Theorizing Innovation and Change in Ghanaian Colleges of Education: A Synthesis of Models for Leadership and Policy

This theoretical review examines innovation and change management in Ghanaian Colleges of Education. The key frameworks used to inform this exploration were Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovation, Lewin’s Change Management Model, Kotter’s Eight-Step Model, Institutional Theory, and Resource-Based View. The study has reviewed the contemporaneous literature published between 2020-2023, incorporating global perspectives and the Ghanaian context, which have provided barriers, success stories, and lessons for leadership, policy and management of institutions. The study determined that effective innovation takes visionary leadership, strategic resource allocation, participative decision-making, and being sensitive to policy expectations and real-world contexts. The review identified a number of gaps, including limited, empirical research explicitly connecting theory to practice in Ghanaian Colleges of Education, as well as calling for context-specific change management frameworks. The review discusses implications for leadership, policy and management, including the call to innovate reforms and the need to conduct further empirical research, including longitudinal and comparative studies. This study offers a theoretical foundation that synthesizes global and Ghanaian perspectives into practical insights and a framework tailored for policy, leadership, and management in teacher education, that enables new initiatives and empirical research into sustainable innovation and change in Ghanaian teacher education institutions.