Longitudinal associations among team orientation, leadership, and teamwork behaviors in community-based school management

As securing parents’ participation in elementary school activities is not guaranteed, identifying the factors that encourage such cooperation is necessary. We examined how Japanese parents’ perceptions of parent-school-community cooperation (team orientation) and leadership related to their teamwork behaviors. We conducted a three-wave longitudinal survey of parents with children in the first, third, and fifth grades (N = 1,753; 51.6% female; mean age = 41.5 years, SD = 6.1). A random intercept cross-lagged panel model was used to examine the within-person and between-person associations among the three teamwork constructs. At the within-person level, results revealed cross-lagged effects: deviations from individuals’ expected scores in team orientation and leadership were associated with deviations from their expected teamwork behaviors at the next time point. However, deviations in teamwork behaviors were not associated with subsequent deviations in team orientation. At the between-person level, mutual associations were confirmed among all three variables. These findings suggest that parents’ perceptions of cooperative relationships among parents, teachers, and local residents, together with supportive leadership, encourage subsequent cooperative behavior in school activities.