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The enduring popular image of James Bond is (in the words of the theatrical trailer for Dr No) ‘the gentleman agent with the licence to kill’. Yet the screen Bond is hardly a hero in the manner of gentlemanly archetypes such as Cary Grant and David Niven (reputedly Ian Fleming’s preferred choice for the role). This chapter will explore how the image of Bond in the films has changed over time both in response to wider social and cultural archetypes of masculinity and due to the different performance styles of the various actors to play the role: Sean Connery, whose rough-hewn Scottishness can be seen as a means of representing the ‘otherness’ of Fleming’s character (‘Bond always knew there was something alien and un-English about himself’); George Lazenby, whose one-off appearance as an emotionally damaged Bond in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service anticipated later portrayals of the character; the parodic variant of Roger Moore; the brooding Byronic hero of Timothy Dalton; the ‘Milk Tray Man’ charm of Pierce Brosnan; and Daniel Craig, whose combination of bull-in-a-china-shop physicality and vulnerable masculinity (literally so in Casino Royale) has by common consent successfully transformed Bond from a cartoon superman into a twenty-first century action hero.

This chapter relates to identifying the experience, skills and competencies of those responsible for operationalizing and developing transnational education (TNE) partnerships. Despite the growth of TNE internationally, little detailed attention has been paid to these individuals, often called academic liaison (or link) tutors. They are good examples of “boundary spanners” (Williams, 2013, p. 17) or “third space professionals” (Whitchurch, 2008, p. 378). Using concepts associated with “distributed leadership” (Gronn, 2002, p. 423) to explain leadership in collaborative provision as distributed practice, the research represented in the chapter made use of activity theory (Engeström, 1987) to identify the range of contextual factors that an academic liaison tutor needs to take into account in developing a TNE partnership. Findings indicate that an academic liaison tutor needs experience of working in complex environments, in-depth understanding of organizational procedures, the ability to manage power differentials, sophisticated communication and interpersonal skills, the ability to create and lead a cultural context for learning and development, change management and the ability to resolve difficulties. These factors provide the foundation for suggestions for staff recruitment, development and training.

The concept of distributed leadership within library services is explored in this chapter. It focuses on how this model of leadership, which devolves leadership functions and practice widely throughout organizations, can lead to intra- and interorganizational collaboration as a catalyst for library service development and innovation. The chapter discusses the distributed leadership approach by presenting selected results of a study of team leaders in public and university library services in the East Midlands region of the United Kingdom. The study employed an online questionnaire and individual interviews with library team leaders to identify the level and nature of collaboration taking place in library services and also to ascertain the skills needed for successful partnership work. The interviews focused primarily on how and why collaborations occurred and it emerged that the team leaders had considerable autonomy to establish and participate in partnerships, fitting well within the distributed leadership paradigm. The chapter adds to, and augments the limited literature on distributed models of leadership in libraries by exploring how this approach works in practice. It also proposes and evidences a link between distributed leadership, collaborative working, and innovation. The authors suggest that distributed leadership can help library services innovate and lead service development by freeing up the creativity of employees through a less formal, hierarchical leadership approach. The chapter ends with propositions for a research agenda to establish the best conditions and most appropriate format of distributed leadership in library services.

This chapter identifies that distributed leadership is about sharing power for political pluralism. Distributed leadership has a comprehensive commitment to bringing different groups with different interests, different languages and dialects, different knowledge bases, different metaphysical knowledge and different religions, or no religion, together through provisional agreement on key principals of political pluralism. Marginalised groups may not feel like they belong and may be vulnerable to ideologies that give them a sense of being disconnected from community. Such a position stands as a barrier to political pluralism and shared world views. The situation might be ignored in schools because developing political liberalism through participatory, evidence-informed leadership that is logical, moral and ethical requires time, and agents need to be prepared for such identity work. However, the problem cannot be ignored if community members seek to belong with risky gangs, and are vulnerable to radicalisation, which is very dangerous for them and for their communities. Empowering others may be achieved by developing their capability to ask good questions, and apply collaborative critical thinking for solving social and personal problems. Such empowerment requires shifts from hierarchical teaching of standardised knowledge that is right or wrong to doing the right thing as mature citizens in becoming. The chapter also identifies that it cannot be assumed that leaders are willing or able to distribute leadership, or that doing so would be a panacea for navigating the turbulence faced by their schools to empower societal innovators for equity and renewal. Rather, we concur with Leithwood et al. (2008) who advocate for a thoughtful and purposeful approach to developing leadership for school improvement.

Despite a legacy of research that emphasizes contradictions and their role in explaining change, less is understood about their character or the mechanisms that support them. This gap is especially problematic when making causal claims about the sources of institutional change and our overall conceptions of how institutions matter in social meanings and organizational practices. If we treat contradictions as a persistent societal feature, then a primary analytic task is to distinguish their prevalence from their effects. We address this gap in the context of US electoral discourse and education through an analysis of presidential platforms. We ask how contradictions take hold, persist, and might be observed prior to, or independently of, their strategic use. Through a novel combination of content analysis and computational linguistics, we observe contradictions in qualitative differences in form and quantitative differences in degree. Whereas much work predicts that ideologies produce contradictions between groups, our analysis demonstrates that they actually support convergence in meaning between groups while promoting contradiction within groups.

In this chapter, we review empirical research evidence on the relationship between stressors and catecholamines (i.e., adrenaline and noradrenaline) and cortisol. With respect to acute stressors, both laboratory and field research have shown that the exposure to stressors leads to an increase in catecholamine and cortisol levels. With respect to more chronic stressors, research evidence is less consistent. Chronic mental workload was found to be related to elevated adrenaline levels. With respect to cortisol responses the interaction between workload and other variables seems to play a role. Empirical studies suggest that chronic stressors affect the responsivity to acute stressors. Research showed that after the exposure to stressors catecholamine and cortisol recovery is delayed.