Teacher Quality Through the Lens of Hiring Routines: Dualistic Preferences, Oxymoronic Conditions and Pragmatic Solutions

Hiring is an essential managerial task in acquiring qualitative teachers for qualitative outcomes in schools. The process is shaped by a range of different factors – from individual preferences of teacher quality in principals, to contextual and recourse-based factors in wider structural arrangements. Through the concepts of organizational routines and sensemaking, this article explores the interrelated dynamics of these factors in teacher hiring through a case study within the Swedish School-Age Educare. The findings illustrate how hiring routines are constructed through an interplay between dualistic perceptions of quality preferences, constraining or enabling contextual conditions and routine constructions.