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The Food Systems Leadership Institute (FSLI) is a 2-year leadership development program consisting of 3 intensive in-person immersion retreats, and a robust and customizable distance-based program. Participants come primarily from land-grant and public universities and learn about personal, organizational and system leadership with a focus on food systems as an organizing theme. For this study, program graduates from FSLI Cohorts 4-6 (n=60) were asked to complete an online retrospective pre- and post-test of skill competency and skill use for 20 competencies addressed in the program, with 47 (78%) completing the survey. Data indicate participants’ ratings of skill competency increased significantly across all 20 targeted areas.Participants further noted that they used these skills more after completing the program as compared to prior to the Fellowship training. Data suggest the FSLI model of leadership development can have a significant impact on participants’ perceived skill level in and use of important skills in both personal and organizational leadership in academic and food system settings.

The purpose of this research was first to determine the competencies mandatory of risk managers, and second, to consider the implications of such competencies in determining modules appropriate for inclusion in any prospective undergraduate qualification with specialisation in risk management.

A qualitative research approach was followed, involving academics teaching risk management in a focus group and making use of interactive qualitative analysis (IQA).

The competencies identified were business management skills, financial knowledge, an understanding of the risk management process, governance and compliance, people management and technical skills. These will be explained in greater detail in the paper.

The implications for teaching are that an undergraduate curriculum in risk management will have to combine majors such as business management, financial management, risk management, industrial psychology and communication. These majors need to be complemented by modules in governance and compliance management, as well as information and communication technology.

The implication for practice is that risk management professionals and members of the Institute of Risk Management of South Africa need to avail themselves to serve on an advisory board of academic departments offering risk management qualifications. Risk management is a developing science and requires inputs about research and the curriculation of qualifications.

The implication for public policy is that the South African Qualifications Authority and the Council for Higher Education should reconsider their requirements for designators (specialised qualifications). The implications for research are that IQA provides clarity on the knowledge and skills required to develop a competency-based qualification in risk management. Further research should benchmark qualifications and propose a curriculum for a bachelor’s degree in risk management.

The use of IQA is a novel way of ensuring rigour and objectivity in arriving at a description of the required knowledge, skills, values and attributes of risk managers. This paper will assist in the compilation of a new curriculum for an undergraduate qualification in risk management; thus, ensuring such qualification will provide a competency-based qualification that will meet the needs of the profession.

This article aims to study digital competence (DC) in media work.

The authors utilize frame analysis to investigate how DC is framed in media work using 30 semi-structured interviews as data with journalists in Finland.

The authors identify three main frames of DC in the context of media work. The individual attitude frame emphasizes employees' attitudes toward DC, the team-level support frame underlines the need for support in the work community and the organizational-level practice frame highlights enablers of and organizations' requirements for digital competence.

First, media workers' DC is necessary to enhance work efficiency and accomplish tasks and may be supported with supportive management practices. Second, the findings suggest that DC should be understood and analyzed as a multi-level issue. Third, the findings suggest that appropriate continuing education and study opportunities were needed. Besides formal arrangements for learning, informal contexts of learning are important.

The article contributes to media studies and studies on the digitalization of work by taking account of the organizational, team and individual levels in discussing digital competence in the news media sector.

Healthcare providers are under pressure due to increasing and more complex demands for services. Increased pressure on budgets and human resources adds to an ever-growing problem set. Competent leaders are in demand to ensure effective and well-performing healthcare organisations that deliver balanced results and high-quality services. Researchers have made significant efforts to identify and define determining competencies for healthcare leadership. Broad terms such as competence are, however, inherently at risk of becoming too generic to add analytical value. The purpose of this study is to suggest a holistic framework for understanding healthcare leadership competence, that can be crucial for operationalising important healthcare leadership competencies for researchers, decision-makers as well as practitioners.

In the present study, a critical interpretive synthesis (CIS) was conducted to analyse competency descriptions for healthcare leaders. The descriptions were retrieved from peer reviewed empirical studies published between 2010 and 2022 that aimed to identify healthcare services leadership competencies. Grounded theory was utilised to code the data and inductively develop new categories of healthcare leadership competencies. The categorisation was then analysed to suggest a holistic framework for healthcare leadership competence.

Forty-one papers were included in the review. Coding and analysing the competence descriptions resulted in 12 healthcare leadership competence categories: (1) character, (2) interpersonal relations, (3) leadership, (4) professionalism, (5) soft HRM, (6) management, (7) organisational knowledge, (8) technology, (9) knowledge of the healthcare environment, (10) change and innovation, (11) knowledge transformation and (12) boundary spanning. Based on this result, a holistic framework for understanding and analysing healthcare services leadership competencies was suggested. This framework suggests that the 12 categories of healthcare leadership competencies include a range of knowledge, skills and abilities that can be understood across the dimension personal – and technical, and organisational internal and – external competencies.

This literature review was conducted with the results of searching only two electronic databases. Because of this, there is a chance that there exist empirical studies that could have added to the development of the competence categories or could have contradicted some of the descriptions used in this analysis that were assessed as quite harmonised. A CIS also opens for a broader search, including the grey literature, books, policy documents and so on, but this study was limited to peer-reviewed empirical studies. This limitation could also have affected the result, as complex phenomenon such as competence might have been disclosed in greater details in, for example, books.

The holistic framework for healthcare leadership competences offers a common understanding of a “fuzzy” concept such as competence and can be used to identify specific competency needs in healthcare organisations, to develop strategic competency plans and educational programmes for healthcare leaders.

This study reveals a lack of consensus regarding the use and understanding of the concept of competence, and that key competencies addressed in the included papers are described vastly different in terms of what knowledge, skills and abilities they entail. This challenges the operationalisation of healthcare services leadership competencies. The proposed framework for healthcare services leadership competencies offers a common understanding of work-related competencies and a possibility to analyse key leadership competencies based on a holistic framework.

While known by many names, qualifying exams function as gatekeepers to graduate student advancement to PhD candidacy, yet there has been little formal study on best qualifying exam practices particularly in biomedical and related STEM PhD programs. The purpose of this study is to examine the current state of qualifying exams through an examination of the literature and exploration of university-wide policies.

The authors conducted a literature review of studies on qualifying exams and completed an external evaluation of peer institutions’ and internal institutional qualifying exam requirements to inform our discussion of qualifying exams practices in PhD training at a research-intensive US institutions.

This study identified the need for more research on qualifying exams to establish evidence-based best practices. The authors found a wide variety of qualifying exam formats, with little evidence in support for specific formats. The authors also found little evidence that student expectations are made clear. The lack of evidence-based best practices coupled with insufficient clarity for students has a real potential to disadvantage PhD students, particularly first generation, underrepresented minority, international and/or other trainees who are not privileged or socialized to navigate training environments with vague landmarks such as the qualifying exams.

There are very few studies that evaluate qualifying exams in US doctoral education, particularly in STEM fields, and to the authors’ knowledge, there has been no analysis of campus-wide policies on qualifying exams reported. The lack of evidence for best practices and the need for to evaluate the implementation and effectiveness of qualifying exams are discussed.

Launched in 2005, the Food Systems Leadership Institute (FSLI) is a 2-year leadership development program primarily focused on academic leaders. As of spring 2020, FSLI has enrolled 15 Cohorts, training a total of 347 Fellows. In 2020, a review of the graduated cohorts was undertaken to understand both the range of institutions served by FSLI and the career trajectory of the 319 graduated Fellows who participated in Cohorts 1-14. A total of 78 different organizations have enrolled FSLI participants, including 79% of the 1862 Land Grant Universities, 68% of the 1890 Land Grant Universities, and 12% of the 1994 Institutions, in addition to fewer participants from non-Land Grant public universities, government institutions, industry, and institutions located outside of the U.S. FSLI has served participants from 84% of the US and Territories. The review showed that 46% of Fellows in Cohorts 1-14 advanced into higher positions of academic administration and they filled 169 new hierarchical positions, including college-level, university-level and system-level administration positions in higher education. Similar trajectories were found in industry-organizations, although in smaller numbers. In all, 470 administrative and leadership positions have been filled in these organizations by the 319 members of the cohorts reviewed. While career progression is a limited measure of leadership success, this brief review supports the hypothesis that participation in the FSLI program contributes to the careers of the enrolled participants.

Digital technology's integration into education has transformed learning frameworks, necessitating the exploration of factors influencing students’ engagement in digital informal settings. This study, grounded in self-determination theory (SDT), proposes a model comprising artificial intelligence (AI) competence, chatbot usage, perceived autonomy (PA), digital informal learning (DIL) and students’ engagement.

The study collected survey data from 409 participants at Saudi Arabian universities, ultimately using 387 valid responses for analysis. This dataset was subjected to a thorough examination to confirm the validity of our proposed model. To decipher the complex interactions within our model, we utilized partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The study adopted a disjoint two-stage method to formulate a reflective-formative higher-order construct (HOC).

The study's findings showed that cognitive learning (CL), metacognitive learning (MCL) and social and motivational learning (SML) are the essential components of DIL. Significantly, the study determined that AI competence, chatbot usage, PA and DIL markedly affect students’ engagement. Moreover, the R² value of 0.592 for student engagement indicates the model's robustness in explaining 59.2% of the variance, highlighting its effectiveness in identifying key drivers of student engagement in DIL contexts.

This research enhances understanding by detailing the intricate relationships among AI competence, chatbot usage, and students’ engagement in informal digital learning. It extends SDT to emphasize intrinsic motivations and AI capabilities, introducing reflective-formative HOCs for comprehending educational intricacies. It provides practical strategies for enhancing AI abilities and chatbot use in education, promoting personalized, engaging and autonomous digital learning spaces, thereby advancing educational theory and practice.