Promoting mobility or undermining stability? How interconnected HRM practices shape educational leadership pathways in Thailand

This qualitative study examines how human resource management practices, including recruitment, selection, performance evaluation, and rotation, shape leadership career pathways in Thailand's centralized education system. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 12 school and district leaders, the research explores the interconnected roles of recruitment, selection, performance evaluation, and rotation, and their implications for leadership career progression and equity. Three major themes emerged from the research. First, educational leaders held diverse and contextual views of career success, ranging from upward mobility to long-term service commitment. Second, while selection and placement procedures were viewed as sound in design, participants perceived gaps in practical implementation and noted that informal, network-based practices could contribute to contextual mismatches. Third, performance evaluation frameworks, notably the Performance Agreement scheme, were viewed as a step towards developmental assessment, though implementation was constrained by ambiguities in goal formulation and uneven regional support. The study also identified an experiential tension between leadership mobility and school stability, with rural appointments often perceived as temporary stepping stones toward urban postings. Additionally, the academic ranking system, while offering alternative career pathways, may inadvertently prioritize documentation over the impact of authentic instructional leadership. The findings offer comparative insights into how multiple HRM functions interact within centralized governance structures, providing relevant points of analytical comparison for other state-regulated education systems navigating leadership equity and retention.