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1 – 10 of over 3000David Osworth, Kathleen Mary Winn Cunningham, Suzy Hardie, Peter Moyi, Mary Gaskins and Natalie Osborne Smith
This study aims to analyze the experiences of a closed cohort of aspiring leaders and connects the university and school district partnership relationship to building the…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to analyze the experiences of a closed cohort of aspiring leaders and connects the university and school district partnership relationship to building the leadership capacity of the cohort. This study builds on previous literature in district-university partnerships and leadership preparation. Powerful learning experiences (PLEs) and interpersonal-intrapersonal leadership development models serve as frames to examine how aspects of successful leadership preparation programs were present.
Design/methodology/approach
This qualitative study was conducted with a team of researchers from the university and school district and relies on data from semi-structured interviews with students from the closed cohort.
Findings
Researchers identified three major themes of aspiring leaders' preparation experience: confidence building, reflection and mindset change.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the emerging literature on PLEs by illustrating how this type of partnership creates opportunities for powerful learning experiences for aspiring school leaders.
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Chanita Rukspollmuang, Jaratdao Reynolds and Praphan Chansema
Initiating a practical model for embedding transformative learning in education that will promote sustainable development is a challenge for higher education. Siam University…
Abstract
Initiating a practical model for embedding transformative learning in education that will promote sustainable development is a challenge for higher education. Siam University decided to assign a task force with the mission to work with communities in order to propose guidelines of learning for sustainability (LfS) based on real-life experiences. Selected communities which have agreed to be the community living labs for teaching and learning activities of the university were chosen based on the Bray and Thomas’ Cube Model. There are differences in sizes (number of members), locations (urban, suburban), and histories (old settlement with long history and rich culture and the newly settlement communities consisting of migrated members). Community-based participatory research (CBPR) was applied in the study. The initial model was developed from the synthesis of experiential work with communities in sustainability-related projects. After revision, the “Learning for Sustainability Action Model” was proposed. Success factors in implementing the model were also suggested.
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Ian Pepper, Carol Cox, Ruth Fee, Shane Horgan, Rod Jarman, Matthew Jones, Nicoletta Policek, Colin Rogers and Clive Tattum
The Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) for Higher Education in the UK focuses on maintaining, enhancing and standardising the quality of higher education. Of significant impact are…
Abstract
Purpose
The Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) for Higher Education in the UK focuses on maintaining, enhancing and standardising the quality of higher education. Of significant impact are the development of subject benchmark statements (SBS) by the QAA, which describe the type and content of study along with the academic standards expected of graduates in specific disciplines. Prior to 2022, the QAA did not have a SBS to which higher education policing programmes could be directly aligned.
Design/methodology/approach
Over 12-months, a SBS advisory group with representatives from higher education across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, The College of Policing, QAA, Police Federation of England and Wales and policing, worked in partnership to harness their collective professional experience and knowledge to create the first UK SBS for policing. Post publication of the SBS, permission was sought and granted from both the College of Policing and QAA for members of the advisory group to reflect in an article on their experiences of collaborating and working in partnership to achieve the SBS.
Findings
There is great importance of creating a shared vision and mutual trust, developed through open facilitated discussions, with representatives championing their cause and developing a collaborative and partnership approach to completing the SBS.
Practical implications
A collaborative and partnership approach is essential in developing and recognising the academic discipline of policing. This necessarily requires the joint development of initiatives, one of which is the coming together of higher education institutions, PSRBs and practitioner groups to collaborate and design QAA benchmark statements.
Social implications
The SBS advisory group has further driven forward the emergence of policing as a recognised academic discipline to benefit multiple stakeholders.
Originality/value
The SBS for policing is the first across the UK. The authors experiences can be used to assist others in their developments of similar subject specific benchmarking or academic quality standards.
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Mary Clare Relihan and Richard O'Donovan
This conceptual paper explores the complex, and neglected, area of mentor development in initial teacher education (ITE) in Australia. It focuses on the emotionality of…
Abstract
Purpose
This conceptual paper explores the complex, and neglected, area of mentor development in initial teacher education (ITE) in Australia. It focuses on the emotionality of mentoring, drawing on concepts of emotional labour and emotional intelligence to develop a framework of effective mentoring that helps explain the essence of a mentor’s role in supporting preservice teachers.
Design/methodology/approach
This conceptual paper draws together mentor-support practice wisdom and research literature from several relevant areas. It draws on constructive developmental theories and complex stage theory to reaffirm the intricate nature of mentor learning and development. This paper critiques the current utilitarian emphasis on mentoring as a way to improve student outcomes without first having clarity on how to improve mentoring itself.
Findings
We introduce the mentoring as emotional labour framework as a way to better understand the nature of mentoring within ITE and as a tool for developing more effective mentor supports. We present “exemplar cases”, which are amalgamations of field observations to illustrate aspects of the framework – however, we do not claim they provide evidence of the utility or accuracy of the framework.
Originality/value
Previous research and policy have tended to gloss over the skills required for effective mentoring, whereas this paper places the emotional labour of mentoring front and centre, explicitly conceptualising and describing the personal and interpersonal skills required in a way that aims to support and empower mentors to recognise existing strengths and areas of potential growth.
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Thabang Donald Mokoena and Gideon Petrus van Tonder
This paper aims to determine the impact of mentorship on the development of self-directedness among beginner teachers in their initial years of teaching.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to determine the impact of mentorship on the development of self-directedness among beginner teachers in their initial years of teaching.
Design/methodology/approach
The researcher adopted a positivist paradigm to explore the situation of concern. Quantitative research was conducted, involving the collection and analysis of numerical data. Two closed-ended structured questionnaires were utilised, derived from the 40-item self-directed learning readiness scale (SDLRS) developed by Fisher and King, and a pre-determined questionnaire by Glazerman focused on the first-year teaching experience, induction and mentoring of beginner teachers.
Findings
Beginner teachers merely relying on the knowledge obtained from their studies is insufficient to achieve a satisfactory level of self-directedness when starting a teaching career. Most beginner teachers faced significant challenges in their early years of teaching due to the absence of mentoring support. In addition, most indicated that they resume their teaching duties and rely on their district for general support, guidance and orientation. Finally, the results have shown that mentoring positively impacts beginner teachers’ self-directedness.
Research limitations/implications
The first limitation was that this study was narrowed to one South Africa University part-time B.Ed honours students working as beginner teachers in different provinces at primary and secondary schools. As a result, the findings of this research might be interpreted by some critics as one-sided and not representative of the views of most beginner teachers in South Africa who are working. The second limitation of this study is the sample size. In this study, 222 responses were received. As a result, the findings of this research might be considered not representative of the target sample size.
Practical implications
The presence and effective implementation of mentoring programmes in schools can positively impact beginner teachers' professional development and retention during their first years of teaching.
Social implications
We contend that our research holds significance for international readership as it aims to garner attention towards potential research endeavours in diverse settings concerning mentorship programs for beginner teachers, specifically promoting self-directed learning. Our research offers opportunities to compare our findings with studies conducted in more comprehensive, comparative contexts and foster research possibilities in broader, contrasting contexts.
Originality/value
Based on the findings of this research, the availability and effective use of mentoring programmes would significantly affect beginner teachers' self-directedness, improve their retention rate and alleviate their teaching challenges. This study was the first research on the perceptions of the influence of mentoring on the self-directedness of beginner teachers.
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Lian Zhang, Qingtao Wang, Qiyuan Zhang and Kevin Zheng Zhou
Although the prior literature has identified the relevance of dealer participation for multinational enterprises (MNEs), it is unclear whether such participation could also be an…
Abstract
Purpose
Although the prior literature has identified the relevance of dealer participation for multinational enterprises (MNEs), it is unclear whether such participation could also be an important means for local dealers to learn from MNEs. By adopting local firms’ viewpoint, our study draws on organizational learning theory to examine how local dealers benefit from their participation with foreign suppliers in Africa.
Design/methodology/approach
The empirical setting is a combinative dataset of secondary data and primary survey of 164 small- and medium-sized local dealers with nine subsidiaries of a Chinese motorcycle company in six countries of Sub-Saharan Africa.
Findings
This research shows that dealer participation is positively associated with dealer performance, and this positive effect is stronger when local dealers operate in regions with low government corruption and high government support. However, the positive relationship is weaker when local dealers use the local tongue extensively but becomes stronger when their foreign suppliers have a high dealer coverage.
Originality/value
By taking a local-participant perspective, our study extends the participation literature to show how firms from a resource-constrained region may benefit from their proactive participation with foreign counterparts. Additionally, we identify the boundary conditions of institutional factors and strategic choices of local dealers and foreign suppliers, providing a nuanced understanding of firm behaviors in complex and uncertain markets.
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Helen Frances Harrison, Elizabeth Anne Kinsella, Stephen Loftus, Sandra DeLuca, Gregory McGovern, Isabelle Belanger and Tristan Eugenio
This study aims to investigate student mentors' perceptions of peer mentor relationships in a health professions education program.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate student mentors' perceptions of peer mentor relationships in a health professions education program.
Design/methodology/approach
The design uses embodied hermeneutic phenomenology. The data comprise 10 participant interviews and visual “body maps” produced in response to guided questions.
Findings
The findings about student mentors' perceptions of peer mentor relationships include a core theme of nurturing a trusting learning community and five related themes of attunement to mentees, commonality of experiences, friends with boundaries, reciprocity in learning and varied learning spaces.
Originality/value
The study contributes original insights by highlighting complexity, shifting boundaries, liminality, embodied social understanding and trusting intersubjective relations as key considerations in student peer mentor relationships.
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Salifu Yusif and Abdul Hafeez-Baig
This study aims to explore the strategies corporations use in engaging stakeholders to sustain healthy corporate partnerships and create value for the corporate entity and the…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore the strategies corporations use in engaging stakeholders to sustain healthy corporate partnerships and create value for the corporate entity and the society in which they operate and their influence on the corporate manager’s cognitive abilities and decision-making.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors used an interpretive research approach leveraging the strengths of qualitative method of content analysis and comparative and critical analyses to report the results. Interpretive methods incorporate social theories and standpoints that view reality as the social construction of understandable events in the context of organizational communication.
Findings
The findings of this study suggest that corporations are assumed to follow and execute the principles of engaging stakeholders to achieve corporate social responsibility (CSR) claiming to manage a sustainable and responsible business practices that recognize local cultures, human rights and protect the environment. However, little attention has been paid to the cognitive reasoning of the individuals responsible for CSR and corporate sustainability (CS) as opposed to the growing concerns about strategies corporations use in engaging stakeholders to sustain healthy corporate partnerships and create value – especially the processes that take place during engagement and decision-making including cognitive offloading.
Practical implications
Stakeholder engagement requires practical approaches that enable corporations and individuals charged with decision-making responsibilities to understand, respond and fulfill their CSRs. To achieve CSRs, corporations and managers responsible for relevant decision-making would need to involve stakeholders in social performance planning, as social reporting/auditing has long been advocating for preventing managerial biasness, groupthink and increased information dissemination via detailed reporting practices toward more collaborative stakeholder relationships. Thus, it is crucial for corporations to implement enhanced stakeholder and managerial decision-making strategies such as integrative approaches to achieve balance in the trio elements of sustainability as well as the growing use of paradox perspective to understand the nature of the tensions being sought to balance and, in the process, provide opportunity for a better evaluation of complex sustainability issues for innovative approach to resolving them. While cognitive decision-making is at play, in practice, managers tasked with making decisions must ensure the most effective stakeholder engagement strategies that are transparent and inclusive are used.
Originality/value
The main contribution of this study is its argument regarding the tools corporations use in engaging key stakeholders and the cognitive reasoning of the individuals responsible for CSR and CS. The study further contributes to interpreting the integrative approach to achieving balance in the trio elements of sustainability as well as the growing use of paradox perspective to understand the nature of the tensions being sought to balance and, in the process, provide an opportunity for a better evaluation of complex sustainability issues for an innovative approach to resolving them.
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This study explores factors that influence the initiation of leadership coaching relationships that include externally employed coaches and school administrators.
Abstract
Purpose
This study explores factors that influence the initiation of leadership coaching relationships that include externally employed coaches and school administrators.
Design/methodology/approach
This qualitative research study includes semi-structured interviews, observations and documents collected across three academic years within the context of a university-based leadership coaching program. Participants included six leadership coaches and six school administrators who participated in the program.
Findings
Qualitative analysis indicates that gender and race, prior professional experience, pre-existing professional relationships and the complexity of the district’s organizational structure influence the initiation of the coaching relationship.
Research limitations/implications
Confidentiality restrictions imposed by the program limit opportunities for member checking and other forms of triangulation. Additional data collection using more expansive research methods would help address this limitation.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the sparse literature about leadership coaching with school administrators by describing how different factors influence initiation coaching relationships.
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Jillian L. Wendt and Vivian O. Jones
Racially and ethnically minoritized (REM) women continue to be underrepresented in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) programs and careers. Peer mentoring is…
Abstract
Purpose
Racially and ethnically minoritized (REM) women continue to be underrepresented in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) programs and careers. Peer mentoring is one strategy that can support their participation. This study explores the experiences of Black women peer mentors in an online peer mentoring program at two historically Black institutions.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative case study approach was utilized to explore the impact of an online peer mentoring program on peer mentors' STEM self-efficacy, sense of community, STEM identity and intent to persist in STEM.
Findings
Analysis identified five themes relating to peer mentors' experiences in the program: (1) an “I can do this” approach: confidence and self-efficacy; (2) utility of like others; (3) “beacons of light”: intersecting and malleable identities; (4) skills development and (5) motivation and reciprocity. Further, challenges of the online relationship were shared.
Originality/value
The study contributes to the body of knowledge by demonstrating the utility of an online peer mentoring model among women mentors enrolled in STEM programs at two historically Black institutions. The findings support those who are historically marginalized in participating in and remaining in STEM.
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