制度复杂性的交集。该框架可以阐明制度环境中的多种逻辑如何以及为什么由学校领导者在导致不同政策结果的复杂政策实施过程中的理性认识来塑造和形成。