Matthew Miles (1969) was the first one to coin the term organizational health and he defined a healthy organization as the one which is not static in its existing setting, but is ever-developing itself and its skills to handle and carry on (Miles, 1969: 376). The organization that is healthy should not only survive in its surrounding, but also grow and develop in the long run. The concept of performing in both, the present and the future, is the key element for an organization to be healthy. Miles developed his 10 dimensions to describe the organizational health. His dimensions are discussed in the following section.
The term “organizational health” was also defined by Parsons, Bales, and Shils (1953), Hoy and Tarter (1997), and Hoy and Miskel (1991) as the ability of an organization to adapt to its environment, to create harmony among its members, and to achieve to its goals.
Parsons, Bales and Shils (1953, in Freiberg 1999:86) identified that educational institutions like schools needed to solve four basic problems of adaptation, attaining objectives, integration and latency, to be able to exist, grow and thrive. According to Parsons (in Hoy & Miskel 1987:237; Hoy, Tarter & Bliss 1990:263; Freiberg 1999:86) schools, like all organizations, have three distinct levels of control over these needs – the technical, managerial and institutional.
Applied to schools and education, the three organizational levels imply the following:
The technical level
This level is concerned with the teaching-learning activity, for which the teaching staff are responsible.
The management level
The persons at these levels are responsible for administrative control of the organization. The principal is the primary administrator of the school. The administration controls and services the technical subsystem in two important ways: first, it mediates between the teachers and those receiving the services – students and parents; and second, it procures the necessary resources for effective teaching. Thus, teacher needs are a basic concern of the administration (Hoy & Miskel 1987:238; Freiberg 1999:87)