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This study aims to evaluate the impact the introduction of Microsoft Teams has had on team performance in response to the COVID-19 pandemic within a National Health Service (NHS) Community Service.

Microsoft Teams was rolled out across the NHS over a period of four days, partly in response to the need for social distancing. This case study reviews how becoming a virtual team affected team performance, the role Microsoft Teams had played in supporting staff to work in higher virtuality, understand what elements underpin a successful virtual team and how these results correlate to the technology acceptance model (Davis, 1985).

The findings indicate that Teams made a positive impact to the team at a time of heightened clinical pressures and working in unfamiliar environments without the supportive benefits of face-to-face contact with colleagues in terms of incidental knowledge sharing and health and well-being.

Further developments were needed to make virtual meetings more accessible for introverted colleagues, support asynchronous communication, address training needs and support leaders to adapt and operate in higher virtuality.

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

The shift toward virtual forms of communication has been accelerated by the global Covid-19 pandemic. In healthcare settings, technology facilitates swift and cost-effective interaction between different practitioners to help sustain high standards of care for patients in the home. But difficulties relating to such as knowledge-sharing, informal interaction, and generation of social capital and trust suggest that health provision might benefit most from a hybrid approach whereby teams meet both virtually and in-person when circumstances permit.

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

This research sought to document the volume, development trend and geographical distribution of the research on teacher autonomy, identify high-impact journals, authors and documents and reveal the intellectual structure of the field.

This paper analyzed the articles published on the related subject in the Web of Science (WoS) and/or Scopus. Based on certain exclusion criteria, analyses were conducted on a total of 259 articles. The data were then subjected to descriptive analyses and bibliometric analyses.

The review found that the teacher autonomy knowledge base has grown dramatically since 2004. In the co-citation analysis, it was determined that four clusters focused on the themes of professionalism and professional development, leadership and self-efficacy, autonomy in language teaching and learning and self-determination theory. According to the co-word analysis in this review, the most co-occurring keywords were revealed to be “teacher autonomy,” “autonomy,” “teachers,” “teacher professionalism” and “professional development.”

Despite increasing numbers of systematic reviews focusing on educational administration and leadership, this paper represents the first bibliometric review conducted to reveal the development of research on teacher autonomy using both the WoS and Scopus databases. Teacher autonomy can be regarded as an emerging field of study backed up by a theoretical background. Although there are some distinct prominent scholars in the research area, autonomy research still needs more scholars to specialize in the field.

This paper reports an investigation of a hybrid ex-state-owned enterprise (ex-SOE) providing ICT (Information and Communication Technology) services in the Italian healthcare sector (in-house provision). The authors aim to offer a framing that reflects the concerns expressed in the interdisciplinary literature on hybrid SOEs from management, public administration and, more recently, accounting.

This study operationalizes Besharov and Smith’s (2014) theoretical model on multiple logics to analyze institutional structures and organizational outcomes at an ICT in-house provider. It builds on extensive textual analysis of regulatory, archival, survey and interview data.

The study results show that the combination of hybridity in the form of layering of multiple logics in the health care sector (Polzer et al., 2016) creates problems for the effectiveness of ICT provision. In particular, the hybrid organization the authors study remained stuck in established competing relationships despite a restructure of regional health care governance. The study findings also reflect on the design of organizational control mechanisms when balancing different logics.

The identified case-study accountability practices and performance system add to the debate on hybrid organizations in the case of ex-SOEs and facilitate the understanding and management of hybrids in the public sector. The authors note policymaking implications.

The authors’ operationalization of Besharov and Smith's (2014) model adds clarity to key elements of their model, notably how to identify evidence in order to disentangle notions of centrality and compatibility. By doing this, the authors’ analysis offers potential insights into both managerial design and policy prescription. The authors provide cautionary tales around institutional reorganization regarding the layered synthesis of logics within these organizations.

This study aimed to investigate associations between the organisational and cultural contexts in which Chinese teachers work, the influence of these on their understandings of professionalism, and relationships between these and their perceived willingness and commitment to be effective in teaching to their best.

The research was part of a two-country collaboration between the universities of Beijing and Sydney into Australian and Chinese teachers' perceptions of influences on their professionalism in which research protocols were jointly developed and implemented. This paper focusses mainly upon the Chinese research but also refers to key differences between Australian and Chinese teachers' perspectives. Seventeen teachers in early, middle and later career phases were recruited from a convenience sample of primary and secondary schools in Beijing. Qualitative data analyses of individual interviews, and cross case comparative analyses were conducted.

The analyses of the data from Beijing indicated that almost all teachers emphasised their strong moral purposes and commitment to teach to their best, despite identifying the challenges of workload, school contexts and cultures and personal circumstances, which tested their resolve. In contrast, concerns about teacher autonomy and agency, which were common in the Australian study and other published research literature, were not highly visible in the Chinese data.

The authors acknowledge that this study was small scale and data were collected from a narrow sample from one urban region of China, and we should be cautious with the generalisability of findings to other regions and schools of China since there are significant discrepancies between developed coastal areas and large cities and the remote rural areas in China. Furthermore, interview data were only collected once, restricting insight to a snapshot in time. This research may be seen as an encouragement to researchers from other regions and countries to further explore the impact of socially situated understandings of teacher professionalism on practice. Future research could also benefit from utilising multiple data sources, longitudinal design and cross-cultural collaborations to further explore the challenge of defining teachers' understandings of professionalism locally while engaging with global perspectives.

The practical implications relate to (1) expanding conceptualisations of teacher professionalism by developing locally nuanced understandings of perceptions and enactments of professionalism in different contexts across the profession, which take account of the unique roles of national and local cultural contexts; (2) designing initial teacher education and continuing professional development programmes so that they take account of the influences on the professions' ideals and individual teacher identities, of the ideological and practical interplay in the workplace of structures such as mandated standards, and different socio-economic geographical settings (e.g. rural and urban); (3) designing leadership development programmes that take account of research on associations between school leaders' values, qualities and practices on school cultures and their effects on teachers' well-being, and capacities and capabilities to fulfil their understandings of being professionals and teach to their best.

The social implications relate to (1) further research on the associations between the effects of external policy demands on teachers' work and work–life tensions, teachers' sustained commitment and quality; and (2) further research on the impact of the collective influences of national cultures, broad-based policy conditions, personal values and the demands of particular schools, parents and students that influence teachers' experience, perceptions and enactments of professionalism in order to provide further insights into understanding the complexity of teachers' lives and promoting teachers' sustained enactments of professionalism in broad contexts.

The research findings, though tentative, revealed that the altruistic nature of their mission to serve students and the parental community was the dominant marker of professionalism for teachers in China, regardless of school structures, cultures, academic achievement imperatives and personal circumstance; and that their professionalism was informed by the socio-cultural formation of individual and collective moral responsibility, reinforced through national educational policies. These findings differed from the concerns reported by the teachers in the Australian study, which aligned with literature that suggests that teacher professionalism is being eroded through neo-liberal government policies, excessive workloads and performance-oriented cultures. Though the comparative data set is small, these findings suggest that whilst there are increasing policy convergences across nations, which seek to define teacher professionalism through their abilities to make improvements in students' measurable academic achievement, how teachers in different countries and cultures define themselves as professionals may differ.

People living on poverty-level incomes in developing nations face unique health challenges as compared to those in developed nations. New insights emerge from a bottom of the pyramid context (India) where culture-based health notions, preventive orientation and health resources differ from developed western health orientations and resources. The purpose of this paper is to explore how structural and cognitive social capital indirectly influence preventive health behavior (PHB) through perceived health value.

The participants for this study include rural people from Tamil Nadu, a state of India who are classified as those living below poverty level based on a per capita/per day consumption expenditure of Rupees 22.50 (an equivalent of US$0.40 a per capita/per day) (Planning Commission, Government of India, 2012). The study included a total number of 635 participants (312 males and 323 females). Relatively a high response rate (79 percent) was achieved through personal contacts and telephone solicitation, cash incentive and multiple follow-ups. Participants completed a questionnaire assessing structural and cognitive social capital, preventative health behavior, perceived health value, and health locus of control (HLC).

The results show that perceived health value mediates the relationship between cognitive social capital and PHB. Specifically, cognitive social capital influences BoP people’s assessment of benefits of engaging in PHB, that, in turn, influences PHB. In addition, the findings showed that HLC moderates the effect of social capital on PHB. Social capital positively related to enhanced PHB only among those who believe that health outcomes are controllable.

The authors findings indicate that cognitive social capital has enormous potential in promoting health intervention and the health of poor communities, a sentiment shared by prior researchers (Glenane-Antoniadis et al., 2003; Fisher et al., 2004; Martin et al., 2004; Weitzman and Kawachi, 2000). Overall, from a theoretical, empirical and methodological perspective, the current study offers a unique contribution to the social capital and PHB literature. First, drawing from the HBM and HLC, the findings provide a more nuanced explanation of how distinct aspects of social capital predict PHB. Specifically, the relationship between social capital and PHB is qualified by the extent one perceives personal control over her health. In addition, the cognitive component of social capital influences PHB through perceptions of health value.

Historically, the school effectiveness and improvement movement has focussed its attention on “within school” factors associated with effectiveness and improvement and on the individual school as the primary unit of analysis for improvement and scrutiny purposes. More recently, research has focussed on school-to-school collaboration and engagement with a broader range of services and providers has highlighted the need for more adaptive and nuanced forms of collaboration and partnership. The purpose of this paper is to explore this complex landscape from the perspective of educational reform of the middle tier in Scotland.

This paper draws on perspectives associated with socio-cultural theory, its application to public service settings and insights gained from research and evaluation outcomes over a five-year period.

This paper focusses on the establishment of Regional Improvement Collaboratives in Scotland; an example of an attempt to generate system-wide change and a shift from the hierarchical cultures characterised by bureaucratic organisations to more egalitarian cultures characterised by mutualistic, laterally networked organisations. It highlights the importance of structure and cultural change, identity and agency, leadership capacity, outward perspectives, primacy of learning and teaching and variations and complexities in creating a more networked and collaborative education system. It offers cautions concerning potential unintended consequences in the quest to develop a “self-improving” or “learning system”.

This paper highlights the importance of maintaining and building social cohesion between different stakeholders within educational systems in order to support the implementation of educational reform.

This is the first documentation and reflective analysis for an ambitious reform agenda for the middle tier in Scotland. Its value lies in the lessons and considerations it offers to other systems embarking on reforms that endeavour to build more cohesive and agile education systems, without opening them up to neo-liberal approaches to education.

This paper addresses the current disruption in the educational status quo ante that has been caused by the worldwide outbreak of COVID-19. Its purpose is to suggest how practicing educators, their professional associations and the university-based researchers with whom they partner might capitalize on the unanticipated opportunity to impact education policy that the pandemic presents.

The author draws upon his own preparation and experiences – first as a long-time practitioner in the elementary and secondary school setting, then as a university professor – to offer insights and suggestions to practicing educators, their professional associations and the university-based researchers with whom they partner.

Despite the unexpected challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic has presented to educators – challenges to which educators around the globe have risen admirably – the current crisis also affords practicing educators, their professional associations and the university-based researchers with whom they partner to change the status quo ante for the better.

The particular value of this piece is twofold: its analysis of the impact of this unanticipated crisis upon education by an author who has served both in the elementary/secondary setting and at the university level, and its assertion that educators must avail themselves of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change the educational status quo ante for the better.