Stakeholder influence, school organization and education quality: How education quality is understood and pursued in Swedish schools

Abstract: Since the late 1980s the Swedish educational system has been transformed through a number of market-based reforms. The purpose of the reforms was to increase efficiency and quality in Swedish schools by introducing private producers and reducing state regulation. Conversely, since the implementation of the reforms the between schools quality variation has increased which is argued to be associated with the characteristics of the different private organizations. The aim of this study is therefore to analyze organizational differences by examine stakeholder influence over the schools’ quality strategies. In an embedded case study the different schools are divided into four organizational categories based on the ownership structure and compared with a public and private strategy. By conducting interviews the organizations’ strategies were analyzed through the concepts of veto player, accountability, organizational goals and constraints which aim at identifying who can make decisions regarding the organizational understanding and pursuit of quality, who can influence these decisions and how quality is perceived. The results of the analysis suggest that stakeholders matter for the organizational quality pursuit both as veto players and as constraints through their ability to influence organizational decisions.