Internet ResearchE-Governance in educational settings: Greek educational organizationsleadership’s perspectives towards social media usage for participatory decision-makingMaria Sideri, Angeliki Kitsiou, Ariadni Filippopoulou, Christos Kalloniatis, Stefanos Gritzalis,

Article information:To cite this document:Maria Sideri, Angeliki Kitsiou, Ariadni Filippopoulou, Christos Kalloniatis, Stefanos Gritzalis,(2019) "E-Governance in educational settings: Greek educational organizations leadership’sperspectives towards social media usage for participatory decision-making", Internet Research,https://doi.org/10.1108/IntR-05-2017-0178Permanent link to this document:https://doi.org/10.1108/IntR-05-2017-0178

Downloaded on: 30 January 2019, At: 06:33 (PT)References: this document contains references to 95 other documents.To copy this document: permissions@emeraldinsight.comAccess to this document was granted through an Emerald subscription provided by emerald-srm:463687 []

For AuthorsIf you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emeraldfor Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submissionguidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information.

About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The companymanages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, aswell as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources andservices.

Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of theCommittee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative fordigital archive preservation.

*Related content and download information correct at time of download.

Dow

nloa

ded

by A

egea

n U

nive

rsity

At 0

6:33

30

Janu

ary

2019

(PT

)

https://doi.org/10.1108/IntR-05-2017-0178https://doi.org/10.1108/IntR-05-2017-0178

E-Governance ineducational settings

Greek educational organizations leadership’sperspectives towards social media usage for

participatory decision-makingMaria Sideri and Angeliki Kitsiou

Privacy Engineering and Social Informatics Laboratory,Department of Cultural Technology and Communication,

School of Social Sciences, University of the Aegean, Mytilene, GreeceAriadni Filippopoulou

Harokopio University, Athens, GreeceChristos Kalloniatis

Privacy Engineering and Social Informatics Laboratory,Department of Cultural Technology and Communication,

School of Social Sciences, University of the Aegean, Mytilene, Greece, andStefanos Gritzalis

Department of Information and Communication Systems Engineering,School of Engineering, University of the Aegean, Mytilene, Greece

AbstractPurpose – Even though social media are nowadays used in the frame of public governance to ensurecitizens’ major participation, enhance e-dialogue and e-democracy consequently, this utilization has notbeen expanded yet in the field of education, whose key role focuses on the cultivation of active citizenship,as it is promoted through participation. The purpose of this paper is to examine leadership’s views of GreekSecondary and Tertiary Education on the potential use of social media for participatory decision-makingprocesses in order to identify if the e-participation model could be implemented in the Greek education fieldas in other public domains.Design/methodology/approach – An exploratory research was elaborated, employing a survey design ofquantitative method in order to explore Greek educational organizations leadership’s perspectives towardsocial media usage in participatory decision-making processes.Findings – The research reveals Greek educational leadership’s positive view on the potential effects ofsocial media usage in participatory decision-making processes and highlights anticipated benefits as well asproblems to be faced, indicating the foundation for Greek leaders to implement social media in theirleadership practices and exploit their affordances as in e-governance shifts.Practical implications – Bringing the concept of e-participation and crowd sourcing model – key featuresin e-governance initiatives through social media usage – in education field, Greek educational leadership isinformed to consider social media utilization more methodically in the context of participatory decision-making processes, updating simultaneously existing leadership practices.Originality/value – Up till now, social media usage in participatory decision-making processes ineducational settings has hardly received attention.

Keywords Social media, Decision making, Participation, Educational settingPaper type Research paper

1. IntroductionAn increasing adoption of social media in public governance should be noted in recentyears, leading to e-governance shifts. Governmental agencies and public services use socialmedia to represent artifacts of their core mission, engage the public or enhance several

Internet Research© Emerald Publishing Limited

1066-2243DOI 10.1108/IntR-05-2017-0178

Received 4 May 2017Revised 31 October 2017

6 June 20189 October 2018

Accepted 10 October 2018

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:www.emeraldinsight.com/1066-2243.htm

E-Governancein educational

settings

Dow

nloa

ded

by A

egea

n U

nive

rsity

At 0

6:33

30

Janu

ary

2019

(PT

)

stakeholders’ participation (Mergel, 2013; Mergel and Bretschneider, 2013). These practicesestablish a new operating model, which emphasizes on civic participation and focuses oncitizens’ priorities and needs, supporting public services to better understand citizens’ issues(Mergel, 2013) and respond to them.

Within western democracies social media are already used for decision-makingprocesses, whereby citizens are invited to participate actively through platforms(Buhl, 2011), allowing thus the integration of their views in the formulation of severalpolicies and the development of a reciprocated beneficial relationship between themselvesand the governments (Yates and Paquette, 2011). Providing stakeholders’ insight in publicsector’s decision-making processes through social media, the development of a novele-leadership model is indicated (Avolio et al., 2000; Bowen et al., 2013), which improvesquality of life as it has a considerable impact on social and economic growth (Mergel, 2013;Magro, 2012; Bertot et al., 2010).

However, beyond the acknowledged impact of social media on enhancing e-participationwithin public sector, it should be noted that literature focuses primarily on e-participationinitiatives of specific public agencies, such as political parties, governments ormunicipalities and it does not expand in public services such as Higher Education (Rappet al., 2016), even though education aims principally at an active citizenship configuration(Hoskins et al., 2008). Social media are not used in educational settings as means ofe-participation and consultation, where stakeholders would contribute to the formulationof educational policies (Ahlquist, 2014; Jameson, 2013).

Nevertheless, social media are already used by educational institutions servingdifferent user groups and purposes; as tools in the learning process, for thecommunication with the alumni or society in general, the reinforcement of the academiccommunity feeling and counseling provision to students (Davis et al., 2012; Carpenter andKrutka, 2014; Young, 2014; Sharma et al., 2016; Nkhoma et al., 2015; Wu and Chen, 2015;Mao, 2014; Sarapin and Morris, 2015). During the last years, Higher Education Institutionsin order to manage their social media accounts, adopt social media mashups whoseprimary purpose “is to display daily happenings, events and activities, attract socialmedia audience and engage campus community in a more effective way” (Wu andShenghua, 2014, p. 169).

Lately, Yan et al. (2017) have investigated social media influence on decision makingin study/work within the academic context of universities at personal level.However, as Jameson (2013) has already identified, social media interactive dynamicsin correlation with education leadership and the development of an e-leadership shift,especially in Higher Education, have not adequately been explored. Barwick andBack (2007) also argue that even though information communication technologies(ICTs) and social media are used in educational settings “little attention is paidto the leadership opportunities these technologies create” (p. 28). In this respect, it is ofgreat importance to consider social media usage toward the aforementionedperspective (Selwyn, 2011).

Taking into account this research gap as identified by recent literature (Rapp et al.,2016; Ahlquist, 2014; Jameson, 2013), this paper attempts to go beyond the existingliterature, to identify social media usage in educational environments for decision-makingprocesses activation and to explore its correlation with the education leadership throughan exploratory survey administrated to the leaders of Greek Secondary and HigherEducation structures. Our research contributes to a further empirical investigationregarding the potential benefits and problems of educational environments deriving froman e-participatory decision-making process through social media, highlighting theunderlying interactional dynamics among social media and education leadership withinthe Greek educational context. Additionally, summarizing the insights gained from

INTR

Dow

nloa

ded

by A

egea

n U

nive

rsity

At 0

6:33

30

Janu

ary

2019

(PT

)

e-participation literature, our research shows that the e-participation model through socialmedia may be applicable within education structures, a domain of public services onwhich previous research has not focused adequately.

The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2 addresses work regardingthe impact of social media on e-participation in public sector. Section 3 focuses on therelationship between e-participation and active citizenship, being the latter the keytarget of education, on educational leadership and its role in promoting e-participation indecision-making practices, while it also includes the statement of interest and sets theraised research questions. The research field, the methodology followed, and theimplemented instrument are presented in Section 4. In Section 5 the results ofthis exploratory research are presented, while Section 6 discusses on the mainfindings of this research. Finally, Section 7 concludes our findings and raises futureresearch directions.

2. The impact of social media on e-participation in public sectorWithin democracy, governments worldwide emphasize on transparency, accountabilityand citizens’ right to access government information (Bertot, Jaeger and Grimes, 2012),trying at the same time to enhance public participation and ensure its engagement ingovernment’s initiatives (Hughes, 2011). Public participation is defined “as the practice ofconsulting and involving members of the public in the agenda-setting, decision-makingand policy-forming activities of organizations or institutions responsible for policydevelopment” (Rowe and Frewer, 2004, p. 512). Consequently, to get closer to citizens,governments, public agencies and services use new channels of communication, such associal media (Mergel, 2013), which increase effectiveness in transparency and openness(Drogkaris et al., 2010), while allowing governmental agencies to fulfill their mission(Mergel and Bretschneider, 2013). This model of interaction between citizens andpublic-sector agencies has been evolved in three phases.

In the first generation of e-participation, governmental agencies developed officialwebsites to inform citizens and used structured e-forums (e-surveys, e-polls) to access theiropinion. The results of this top-down approach were much lower than expected, sincecitizens’ participation was limited (Chadwick, 2009; Ferro and Molinari, 2010). This wasreversed within the second generation. Popular and familiar to citizens social mediaapplications like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube (Fernandez et al., 2014) were used bygovernmental organizations. Citizens’ high participation provided vast informationregarding governmental policy, social needs, problems and suggested actions. In thethird generation, governmental agencies search in the content created freely by citizens insocial media and by using advanced techniques, citizens’ opinions, arguments andrecommendations on a specific policy are extracted, in order to be analyzed and summarized(Charalabidis et al., 2012, 2014).

In this respect, social media usage offers some major opportunities and benefits forpublic sector organizations, which are summarized below:

(1) Increase of democratic engagement and participation enhancement by reachingunderrepresented population who were not previously involved in policy makingactivities (Khasawneh and Abu-Shanab, 2013; Magro, 2012; Bertot et al., 2010).The complex nature of public policy-making nowadays requires a more active publicparticipation in its design and implementation (Brooks et al., 2014), while people’sengagement promotes the sense of belonging in a community (Kamel Boulos andWheeler, 2007). In this frame, “the ladder of participation” is formed in fourstages; information sharing, consultation, joint decision-making and empowerment(Karl et al., 2002).

E-Governancein educational

settings

Dow

nloa

ded

by A

egea

n U

nive

rsity

At 0

6:33

30

Janu

ary

2019

(PT

)

(2) Crowdsourcing solutions and innovations provision (Mergel, 2013; Bertot, Jaeger andGrimes, 2012), by including all stakeholders in collaborative processes and accessinginnovative knowledge resulting from them in order for solutions and actions to bemore effective and efficient (Mergel, 2013; Magro, 2012; Yates and Paquette, 2011).

(3) Insights increase in order to enable decision-making process (Khasawneh andAbu-Shanab, 2013; Magro, 2012), which, as an integral part of the administrativefunction of an organization, constitutes “a conscious action based on realistic andvalue-based assumptions, including the selection of a behavioral activity, betweenone or more alternatives solutions in order for a desired result to be achieved”(Shull et al., 1970, p. 31). For an effective implementation of a decision-makingprocess, consultation is a prerequisite allowing decision-makers to access theopinions of several stakeholders (Cascetta et al., 2015; McNutt, 2014). PADGETS(“Policy Gadgets Mashing Underlying Group Knowledge in Web 2.0 Media” – www.padgets.eu) is an indicative example, which enables an open public decision-makingprocess by integrating the decision-making process with the activities carried out insocial media (Boero et al., 2012).

These benefits may enable the implementation of the OECD (2001) and United Nations’ (UN)e-Participation Framework (DESA, 2005), formed in three stages as summarized in Islam’swork (2008, p. 6) (Figure 1).

Beyond benefits, literature has also pointed out challenges and risks associated withsocial media implementation within public sector. These challenges refer to normativecontexts, standardized operating procedures, lack of required resources, legal restrictions,possible conflicts among stakeholders, bureaucratic behaviors, privacy concerns, the extentof technology institutionalization within an organization and the complexity of eachorganization (Khan et al., 2014; Khasawneh and Abu-Shanab, 2013; McNutt, 2014;Bertot, Jaeger and Hansen, 2012; Mergel, 2012).

Social media’s impact on public sector is a research area that needs to be furtherexplored (Rapp et al., 2016; Khan et al., 2014; Magro, 2012) beyond governmental level

Maturity and Trust

E-enabling

E-engaging

E-empowering

Time

Active Participation(Partnership/Transact)

Consultation(Transform)

Information(Interact)

Notes: Where e-participation is formatted over time (x-axis) andis positive correlated with maturity and trust ( y-axis) amonggovernment and citizens. Information (under x-axis) is the firstlevel “active but one-way” initiative that enables citizen to accessthe information passively. Consultation and active participation(under x-axis) have a two-way relationship, indicating partnershipamong government and citizens

Figure 1.Islam’s (2008)integrated approachof e-participation

INTR

Dow

nloa

ded

by A

egea

n U

nive

rsity

At 0

6:33

30

Janu

ary

2019

(PT

)

www.padgets.euwww.padgets.eu

(Mergel and Bretschneider, 2013), since previous literature has focused on public agencies,such as political parties, governments or municipalities (Stamati et al., 2014). In thisrespect, Selwyn (2011) supports the need to explore the development of social media ineducational settings, while Rapp et al. (2016) indicate that little research has beenelaborated regarding social media impact on e-participatory decision-making processes inthe domain of education.

3. E-participation in educational environments3.1 Cultivation of active citizenship, e-participation and the role of educational leadershipEducation constitutes a special field of public environment due to its considerable diversityworldwide (Guri-Rosenblit et al., 2007) and its institutional role on the cultivation of activecitizenship (Hoskins et al., 2008). European Union (EU) policy documents, indicatively, haverecognized the importance of promoting active citizenship through Education, leading to theinclusion of citizenship education as a main objective of the European educational systems(Eurydice, 2012). In this frame, students should be provided with the opportunities toparticipate in several activities (European Commission, 2009).

Acquiring civic competences for actively exercising citizenship is not limited toknowledge regarding democratic principles and values, but it also “requires skills, such ascritical thinking and communication skills, and the ability and willingness to participateconstructively in the public domain, including the decision-making process throughvoting” (Eurydice, 2012, p. 8). In order for the aforementioned skills to be obtained,engaging in dialogue should be cultivated, participation should be enforced, andco-operation should be strengthened. Educational experience needs to focus thus onparticipatory social experiences. Consequently, e-participation initiatives through socialmedia usage may be of great benefit for the educational communities, since their usageprovides students with the literacies and skills required for the twenty-first century(Powers and Green, 2016) and educational leaders with the ability to prepare students asproductive citizens (Ahlquist, 2014). In this sense, educational communities, adoptingpolicies, strategies and practices that support the integrated stages of OECD (2001) andUN e-Participation Framework (DESA, 2005), could utilize social media to enhanceparticipation and enable decision-making processes.

To achieve that, educational leadership is the most influential of all factors, since itaffects educational activities on every level, while it perpetually determines educationalstructures’ goals and formats students’ learning outcomes ( Jameson, 2013). Therefore, theability of educational leaders to “stay attuned to emerging social media platforms is a crucialcapacity” (Ahlquist, 2014, p. 58) that should be incorporated in all their practices.

Nevertheless, due to educational systems’ diversities and to the fact that educationalleadership has not yet developed digital decision-making practices, as shown in literature,the inappropriate use of technology by educational leadership has been recognized(Kearsley and Lynch, 1994), constituting an issue that needs to be explored ( Jameson, 2013).The Association for the Study of Higher Education has already underlined the need for theeducational leadership to adopt innovative technology in management practices in HigherEducation (Gayle et al., 2003). Ahlquist (2014) supports that educational leaders, especiallyas far as the development of students’ citizenship is concerned, face the great challenge ofdeveloping digital decision-making strategies to improve communities’ functions, withinwhich the usage of social media is a specific requirement. Powers and Green (2016) indicateas well, that educational leadership should be more collaborative and should promoteinnovation based on ICT, while Bhanti et al. (2011) support that e-governance initiatives,elaborated in Higher Education, provide transparency and opportunities to all stakeholders.There are currently contradictory views and debates regarding social media’s usage impacton educational settings, while it has not been well-documented that they are being used in an

E-Governancein educational

settings

Dow

nloa

ded

by A

egea

n U

nive

rsity

At 0

6:33

30

Janu

ary

2019

(PT

)

innovative and participatory way (Powers and Green, 2016; Selwyn, 2011). However, in ourbest knowledge, there are few examples of social media usage for decision-making processesby educational leadership. Rapp’s et al. (2016) research, concerning the project “Tomorrow’sMBA” of the College of William and Mary in Virginia, shows how applying a bottom-upstrategy, external stakeholders, students and faculty provided consultation and valuablefeedback that led to the creation of a new MBA program. Lampe et al. (2011) refer to thecase of Michigan State University Cooperative Extension that used a social mediaimplementation to collect opinions and ideas from stakeholders statewide, in order toidentify people’s areas of interest and subsequently to formulate its priorities and activities.Additionally, Scriven Berry and Herrington (2012) refer to the case of social media usage bylocal stakeholders in the state of Florida, concerning a pilot program adopted by USDepartment of Education within the context of the federal Elementary and SecondaryEducation Act. Parents, students, teachers, administrators and policy makers usedsocial media in order to express views and concerns regarding policy implementationin this district.

In this respect, it is arguable that educational leaders should utilize social media in amore considerable manner in order to empower the educational settings’ population toactively participate in consultations by expressing thoughts, opinions and needs,contributing to the decision-making process and the formulation of the appropriate policy.

3.2 Statement of interest and research questionsTaking into consideration that educational communities constitute structures whereseveral different components (e.g. adults and underages) with different roles(e.g. academic staff and students, leadership and staff ) coexist, it is an undeniable factthat joint decision-making behooves in a daily basis, as one of the most importantparticipatory processes (Lunenburg, 2010). Therefore, it is rather surprising that thee-participation model through social media usage for decision-making is not leveraged ineducational settings as in other public domains. Consequently, a series of questions is setemphatically. Why social media usage in educational environments remains tightlyfocused on information, communication and teaching? Would not it be even in a microscale of topics useful to activate an e-participatory decision-making procedure withineducational settings using a tool such as this of social media?

Despite the growing skepticism regarding social media utilization within the public sector(Mcnutt, 2014; Khan et al., 2014), Ekenberg (2015) indicates that in order for democracy to beincreased regardless the field of reference, it is of great importance for any public organizationto enhance participation by employing new tools, which provide access to more publicopinion, enable stakeholders to participate in the decision-making process and eventuallysupport decision-makers to clearly communicate the decision rationales. Therefore, sinceeducational environments have a crucial role in cultivating democratic values, such ascitizenship and public participation, it is worth exploring how social media are utilized byeducational leaders in these settings, under the light of the e-participation model.

Considering the available literature, few cases of social media usage for consultationleading to participatory decision-making processes in educational settings are indicated, thefollowing fundamental research questions are raised, guiding our study:

RQ1. What would be the effects of social media usage for the activation of participatorydecision -making processes in educational settings?

RQ2. What are the benefits expected to come up by the usage of social media inconsultations for decision making in educational settings?

RQ3. What are the problems that may come up?

INTR

Dow

nloa

ded

by A

egea

n U

nive

rsity

At 0

6:33

30

Janu

ary

2019

(PT

)

4. Research methodology4.1 Greek educational system as research fieldTaking into consideration the aforementioned research questions, our exploratory researchaims to investigate the leadership’s views and attitudes of Greek Secondary and TertiaryEducation regarding social media usage in e-participatory initiatives. Greek educationalsystem was selected due to its special contextual factors as following: According to theOECD (2012) comparative data, it is the most centralized system in the OECD context, with78 percent of decisions taken at central state level, by the Ministry of Education, Researchand Religious Affairs, and only 5 percent at Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Educationlevel. This central state control is stipulated in the country’s constitution, which presentseducation and active citizenship through it as one of its main missions, while having theobligation to provide free of cost education at all levels (Dimitropoulos and Kindi, 2017).Especially regarding Tertiary Education, whose key-features are openness andaccessibility, as political pressure after the dictatorship’s fall in 1974 enhanced itsdemocratization (Dimitropoulos and Kindi, 2017, p. 3). According to the EU Association(Estermann et al., 2011) data, the institutions are among the least autonomous in theEuropean context. This restriction limits their differentiation, excludes competition, barriersthe staff from taking initiatives and deterring them to achieve goals such as formation ofresponsible citizens (National EFA 2015 Reviews, 2015). This fact has been highlighted bythe Greek Quality Assurance for Tertiary Education, which, in accordance with theEuropean Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European HigherEducation Area, indicates that significant changes need to be done in Higher Educationgovernance (Leisyte and Westerheijden, 2014). Similar limitations concern the Directoratesof Primary Education (DPE) and Directorates of Secondary Education (DSE), which areaccountable only for the implementation of national educational policies in Primary andSecondary structures respectively, as well as the Regional Directorates for Primary andSecondary Education (RDE), the decentralized regional administrative structures reportingdirectly to the Minister of Education. Even though, a main goal of these structures is thein-service training and teacher development – regarding the area of citizenship educationamong others – these opportunities are not provided to Greek school Heads in contrast toother 14 European countries (European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice, 2017). What ismore, Greek educational system faces several changes and Greek leaders have to confrontseveral challenges, which their European counterparts do not have to go through. On theone hand, the Greek economic crisis led to severe cuts of public funding (2.7 percent in 2014of GDP) for the operation of Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Education, while the globalmigration and the refugee crisis led to a considerable increase of the number of migrant/refugee students at all levels.

Notwithstanding these changes and system’s highly centralization, functionalre-orientation and implementation of educational reform are required, based on theprinciples of decentralized governance, transparency, quality assurance, efficiency/effectiveness and response to actual societal needs (OECD, 2017). In this respect,devolution of decision-making and formulation of appropriate frameworks throughconsultation with stakeholders are essential leadership practices that OECD (2011) suggestsfor the reformation of the Greek educational system. Therefore, it is worth examininghow Greek education leaders perceive the impact of social media on their framing toreformation and the adoption of innovative methods in order to enhance democraticengagement and decentralization through e-participatory procedures.

4.2 Research designIn order to better comprehend the potential key role of social media in e-participatoryinitiatives in Greek educational settings, as well as the ability for their implementation,

E-Governancein educational

settings

Dow

nloa

ded

by A

egea

n U

nive

rsity

At 0

6:33

30

Janu

ary

2019

(PT

)

namely, educational leadership’s familiarity with social media, incorporation of social mediawithin educational environments and implemented online and offline consultationprocedures, perceived benefits and risks that may derive from a participatory decision-making process through social media, were explored.

Building up on Powers and Green’s (2016) and Rios-Aguilar’s et al. (2012) work, a surveydesign (Creswell, 2014) of quantitative method was developed. Since previous literature(Ahlquist, 2014; Jameson, 2013) has identified the research gap regarding theimplementation of e-participatory initiatives through social media by educationalleadership, our research, as an exploratory one, addresses the aforementioned researchquestions, aiming to determine the nature of the research problem, without intent to provideconclusive findings (Dudovskiy, 2016). The questionnaire was thus considered as the mostappropriate tool in order to lay the groundwork for a better understanding of the researcharea, since it provides numeric description of trends, attitudes or opinions of a population,while data are analyzed statistically in order to draw inferences regarding the participants’responses (Creswell, 2014).

Τhis research was addressed to the educational leadership of Greece. This populationconstitutes of 58 DPE, 58 DSE, 13 RDE Heads and 22 Universities Rectors. Even though, arecent Greek educational reformation initiate was to give more autonomy at local level(OECD, 2017), Heads of DPE, being at ground level, lag behind other educational structures(DSE, RDE, Universities) concerning autonomy in decision-making and therefore were notincluded in this survey. Given the small size of the research population, the rest of thepopulation was included, since it has a more important role in promoting changes withineducational settings.

4.3 Instrumentation and measure developmentIn order to construct our survey instrument effectively and due to little researchelaborated previously on this area, it was crucial to draw on first-hand observation ofcurrent trends of social media usage in all Greek Universities, RDE and DSE, by accessingtheir websites and social media (Facebook and Twitter) accounts. Facebook and Twitterwere chosen as the most popular social media that have been reviewed both ine-governance (Khasawneh and Abu-Shanab, 2013) and social media in education literature(Reuben, 2008). Despite the acknowledged limitation that educational environments tendto differentiate from one another, our primary goal was to practically identify cases ofe-consultation in these settings, which would support the practice of the e-participationmodel, contrary to the non-reference in literature. Our identification focused one-consultation cases, since consultation is described as an important procedure(Islam, 2008; Khasawneh and Abu-Shanab, 2013; Mcnutt, 2014).

This procedure indicated that 2 out of 13 RDE and 8 out of 58 DSE have Facebook profiles,while five DSE also have Twitter accounts. Out of the 22 Universities, 9 have official profilesboth on Facebook and Twitter, while one University only has an official Facebook page andone other University only has a Twitter account. Additionally, social media posts’ content ofthe selected educational structures was explored by the researchers from September 2014 toAugust 2015. Posts were defined as units of measurement and analysis, in order for theresearchers to assort and quantify them by grouping and coding issues, as well as to createcategories through a classification process according to the purpose of the research. Thesecategories concern information distribution and communication regarding general interestissues, events, awards and students or administrative issues, while only three consultationcases were detected in Higher Education.

Building upon previous literature and the results of our first-hand observation procedure, adata collection survey instrument was developed. The anonymous questionnaire (Appendix)included four sections and consisted of 17 close-ended items in total. All items regarding

INTR

Dow

nloa

ded

by A

egea

n U

nive

rsity

At 0

6:33

30

Janu

ary

2019

(PT

)

Greek leaders’ perceptions for social media usage were compiled from previous literature one-participation and social media in education, while the results of the first-hand observationprocedure were also taken into consideration:

(1) Social media familiarity: the items were designed taking into considerationRios-Aguilar’s et al. (2012) research, including measures such as “Do you personallyuse social media?” and “If yes, what for do you use social media?”

(2) Incorporation of social media: this section, including three items, was designedconsidering Powers and Green’s (2016) and Mergel and Bretschneider’s (2013) work,as well as the preparatory observative procedure.

(3) Stakeholders’ engagement in the decision-making process: in this section, threeitems were designed taking into consideration previous literature (Mergel, 2013;Leisyte and Westerheijden, 2014) and the observative procedure. Items such as“For which of the topics below stakeholders’ opinion is asked within youreducational setting?” were included.

(4) Benefits and risks of social media in participatory decision-making process: thissection builds upon previous literature on e-governance (Hiltz et al., 2014; Khan et al.,2014) and the preparatory observative procedure, including four items, such as“How would you assess the effects of social media usage in participatory decision-making process in your educational setting?”

A set of three questions to address participants’ socio-demographic characteristics wasincluded in the first part of the questionnaire.

4.4 Procedure and data analysisThe instrument was tested for its form, language, clarity, difficulty, reliability andresponsiveness to respondents’ interests in a pilot study addressed to former Rectors andformer Heads of RDE, and after being revised accordingly, it received its final form.The questionnaire was implemented through Google forms and its link was incorporated ine-mails sent to 22 Rectors, 13 RDE and 58 DSE Heads. The procedure and the purpose of thesurvey were explained with clarity in the online questionnaire’s introductory note. All of the66 completed questionnaires were tested for completeness, while data were downloadedfrom Google forms, recoded and processed through SPSS21.

5. ResultsFrom the 93 questionnaires sent, 66 were answered; 7 (54 percent) out of the 13 RDE, 48(83 percent) out of the 58 DSE and 11 (50 percent) out of the 22 Universities.

Men dominate Universities’ leadership and RDE (72.7 and 85.7 percent, respectively),while women outnumber in DSE (56.3 percent).

5.1 Social media familiarityThe first set of questions aimed to investigate responders’ knowledge and familiarity withsocial media, as well as the reasons for which they utilize them in personal level, in case theydo so. With the exception of one DSE Head, all respondents knew what social media are. Theone aforementioned stated that he/she is “not at all” familiar with social media, while all therest stated “very much” (29, 21 and 27 percent of RDE, DSE and Universities, respectively),“a lot” (43, 38 and 45 percent of RDE, DSE and Universities, respectively) and “moderate”(29, 29 and 18 percent of RDE, DSE and Universities, respectively). Only 10 percent of theDSE and 9 percent of the Universities’ respondents stated “little” familiarity. In accordancewith e-governance literature (Hiltz et al., 2014; Mergel and Bretschneider, 2013) which

E-Governancein educational

settings

Dow

nloa

ded

by A

egea

n U

nive

rsity

At 0

6:33

30

Janu

ary

2019

(PT

)

supports that familiarity, individual’s sufficiency and social media’s comfort degree affectgovernors’ promptness to broaden their adoption within the organizations and being able toutilize them beyond standard procedures, Greek educational leaders’ familiarity isimportant for the potential adoption of social media in participatory decision-makingprocesses in their settings. Taking also into consideration that leaders shape organizations’culture and communicate it, while educational leadership has a pivotal role in promotinginnovation (Powers and Green, 2016) and the responsibility to actively manage and facilitatechange, finally delivering change within Higher Education (Anthony and Antony, 2017), theaforementioned familiarity becomes even more significant.

Respondents declared that they use social media with the exception of seven DSE Heads andone Rector. The respondents that use social media, stated “personal use” (86, 63 and 64 percentRDE, DSE, Universities, respectively), “educational process support” (71, 63 and 55 percentRDE, DSE, Universities, respectively) and “organization’s function and processes support”(43, 40 and 64 percent RDE, DSE, Universities, respectively) as a reason for using social mediaapplications. Findings reveal social media usage mostly for personal or educational reasons,supporting previous research findings regarding social media usage in education (Rios-Aguilaret al., 2012). As Dermentzi and Papagiannidis (2018) argue, academics use online technologies inorder to maintain a professional image and find information about the views/ needs of thepublic. The deviation between Rectors, RDE and DSE Heads responses regarding social mediausage for “organization’s function and processes support” indicates a differentiation in theirperspectives, which is probably related to the structures’ level, their responsibilities andautonomy grade.

5.2 Incorporation of social mediaThe incorporation of social media in these structures cannot be denied, since, with theexception of two DSE Heads (4 percent), all respondents stated that they use social media intheir organizations. Blogs were selected by all three structures at higher rates ( from 71 to100 percent), while Facebook and Twitter appeared in high utilization rates by RDE (86 and43 percent, respectively) and Universities (73 and 45 percent, respectively). The relevantrates for DSE were lower (29 percent for Facebook and 2 percent for Twitter). YouTubeappeared within 40 and 45 percent in DSE and Universities, respectively, the ratio for RDEwas 14 percent, which is justifiable considering its usage as a mean of promotingeducational projects and supporting teaching process. LinkedIn, Instagram and Skypeusage were also stated in smaller proportion and only by DSE and Universities.Consequently, it is clear that the Greek educational structures under scope have includedsocial media applications in their functions, satisfying thus the prerequisites for furtherappliance as set by Mergel and Bretschneider (2013). The social media applications used aresimilar to those utilized by governmental entities in the 2nd generation of e-participation(Mcnutt, 2014; Khasawneh and Abu-Shanab, 2013) and identical to those displayingincreased use in society (Bonsón et al., 2012).

Among the reasons for social media usage, promotion, publicity and announcements ofgeneral interest were stated by all educational leaders, ranging from 71 to 100 percent. Theannouncements of specific interest were recorded with maximum 82 percent in Universitieson issues concerning students and 71 percent in RDE on issues of interest for teachers andother personnel. With the same ratio, social media appeared to be used for educationalprocesses support by RDE, while 77 percent of the DSE use them for presenting studentsand teachers’ work. Informative utilization of social media is thus differentiated amongthese educational environments; in Universities it is more student-centric, in RDE morestaff-orientated, while DSE target on the presentation of students and teachers’ work.This highlights structures’ distinct needs and different leadership practices for social mediausage, raising consequently future research directions. As means of communication

INTR

Dow

nloa

ded

by A

egea

n U

nive

rsity

At 0

6:33

30

Janu

ary

2019

(PT

)

between faculty and students and among groups within the organization, social media werestated in lower rates (max. 55 percent as means of communication between faculty andstudents in Universities and min. 15 percent between groups within DSE). According to therespondents, social media are used in consultation procedures as well (29 percent in RDE,4 percent in DSE and 36 percent in Universities). Rectors’ perspectives indicate a highertrend within Universities than the Secondary Education structures, which may arise fromthe fact that Tertiary Education has more autonomy in decision-making process. It shouldbe noted that Secondary Education consultation procedures are directly implemented by theMinistry of Education through the “open.gov” platform.

5.3 Stakeholders’ engagement in the decision-making processAs far as stakeholders’ engagement is concerned, all respondents declared that theyconsider the opinion of faculty, administrative, technical and other staff, students, collectivebodies, associations and public-sector offline entities. Only two DSE Heads stated that theydo not take into consideration anyone else’s opinion. A small percentage considers theopinion of private sector organizations as well. The topics for which opinion is asked areshown in Figure 2.

Social media have been verified to be “valuable computer-mediated communicationtools” in workplaces contributing to the formation of employees’ social capitalindicated by network ties, shared vision and trust (Cao et al., 2016, p. 539). The latter iseven more important when dealing with educational settings where shared vision andtrust between stakeholders are prerequisites for the community’s developmentand sustainability.

Employing consultation and including all stakeholders in their management practices, isa required benchmark for an adequate participatory decision-making framework (Ekenberg,2015). Greek educational leaders enhance an active participatory process for decision-making, leading to the leverage of the assets deriving from crowdsourcing. Nevertheless,these consultations do not take advance of social media usage despite having been proved toenhance participation.

100%90%80%70%60%50%40%30%20%10%0%

Perc

enta

ge o

f res

pond

ents

Even

ts

Activ

ities

Study

issue

s

Finan

cial is

sues

Opera

tiona

l issue

s

Orga

nisati

onal

issue

s

Partn

ership

s with

othe

r

organ

isatio

ns

Resea

rch ac

tions

Desig

n/Imp

lemen

tation

of

educ

ation

al po

licy

Orga

nisati

on’s a

im de

finitio

n

Topics

UniversitiesDSERDE

Figure 2.Topics for which

stakeholders’ opinionis asked

E-Governancein educational

settings

Dow

nloa

ded

by A

egea

n U

nive

rsity

At 0

6:33

30

Janu

ary

2019

(PT

)

https://www.emeraldinsight.com/action/showImage?doi=10.1108/IntR-05-2017-0178&iName=master.img-004.jpg&w=294&h=111

5.4 Benefits and risks of social media in participatory decision-making processThe last section reveals leadership’s views about the usefulness of social media usage inparticipatory decision-making process. No respondent considers social media usage “not atall useful,” while rates are low for the “little useful” answer. On the contrary, it is consideredas “moderately useful” by 29 percent of RDE, 21 percent of DSE Heads and 27 percent ofRectors. This finding indicates the skepticism regarding social media usage that runs outliterature both on social media in education (Rios-Aguilar et al., 2012; Selwyn, 2011) ande-governance (Hiltz et al., 2014; Khan et al., 2014). The rates are higher for the answers “a lot”and “very much” useful as shown in Figure 3.

The positive view of the Rectors and Heads of DSE and RDE is confirmed by theconsidered benefits as listed in Figure 4, focusing on enhancing “e-dialogue” and“e-participation,” on “e-democracy” and “transparency,” on “collective intelligencedevelopment,” “response time improvement and decision-making time reduction” as wellas “high degree of satisfaction of stakeholders’ needs.” All benefits are consideredimportant, as they have been documented to provide valuable outcomes in manye-governance shifts (Khasawneh and Abu-Shanab, 2013; Magro, 2012; Bertot et al., 2010;Mergel, 2013; Bertot, Jaeger and Grimes, 2012). Only 2 respondents (one DSE Head and oneRector) do not consider any of the aforementioned variables as benefits, while one DSE Headcould not estimate potential benefits.

On the other hand, lack of “financial resources” and “human resources,” “fear of publicexposure of the view,” “skepticism for data safety online” as well as “participationreluctance” appear to be potential problems as shown in Figure 5. It is striking, consideringthat ICT have been implemented in educational settings, that “usage difficulty” isconsidered as a potential problem by all structures’ Heads with a share of about 29 percent,while “legal restrictions” within the centralized Greek educational model are considered as aproblem only by DSE Heads and Rectors (21 and 18 percent, respectively). These issueshave also been identified as barriers in previous literature regarding social media usage ine-participatory initiatives (Magro, 2012; Hiltz et al., 2014; Khan et al., 2014; Yates andPaquette, 2011; Hellman, 2011). Legal restrictions, which have been pointed out as a problemin e-governance literature as well (Mcnutt, 2014), probably arise due to the centralized

100%

90%

80%

70%

60%

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%Little Moderate A lot Very much

Social media usefulness

Perc

enta

ge o

f res

pond

ents

UniversitiesDSERDE

Figure 3.Social mediausefulness inparticipatory decision-making process

INTR

Dow

nloa

ded

by A

egea

n U

nive

rsity

At 0

6:33

30

Janu

ary

2019

(PT

)

https://www.emeraldinsight.com/action/showImage?doi=10.1108/IntR-05-2017-0178&iName=master.img-005.jpg&w=246&h=169

educational Greek system’s character that, according to Saiti and Eliophotou-Menon (2009),prevents potential diversity in participatory decision-making, having an impact on effectiveand efficient education policy.

The last question regards the assessment of social media usage effects in participatorydecision-making, in which a positive view dominates (86 percent RDE, 67 percent DSE and

100%

90%

80%

70%

60%

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%Legal

restrictionsLack ofhuman

resources

UsageDifficulty

Participationreluctance

Scepticism forsafety data

online

Fear for publicexposure of

the view

Lack offinancialresources

Problems

Perc

enta

ge o

f res

pond

ents

UniversitiesDSERDE

Figure 5.Problems of social

media usage inparticipatory decision-

making process

100%

90%

80%

70%

60%

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%

Benefits

None

of th

e abo

ve

Do no

t kno

w

Decis

ion m

aking

time r

educ

tion

Satis

factio

n of th

e need

s

of the

invo

lved

Transp

arenc

y

E-de

mocra

cy

E-pa

rticipa

tion

Colle

ctive

intel

ligen

ce

E-dia

logue

Perc

enta

ge o

f res

pond

ents

UniversitiesDSERDE

Figure 4.Benefits of socialmedia usage in

participatory decision-making process

E-Governancein educational

settings

Dow

nloa

ded

by A

egea

n U

nive

rsity

At 0

6:33

30

Janu

ary

2019

(PT

)

https://www.emeraldinsight.com/action/showImage?doi=10.1108/IntR-05-2017-0178&iName=master.img-009.jpg&w=296&h=184https://www.emeraldinsight.com/action/showImage?doi=10.1108/IntR-05-2017-0178&iName=master.img-016.jpg&w=301&h=124

91 percent Universities). Only one respondent (DSE) assesses effects negatively, five (DSE)respondents non-differently from the existing ones, coming up from offline procedures,while effects cannot be estimated at all by 14 percent of RDE, 17 percent of DSE and9 percent of Universities respondents. Results are shown in Figure 6.

6. DiscussionThe main objective of this research was to explore the potential usage of social media inparticipatory decision-making processes in the field of education, specifically in the Greekeducational structures, in order to identify if there is room for the e-participation model tobecome applicable to the Greek education system, as it has been recorded for other publicservices. Acknowledging that leaders shape organizations’ culture, Greek Educationalleadership’s views were examined, taking also into consideration system’s specificfeatures and especially its institutionally centralized character which discouragesthe implementation of e-participatory decision-making model. Nevertheless, due to theundergoing educational reform in Greece, this research brings up interestingfindings, useful not only to researchers both in e-governance and educational fields, butalso to Greek educational leadership. On the one hand, it brings the concepts of e-participation and crowd sourcing in education and provides the emerging research field ofe-governance in education, which has not been explored adequately, with a furtherempirical association. On the other hand, it contributes to outline social media benefits andrisks in educational participatory decision-making processes, helping Greek educationalleadership to improve their practices and adopt innovative methods that are cultivatingstakeholders’ digital literacies and skills, so as to enhance democratic engagement anddecentralization, address structural problems deriving from system’s centralizationand the economic and refugee crisis as well. Furthermore, findings of this study are alsouseful to the whole European educational community, which is informed that aclear educational policy framework regarding social media usage is required, in

100%

Social media effects assesment

Positive Negative No different fromthe existing

Cannot estimate

90%

80%

70%

60%

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%

Perc

enta

ge o

f res

pond

ents

UniversitiesDSERDE

Figure 6.Leadership’sassessment of socialmedia usage effects inparticipatory decision-making process

INTR

Dow

nloa

ded

by A

egea

n U

nive

rsity

At 0

6:33

30

Janu

ary

2019

(PT

)

https://www.emeraldinsight.com/action/showImage?doi=10.1108/IntR-05-2017-0178&iName=master.img-017.jpg&w=290&h=186

order to enable European educational leaders to employ social media effectively fordecision-making processes and therefore to cultivate active citizenship through theimplementation of the e-participation model.

6.1 Social media familiarityMost of the Greek leaders are familiar with social media, supporting Ahlquist’s (2014) thesisaccording to which, social media implementation in educational settings is not a recentdiscovery and therefore there is no claim to support that they could not be integrated ineducational leadership practice, as well as Powers and Green’s (2016) research pointing outsocial media as a key-factor in school leadership practice.

What is important though, is the either overlapping or heterogeneous social media usagedeclaration in these educational structures, as an issue that also arises in e-governanceliterature (Magro, 2012; Kavanaugh et al., 2012; Hrdinová and Helbig, 2011). Regardingsocial media usage for “organization’s function and processes support” a differentiationacross educational structures is recorded, probably related to their responsibilities andautonomy grade. Nevertheless, even the low recorded ratios of social media usage for thesepurposes in RDE and DSE, are still encouraging, considering Mergel and Bretschneider’s(2013) thesis according to which an adequate social media application within public sectorexists, when the selected ICT are incorporated in organization’s procedures.

6.2 Incorporation of social mediaGreek educational structures have, in their majority, included social media in their functionsand specifically the most popular ones, as it happens in e-governance shifts in otherpublic-sector domains. It is important to note that RDE exploit Facebook to a greater extentthan Universities and DSE, while only the latter utilize additional media applications, suchas LinkedIn, Instagram and Skype, emphasizing the difference of social media incorporationbetween these structures. This may be correlated to their distinct mission, since missiondefines social media adoption in governmental agencies (Mergel, 2013).

Promotion, publicity and information are the dominant reasons of social mediautilization by all educational structures, which is consistent with the findings of previousliterature on social media in education (Powers and Green, 2016; Rios-Aguilar et al., 2012;Davis et al., 2012). Information, which is the first level in order to enhance activeparticipation, as Islam’s (2008) integrated approach of e-participation indicates, is greatlysupported despite the recorded differences in informative utilization of social media betweenstructures. Access to information through social media may also reinforce transparencywithin the educational structures, as in many e-government initiatives in public sector(Bertot et al., 2010; Mergel, 2013) and therefore it consists a critical function that enableseducational leaders to cultivate active citizenship (Ahlquist, 2014), supporting structures tofulfill their mission. On the other hand, consultation through social media, an importantphase in e-participation model (Islam, 2008; Mcnutt, 2014), is not supported adequately inGreek educational structures through social media employment. Both “familiarity” and“incorporation” findings indicate that in Greek educational structures only the firststage – enabling – of e-participation model (Islam, 2008) has been formed, while there is noclear distinction between the implementation of e-participation’s first and secondgeneration, as it was implemented in other public agencies.

Therefore, it is arguable that a clear policy framework regarding social mediausage would enable Greek educational leaders to effectively employ social media fordecision-making processes and consequently the second stage – engagement – ofe-participation model (Islam, 2008), so as to address structural problems deriving fromcentralization and the economic crisis.

E-Governancein educational

settings

Dow

nloa

ded

by A

egea

n U

nive

rsity

At 0

6:33

30

Janu

ary

2019

(PT

)

6.3 Stakeholders’ engagement in the decision-making processRegardless the lack of e-consultation practices through social media, the overwhelmingmajority of Greek leaders underline the importance of considering the opinion of severalstakeholders in the decision-making process, for a plethora of offline issues.

On the one hand, this shows that the structures have been activated in order to bereformed, satisfying criteria for school governance settled by the EU educational policies(Eurydice, 2012) on the basis of decentralized governance, transparency, quality assuranceand devolution of decision-making (OECD, 2017; National EFA 2015 Reviews, 2015) and onthe other hand that they recognize the assets of collective wisdom, an output ofcrowdsourcing, in decision-making process, which has been identified as a gainful practicefor organizations (Pedersen et al., 2013). However, since crowdsourcing approach“a collaboration model enabled by people-centric web technologies to solve individual,organizational, and societal problems using a dynamically formed crowd of interestedpeople who respond to an open call for participation” (Pedersen et al., 2013, p. 580) could bemore sufficient including web 2.0 technologies (Amrollahi et al., 2014), it is arguable tosupport that Greek educational structures, in order to upgrade participatorydecision-making procedures and move to third stage – empowering – of e-participationmodel (Islam, 2008), should utilize the benefits of social media, as governmental settings do,increasing thus audience engagement, which facilitates them in accomplishing their mission(Dadashzadeh, 2010).

6.4 Benefits and risks of social media in participatory decision-making processSocial media in participatory decision-making process within these structures areconsidered to be useful in most cases by Greek leaders, indicating that there is ground toimplement social media in their leadership practice and exploit their affordances as ine-governance shifts. Even though there is skepticism, which already runs out literature, itshould be noted that social media utilization within governmental entities is guided in agreat extent by leaders’ eagerness to undertake the risks related to its usage (Mergel andBretschneider, 2013). In this sense, this responsibility could be undertaken by Greekeducational leadership as well.

The majority of Greek leaders declare that social media usage in decision-makingprocess is expected to provide several benefits. In particular, Rectors put specialemphasis on benefits, such as e-participation, e-dialogue, response time improvement anddecision-making time reduction, RDE Heads focus more on e-democracy, collectiveintelligence and satisfaction of the needs of stakeholders, while DSE Heads ratetransparency higher. This leaders’ acknowledgment reassures Cheng and Cheung (1995)thesis, according to which, decision-making process and the tools to be used arethe two main factors regarding policy making process in educational environments.In this respect, since Greek leaders promote stakeholders’ engagement – students, staff,teachers, other associations and bodies – in decision-making processes and highlyevaluate benefits coming up from relevant social media usage, the need to strengthene-participation in these procedures applying a crowdsourcing approach, a modelwhich has been recognized to contribute to academic innovation in previous literature(Graber and Graber, 2013), is indicated.

Besides the anticipated benefits, Greek leaders point out that they would encounterpotential problems regarding social media usage in participatory decision-making processwithin their educational settings, such as the lack of human resources with appropriateexpertise for the design, implementation and support of such an application, lack offinancial resources, skepticism about data security on internet and privacy concerns, fearof public exposure, difficulty in use and participation reluctance. It is worth noting thatlack of resources, difficulty in use and privacy concerns have also been underlined as

INTR

Dow

nloa

ded

by A

egea

n U

nive

rsity

At 0

6:33

30

Janu

ary

2019

(PT

)

deterrent factors of social media usage for several purposes in educational settings(Powers and Green, 2016; Rios-Aguilar et al., 2012; Davis et al., 2012). Even though we aregoing through the 3rd generation of e-participation, the challenges emerging from socialmedia usage are still numerous (Magro, 2012) and are considerably highlighted in theseeducational settings. Nevertheless, as previous literature supports, the successfulimplementation of a multi-channel use of social media requires interventions inorganizational, technological and human resources level (Charalabidis and Loukis, 2012),as well as in training and familiarity of the organizations’ staff (Ferro et al., 2013). Regardingdata security and privacy concerns, entities should follow basic principles for respectingindividuals’ privacy while employing fair information practices (Karyda et al., 2009). As faras, specifically, e-participation is concerned, a distinct strategy is required for each separateorganization, which will be suitable to its functions and is going to fit to its specific features(Magro, 2012). Arguably, Greek leaders’ declared skepticism indicates that a clear planningregarding social media employment in these structures is also vital so as to address theirlong-term issues.

Despite the declared problems, the majority of Greek leaders rated social media usage inparticipatory decision-making as positive, indicating the trend that previous literature hasalready underlined (Ahlquist, 2014; Jameson, 2013; Selwyn, 2011) according to which,education leaders should consider social media exploitation more methodically within theirleadership practices. Since social media are used for a number of purposes in educationalsettings, but minimum or not at all for consultations that lead to participatory decision-making, while offline consultations constitute practice of Greek leaders within the frame ofdecision-making in as much as leadership has declared that it takes into considerationstakeholders’ opinions. Τhere it is feasibly the ground for participatory decision-makingprocesses in these settings to be leveraged through social media usage.

7. ConclusionsSince literature in e-governance has focused on social media initiatives mainly implementedwithin public agencies, such as government or political parties (Rapp et al., 2016), whileprevious research on social media in education explores their usage mainly on learningactivities ( Jameson, 2013), our exploratory survey aims to expand the research regardingparticipatory decision-making processes through social media in the public domain ofeducation, attempting to gain insight into Greek educational structures and address theneed to further investigate the relation between participatory decision-making,e-participation and social networks usage in the frame of e-democracy, as already pointedout in literature (Alcaide-Muñoz and Bolívar, 2015).

This research focused on educational leaders’ perspectives, since it has beenunderlined to be a major factor for emerging social media utilization within educationalstructures and leadership practices (Ahlquist, 2014; Jameson, 2013; Selwyn, 2011),though not much action has been undertaken by the leadership to this direction(Mishra et al., 2016; Jameson, 2013).

This research revealed Greek educational leadership’s positive perspectives on theeffects of social media usage in participatory decision-making processes (RQ1),highlighting their view about social media usefulness and showing benefits from theusage (RQ2), which is consistent with those already recorded for participatory policymaking in public governance (Khasawneh and Abu-Shanab, 2013; Bertot, Jaeger andGrimes, 2012). On the other hand, lack of human and financial resources, skepticism aboutdata security, difficulty in use, reluctance to participate and legal restrictions, whichhave already been recorded as problems in literature (Hiltz et al., 2014; Khan et al., 2014;Mcnutt, 2014), as well as fear of public exposure of the view should be taken intoconsideration (RQ3). Greek leaders could employ some measures in order to encounter

E-Governancein educational

settings

Dow

nloa

ded

by A

egea

n U

nive

rsity

At 0

6:33

30

Janu

ary

2019

(PT

)

them, at least the ones whose solution is not depending on the Ministry of Education, sincethese applications do not require any budget.

Consequently, in the context of the 2nd generation of e-participation, social mediaexploitation in educational structures for supporting online participatory decision-makingprocesses is a feasible scenario, considering that they have already been implemented inseveral other functions of these structures. Since education aims at promoting activecitizenship, social media usage for consultations and decision-making processes is expectedto increase stakeholders’ participation, as shown in the case of e-governance, and enhanceeducational communities’ “political capital” (Baumann, 2000).

Despite the tight legal framework and the centralized character of the Greek educationalsystem, social media will provide the opportunity to strengthen the participation of each andevery stakeholder in a process of interaction, co-shaping opinions and making decisions inorder for the objectives agreed to be achieved. Simultaneously, when employing suche-procedures, the pursuit of developing active citizens transforms into an act. Stakeholders’contribution, deposited in social media, is valuable for educational leadership in the frame ofprediction of needs, thoughts and concerns (Kalampokis et al., 2013; Schoen et al., 2013) andof planning appropriate actions to address them (Bertot, Jaeger and Hansen, 2012).Stakeholders’ participation leads to collective intelligence and an e-democracy model offunction, emerging through a crowd sourcing procedure. Successful sustainability in theprocess of change will ultimately result from “the wisdom and commitment of the crowd”(Fullan, 2015, p. 49).

As Karl et al. (2002, p. iv) argue, “the policies developed at central level are often notresponsive to the policy needs at local level” in several cases and since policies impact onpeople’s lives influencing their access to assets, it is of major importance to empowereducational settings population to actively participate in consultations, formulating thuspolicies appropriate for a specific educational structure.

Therefore, an adequate policy framework for e-participation through social media inthese settings is also vital, as needed in e-governance shifts (Dadashzadeh, 2010), in orderto cultivate stakeholders’ digital literacies and skills that activate citizenship and enhancedemocracy. In this respect, our research brings the concepts of e-participation and crowdsourcing for decision-making in the field of education, indicating that the e-governancemodel could be utilized in Greek educational organizations, helping leadership to addressbarriers deriving from system’s centralization, as well as the economic and refugee crisis.Considering the Greek Education Reform that is in progress (OECD, 2017) and the EUeducational policy regarding the promoting of active citizenship, this is of majorimportance. As an exploratory research though, no claims could be made aboutgeneralizing these findings, since this study was narrowed only to Greek educationalstructures with differentiated organizational and cultural features from relevanteducational structures abroad, providing data within a small leadership population ofGreek Secondary and Tertiary Education in a self-report basis, which may differentiatefrom actual circumstances.

Despite limitations, the main contribution of this study is that, by bearing the approachesof e-participation and crowd sourcing model – key features in e-governance initiativesthrough social media usage – on education field, informs Greek educational leadership toconsider more methodically how to better utilize social media in the context of participatorydecision-making and update their leadership practices, while it enhances literature with afurther empirical association regarding the potential benefits and problems resulting fromsocial media usage on the emerging research field of e-governance in education.

Additionally, our study, as an exploratory one, provides a foundation for furtherresearch on several aspects of this field, such as the perspectives of all stakeholders(e.g. teachers, parents, students, administrative and technical staff ) involved in

INTR

Dow

nloa

ded

by A

egea

n U

nive

rsity

At 0

6:33

30

Janu

ary

2019

(PT

)

participatory decision-making processes in the Greek educational settings, the social mediausage in participatory decision-making processes within educational structures abroad,promoting changes in educational policies and practices that actually enhance activecitizenship and therefore democracy in Europe.

References

Ahlquist, J. (2014), “Trending now: digital leadership education using social media and the socialchange model”, Leadership Studies, Vol. 8 No. 2, pp. 57-60.

Alcaide-Muñoz, L. and Bolívar, M.P.R. (2015), “Understanding e-government research: a perspectivefrom the information and library science field of knowledge”, Internet Research, Vol. 25 No. 4,pp. 633-673.

Amrollahi, A., Ghapanchi, A. and Talaei-Khoei, A. (2014), “Using crowdsourcing tools forimplementing open strategy: a case study in education”, Proceedings of Twentieth AmericasConference on Information System (AMCIS 2014), AIS Electronic Library, Savannah, GA,pp. 1-7.

Anthony, G. St and Antony, J. (2017), “Academic leadership – special or simple”, International Journalof Productivity and Performance Management, Vol. 66 No. 5, pp. 630-637.

Avolio, B.J., Kahai, S. and Dodge, G.E. (2000), “E-leadership: implications for theory, research, andpractice”, Leadership Quarterly, Vol. 11 No. 4, pp. 615-668.

Barwick, D. and Back, K. (2007), “High tech’s double edge: creating organizationally appropriateresponses to emerging technologies”, On the Horizon, Vol. 15 No. 1, pp. 28-36.

Baumann, P. (2000), “Sustainable livelihoods and political capital: arguments and evidence fromdecentralisation and natural resource management in India”, Working paper No. 136, OverseasDevelopment Institute, London, October, available at: www.odi.org/sites/odi.org.uk/files/odi-assets/publications-opinion-files/2736.pdf (accessed August 11, 2018).

Bertot, J.C., Jaeger, P.T. and Grimes, J.M. (2010), “Using ICTs to create a culture of transparency:e-government and social media as openness and anti-corruption tools for societies”, GovernmentInformation Quarterly, Vol. 27 No. 3, pp. 264-271.

Bertot, J.C., Jaeger, P.T. and Grimes, J.M. (2012), “Promoting transparency and accountability throughICTs, social media, and collaborative e-government”, Transforming Government: People,Process and Policy, Vol. 6 No. 1, pp. 78-91.

Bertot, J.C., Jaeger, P.T. and Hansen, D. (2012), “The impact of policies on government social mediausage: issues, challenges and recommendations”, Government Information Quarterly, Vol. 29No. 1, pp. 30-40.

Bhanti, P., Kaushal, U. and Pandey, A. (2011), “E-governance in higher education: concept and role ofdata warehousing techniques”, International Journal of Computer Applications (0975–8887),Vol. 18 No. 1, pp. 15-19.

Boero, R., Ferro, E., Osella, M., Charalabidis, Y. and Loukis, E. (2012), “Policy intelligence in the eraof social computing: towards a cross-policy decision support system”, in García-Castro, R.,Fensel, D. and Antoniou, G. (Eds), The Semantic Web: Proceedings of Workshops ESWC 2011.Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Springer-Verlag, Berlin and Heidelberg, pp. 217-228.

Bonsón, E., Torres, L., Royo, S. and Flores, F. (2012), “Local e-government 2.0: social media andcorporate transparency in municipalities”, Government Information Quarterly, Vol. 29 No. 2,pp. 123-132.

Bowen, E.E., Bertoline, G.R., Athinarayanan, R., Cox, R.F., Burbank, K.A., Buskirk, D.R. andKüçükönal, H. (2013), “Global technology leadership: a case for innovative education”, Praxis,Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, Vol. 75 No. 3, pp. 163-171.

Brooks, L., Zinner Henriksen, H., Janssen, M., Papazafeiropoulou, A. and Trutnev, D. (2014), “Publicsector information systems (Psis): how ICT can bring innovation into the policymaking process”,in Avital, M., Leimeister, J.M. and Schultze, U. (Eds), Proceedings of the 22nd EuropeanConference on Information Systems (ECIS) 2014 in Tel Aviv, AIS Electronic Library, GA, pp. 1-5.

E-Governancein educational

settings

Dow

nloa

ded

by A

egea

n U

nive

rsity

At 0

6:33

30

Janu

ary

2019

(PT

)

www.odi.org/sites/odi.org.uk/files/odi-assets/publications-opinion-files/2736.pdfwww.odi.org/sites/odi.org.uk/files/odi-assets/publications-opinion-files/2736.pdfhttps://www.emeraldinsight.com/action/showLinks?doi=10.1108%2FIntR-05-2017-0178&system=10.1108%2F17506161211214831&citationId=p_9https://www.emeraldinsight.com/action/showLinks?doi=10.1108%2FIntR-05-2017-0178&system=10.1108%2F10748120710735248&citationId=p_6https://www.emeraldinsight.com/action/showLinks?doi=10.1108%2FIntR-05-2017-0178&system=10.1108%2F17506161211214831&citationId=p_9https://www.emeraldinsight.com/action/showLinks?doi=10.1108%2FIntR-05-2017-0178&crossref=10.1016%2Fj.sbspro.2013.04.019&citationId=p_14https://www.emeraldinsight.com/action/showLinks?doi=10.1108%2FIntR-05-2017-0178&crossref=10.1016%2Fj.sbspro.2013.04.019&citationId=p_14https://www.emeraldinsight.com/action/showLinks?doi=10.1108%2FIntR-05-2017-0178&crossref=10.5120%2F2249-2879&citationId=p_11https://www.emeraldinsight.com/action/showLinks?doi=10.1108%2FIntR-05-2017-0178&system=10.1108%2FIJPPM-08-2016-0162&isi=000404794700004&citationId=p_4https://www.emeraldinsight.com/action/showLinks?doi=10.1108%2FIntR-05-2017-0178&crossref=10.1002%2Fjls.21332&citationId=p_1https://www.emeraldinsight.com/action/showLinks?doi=10.1108%2FIntR-05-2017-0178&system=10.1108%2FIJPPM-08-2016-0162&isi=000404794700004&citationId=p_4https://www.emeraldinsight.com/action/showLinks?doi=10.1108%2FIntR-05-2017-0178&crossref=10.1016%2Fj.giq.2010.03.001&isi=000279117200007&citationId=p_8https://www.emeraldinsight.com/action/showLinks?doi=10.1108%2FIntR-05-2017-0178&crossref=10.1016%2FS1048-9843%2800%2900062-X&isi=000168162600007&citationId=p_5https://www.emeraldinsight.com/action/showLinks?doi=10.1108%2FIntR-05-2017-0178&crossref=10.1016%2Fj.giq.2010.03.001&isi=000279117200007&citationId=p_8https://www.emeraldinsight.com/action/showLinks?doi=10.1108%2FIntR-05-2017-0178&system=10.1108%2FIntR-12-2013-0259&isi=000359055600007&citationId=p_2https://www.emeraldinsight.com/action/showLinks?doi=10.1108%2FIntR-05-2017-0178&crossref=10.1016%2Fj.giq.2011.10.001&isi=000303974000002&citationId=p_13https://www.emeraldinsight.com/action/showLinks?doi=10.1108%2FIntR-05-2017-0178&crossref=10.1016%2Fj.giq.2011.04.004&isi=000298213000004&citationId=p_10

Buhl, H.U. (2011), “From revolution to participation: social media and the democratic decision-makingprocess”, Business and Information Systems Engineering, Vol. 3 No. 4, pp. 195-198.

Cao, X., Guo, X., Vogel, D. and Zhang, X. (2016), “Exploring the influence of social media on employeework performance”, Internet Research, Vol. 26 No. 2, pp. 529-545.

Carpenter, J.P. and Krutka, D.G. (2014), “How and why educators use twitter: a survey of the field”,Journal of Research on Technology in Education, Vol. 46 No. 4, pp. 414-434.

Cascetta, E., Cartenì, A., Pagliara, F. and Montanino, M. (2015), “A new look at planning and designingtransportation systems: a decision-making model based on cognitive rationality, stakeholderengagement and quantitative methods”, Transport Policy, Vol. 38, February, pp. 27-39.

Chadwick, A. (2009), “Web 2.0: new challenges for the study of e-democracy in an era of informationalexuberance”, I/S: A Journal of Law and Policy for the Information Society, Vol. 5 No. 1, pp. 9-41.

Charalabidis, Y. and Loukis, E. (2012), “Participative public policy making through multiple socialmedia platforms utilization”, International Journal of Electronic Government Research, Vol. 8No. 3, pp. 78-97.

Charalabidis, Y., Triantafillou, Α., Karkaletsis, V. and Loukis, E. (2012), “Public policy formulationthrough non moderated crowdsourcing in social media”, in Tambouris, E., Macintosh, A. andSæbø, Ø. (Eds), Proceedings of the 4th IFIP WG 8.5 International Conference on eParticipation(ePart) in Kristiansand, Norway, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 7444, Springer-Verlag,Berlin and Heidelberg, pp. 156-169.

Charalabidis, Y., Loukis, E.N., Androutsopoulou, A., Karkaletsis, V. and Triantafillou, A. (2014),“Passive crowdsourcing in government using social media”, Transforming Government: People,Process and Policy, Vol. 8 No. 2, pp. 283-308.

Cheng, Y.C. and Cheung, W.M. (1995), “A framework for the analysis of educational policies”,International Journal of Educational Management, Vol. 9 No. 6, pp. 10-21.

Creswell, J.W. (2014), Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches,Sage, Los Angeles, CA.

Dadashzadeh, M. (2010), “Social media in government: from egovernment to egovernance”, Journal ofBusiness Economic Research, Vol. 8 No. 11, pp. 81-86.

Davis, C., Deil-Amen, R., Rios-Aguilar, C. and Sacramento Gonzalez Canche, M. (2012), Social Media inHigher Education: A Literature Review and Research Directions, The Center for the Study ofHigher Education at the University of Arizona and Claremont Graduate University, Tucson, AZ,available at: www.scribd.com/document/217823391/Davis-Deil-Amen-Rios-Aguilar-Gonzalez-Canche-2012 (accessed August 11, 2018).

Dermentzi, E. and Papagiannidis, S. (2018), “Academics’ intention to adopt online technologies forpublic engagement”, Internet Research, Vol. 28 No. 1, pp. 191-212.

DESA (2005), UN Global E-Government Readiness Report 2005: From E-Government to E-Inclusion,United Nations, New York, NY, available at: https://publicadministration.un.org/egovkb/Portals/egovkb/Documents/un/2005-Survey/Complete-survey.pdf (accessed September 23, 2017).

Dimitropoulos, A. and Kindi, V. (2017), “Accountability in Greek education”, paper commissioned forthe 2017/8 Global Education Monitoring Report, Accountability in education: Meeting ourcommitments, available at: http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0025/002595/259533e.pdf(accessed August 11, 2018).

Drogkaris, P., Gritzalis, S. and Lambrinoudakis, C. (2010), “Transforming the Greek e-governmentenvironment towards the e-gov 2.0 era”, Proceedings of the First International Conference onElectronic Government and the Information Systems Perspective, Springer-Verlag, Berlin andHeidelberg, pp. 142-149.

Dudovskiy, J. (2016), The Ultimate Guide to Writing a Dissertation in Business Studies: A Step-by-StepAssistance, ResearchMethodology.net., Pittsburgh, PA.

Ekenberg, L. (2015), “Public participatory decision making”, in Fujita, H. and Selamat, A. (Eds), IntelligentSoftware Methodologies, Tools and Techniques, Volume 315 in the Series Communications inComputer and Information Science, Springer-Verlag, Berlin and Heidelberg, pp. 3-12.

INTR

Dow

nloa

ded

by A

egea

n U

nive

rsity

At 0

6:33

30

Janu

ary

2019

(PT

)

www.scribd.com/document/217823391/Davis-Deil-Amen-Rios-Aguilar-Gonzalez-Canche-2012www.scribd.com/document/217823391/Davis-Deil-Amen-Rios-Aguilar-Gonzalez-Canche-2012https://publicadministration.un.org/egovkb/Portals/egovkb/Documents/un/2005-Survey/Complete-survey.pdfhttps://publicadministration.un.org/egovkb/Portals/egovkb/Documents/un/2005-Survey/Complete-survey.pdfhttp://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0025/002595/259533e.pdf

Estermann, T., Nokkala, T. and Steinel, M. (2011), “University autonomy in Europe II”, The Scorecard,European University Association Report, Brussels, available at: www.eua.be/Libraries/publications/University_Autonomy_in_Europe_II_-_The_Scorecard.pdf?sfvrsn=2 (accessedAugust 11, 2018).

European Commission (2009), “Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, theCouncil, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions – Keycompetences for a changing world Draft 2010 joint progress – Report of the Council and theCommission on the implementation of the “Education and Training 2010 work programme” ”,SEC(2009) 1598, available at: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/ga/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52009DC0640 (accessed August 11, 2018).

European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice (2017), “Citizenship education at school in Europe – 2017”,Eurydice Report, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, available at:http://eurydice.org.pl/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/215_EN_Citizenship_2017_N.pdf (accessedAugust 11, 2018).

Eurydice (2012), Citizenship Education in Europe, Education, Audiovisual and Culture ExecutiveAgency (EACEA: Eurydice), Brussels.

Fernandez, M., Wandhoefer, T., Allen, B., Cano, A.E. and Alani, H. (2014), “Using social media toinform policy making: to whom are we listening?”, in Rospigliosi, A. and Greener, S. (Eds),Proceedings of the European Conference on Social Media (ECSM’14) in Brighton, ACPI,Reading, pp. 174-182, available at: www.researchgate.net/profile/Asher_Rospigliosi/publication/270892426_ePub-European_Conference_on_Social_Media_ECSM/links/57bd70ac08ae37ee394b9871/ePub-European-Conference-on-Social-Media-ECSM.pdf (accessedAugust 11, 2018).

Ferro, E. and Molinari, F. (2010), “Making sense of Gov 2.0 strategies: no citizens, no party”, Journal ofeDemocracy and Open Government, Vol. 2 No. 1, pp. 56-68.

Ferro, E., Loukis, E.N., Charalabidis, Y. and Osella, M. (2013), “Policy making 2.0: from theory topractice”, Government Information Quarterly, Vol. 30 No. 4, pp. 359-368.

Fullan, M. (2015), The New Meaning of Educational Change, Teachers College Press, New York, NY.

Gayle, D.J., Tewarie, B. and White, A.Q. Jr (2003), Governance in the Twenty-First-Century University:Approaches to Effective Leadership and Strategic Management (ASHE-ERIC Higher EducationReport), Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA.

Graber, M.A. and Graber, A. (2013), “Internet-based crowdsourcing and research ethics: the case forIRB review”, Journal of Medical Ethics, Vol. 39 No. 2, pp. 115-118.

Guri-Rosenblit, S., Sebkova, H. and Teichler, U. (2007), “Massification and diversity of higher educationsystems: interplay of complex dimensions”, Higher Education Policy, Vol. 20 No. 4, pp. 373-389.

Hellman, R. (2011), “The cloverleaves of social media challenges for e-governments”, in Cunningham, P.and Cunningham, M. (Eds), Proceedings of eChallenges e-2011Conference, IIMC InternationalInformation Management Corporation, Florence, pp. 1-8, available at: www.researchgate.net/profile/Riitta_Hellman/publication/264846168_The_Cloverleaves_of_Social_Media_Challenges_for_e-Governments/links/54ece1e60cf27fbfd771b8f2/The-Cloverleaves-of-Social-Media-Challenges-for-e-Governments.pdf (accessed August 11, 2018).

Hiltz, S., Kushma, J. and Plotnick, L. (2014), “Use of social media by us public sector emergencymanagers: barriers and wish lists”, in Hiltz, S.R., Pfaff, M.S., Plotnick, L. and Shih, P.C. (Eds),Proceedings of the Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (ISCRAM),The Pennsylvania State University, Pennsylvania, pp. 600-609.

Hoskins, B., d’Hombres, B. and Campbell, J. (2008), “Does formal education have an impact on activecitizenship behaviour?”, European Educational Research Journal, Vol. 7 No. 3, pp. 386-402.

Hrdinová, J. and Helbig, N. (2011), “Designing social media policy for government”, Issues inTechnology Innovation, Vol. 4, pp. 1-9.

Hughes, M. (2011), “The challenges of informed citizen participation in change”, TransformingGovernment: People, Process and Policy, Vol. 5, pp. 68-80.

E-Governancein educational

settings

Dow

nloa

ded

by A

egea

n U

nive

rsity

At 0

6:33

30

Janu

ary

2019

(PT

)

www.eua.be/Libraries/publications/University_Autonomy_in_Europe_II_-_The_Scorecard.pdf?sfvrsn=2www.eua.be/Libraries/publications/University_Autonomy_in_Europe_II_-_The_Scorecard.pdf?sfvrsn=2https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/ga/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52009DC0640https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/ga/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52009DC0640http://eurydice.org.pl/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/215_EN_Citizenship_2017_N.pdfwww.researchgate.net/profile/Asher_Rospigliosi/publication/270892426_ePub-European_Conference_on_Social_Media_ECSM/links/57bd70ac08ae37ee394b9871/ePub-European-Conference-on-Social-Media-ECSM.pdfwww.researchgate.net/profile/Asher_Rospigliosi/publication/270892426_ePub-European_Conference_on_Social_Media_ECSM/links/57bd70ac08ae37ee394b9871/ePub-European-Conference-on-Social-Media-ECSM.pdfwww.researchgate.net/profile/Asher_Rospigliosi/publication/270892426_ePub-European_Conference_on_Social_Media_ECSM/links/57bd70ac08ae37ee394b9871/ePub-European-Conference-on-Social-Media-ECSM.pdfwww.researchgate.net/profile/Riitta_Hellman/publication/264846168_The_Cloverleaves_of_Social_Media_Challenges_for_e-Governments/links/54ece1e60cf27fbfd771b8f2/The-Cloverleaves-of-Social-Media-Challenges-for-e-Governments.pdfwww.researchgate.net/profile/Riitta_Hellman/publication/264846168_The_Cloverleaves_of_Social_Media_Challenges_for_e-Governments/links/54ece1e60cf27fbf