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The purpose of this chapter is to examine how leaders furthered the development of a social enterprise in response to paradoxes. Data on leadership practices were collected through interviews and observations in an Italian Healthcare network over the organization’s first two years. The data indicate that leaders addressed paradoxes in developing several critical resources by using both top-down influence and bottom-up participation. Leaders used top-down practices to further organizational development along a known path when they could leverage technical expertise or a vision to address a source of tension. Bottom-up practices, on the other hand, permitted the discovery of new paths that had not been previously identified. Leaders leveraged such responses where tensions appeared intractable. Implications for managers and organizational development and change practitioners are discussed.

Timor Leste was established as a country in 1999 when the Indonesians relinquished sovereignty and their departing military units and associated militias left most of the educational infrastructure in ruins. Civil disorder flared again in 2006 and the Government invited international military and reconstruction aid agencies in to restore order and reinvigorate development. The Inspectorate was established by law in 2008 to improve the quality and accountability of the school education system. The aim of this paper is to analyse the relationship between a national language policy that favours Portuguese and Tetun, and the establishment and administration of the Inspectorate of the Ministry of Education in Timor Leste.

The author was embedded in the Inspectorate between January and June 2009. During this period he conducted ethnographic analysis of the administration of two of the largest regions prior to helping develop the School Inspector's Manual and a strategic plan for the Inspectorate. This report was derived from those experiences.

The Inspectorate in the Ministry of Education, led by an Inspector General, has a symbiotic relationship with what is termed in this paper as the “Schools Directorate” led by a director general. Although the Inspectorate is required to improve the quality and accountability of all services provided by the Schools Directorate, a close symbiosis is encouraged between the sister bureaucracies by the Minister of Education, resulting in serious goal displacement in both organisations, degrees of confusion and paralysis in implementation. Four major reasons are identified. The Minister co‐manages the Schools Directorate and the Inspectorate has a chief executive officer. Formal communications in the Ministry are conducted in Portuguese, although very few are competent in this language. Regional directorates and regional inspectorates are required to collaborate closely in review and development planning, while the activities of the latter are funded and administered by the former. The cultural norms of conflict‐avoidance in a post‐conflict context are all pervasive in a setting of scarce resources, to the point where no one is ever fired, even for corruption.

This paper reports baseline research into the development of the Inspectorate and the Ministry of Education.

In the last few years a number of industrial catastrophes in the Cypriot manufacturing sector have taken place, resulting in losses of millions of Euro and disrupting the industrial production for days and, in a few cases, weeks and months. In the absence of official (or unofficial) statistics regarding the fire preparedness of small and medium enterprises in terms of policy, training and equipment, the purpose of this paper is to gather information and opinions about the current safety situation in the Cypriot manufacturing sector.

Results from a nationwide survey in Nicosia are presented in this paper. A closed questionnaire concentrating on industrial (manufacturing) premises affected and non‐affected by a previous fire incident was devised and used in a weighted sample of companies. An open questionnaire was employed for interviewing the managers of fire‐stricken companies. Four industrial areas in Nicosia are under investigation in this study and results are presented.

The findings of this paper suggest that although, in general, the safety situation is at a relatively good level, there is room for improvement.

This paper discusses the beliefs of the safety managers in relation to safety in their premises and attempts to create a comparison between their opinion and the existing safety cultures in the Cypriot manufacturing sector.

This chapter describes the current state of special education in Israel as well as what the future holds with possible solutions to improve services for individuals with disabilities. Israel is a very complex society and, as such, the educational system is very complex as well. The development of the special education system in Israel will be described as well as the current policies. In addition, different service delivery models will be explained. Inclusionary practices in Israel will be discussed as well as the prevalence and incidence rates of different disabilities in Israel and how they have changed over time. Finally, different strategies and models for implementation of services will be described and the importance of teacher training to meet student needs will be highlighted.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse managerial approaches of a selective group of national library directors, examining their views and perceptions of successful library leadership in the twenty-first century in different sociocultural contexts. This study was carried out based on a series of semi-structured interviews with ten top-level directors of national libraries located on different continents.

The data collection method for this study consisted of the narrative analysis of the ten interviews coupled with the participative leadership theory, which highlights the leaders’ desire to create a more democratic culture within their library organisations.

The analysis of these interviews reveals that many of the directors’ responses were supportive to the concepts discussed in participative leadership. National librarians, through their participative leadership philosophies, values and beliefs, contributed to the development of an institutional culture that fostered improving trust, communications, engagement as well as promotion of inter-team relationships by breaking down the traditional “hierarchical” barriers within their organisations.

The participants were predominantly from Europe; only one participant represented the USA, Middle East (Israel) and Northern Africa (Egypt). As a result, there are not many diverse viewpoints from national library directors outside of Europe. Further studies would be needed to obtain a more international perspective in the national library sphere. Furthermore, this study only examines the views and attitudes of ten different library directors. In comparison with the totality of national library directors across the world, this is a relatively small sample. This study may not be representative of all national library directors around the world.

The results of this study would be of interest to library professionals and educators interested in management, as well as Library and Information Science students who want to understand how national library directors view successful traits of participative leadership in different sociocultural contexts.

Kenworthy Heads BISRA Committee. L. KENWORTHY has been appointed chairman of the Corrosion Committee of the British Iron and Steel Research Association. Mr. Kenworthy joined the Admiralty 20 years ago from the British Non‐Ferrous Metals Research Association. He has recently completed two years as chairman of the Corrosion Group of which he is now vice‐chairman. He was also chairman of the Scientific Committee of the First International Congress on Metallic Corrosion held in London in April, and will be the editor of the proceedings of this congress which will be published by Butterworths very shortly. As general secretary of the Admiralty Corrosion Committee he attended an inter‐naval corrosion conference held in British Columbia earlier this year.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the process of organizational change undergone by a large Portuguese business group within the context of the environmental agenda and the role of accounting as a mechanism for change.

The paper reports the results of a case study conducted between 2006 and 2009. Information was obtained from semi‐structured interviews and secondary sources. Organizational changes were analyzed using Laughlin's model in order to identify which category reflected most of the changes introduced to address environmental matters.

This paper offers evidence that change is not a homogeneous phenomenon. Additionally, it confirms previous studies' findings which found that accounting did not play a significant role in the process of organizational change within the context of the environmental agenda.

This paper seeks to complement the research in this area by integrating observations from a case study into an existing model of levels of organizational change according to how a Portuguese business group incorporated environmental issues into its processes, policies and corporate culture.

This paper examines whether increased director workloads are benefiting firms or are causing directors to become too busy, resulting in lower director attendance and weaker firm performance.

This paper conducts empirical analysis of the relationships between meeting frequency, director attendance rates and firm performance using archival data from Australia.

Attendance rates for both outside and inside directors decrease as they are required to attend more meetings. The benefits firms obtain from holding additional meetings are significantly eroded by lower director attendance.

This study brings together the literatures on meeting frequency, director busyness and firm performance to show that increased director workloads are only beneficial to firms if directors do not become too busy to fulfill their obligations to shareholders.

Analyses the contribution of management development to culture change in the health service. Is concerned with the public sector managerialism promoted in the health service by government reforms since the Griffiths Report. In the hospital trust which is the focus of the study there is resistance to such an agenda because the expectations of the various stakeholders are not matched. The lesson for strategists is that management development programmes need to recognize where participants are starting from if they are to promote culture change.