The Journal of Applied Business Research – November/December 2012 Volume 28, Number 6 © 2012 The Clute Institute http://www.cluteinstitute.com/ 1159 Relating Shared Vision Components To Thai Public School Performance Sooksan Kantabutra, Mahidol University, Thailand ABSTRACT While shared vision is core to the prevailing vision-based leadership theories, little is known about the relationship between performance and the characteristics of visions shared between leader and followers. This paper proposes a model in public schools for future research to address this gap. The model proposes relationships between shared vision and public school performance as measured by school efficiency. Hypotheses and future research directions are discussed. Keywords: Vision; School Performance; Public Sector; Visionary Leadership; Vision Theory INTRODUCTION overnments in the Asia Pacific region are finding it increasingly difficult to put their educational policies into practice because of the ever-changing rate and scope of global changes (Caldwell, 1998; Cheng and Townsend, 2000; Dimmock and Walker, 1998; Fullan, 1990; Hallinger, 1998; Hargreaves and Fullan, 1998; Murphy and Adam, 1998). Educational leaders will need to look ahead to the future and scan the environment for change forces coming to schools from the outside, a CEO-like function called “visioning” (Bolman and Deal, 1992; Deal and Peterson, 1990; Leithwood, 1994). To many experts, leadership with vision as a core component is the most appropriate for public schools to bridge the gap between reforms in educational policy and implementation, given that visionary leadership was endorsed across sixty two cultures including the Thai culture (Den Hartog, House, Hanges, and Ruiz-Quintanilla, 1999). However, a leader with a vision alone is not sufficient. Many scholars (e.g. Kantabutra, 2009a; Reardon, 1991; Sashkin, 1985; Senge, 1990) assert that vision needs to be shared between leader and followers to make an impact on organizational performance. In particular, follower affective commitment to a shared vision of education has been a hallmark of the school effectiveness and improvement literature of the past two decades (Hallinger and Heck, 2002). With the clear importance of vision sharing between leader and followers, relatively few studies have been conducted into the relationship between vision components shared between leader and followers, and organizational performance outcomes, particularly in a school setting in Thailand. Most interestingly, public school policy in Thailand is greatly influenced by the Ministry of Education, a centralized approach to management. This indicates a need to investigate whether shared vision between school principal and teachers is effective at all in this centralized setting. In this paper, the literature on vision and school performance is reviewed. Literature from both business and education sectors forms the basis for the review. Where possible, relevant literature from Thailand is included. Then a research model is developed, showing hypothesized relationships between shared vision attributes and content, and school performance outcomes for future testing in Thai public schools. Hypotheses as well as some directions for testing them are also discussed. ESSENCE OF SHARED VISION A shared vision between leader and followers has been widely regarded as a key to high performance (e.g. Avery and Bergsteiner, 2010, Kantabutra, 2009a; Reardon, 1991; Sashkin, 1985; Senge, 1990). Endorsing this view, many scholars (e.g. Avery, 2004, 2005; Sashkin, 1988; Sims and Lorenzi, 1992) suggested that effective G