The Impact of Diversity and Participatory Decision-Making on School Innovativeness: Focusing on Principals' Perceptions

Considering the reality that the diversity of school members is increasing due to the influx of multicultural students into school organizations, it is necessary to analyze the impact of diversity on schools from an organizational perspective. Thus, this study aims to analyze the impact of organizational diversity on school innovativeness, examining whether participatory decision-making mediates these two variables. To achieve this, survey responses from school principals working in elementary and middle schools in South Korea, as provided by TALIS 2018, were utilized. Using structural equation modeling to explore the relationships among three latent variables, the analysis yielded the following results: First, acceptance of diversity had a positive effect on school innovativeness. Second, participatory decision-making among school members also had a positive effect on school innovativeness. Third, the indirect effect of participatory decision-making on the relationship between diversity acceptance and school innovativeness was found to be significant, demonstrating its role as a mediating variable in managing organizational diversity. These results have policy implications in that they empirically suggest ways to achieve school innovation in terms of diversity and decision-making.