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A total of 264 elementary and secondary school teachers in a southeastern state completed the Robustness Semantic Differential for concepts focusing on their role, their principal's role and the role of students in school organization. They also completed the School Survey, a multidimensional measure of their attitudes toward their work environment. As hypothesized, results of multiple regression analyses produced significant positive correlations between the following variable sets: 1) the robustness of the teaching role and attitudes about professional performance and development, 2) the robustness of the principal's role and attitudes about supervisory relations, and 3) the robustness of the student role and attitudes toward the educational effectiveness of the school and its programs.

Drawing on Blumberg and Greenfield′s studies of effective principals, offers an operational definition of school vision, based on teachers′ perceptions of that vision. The instrument developed consists of three subscales: (1) vision exchange – the principal′s effectiveness in exchanging his/her vision with the school community; (2) vision internalization – the principal′s effectiveness in getting others to internalize this vision, and; (3) vision sacrifice – the principal′s effectiveness in encouraging others to sacrifice for this vision. In an effort to validate the School Vision Inventory (SVI), three hypotheses were tested. The perceived robustness of the principal′s role was significantly correlated with two subscales of the SVI: exchange and sacrifice. Significant correlations were also found between teachers′ perceptions of the principal′s supervisory expertise and vision exchange and sacrifice. Finally, there were higher mean principal vision scores in schools where teachers perceived progress being made towards vision realization. Presents the SVI as a potentially useful way of assessing school vision, providing further insight into the dynamics of professional life in schools.

Explores the relationships between teacher perceptions of the structural coupling in their schools and their perceptions of school robustness and effectiveness in a research study of 73 participating schools. Pearson product‐moment correlations of mean scores from each school produced significant relationships, suggesting that teacher perceptions of relatively tight coupling of goal direction/vision and work supervision structures, and relatively loose coupling of manipulative control structures, are associated with their positive perceptions of school robustness and effectiveness as well as student achievement and attendance.

Positive interpersonal relations among students, teachers and administrators that help the school meet the demands of its environment have been described as organizational health. When schools operate in ways that regularly result in student and teacher empathy and involvement, they can be considered relatively robust organizations. This study employed a sample of 38 junior high and middle schools to test a hypothesis predicting a significant positive relationship between school health and robustness. Multiple regression analysis tended to support this hypothesis, suggesting a positive association between teachers’ perceptions of organizational health and environmental robustness. However, only one school health measure, teachers’ perceptions of a healthy school‐level emphasis on the academic success of their students, made a significant and separate contribution to the overall relationship between school health and robustness. Apparently, when schools are healthy and robust, academic emphasis is a predominant organizational theme.

Viewing school principals as street‐level bureaucrats, creative insubordination is the implementation of policies and programmes at the school level in a way that fits the principal′s values, philosophy, and goals. Focuses on school principals′ use of creative insubordination in relationships with the central office, their professional beliefs about discretion, perceptions of role conflict, and their locus of control. Creative insubordination was most frequent among veteran principals who value on‐the‐job competence over completion of degrees and certificates and are thought to be instructional leaders by central office supervisors. Social protection from negative sanctions from central office seemed to be associated with principals′ ability to show that their insubordination was justifiable in terms of the needs of their school, teachers or students.

Within the past few years, responsible educators, librarians, parents, counselors, social workers, therapists, and religious groups of all sexual persuasions and lifestyles have recognized the need for readily available reading material for lesbian and gay youth. Unfortunately, this material is often buried, because it is embedded in larger works. To meet this need, I have compiled and annotated 100 of the best works for young homosexuals, bisexuals, and heterosexuals. I have also included a few of the best works currently available on heterosexuality as a much needed source of knowledge for all young adults whether they are gay or straight, whether they remain childless or eventually become parents.

Total quality management (TQM) programs have been popularized for changing the culture and performance of service and manufacturing firms. These ubiquitous techniques have also been applied to educational settings to improve administrative processes but have found little success in improving the quality of faculty teaching, research, and service. Some colleges and universities have faced difficulties implementing TQM in these areas because of strong tenure systems in place. This article will review the history of tenure and post‐tenure review, the theory of TQM, the role of TQM in higher education, and finally how TQM can be implemented and even supported by tenure and post‐tenure programs. The article concludes with suggestions and changes educational institutions can adopt so tenure, post‐tenure review and TQM can work compatibly together.

Describes Willower’s considered and valued role as a professor and reviews aspects of his career. Notes how Willower advocated bringing the work of the practitioner and the scholar closer together and the need to blend knowledge, values, and method. These characteristics contributed to Willower’s substantial role in the foundation and continuing development of the University Council for Educational Administration.

The most recent global and regional developments bring about a change in vocational needs required from new recruits in the tourism industry and ask for revised training programmes to be introduced by future decision‐makers (Hofstetter 2004). Several studies have been conducted in terms of job requirements in tourism‐related fields, and a number of qualifications have been identified (Weiermair 1999): communicative skills, empathy, motivation, decision‐making abilities, planning abilities and improvisation abilities. The purpose of any education programme in tourism must be to explain the true nature of the tourism phenomenon through seminars, trainings, workshops, and academic curricula. It must be directed to public and private sectors of the tourism industry, as well as external agencies. The paper reports a study carried out in August 2005 on the training programme offered in South Tyrol for employees of tourism organizations. A standardized online questionnaire was sent to employees of tourism organizations to reveal the importance and satisfaction with the training offer as well as the value of IT in teaching and training. The results provide implications for future tourism curricula, particularly for employees of tourism organizations.

This paper seeks to examine the effect of behavioural inhibition and behavioural activation systems on users' intention to adopt customer relationship management (CRM) applications.

Data for this study were collected from among managers of a major player in the community banking sector within the European Union. A total of 274 valid responses were obtained from 398 managers.

The results indicate that individuals with different combinations of BIS‐BAS levels demonstrate varying degrees of willingness in adopting and contributing towards the CRM system.

These results can be useful for human resources managers, who can screen individuals for positions requiring customer interface and effective use of CRM systems. The need to align employees' characteristics with CRM goals and strategies is critical to the successful application of CRM systems but has often not been given sufficient attention.

This paper demonstrates that individual behaviour can be attributed to different personality traits, which in turn can be traced back to physiological as well as psychological origins.