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Whilst previous chapters have considered the nature and benefits of open education (OE) initiatives, a fundamental question remains as to the sustainability and viability of such practices over the medium to long term.

The existing literature suggests a considerable diversity of models of OE in organisational and funding terms, and there is the need to gain a better understanding of the distinctive pathways to sustainability that are linked to specific organising and funding logics.

However, this very diversity and the insufficiently developed notion of sustainability in this context hamper the efforts aimed at categorising and comparing different models, and this chapter considers these questions in more depth.

To this aim, we analyse and categorise the main funding arrangements by first identifying the key components of each distinctive OE system in the Section ‘System Elements’, whilst reflecting in parallel on the notion of sustainability.

In the Section ‘System Configurations’, we offer a detailed description and analysis of the most prominent funding models of OE to illustrate the diversity of funding arrangements and distinctive organisational logics underpinning them. We explore the logic of these business models by unpacking each distinctive form of organising around four key aspects: customer offer, value chain configuration, funding and profit formula, and strategic positioning.

In the Section ‘Sustainability’, we seek to refine our understanding of the concept of sustainability in the context of OE, giving due consideration to non-economic definitions of this concept and to some of the core objectives attached to OE. We suggest that sustainability can be ultimately apprehended and defined through a number of key variables.

The section ‘Open Education: Motives and Implications’ examines the motives behind the OE movement, its wide-ranging implications, and considers how OE fits in with the trends in the higher education (HE) sector as a whole. We discuss the future for this radical innovation, emphasising the central role of communities of practice and the need for institutional support. We argue that the development of sustainable communities is the fundamental basis of any OE model and that reflexivity is required in order to ensure the sustainability of this innovative practice. Similarly, the systematic development of collaborative practices and networks between the main actors at community, institutional and national levels is considered key to the development and embedding of OE initiatives within the overall educational sector.

The concluding section brings together the various strands of our argument on the nature and characteristics of the various OE business models, their sustainability and the way forward.

The ongoing challenge to sustain school learning and improvement requires schools to explore new ways, and at the same time exploit previous experience. The purpose of this paper is to attempt to expand the knowledge of mechanisms that can facilitate school learning processes by proposing boundary activities and learning mechanisms in which principals can engage to promote learning processes.

The authors refer to Bourdieu’s theoretical approach that human actions occur within fields of interaction. The authors delineate principals’ internal and external boundary activities as mechanisms for promoting school learning processes while acknowledging that principals are embedded within competing fields, encompassing demands from the economic, political, and even global fields. The authors discuss how the principal boundary activities can not only facilitate the exploitation of knowledge embedded in the school system, but also the exploration of external knowledge across multiple fields of interaction. The authors then present the principal learning mechanisms as complementary activities to school learning improvement.

Promoting school learning processes may require constant management of the school learning boundary so that the school neither becomes isolated from its environment nor loses its capacity for knowledge integration and exploitation. The boundary activities, combined with learning mechanisms, can enable the principal to balance these competing demands.

The organizational learning processes of exploration and exploitation have been under-investigated in the educational context, as to the role of the principal in balancing the tension between these processes. This study conceptualizes boundary activities and learning mechanisms, suggesting a framework through which principals can engage to promote school learning.

As a result of continuous reforms, increased emphasis has been placed on participative leadership as a means to improving school and teacher outcomes. However, along with the benefits of participative leadership comes the potential for strain and burnout, which stem from work intensification. Applying the implicit leadership theory and the conservation of resources theory, the purpose of this paper is to propose that differences in school’s cultural attributes will influence the emergence of participative leaders and their influence on teachers’ outcomes of job satisfaction and burnout.

Data were collected by survey from a sample of 367 teachers in Israel.

First, the results of general linear model (GLM) analysis indicated significant differences in the teachers’ perceptions of participative leadership between schools characterized by different cultural attributes. Second, the results of GLM indicated significant differences in the effects of participative leadership on teacher burnout across schools characterized by different cultural attributes.

This study has implications for policies involving the design and implementation of leadership tools for school management. Although research has emphasized the relationship between stressful job conditions associated with shared decision making and teachers’ well-being and job satisfaction, the volume of comparative work in the educational field shedding light on the impact of school’s cultural attributes on this question is limited. This study may assist principals in making their schools both more effective and more responsive to teacher expectations.

The use of sport celebrities for product endorsements in marketing communications vehicles is not new but there is limited literature on the increasing use by contemporary corporations of athletes with questionable or “negative” reputations. This paper raises questions about a seemingly cyclical trend and suggests marketers may continue this activity despite consumer and journalistic criticism. An explanation of the behavioral response to a 'controversial' endorsers' image (relative to the perceptions held by a particular demographic segment) and the opportunity for that relationship to translate favorably for the associated brand, is also discussed.

Organizational learning and the learning organization are concepts that have attracted a considerable amount of attention over the last decade. The article provides an analysis and evaluation of the main perspectives on learning, particularly in relation to organizational change and effectiveness. The issues involved are illustrated by a brief examination and discussion of four comparative case studies of companies in the automotive industry: the Rover Group, Volvo AB, Tallent Engineering, and GKN Hardy Spicer. The article shows that the four companies attempted to introduce organizational learning in order to develop and maintain their competitiveness. It identifies the issues which appear to be of prime importance when introducing organizational learning. However, the article also maintains that, although organizational learning may be an important factor in building an organization’s competitiveness, by itself it cannot and does not guarantee success.

Extending the argument made in Bushe and Marshak (2009) of the emergence of a new species of Organization Development (OD) that we label Dialogic, to differentiate it from the foundational Diagnostic form, we argue that how any OD method is used in practice will be depend on the mindset of the practitioner. Six variants of Dialogic OD practice are reviewed and compared to aid in identification of a Weberian ideal-type Dialogic Mindset, consisting of eight premises that distinguish it from the foundational Diagnostic Mindset. Three core change processes that underlie all successful Dialogic OD processes are proposed, and suggestions for future research offered.