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This study was conducted in the United States of America to identify what practices virtual mentor-coaches perceived to be effective in virtual mentoring and coaching (VMC) within virtual professional learning communities (VPLCs). The authors also sought to determine the ways in which virtual mentor-coaches provided VMC for school leaders within VPLCs.

The authors used a phenomenological approach in our research, describing the lived experiences of practicing virtual mentor-coaches as they engaged in VMC. Data analysis included video analysis and systematic coding of interview data.

An in-depth analysis of interview and video data showed that virtual mentor-coaches support school leaders in developing and transforming school leaders' leadership for building teachers' instructional capacity. The authors identified a VMC process model within VPLCs, including four steps as follows: (1) presentation, (2) collaboration, (3) reflection and (4) action plan.

VMC for school leaders participating in VPLCs is regarded as a transformative model which provides encouragement, reflection and support for instructional leadership actions.

Key steps and components of an effective VMC highlighted in the current research offer practical guidance for future virtual mentor-coaches in conducting and implementing VMC within VPLCs.

In the light of the financial crisis and the radically changed conditions in the market place, international leadership development is facing new demands. The Danish-based International Leadership Institute Mannaz has researched the new conditions in collaboration with the Institute of Executive Development in the United States.

The research, conducted in 2008 and 2009, combines, in an innovative way, quantitative and qualitative inputs, from both current and future perspectives, from some 111 senior Corporate Executives, Heads of Human Resources and of Learning and Organisational Development in large international corporations headquartered in Europe and the United States; together with the thoughts of some 50 experienced practitioners involved in executive coaching as well as in designing, developing and facilitating leadership development programmes. Also we include a section summarising the key findings from recently published research from other leadership development surveys. Conclusions reveal that the crisis has propelled a long-awaited decline of the traditional classroom-based educational approach to leadership development. Instead, effective leadership development is suggested to build on experiential learning approaches rooted in real life, real time and allowing for more immediate impact and providing for considerably higher relevance and motivation. Coaching, leaders teaching leaders, stretch assignments, action learning, peer networking, customer insights and selective use of technology are seen as important contributors to the leadership development process going forward.

In this world of global interconnectedness, women continue to develop cross-cultural careers and their experiences impact global scholarship and practice. The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationships, resources and characteristics that support female expatriate success, with specific focus on the role of mentor/coach relationships. The sample included 102 women from the USA, Canada, Australia and the UK working or formerly working in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau or Taiwan.

This three phase sequential mixed-methods exploratory research study included 10 one-on-one semi-structured interviews, 102 survey respondents and 3 facilitated focus groups attended by nine professional women.

This research offers evidence that resiliency-based characteristics must be cultivated and developed to support expatriate cross-cultural success. These characteristics can be cultivated through relying on multiple relationships, such as mentors, coaches, host country liaisons, expatriate colleagues, friends and family as well as by supporting and mentoring others. These characteristics can also be developed through specific cultural experiences, knowledge and skill building resources, as well as developing an informed view of self and identity clarity through reflective activities.

Based on the overall findings, a cross-cultural professional success model was designed and implications for scholarship, organizational effectiveness and cross-cultural leadership practice are presented.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an in-depth and critical review of the literature and theories on knowledge, knowledge management (KM) as well as the concepts and approaches relating to organizational learning and the knowledge-based economy. The paper also provides more details and definitions of various issues around gamification.

Several sources have been reviewed and consulted including various mainstream referred journals focusing on KM and gamification as well as books, online databases, governmental reports, and statistics, etc.

Game-based learning (GBL) in business must align with the learning goals and outcomes of training and development, and clearly demonstrate that learning can be evaluated and achieved. Serious game experiences drive personal change and transformation by generating an attitude of acceptance of the challenge, motivation to achieve, and constant innovation through participant commitments. Simulations push the participant into experiencing an immersive environment. Finally, gamification, as a collection of techniques, may be applied to the educational and workplace activities, or used as a wrapper for GBL, serious games, and simulations.

We are on a unique and unusual path to revitalizing and reinvigorating the educational experience. This new path is not about throwing a LMS at faculty and hoping it sticks. This new path is about creating faculty who are mentors, coaches, and life-long learners who understand the research implications of applying game-based learning in the classroom, as well as the workforce.

Higher educational teaching as well as corporate LTD (Learning, Training, and Development) are being significantly disrupted. The innovation taking place in teaching requires more experiential learning, the kind of learning stimulated with serious games, simulations, immersive learning environments, and gamification. This issue will help to outline disruptive approaches that work.

This paper provides a review of the emerging trends and cases where gamification, simulations, serious games, immersive learning environments, virtual reality, and augmented reality are applied to the deployment of knowledge-based initiatives.

The purpose of this paper is to explore why mentoring is preferred over coaching when supporting pre-service teachers, compared with other stages in a teacher’s career where coaching is more readily available.

The paper first draws upon pre-existing literature which addresses the ways in which mentoring is used for pre-service teachers; followed by a discussion of the place and use of coaching within education. It then focuses on data generated from interviews with senior teachers responsible for the induction of pre-service teachers within three UK-based secondary schools and compares this to findings about mentor and coach approaches used in other sectors or contexts.

Findings point towards an imbalance in the use of mentoring and coaching within education, with a particular underuse of coaching for pre-service teachers. Some mentoring (and indeed coaching) interventions are founded on a deficit model; therefore mentors of pre-service teachers could be helped and supported to make greater use of a mentor-coach integrated asset-based approach, which encourages the use of reflection and self-directed learning.

Schools using internal mentors for pre-service teachers, or internal coaches for post-qualified teachers, could benefit from understanding what a mentor-coach integrated approach might look like, founded on an asset-based model.

The literature is limited with regards to the use of coaching for pre-service teachers. This paper examines the use of mentoring and coaching within schools in a more balanced way; questioning the underlying beliefs about the purpose of mentoring and coaching and whether or not these are based on deficit or asset-based models.

One of the two main tasks of innovation leadership, a practice to inspire and enable creativity and innovation in organisations, is to construct a creativity-enabling organisational environment. One form of this main task is using developmental interactions, like mentoring, as innovation leadership practices. A hackathon is one type of innovation contest with three designed phases: pre-hackathon, hackathon event and post-hackathon, involving multiple stakeholders with distinct roles, such as hackers and mentors. In a hackathon, the central activity of mentors is to support the hackers’ innovation process, especially in idea creation and concept development. The mentor role has not been focal in hackathon studies; thus, this chapter addresses the role, impact, and ways to acknowledge the mentors as an integral, contributing innovation leadership practice in hackathons. As an empirical study, this chapter presents the results of a public sector case in a Swedish multi-disciplinary municipality conducting intra-organisational hackathons in three different collocations. The chapter contributes to the literature on innovation leadership at the team level with mentorship in innovation contests in the public sector context by revealing the dual-role tension of innovation leadership in mentor activities in the hackathon event phase from both the hackers’ and mentors’ viewpoints, and the necessity of mentor-benefitting training in pre-hackathon phase.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the perceived efficacy of a US-based national principal mentor training program.

A sample of 370 protégés who received services from principal mentors in a national mentor internship program were invited to complete an electronic survey. Responses were obtained from 54 protégés.

The 54 respondents rated the mentor program highly, indicating that mentors were well prepared, good listeners, and instrumental in strengthening their instructional leadership.

This study provides preliminary information on the perceived efficacy of the program. To more fully understand the needs of new principals and the value of varying mentor approaches, follow-up interviews, a research design that provides for data to be disaggregated by specific mentor trainers and dates/locations of training sessions, and comparative data from protégés supported by mentors prepared by other programs are needed.

Protégés reported high job satisfaction and recommended the program to others.

New principals reported that the principal mentoring was critical to their adjustment and success during their first year. This is the only known principal mentor program requiring a nine-month internship. The outcomes revealed the value of evaluating perceptions of protégés for continuous quality improvement.

This thinking piece examines, from the viewpoint of two Canadian pracademics in the pandemic, the role of pedagogy and professionalism in crisis teaching and learning. The purpose of the paper is to highlight some of the tensions that have emerged and offer possible considerations to disrupt the status quo and catalyze transformation in public education during the pandemic and beyond.

This paper considers the current context of COVID-19 and education and uses the professional capital framework (Hargreaves and Fullan, 2012) to examine pandemic pedagogies and professionalism.

The COVID-19 pandemic has catapulted educational systems into emergency remote teaching and learning. This rapid shift to crisis schooling has massive implications for pedagogy and professionalism during the pandemic and beyond. Despite the significant challenges for educators, policymakers, school leaders, students and families, the pandemic is a critical opportunity to rethink the future of schooling. A key to transformational change will be for schools and school systems to focus on their professional capital and find ways to develop teachers' individual knowledge and skills, support effective collaborative networks that include parents and the larger school community and, ultimately, trust and include educators in the decision-making and communication process.

This thinking piece offers the perspective of two Canadian pracademics who do not wish for a return to “normal” public education, which has never serve all children well or equitably. Instead, they believe the pandemic is an opportunity to disrupt the status quo and build the education system back better. Using the professional capital framework, they argue that it will be educators' professionalism and pandemic pedagogies that will be required to catalyze meaningful transformational change.