ABSTRACT
Power-coercive strategies were historically the best-known ways in which educational systems have been developed and regulated and were often a clear reflection of a historical and social climate where authoritarian leadership was regarded as legitimate. Much of the work on innovation in education has tended to avoid the question of power and the political features of organizational life. Many of the modifications of bureaucratic structures arise out of compromises which come through informal power within the organization and through the power which trade unions can exercise. However within the human relations view there has, at times, been an acceptance of a unitary view of organizations and a rejection of a pluralist view. Elizabeth Richardson's work draws on two main approaches: the psychoanalytic study of human behaviour on the one side and the study of organizations as open institutions on the other.
