Creative ecology in distributed leadership: Enabling cross-disciplinary arts integration in secondary schools

Abstract

This study explains how Distributed Leadership (DL) and Creative Ecology (CE) interact to sustain cross-disciplinary arts integration in secondary schools. We conducted a cross-national comparative multiple-case study of eight arts-rich schools in China, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore. Mixed methods integrated Social Network Analysis with qualitative patterning from memos and rapid matrices. Pre- and post-staff network surveys informed a cross-case synthesis using replication logic. Enactment of DL was operationalized using network and boundary indicators. Four of eight schools met the DL-enactment threshold. Where midlevel leaders shared connectivity and stewardship of external partners, networks became denser and more permeable, and cross-disciplinary projects expanded. Centralized networks showed limited boundary openness and modest gains. Country contrasts were consistent: Singapore and South Korea displayed high-DL, resilient configurations. China and Japan remained principal-centered with selective partnerships. The study contributes an integrated framework that operationalizes CE conditions as network properties and links them to DL enactment. Also, it offers design principles: distribute brokerage to midlevel leaders, institutionalize cross-department committees, and create redundant ties to external partners under supportive policy and time structures.