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The purpose of this paper is to explore the implications on former accounting firm partners becoming employees of a publicly owned accounting corporation, the responses of the former partners and impacts on the acquiring company. Partners of accounting and other professional service firms selling their firms to publicly owned companies often remain with the acquiring company as employees and receive company shares as consideration for their firms. Agency theory suggests public ownership will result in changes to the roles of senior professionals with potential resistance and motivation consequences.

This paper uses a case study approach involving the review of publicly available information and interviews with executives and senior professionals of an Australian publicly owned accounting company, Stockford Limited.

The Stockford case indicates that selling their firm to a publicly owned company can have significant negative implications for accounting firm partners. The former partners struggled to adapt to their new roles as senior professional employees and shareholders. Their responses had significant impacts on company performance, which ultimately contributed to the collapse of the company, thus reflecting the power senior professionals retain regardless of the change of ownership form.

Care is required when generalising findings of a single case to other professions and other geographic jurisdictions.

This paper has significant implications for entrepreneurs and executives consolidating professional service firms, partners considering selling their firms and investors in publicly owned professional service firms.

Despite the emergence of publicly owned accounting and other professional service companies and the importance and power of senior professionals in professional service firms, this is the first study to explore the implications on senior professionals of selling their firms to public companies.

The purpose of this paper is to explore teachers’ responses to the arrival of new principals (NPs) into their school. More specifically, the paper poses three questions: How do teachers perceive the arrival of an NP into their school? How do teachers cope with the arrival of an NP? What are the factors affecting teachers’ responses towards the arrival of an NP?

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 14 Israeli teachers who experienced the arrival of an NP into their school during the last three years.

The perceived image of the former principal in the teachers’ lounge and the manner in which s/he left principalship seem to greatly influence teachers’ responses towards the NP. Likewise, the first personal conversations of the NP with the teachers are highly influential on their responses to his/her arrival into their school.

The paper sheds light on the critical role of emotions towards the former principal in the induction stages of NPs.

In Singapore, mentoring was the key feature of a development strategy for aspiring principals for one and a half decades. Many of the former participant protégés are currently practising principals in schools. This paper reports an exploratory study that sought to identify and examine the main learning source of these principals beyond mentoring. It is suggested that there is active networking for learning relationships at work among fellow principals. The principals create, seize and promote opportunities to improve their on‐the‐job practice through learning from the unstructured learning relationships at work. The formal principalship preparation programme that they attended emerges as a breeding ground for the initiation of informal learning relationships at work. Beyond formal mentoring, the principals appear to lead their own learning in collaboration with their peers in education.

Compares the views of pre‐service and in‐service elementary school teachers regarding the effectiveness of school leaders in Cyprus. Data were collected from 66 in‐service teachers, and 79 pre‐service teachers enrolled at the University of Cyprus. The findings indicate that in‐service teachers were significantly more positive than pre‐service teachers in their assessment of school principals. The former considered the weaknesses associated with principals to be mainly the result of the limitations of the educational system in Cyprus, whereas the latter expected their future superiors to be ineffective in their management of interpersonal relationships. The paper points to the need for better training and preparation of both school leaders and teachers before their appointments.

School leadership is found important for school development and student learning. Consequently, the interest in professional leadership education for principals has increased. In Sweden, professional leadership education for novice principals was made mandatory in 2010. Moreover, enhanced focus on leadership for teaching and learning in terms of ‘pedagogical leadership’ is highly topical. This study aims to deepen our knowledge of novice principals’ experiences of pedagogical leadership practices and relate these to their paths toward principalship. The study follows a qualitative and situated design and adopts a practice-based approach. Observations were conducted in the educational and workplace practices of novice principals in Sweden and interviews were conducted with principals and teachers. Using a conceptual framework of Wenger (1998), the analyses show that principals experience challenges concerning pedagogical leadership if their competence and experience are not aligned with practice and context. This mismatch seems to impair their pedagogical leadership practice. In addition, a lack of leadership experience obstructs their learning in the professional leadership education for principals.

High-stakes accountability and continuous multi-faceted pressures of the principalship require leaders to develop a broad range of personal qualities including resilience and personal vitality. Scant research exists on what happens to school principals when careers abruptly and involuntarily end, and the purpose of this paper is sought to hear principals’ accounts of their experiences and to identify whether these personal qualities assist recovery and career re-identification.

A collaborative English and Australian study of former principals aimed to evaluate effects of involuntary job loss from their own perspectives. In total, 12 case studies involved one-on-one interviews during a two-year period revealing impact of job loss, coping strategies, resilience and personal vitality.

Successful management indicators were found: personal qualities, including the ability to retain a perspective and big picture view of career journey; an enduring love of teaching; health and fitness; study; getting another suitable post; and psychological and medical support. Time taken to regain pre-existing levels of personal vitality varied significantly based on resilience and contextual circumstances, whilst psychological and social support from family and professional colleagues was invaluable for recovery.

This international study presents an original insight into effects of principals’ sudden job loss – a perspective which has imposing pastoral relevance for employing authorities, professional associations and collegial networks. Aspiring and current principals may feel, “There but for the grace of God, go I”, and it is they who may need ultimately to be prepared for what is an increasingly common occurrence in schools across the world.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the interaction between schools and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the Israeli and German education systems from the perspective of the stakeholders involved: school principals, the NGOs’ leadership, and regulatory authorities in each country.

The study documents the process by which the interactions between schools and NGOs emerge, the motivations of each of the involved stakeholders, how stakeholders perceive the interaction and the power relations between the involved stakeholders. The study was conducted using the qualitative “grounded theory” methodology, which the authors applied to develop a concept that is anchored in data collected through the research and systematically analyzed.

Using case studies, the authors examine how the relationships between the formal education system and the external entity are formed, reveal the motivations and strategies of the stakeholders involved in the interaction, and investigate the partnerships’ development process in the two different educational systems studied. Findings from the study leading to the conclusion that school-NGO interaction is based on entrepreneurial activities on the part of the school principals and the NGOs, which is gradually becoming institutionalized.

Through this study, the authors have developed a new empirical based theory on the interaction between schools and NGOs as entrepreneurial activity.

Teacher burnout is a persistent challenge for school principals, complicated by the lack of a proven, repeatable strategy to mitigate burnout. If left unresolved, burnout can adversely affect school culture and student learning, leading to turnover that can compound these harmful effects. Since burnout can vary in severity and frequency, principals can work to mitigate burnout in the moment, seizing the opportunity when burnout is first observed. In this narrative sketch, I provide an overview of my experiences in my development as a principal and how this informed my approach to supporting teachers. I also discuss my experiences as principal in working with teachers at different stages of burnout severity, sharing specific stories and reflecting on both the successes and failures of my efforts, including the use of chocolates and tissues to create an individualized safe space to initiate open dialogue. The title, “Chocolates or Tissues,” is a metaphor that represents my momentary burnout mitigation strategy but may also serve as a metaphor for the need for principals to seek individualized opportunities for resolution in a burnout moment when working with teachers.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the results of a follow‐up study of two Swedish schools in which, five years previously, the principals had been successful leaders. Had this success been maintained?

Two schools were revisited to enable the authors to interview principals and teachers as well as conducting observations of the schools in operation.

The identification of sustained leadership success was compromised because the original principals were no longer at the schools, their replacements had also left and their (“third generation”) replacements had just arrived. Strong teacher teams had served to maintain school standards.

The paper adds to the literature on the vital role of the principal in determining a school's success and also points to the value of strong, cohesive teacher teams.

We have just marked the quincentennial anniversary of Niccolo Machiavelli, one of the greatest, if not the greatest of political theorists. His views and observations on the art of political leadership have direct relevance to the problems of democratic government today and his writings are being read with renewed interest. In this article the writer (who may or may not have his tongue in his cheek) sets forth a direct interpretation of Machiavellian philosophy as it may be applied to the “real life” political role of the school principal. Principals and other practising school administrators will have strong reactions to the position set forth in this article which was written expressly for this purpose. The article has been used by the Author for several years in his graduate course at the University of Alberta, “The Social and Political Environment of Educational Administration.”