Principal Meetings and the Creation, Retention, and Transfer of Professional Knowledge

School principals spend significant time in meetings. These meetings of the principal or principal meetings are instrumental in accomplishing leadership tasks and shaping professional knowledge in schools. Even though research literature frequently mentions principal meetings, few studies have investigated the principal meeting as a topic of research. Drawing upon the emerging meeting science literature and Weick’s (1995) theory of sensemaking, this study conceptualizes principal meetings as interconnected sensemaking episodes that create, retain, and transfer professional knowledge. This study employs a qualitative, multiple-case research design to examine how principal meetings develop and share professional knowledge in two municipal (public) schools in Mumbai, India. The findings suggest an initial typology of principal meetings into planned and unplanned principal meetings. Findings show that planned principal meetings are crucial to define and clarify professional responsibilities. The unplanned principal meetings help accomplish the professional responsibilities of school principals and teachers. The findings are aligned with and elaborate literature on educational leadership, sensemaking, and meeting science and suggest future research especially focusing on the unplanned meetings of the principal.