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This research aims to explore leadership approaches that foster deeper learning and facilitate the transition from traditional schooling to a model aligned with the demands of the post-industrial digital knowledge society.

Employing a mixed-methods approach, the authors conducted surveys among school principals within a network of schools embracing deeper learning based on ten distinct but interlocking criteria that define this particular model of deeper learning. Through in-depth follow-up interviews with school leaders, the authors investigated the factors and obstacles that support sustainable implementation and scalability of deeper learning, with a specific focus on the role of transformational leadership.

During the implementation of transformative practices like deeper learning, school leaders demonstrate diverse perspectives on the necessary changes for their successful integration. Leaders inclined toward a “transactional” leadership style concentrate on changes within individual classrooms. Conversely, leaders exemplifying “transformational leadership” possess a broader vision and address systemic factors such as teacher collaboration, assessment regulations and the effective utilization of time and space within schools. To achieve widespread adoption of deeper learning across schools and the education system, it is essential to recruit more transformational leaders for formal leadership positions and reorient leadership training toward transformational approaches.

The deeper learning model developed for this intervention encompasses a four-stage process: Teachers initially collaborate in small teams to co-design interdisciplinary, deeper learning units. The actual units consist of three sequences: knowledge acquisition, where students gain knowledge through direct instruction supplemented by personalized learning on digital platforms; team-based co-creative and co-constructive tasks facilitated by teachers once students have acquired a solid knowledge base and the completion of authentic tasks, products or performances in sequence III. While small groups of intrinsically motivated teachers have successfully implemented the model, achieving broader scalability and dissemination across schools requires significant “transformational leadership” to challenge traditional norms regarding teacher collaboration, assessment practices and the efficient use of time and space in schools.

This paper presents a structured model of deeper learning based on ten distinct but interlocking quality criteria tested within a network of 26 schools. The model has demonstrated transformative effects on participating schools, albeit primarily observed in smaller substructures of large secondary schools. Teachers who previously worked independently have begun to collaboratively design learning experiences, resulting in “hybrid” classrooms where physical and digital spaces merge and extend to include maker spaces and out-of-school learning environments. Traditional summative assessments have been replaced by various forms of embedded formative assessment. However, these innovations are currently driven by small groups of intrinsically motivated teachers. The research provides insights into the type of school leadership necessary for comprehensive scaling and system-wide dissemination of deeper learning.

During the COVID-19 crisis in Victoria, Australia the complexity of school leadership increased greatly for school principals. This study focused on the lived experiences of early career principals in the independent school sector from March to November 2020 in Victoria, Australia. It investigates transformative work that was undertaken by these leaders in leading their schools over a protracted crisis.

The study builds on constructs of crisis leadership, adaptive leadership, agile leadership and emotional intelligence, exploring the leadership approaches undertaken by twenty-two early career principals in Victoria, Australia. Using a narrative inquiry approach, across three temporal points in 2020, storied productions drawn from the findings present four emergent types of emotionally intelligent leadership approaches undertaken by these principals. These leadership approaches are presented as the commander-leader, the conductor-leader, the gardener-leader and the engineer-leader with each approach demonstrating both organisational leadership approaches as well as individual leadership styles used by these principals as they led their schools.

The findings have direct implications for professional development programs focusing on aspiring principals and early career principals with emphasis on the importance of developing emotionally intelligent skillsets in principals for use during periods of rapid change or high crisis in schools. The findings present insight into the support useful for early career principals in the first five years of principalship.

This study uses a unique emotional intelligence approach to understand school leadership during and after a crisis.

This study examined the impact of school leadership on teacher professional collaboration, with collective teacher innovativeness and teacher self-efficacy (TSE) playing the mediating role. Two most commonly used leadership styles, instructional leadership (IL) and distributed leadership (DL), were analyzed using a multilevel design, i.e. teachers are nested within schools.

The proposed model was validated using data of Taiwan TALIS 2018 collected from both teachers and principals and analyzed using hierarchical linear modeling.

Results showed that IL and DL influence teacher professional collaboration through different paths. IL had a significant direct impact on teacher professional collaboration alone, while DL had a significant direct impact on both teachers' collective innovativeness and their professional collaboration. While TSE had a direct effect on collective teacher innovativeness, TSE and collective teacher innovativeness had a direct effect on teacher professional collaboration.

This study highlights the significant impact of principal leadership as both principals and teachers work in the same environment and culture co-shaped through the interaction and collaboration. Research evidence regarding the effects of IL and DL on teacher professional collaboration is limited; this is even less evidential when the indirect effects of variables mediating between school leadership and teacher outcomes, including teacher collective innovativeness and TSE, are added to the total effects. The present findings provide useful references for principals and teachers when promoting professional collaboration to achieve desired outcomes in school and student improvement.

The purpose of this paper was to investigate the degree to which Entrepreneurship Education (EE) was being provided to secondary school students following changes to the Secondary School Curriculum in 2010 by the New Zealand Ministry of Education. Under these changes, secondary schools were charged with following an “entrepreneurial” approach to school instruction that would develop entrepreneurial behaviors in students.

The study used a qualitative methodology focused on gauging the reaction by teachers, students and their parents to this new teaching approach. The sample comprised ten secondary schools situated in Northland, New Zealand. A series of focus groups were used to solicit data among three levels under study in each school, i.e. teachers, students and parents. Individual semi-structured interviews were used to collect data from school principals to determine overall reactions to EE by the rest of the school.

Teachers reported benefits in terms of reduced direct teaching workload, increased participation from students and significantly improved scholastic results compared to targets set in the curriculum. Students reported positively on the greater degree of flexibility allowed under this teaching approach, while parents reported changes in attitude and more engagement in school activities and projects.

The continuing evolution of classroom education at secondary school level has long-term repercussions for student learning, engagement and retention as we move to the digital age. Similarly, there are also consequences for the evolving role of teaching, curriculum design and delivery.

The value of this research lies in a closer examination of the effects traditional teaching practices have had on secondary students entering the digital age. Furthermore, it investigates an alternative teaching approach through EE and the impact it has on student learning, retention and engagement.

From the organisational perspective, the authors know that management, including innovation management, becomes less “organised” by bureaucracy and administrative tools, and much more impacted by organisational capabilities, competences and hidden, “soft” routines, bringing innovation and creativity to the core of organisation. The purpose of this paper is to focus on competency sets for open innovation (OI) and is to provide recommendations for OI competency development in companies, linked to the core OI processes.

The research is exploratory and aims at theory-based practical indication combining deductive identification of competency clusters and inductive model development. Thus, the authors apply quantitative methods to data collection and analysis. The authors conducted an extensive literature review on competence challenges with regard to execution of OI, and empirical data analysis based on a large-scale structured industrial survey in Europe (N=264), leading to the development of competency sets for companies. SPSS tools are applied for empirical tests.

The authors develop a generic OI competency model applicable across industries, combined with organisational implications for sustaining OI management capabilities. The research clusters competencies based on the empirical analysis, which addresses the various challenges of OI, leading to recommendations for competency management in an OI context.

The data were collected from one key informant per company. Although the authors made efforts to ensure that this was a senior manager responsible for innovation, the authors cannot exclude some bias in the way that OI activities and related competencies are perceived. Exploratory nature of the research, which calls for a more systematic investigation of the OI activity modes and the OI competencies resulting competency model. In particular, the competencies could be tested on an inter-professional sample of employees with involvement in and/or responsibility for innovation, development, and HR management, as well as on leaders of innovating companies. Third, although significant in size for the analyses undertaken, the sample is not large enough to enable a more fine-tuned analysis of regional differences across Europe in the way that OI is managed through the development and implementation of competencies.

The research contributes to the OI management field with an outlined OI competency profile that can be implemented flexibly and tailored to individual firm’s needs. It brings indications for both further theory building and practice of innovation organisation, especially with regard to human resource development and organisational capability building for OI.

The social implications of the paper result from the contribution to innovation management competency development in OI regimes, which is an important tool for designing contemporary educational programmes, contributes to OI management sophistication in business which is especially important during the economy slowdown and search for new sources of growth and productivity, and supports firms productive engagement in OI ecosystems and collective technology upgrading towards higher societal benefits and stakeholder involvement.

An empirically grounded OI competency model is proposed with an implication to support human resource development for OI. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, there has been no prior attempt to build such a model. The distinguished feature of the research is its extensive European coverage of 35 countries and multinational scope. The empirical validation strategy makes the research extremely relevant for management decisions related to human factors related OI capability development in organisations.