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11 – 20 of 181The purpose of this paper is to present the argument that leadership preparation programmes in the new millennium should be required to train school leaders emotionally as well as…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present the argument that leadership preparation programmes in the new millennium should be required to train school leaders emotionally as well as cognitively. A number of scholars have stressed that leaders are increasingly working within roles that are politically sensitive, conflicted and complex, resulting in role anxiety, emotional stress, and professional burnout. Principals and vice‐principals are frustrated because they are being forced to manage the marketplace, curriculum change, and governance factors with an increased emphasis on accountability, marketability, and globalisation, often at the expense of their primary role as educators.
Design/methodology/approach
Such a discussion is framed within a sociological perspective of emotions and presents the importance of acknowledging the primacy of school leaders' emotions in leadership preparation programs.
Findings
Sociological aspects of emotions are examined within a context of the globalisation, marketisation, and accountability confronting Western education and their implications for extant leadership preparation programs; the latent influences of these broader issues; and, more specifically, their effect on the emotions of leaders within a context unique to Western Canada. Recommendations for what apotropaic the role of leadership preparation programmes should play in shielding leaders from being overwhelmed from within a changing educational landscape are also discussed.
Originality/value
An examination of the emotions of school leaders and the importance of acknowledging their emotions within preparation programmes remains an understudied topic in the field of education.
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Chang Hoon Oh and Michele Fratianni
The aim of this paper first is to go beyond the static effects of bilateral investment treaties (BITs) and empirically estimate the marginal effects of the stock of BITs on…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this paper first is to go beyond the static effects of bilateral investment treaties (BITs) and empirically estimate the marginal effects of the stock of BITs on foreign direct investment flows.
Design/methodology/approach
These statistical models use a gravity equation.
Findings
This paper finds that BITs is subject to diminishing returns measured in terms of FDI flows. Diminishing returns are more pronounced among country-pairs that have not signed BITs but have their own BIT network than among country-pairs with their own BITs.
Research limitations/implications
The subsidiary finding is that a measure of a country’s BIT network characteristic, capturing conditions favorable for a mix of horizontally and vertically integrated activities, may be the limiting force underlying the diminishing returns of the stock of BITs.
Originality/value
For a given country’s BIT network, a multinational enterprise finds more value in investing where a bilateral treaty is in place. This suggests either stronger property-rights protection or greater latitude to use the host country as an export platform.
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Sandra Becker and Michele Jacobsen
Using Johansson-Sköldberg et al.’s (2013) descriptions of design discourses, this study aims to analyze teacher interviews, research notes and teacher and student artifacts to…
Abstract
Purpose
Using Johansson-Sköldberg et al.’s (2013) descriptions of design discourses, this study aims to analyze teacher interviews, research notes and teacher and student artifacts to determine if engagement in design practices led to changes in the teacher’s thinking.
Design/methodology/approach
This article presents results from a year-long study that explored how a teacher enacted design discourses to engage in curriculum learning within an elementary school makerspace. The design-based study involved a collaborative partnership where a teacher and researcher co-designed, co-enacted and co-reflected on three cycles of making featuring curriculum studies in science, mathematics and social studies.
Findings
The authors determined that engagement in all four design discourses led to transformative changes in the teacher’s thinking about herself as a teacher and her students as learners. The evidence suggests the school makerspace can serve as a liminal design space for professional learning, given that implicit in the makerspace is the embodiment of design practices such as problem finding, iteration and reflection.
Research limitations/implications
Engaging in design discourses in the makerspace can lead teachers to question the frames they hold about teaching and learning. However, teachers need ongoing support in developing discipline knowledge and prioritizing the time required for designing, iterating and reflecting on learning in the makerspace.
Practical implications
The makerspace provides a liminal space for teachers’ professional learning in that implicit in the makerspace is the embodiment of design practices such as problem finding, iteration and reflection.
Originality/value
This study is unique, in that it places the importance of teacher learning in the elementary school makerspace on equal footing with student learning, thereby creating a culture of inquiry for all.
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Filippo Vitolla, Michele Rubino and Antonello Garzoni
This paper aims to fill the existing gaps in literature which deal with both the application of a socially oriented philosophy to the theme of strategic corporate social…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to fill the existing gaps in literature which deal with both the application of a socially oriented philosophy to the theme of strategic corporate social responsibility (CSR) integration and to the systematic analysis of the processes of strategic CSR management, and to create a connection between social management philosophy and the dynamic approach to CSR integration based on the strategic management processes. In particular, this study aims at creating a conceptual model to highlight, in a structured and organic way, the dynamic relationships, based on a social management philosophy, characterizing the integration of CSR in the different strategic management processes: formulation and implementation of both intended and emergent strategies. In relation to these goals, the following research questions are formulated: What are the most important strategic management processes in which to integrate CSR following a social management philosophy? How does integration (strategic CSR) based on social management philosophy impact these processes? How do strategic CSR processes based on social management philosophy determine strategic change? Which are the management tools which support integration based on social management philosophy?
Design/methodology/approach
The work is a conceptual paper. The paper has been developed as follows: the identification of the theoretical gaps; the definition of the research objectives; the literature review about both CSR integration and strategic management in a dynamic perspective; the formulation of the research questions; the conceptual analysis, based on social management philosophy, of the relevant propositions related to the dynamic approach to CSR integration; the building of the conceptual model based on the propositions; and the description and the analysis of the model.
Findings
In this model, three circles of change that are able to describe the integration of CSR into strategic management have been identified: A, the circle for achieving the strategic intent; B, the circle for formulating the strategic intent; and C, the circle of bottom-up innovations.
Practical implications
From a managerial perspective, it is possible to point out the following implications related to the integration of CSR into strategic management and the achievement of a strategic CSR: as for change dynamics which are linked to the formulations of the intended strategy, it is fundamental to develop a social management philosophy; to achieve the strategic intent, it is necessary to incorporate CSR actions into core activity of value chain; to favour the socially oriented bottom-up innovations, it is necessary to define a favourable organizational context; the strategic CSR must be supported by integrated tools and methodologies that make the rationalization of processes of change possible; and the application of tools and processes, even sophisticated ones, which are not based on social management philosophy may lead, in the long run, to negative tensions among stakeholders, as well as to serious repercussions on the firm’s management and its performance.
Social implications
It is possible to pinpoint other implications for the society: the circle for achieving the strategic intents, with the aim of improving the execution phase, increases the positive externalities and reduces the negative externalities of the economic activities; the circle for formulating strategic intents allows to identify a win–win solution for CSR issues; and the bottom-up entrepreneurship increases the chances to find innovative solutions which combine social aspects and competitive aspects.
Originality/value
The analyses provide an integrated approach, connecting strategic management and CSR in a dynamic perspective.
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Don DeVoretz and Michele Battisti
This chapter investigates the economic performance of immigrants from the Former Soviet Union (FSU) countries in Canada. The contribution of this chapter lies in its use of the…
Abstract
This chapter investigates the economic performance of immigrants from the Former Soviet Union (FSU) countries in Canada. The contribution of this chapter lies in its use of the fall of the Soviet Union as a natural experiment to detect possible differential labour market performances of immigrants undergoing different screening systems and affected by different push and pull factors. In short, the collapse of the former Soviet Union allows an exogenous supply change in the number and type of FSU immigrants potentially destined to enter Canada. For this purpose, Census micro-level data from the 1986, 1991, 1996 and 2001 Canadian Population Census are utilised to estimate earnings and employment outcomes for immigrants arriving from the Soviet Union and from FSU countries before and after the collapse.
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Axel Walther, Andrea Calabrò and Michèle Morner
The purpose of this paper is to examine how information-processing mechanisms between nominating committees (NCs), incumbent executives, board chairs, and shareholders affect the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine how information-processing mechanisms between nominating committees (NCs), incumbent executives, board chairs, and shareholders affect the comprehensiveness of executive succession processes.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors employ an explanatory multiple-case study that comprises eight CEO and CFO succession cases in large German publicly traded firms.
Findings
The findings reveal that comprehensiveness is determined by four key information-processing mechanisms: the effectiveness of NC’s information sharing, absorbing disagreement, and integrating heterogeneous opinions; board chair leadership (i.e. an apprentice board leadership structure in association with the board chair’s openness to ideas); the breadth and depth of information sharing between executives and NCs; and the extent and timing to which major shareholders influence succession processes.
Research limitations/implications
The authors summarize the findings in a conceptual framework and develop a set of propositions to guide future research on the topic. Such studies may want to test the suggestions in a quantitative way, preferably in a multinational context.
Originality/value
The authors’ emerging conceptual framework contributes a set of information-processing variables by which NCs engage in comprehensive executive successions with incumbent executives, board chairs, and major shareholders and offers a multiechelon approach to study executive successions.
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Elisabetta Sieni, Paolo Di Barba, Fabrizio Dughiero and Michele Forzan
The purpose of this paper is to present a modified version of the non-dominated sorted genetic algorithm with an application in the design optimization of a power inductor for…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present a modified version of the non-dominated sorted genetic algorithm with an application in the design optimization of a power inductor for magneto-fluid hyperthermia (MFH).
Design/methodology/approach
The proposed evolutionary algorithm is a modified version of migration-non-dominated sorting genetic algorithms (M-NSGA) that now includes the self-adaption of migration events- non-dominated sorting genetic algorithms (SA-M-NSGA). Moreover, a criterion based on the evolution of the approximated Pareto front has been activated for the automatic stop of the computation. Numerical experiments have been based on both an analytical benchmark and a real-life case study; the latter, which deals with the design of a class of power inductors for tests of MFH, is characterized by finite element analysis of the magnetic field.
Findings
The SA-M-NSGA substantially varies the genetic heritage of the population during the optimization process and allows for a faster convergence.
Originality/value
The proposed SA-M-NSGA is able to find a wider Pareto front with a computational effort comparable to a standard NSGA-II implementation.
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Alexander Aliferov, Paolo Di Barba, Fabrizio Dughiero, Michele Forzan, Sergio Lupi, Maria Evelina Mognaschi and Elisabetta Sieni
An inductor for the uniform heating of the extremity of a ferromagnetic steel tube for stress relieving is considered. The main goal of the study is to investigate the possibility…
Abstract
Purpose
An inductor for the uniform heating of the extremity of a ferromagnetic steel tube for stress relieving is considered. The main goal of the study is to investigate the possibility to achieve a reasonable design of the inductor when dealing with many design variables.
Design/methodology/approach
Genetic optimization algorithms are used for this purpose, demonstrating the applicability of these techniques to the design of induction heating inductors. Genetic algorithms provide to the designer several optimal solutions belonging to Pareto Front, and this way they allow choosing the solution that better fits the technological requirements. In any case, the designer has to adapt the chosen solution to fit in with the real possibilities in industrial application.
Findings
The study demonstrates that automatic optimization methods may help the designer of the induction heating system to solve complex problems with very conflicting technological requirements.
Originality/value
In the paper, a problem with a high number of design variables is solved. Moreover, the goals of the optimization process are strongly conflicting, and the proposed problem is a challenging one.
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