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This paper explores a district government's role in using school networks to transform turnaround schools in rural Shanghai, China.

Qualitative case studies were conducted.

Findings showed that the C District government varied its power in initiating school networks; collaborative networks were developed but addressed local problems in a limited manner and collaborative networks had difficulties innovating to solve novel problems.

This article presents an “external-internal context” framework for understanding local government's role in school networks and turnaround school transformation in China.

This study aims to test the mediated effect of school climate in the relationship of principal time use (PTU) to student academic achievement using data from Singapore's 2011 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS).

Capitalizing on the large-scale data, the study examined how Singapore principals distributed their time across 13 leadership activities and tested using structural equation modeling (SEM) how Singapore principals' time use was related to student achievement through molding intermediate school conditions, such as school climate.

The authors' findings suggest that Singaporean principals, when allocating time, generally emphasized (1) monitoring students' learning progress, (2) promoting school vision, (3) developing curricular goals and (4) monitoring teachers in areas related to curricular goals. Furthermore, after classifying the 13 principal activities into three broad domains, the authors find that Singaporean principals prioritize the domain of vision and goals over the other two domains – facilitating teaching and learning through a safe, positive school environment and problem-solving with teachers, as well as self and organizational improvement. Finally, the authors' SEM manifested a partial mediated model, suggesting principals' strategic time use could serve as a malleable factor in yielding optimal student outcomes through developing a positive school climate.

This study at present is one of the early attempts linking PTU, intermediate school conditions (e.g. school climate) and student outcomes using a mediated design and corresponding statistical modeling.

This study aims to explore the instructional leadership practices implemented by academic professionals and leaders to enhance the curriculum of Islamic economics and finance (IEF) in two public universities in Saudi Arabia.

This study used a qualitative approach, using a case study methodology that focused on two meticulously chosen universities in Saudi Arabia. A total of 21 academics from two public universities in Saudi Arabia who worked in IEF schools were selected for semi-structured interviews.

The findings showed that two universities in Saudi Arabia that offer degrees in IEF exhibited limited instructional leadership. The findings indicate four apparent barriers that may explain the lack of involvement in instructional leadership and fair practices in the IEF curriculum at Saudi Arabian universities. According to this study, a positive collegial climate in Saudi universities’ IEF promotes shared instructional leadership.

The use of a limited qualitative method and small sample of respondents in this study may not provide enough evidence to generalise the findings to all universities and higher education schools in Saudi Arabia. Although a case study was used to describe IEF curriculum management and implementation at the two universities, caution should be exercised when applying these findings to other institutions.

IEF schools in Saudi universities need to leverage their positive, collaborative and relationship-building environments to develop activities that promote shared instructional leadership.

The research findings can offer valuable insights and examples for school leaders to develop instructional activities and promote the concept of “shared instructional leadership”. This approach involves delegating responsibilities and actions to others to enhance the IEF curriculum’s quality. Policymakers and university officials can use these findings to enhance strategic policies.

The purpose of this study is to explore the concept of long-term thinking in a non-business context to gain deeper insights into bridging the gap between the theory of long-term thinking and its application as a management strategy.

To explore the concept of long-thinking further in a non-business setting, a grounded theory study was conducted with preschool leaders in a municipality in Sweden to examine how the leaders describe, define and apply the concept of long-term thinking in their schools. Interviews with school leaders, both written and oral, were used for data collection.

This study illustrates that the concept of long-term thinking can be twofold. First, the description can be as an anchor that reflects a mission. Second, the description can be a steering mechanism that guides decision-making. The findings also reinforce the importance of organisations developing an organisational culture that connect their vision and goals with the values and needs of their customers.

This study was carried out in a single organisation and shows a snapshot of the organisation's status at the time the data were collected. Therefore, the findings are not generalisable to all organisational settings; rather the findings may be transferable to other settings.

The results can be used to help identify areas where preschools in a municipal context can engage with sustainable quality development in order to build systems that support work with quality in a more structured way.

Long-term thinking is seen, within both theory and organisations, as necessary to achieve success in terms of sustainable development and quality, and this study contributes with knowledge about the current gap between theories of long-term thinking and practice in organisations.

The international academic literature agrees that principals act as change agents and are vital in creating and promoting an inclusive school culture. In this article, the authors proclaim that Indian schools lack school leadership to accomplish inclusive education (IE) characterized by local needs. The article emphasizes the importance of school principals and discusses how principal vacancies, insufficient training and lack of autonomy jeopardize inclusive and equitable quality education in Indian schools. Contextualized policies, professional standards for principals, research that highlights principals' perspectives and autonomy for principals are required to strengthen principals, who are the primary advocates for IE, to create a more democratic, equitable and just society.

The authors base their arguments and opinions on the latest National Education Policy (NEP, 2020), data/statistics from various educational organizations in India, and research findings of global scholars.

The data and statistics show that principals in Indian schools do not receive the essential assistance to implement IE successfully. A lack of adequate data regarding the subject of debate is another point made by the authors.

Understanding the hardships faced by Indian school principals would help readers recognize the leadership challenges for IE in India. Addressing these challenges is one of the best ways to fulfill the equity and inclusion goals emphasized in UN Sustainable Development Goal #4.

This article is the first to emphasize the importance of prioritizing principals in Indian schools, among other agents when trying to achieve inclusion.

This paper examines the ways in which Chinese university middle managers evaluate subordinate performance in response to the Chinese Double First-Class University Plan, a national project that ranks the performance of universities. In exploring compromise arrangements, the hybridised valuing activity of middle managers is found to be shaped by emergent and extant macro-foundations.

The qualitative data from 49 semi-structured interviews at five Chinese public universities were conducted. Drawing on macro-foundational studies and the sociology of worth (SW) theory, the analysis helps to identify socially shared patterns of actions and outcomes.

The findings elucidate the interplay between diverse economic, social, political and institutional values and the compromise-making by middle managers. The authors find that contextual factors restrict Chinese academic middle managers' autonomy, preventing workable compromise. Through the selective adoption of international and local management practices, compromise has evolved into a private differential treaty at the operational level.

A nuanced explanation reveals how the macro-foundations of Chinese society influence middle managers who engage with accounting when facilitating compromise. This study helps outsiders better understand the complex convergence and divergence of performance evaluative practices in Chinese universities against the backdrop of global market-based forces and the moral dimensions of organisational life. The findings have wider implications for the Chinese government in navigating institutional steps and developing supportive policies to enable middle managers to advance productive but also sustainable compromise.

The current study investigated the impact of organisational trust on emotional well-being and performance of middle leaders during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

A convenience sample of 265 middle leaders in kindergartens in China responded involving trust in schools (e.g. trust in principal and trust in colleagues), emotional well-being and job performance. Both confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling (SEM) were used in the investigation.

Three hypotheses on the relationships between the three constructs were verified. Trust in schools significantly influenced emotional well-being and job performance of middle leaders which correlated with each other. The interactive effects of trust in principal and trust in colleagues were discussed for improving the well-being and job performance of middle leaders. Relationships between the two kinds of trust and pride were also identified in the research.

Further studies may put efforts towards improving these three outcomes synchronously.

Based on the evidence of the current study, future research may focus on how middle leaders act as a bridging role between different stakeholders such as principal and teachers, principal and parents, teachers and children, meanwhile how to boost the leaders' own well-being and performance in the early childhood education (ECE).

This study established the empirical linkages between school trusts, emotional well-being and job performance.

This article aims to relate investments in human capital to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs), and examine the spending levels necessary to achieve high performance in related SDG sectors for Azerbaijan.

Employing data from the World Bank, the empirical approach undertaken in this study relies on peer analysis by examining spending levels for nations exhibiting similar income levels and geographical proximity to Azerbaijan.

This study estimates that total spending in education would need to increase by 0.4 percentage points of GDP by 2030, while total spending in health would need to increase by 5.9 percentage points of GDP by 2030 for Azerbaijan.

This study contributes to the literature by conducting an empirical analysis in which other nations can emulate in measuring their relative progress on human capital investments and related UN SDGs.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-02-2023-0137

Proenvironmental hotels and hotels with green initiatives are emerging as a method to address environmental issues and respond to tourists’ environmental concerns. To better understand what can encourage reservations in proenvironmental hotels, this study aims to investigate the connection between the performing arts watching experience and the preference for such a hotel.

Five scenario-based experiments were conducted. A total of 1,024 participants for the five studies were recruited with the help of Credamo, a commonly used Chinese data collection platform.

The results indicated that viewing performing arts could increase tourists’ preferences for proenvironmental hotels. This phenomenon occurred due to the fact that performing arts watching experience can induce a psychological state of self-transcendence in individuals, which, in turn, can raise their levels of altruism, and ultimately lead to proenvironmental hotel choices. This effect will not occur, however, when people watch performing arts with either an extrinsic motivation or in an analytical state.

The findings of this study provide hotel managers with a novel approach to market the proenvironmental attributes of their hotels and to promote tourists’ proenvironmental behaviors.

This study proposes performing arts viewing experiences as a novel way to encourage proenvironmental hotel choice. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to explore the impact of the performing arts watching experience on tourist behavior.