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Diversification of faculty within higher education has been a topic of focus within the academy for decades. Further, there has been a call to create academic departments composed of faculty teams which are more representative of gender, racial, and ethnic diversity, often with the ideal of representing student and community demographics. Though challenges remain in recruiting, hiring, and retaining diverse faculty, higher education institutions (HEIs) rarely represent the racial and ethnic diversity of the communities that they serve, and benchmarks or definitions of success have been vague at best. However, evidence does support the notion that both student and community outcomes are strengthened by the skills, talents, perspectives, and contributions offered by diverse faculty and leadership teams. First, a review of the current obstacles and challenges of creating diverse and inclusive faculty teams is covered. Second, the Five I’s of Inclusive Leadership Practices in Higher Education, lessons and successes from building diverse and representative faculty teams are shared. This model includes Intentionality, Invitation, Influence, Investment, and Innovation. Finally, recommendations for future practice, as well as application across institutional type, setting, and location, are included. Building diverse and inclusive faculty teams is important, urgent, and rewarding work. Diversification gives birth to lively classroom conversations, thriving campus environments, enhanced growth in the personal and professional lives of students and faculty, establishment of equitable and affirming cross-racial and gender relationships, population and financial growth of the HEI, and more equitable service to communities.

While digital platforms tend to be unproblematically presented as the infrastructure of the sharing economy – as matchmakers of supply and demand – the authors argue that constituting the boundaries of infrastructures is political and performative, that is, it is implicated in ontological politics, with consequences for the distribution of responsibilities (Latour, 2003; Mol, 1999, 2013; Woolgar & Lezaun, 2013). Drawing on an empirical case study of Uber, including an analysis of court cases, the authors investigate the material-discursive production of digital platforms and their participation in the reconfiguring of the world (Barad, 2007), and examine how the (in)visibility of the digital infrastructure is mobilized (Larkin, 2013) to this effect. The authors argue that the representation of Uber as a “digital platform,” as “just the technological infrastructure” connecting car drivers with clients, is a political act that attempts to redefine social responsibilities, while obscuring important dimensions of the algorithmic infrastructure that regulates this socioeconomic practice. The authors also show how some of these (in)visibilities become exposed in court, and some of the boundaries reshaped, with implications for the constitution of objects, subjects and their responsibilities. Thus, while thinking infrastructures do play a role in regulating and shaping practice through algorithms, it could be otherwise. Thinking infrastructures relationally decentre digital platforms and encourage us to study them as part of ongoing and contested entanglements in practice.

This chapter critically engages with ways that teaching excellence has been operationalised in practice. Specific focus is on developing individual teaching excellence, rewarding of success and recognition of teaching excellence and the building of evidence around what works in teaching for the benefits of students. We consider the daily interactions with students that form the basis of frameworks of teaching excellence before arguing that operationalisations of teaching excellence are highly context specific and operate at the level of institutions and the whole higher education sector. We discuss the criteria that underpin teaching excellence awards. This includes governance as well as development frameworks. After considering the complex links between research and teaching and the importance of the disciplinary dimension of teaching excellence, the chapter finally looks at the skills and attributes commonly associated with individual teacher excellence and argues that these are exceptionally difficult to pin down let alone measure. It concludes with some reflections on some of the challenges faced by institutions as they seek to develop the quality of teaching whilst meeting the requirements of the TEF.

Digital business models are often designed for rapid growth, and some relatively young companies have indeed achieved global scale. However, despite the visibility and importance of this phenomenon, analysis of scale and scalability remains underdeveloped in management literature. When it is addressed, analysis of this phenomenon is often over-influenced by arguments about economies of scale in production and distribution. To redress this omission, this paper draws on economic, organization, and technology management literature to provide a detailed examination of the sources of scaling in digital businesses. We propose three mechanisms by which digital business models attempt to gain scale: engaging both non-paying users and paying customers; organizing customer engagement to allow self-customization; and orchestrating networked value chains, such as platforms or multi-sided business models. Scaling conditions are discussed, and propositions developed and illustrated with examples of big data entrepreneurial firms.

In the decades since the founding of the Society of American Archivists (SAA) in 1938, the array of functions considered core to archival work have grown and evolved. In the early years of SAA, the profession was largely focused on issues of collection maintenance, heavily emphasizing preservation as the fundamental mission of the archivist. Yet, at this time, there were archivists calling on their colleagues to engage with audiences outside of the archival reading room. It was not until the social history movements in the 1970s, however, that discussions of outreach as a core function of the archivist's work took hold in the profession. From the 1970s and moving through to today, outreach and proactive engagement with external communities has moved from a peripheral activity of the archivist to one seen as essential to the overall success of an archival program. In this chapter, we examine the evolving discourse surrounding outreach and engagement activities by archivists, focusing on how outreach has been discussed in professional literature. We also explore ways in which this shift in professional perspective is reflected in the work done today by archivists at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

While diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) in the workplace means making space for all employees, it has unique implications for Indigenous employees who live and work in countries built on colonialism. Indigenous peoples represent diverse groups with unique and rich cultures that in general share values that are more holistic, spiritual, traditional, egalitarian, and other-oriented than non-Indigenous populations. Such distinct worldviews help explain why non-Indigenous organizations struggle to understand and accommodate Indigenous employees’ priorities and goal-oriented behavior. Creating equity, inclusivity, and belonging in the workplace for Indigenous employees requires more than implementing existing organizational practices with a new cultural awareness, it requires rethinking, reframing, and recreating organizational to facilitate a culture of trust. Re-examining organizational norms and assumptions with the ideas of relationship and responsibility that allow collaborative approaches to collective well-being and inclusivity is required. Creating inclusive workspaces requires that attention must be paid to both organizational (group-level) factors, such as organizational cultures of trust, and interpersonal (individual-level) factors, such as interpersonal trust. However, to build foundations of high-functioning and supportive organizational cultures and interpersonal trust that are sustainable, time and resources are necessary. Without this, the ability to reach the crucial result of engaging Indigenous employees and creating safe workplaces serves only to be performative and not meaningful in terms of action, longevity, and the overall well-being of Indigenous people in the workplace.

This chapter provides an introduction to the problematic notion of teaching excellence in higher education, which is a focus of this collection. It draws on an extensive review of relevant literature to explore how teaching excellence is defined and conceptualised and what factors underpin different conceptions. It notes that definitions are disparate, often context-specific and are influenced by a range of different ‘players’. It then examines how different conceptualisations play out at the macro, meso and micro levels and highlights the tensions between performative and transformative notions of teaching excellence. It notes the move from ‘surface’ to ‘deep’ excellence and efforts to articulate a more holistic conception of teaching excellence that emphasises the relational, emotional and moral dimensions of teaching. It suggests that, rather than seeking singular definitions and conceptions, it may be more useful to talk of ‘teaching excellences’, to reflect a stratified and plural sector, a diverse student body and different disciplinary families. Equally, it argues for further investigation of the intersections of teaching excellence with other key drivers of institutional change, such as student engagement and well-being, inclusion and diversity, widening participation and retention and success.

After reading this chapter, students should be able to:

• Identify why learning and development (L&D) activities are important to organisations.

• Appreciate the cost implications associated with L&D activities.

• Understand different types of learning theories.

• Identify different types of L&D activities.

• Analyse methods of evaluating L&D.

Identify why learning and development (L&D) activities are important to organisations.

Appreciate the cost implications associated with L&D activities.

Understand different types of learning theories.

Identify different types of L&D activities.

Analyse methods of evaluating L&D.