The Congruence Concept

According to the concept of congruence in the system (Cheng, 1987c; Cheng, in press (d);
Nadler and Tushman, 1983), there are two kinds of congruence that can contribute to the
discussion of maximizing school effectiveness. One is the category congruence, indicating
the extent to which categories of school effectiveness are consistent. High category
congruence indicates that the higher the effectiveness in one category, the higher the
effectiveness in the other categories; or, the lower the effectiveness in one category, the
lower the effectiveness in the other categories. Low category congruence represents a
negligible relationship among the categories of school effectiveness. It means that high
effectiveness in one category does not necessarily mean high effectiveness in the other
categories. Furthermore, category incongruence indicates an existing reverse relationship
between categories. The higher the effectiveness in one category, the lower the effectiveness
in the other categories. In general, we are interested in maximizing both effectiveness and
efficiency on the five functions not only at the individual level and institutional level, but
also at the community level, societal level and international level. If it is true, then category
congruence may be important in thinking about maximizing school effectiveness.
The other kind of congruence is
extent

the model congruence, referring to the