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European Journal of Social Sciences – Volume 5, Number 3 (2007) teachers to be trained professionally to acquire knowledge and skills to enable them to fulfill their roles in the application of ICT in schools. Furthermore, technology is the catalyst in the process of transforming traditional schools and it is indispensable for the success of the schools in the information age (Hashim & Man, 1999). According to Attaran and Vanlaar (2001), technology forces change management style. Also, it forces administrators to reevaluate not only what they do, but also who they are. In this way, new organizations require new management philosophy and principals must change the way they think, organize, plan, deploy, inspire and reward the performance. Principals are responsible to infuse technology into schools and they play a critical role in technology integration (Schorny et al., 1999). Therefore, principals must increase their computer competence in order to provide vision and understanding needed to guide the development of instructional computing programs in their schools. 2. Role of Principal in Technology Implementation Effective leadership is a critical element in the success of schools seeking to implement change (Calabrese, 2002). Although infrastructure is important, leadership is the critical element in establishing technology as a part of school culture (Anderson and Dexter, 2000). Hence, principals have important leadership roles in relation to teaching with ICT and their approaches are influenced by personal beliefs (Otto & Albion, 2004). According to Han (2002), principals play various roles such as change agent, lifelong learner, principal supporter, and resource provider in relation to ICT implementation in schools. Similarly Flanagan and Jacobsen (2003) identified the principals’ role responsibilities which are leader of learning, leader of student entitlement, leader of capacity building, leader of community, and leader of resource management. In this way, principals should be able to identify and articulate a vision, provide an appropriate model, provide individualized support, provide intellectual stimulation, foster acceptance of group goals, and achieve high performance expectations (Leithwood, 1994). Therefore, familiarity with computer hardware and software is essential and fundamental for school management. Principals must assess hardware costs and capabilities, software availability and compatibility, and hardware quality. They must be able to match equipment and materials with the priorities of the school (Ross, 1996). Besides, successful adoption of computers is important for school principals who must use computers and model their use for their staff (Tiede, 1992). If this modeling is successful, the staff may then model the use of computers for students. In this way, principals who do not have positive expectations for computer use or do not instill or support a culture of technology use; integration is inhibited (Anderson & Dexter, 2000). For this reason, principals should possess adequate level of ICT skills and knowledge. Apart from that, they should also have positive attitudes toward implementation ICT in schools. 3. Selected Factors Related to Computer use According to Rogers (1995), attitudes toward a new technology are a key element in its diffusion. He argued that barriers to technology integration can be the result of either internal or external sources. Internal sources include “principal attitude” or “perception” about technology. Hence, principals’ attitude toward technology is a variable that determine the extent to which computers are used by principal at school. Similarly, Wolf (1993) found that principal’s positive attitude toward technology have a strong impact on the effective use of computers in the school. Therefore, positive attitudes encourage principals to acquire knowledge and skills necessary for the utilization of ICT. Moreover, Rogers (1995) stated that the perceived attributes of an innovation are the most important explanation of the rate of adoption of an innovation. Based on past research, Rogers (1995) identified five innovation attributes that may contribute to the adoption or acceptance of an innovation: relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, observability, and trialibility. In addition, he found that 110
European Journal of Social Sciences – Volume 5, Number 3 (2007) if innovations that are perceived by individuals have greater relative advantage, compatibility, trialability, observability, and less complexity, they will be adopted more rapidly than other innovations. Hence, computer characteristics are very important to the adoption/implementation of computers. On the other hand, the construct of social norms can be important in transferring technology from developed to developing countries (Thomas, 1987). Then, acceptance of a new technology in a society depends on how well the proposed innovation fits the existing culture. In addition, the diffusion of technologies may be inhibited by the micro culture of a certain institution or organization. Hence, there must be a match between organizational culture and new technology into an organization (Hodas, 1993). Within the school organization, if the technology is not well received by principals, there will be a mismatch of values between the culture of schools and the technology. In addition, the success of educational innovations depends largely on skill and knowledge of teachers and principals. Knezek and Christensen (2002) found that competence in computer technology influence on effective use of computer. Hence, knowledge of computer hardware and software is important for principals. According to Creighton (2001), the identification of the principals’ task that they want to accomplish will determine the type of software needed. Therefore, principals must decide what administrative and instructional functions they want to perform with computers before making purchases. On the other hand, access to computer resources has often been one of the most important barriers for the integration of technology in both developed and developing countries (Albrini, 2006). Hence, sufficient technology infrastructure must be available in order to use technology successfully (Becker et al., 1999). Rogers (1995) stated that individuals’ characteristics and the nature of the social system influence the adoption of an innovation. Several studies reported a relationship between principals’ profiles and level of computer use. For example, Schiller (2003) studied about age, gender and years of experience in his selected characteristics of principals and found that principals below the age of 50 use computers more than principals over the age of 50. Also, he reported that there were statistically significant differences between male and female principals in the use of computer at home and school. The factor that empowers the people and ultimately determines which organizations succeed or fail is the leadership of those organizations (Bennis, 1990). However, it is important to mention that leadership is only one aspect of a very complex process of technological innovation (Stone, 1994). On this matter, according to Jung et al. (2003), a wide range of factors has been found to affect organizational innovation. Of these, managers’ leadership style has been identified as being one of the most important variables. Yet, few studies have empirically examined the link between this factor and utilization of technology at the school level. In this paper, a short literature overview is given on the concept of transformational leadership style and the role that it plays in implementing ICT at school. 4. Transformational Leadership The pace of change confronting organizations today has resulted in calls for more adaptive, flexible leadership. Adaptive leaders work more effectively in rapidly changing environments by helping to make sense of the challenges confronted by both leaders and followers and then appropriately responding to those challenges (Bass et al.,2003). In other words, such leaders are influential in approving or disapproving new ideas. They play an important role in the diffusion and adoption of innovations (Malioukis et al., 2007). According to Rogers (1995), it is impossible to ignore opinion leaders in studying the spread of ideas. If opinion leaders are to be widely recognized as experts on innovations, it is likely that they adopt new ideas before their followers. Therefore, leaders must be more innovative than their followers. Also, they must be able to communicate with their followers and have high rapport with them. Adaptive leaders work with their followers to generate creative solutions to complex problems, while also developing them to handle a broader range of leadership responsibilities (Bennis, 2001). 111
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