Explores the relationship between schools and school systems on theone hand, and, on the other, the world or environment in which they arelocated. The typical presentation in the…
Abstract
Explores the relationship between schools and school systems on the one hand, and, on the other, the world or environment in which they are located. The typical presentation in the literature stresses the requirement for organizations to adapt to external pressures, and the key role of managers in that process. However, theoretical and empirical work casts doubt on both these assumptions. Raises questions as to what is meant by the environment of an organization, about how organizations come to pay attention to some external pressures rather than others, about the kinds of responses organizations make, and about the role administrators play in the process. Concludes with suggestions for further research in the area.
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This paper aims to demonstrate how the Nordic model, featuring highly regulated trade union–employer collaboration, has enabled the building of learning organizations through a…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to demonstrate how the Nordic model, featuring highly regulated trade union–employer collaboration, has enabled the building of learning organizations through a co-generative learning model involving both practitioners and action researchers.
Design/methodology/approach
A literature search on the Nordic sociotechnical systems tradition led to a further search based on the snowball method. This paper reveals how the unique features of the Nordic model for work life through union–management relations constitute a formal system for building learning organizations.
Findings
This paper acknowledges the difference in power that exists between the social parties within the Nordic model. However, the practice is not due solely to the political structure in which trade unions, employers’ associations and the state form a tripartite collaboration, and thus, create a framework for workplace collaboration. This tripartite collaboration has enabled the development of an organizational practice by action researchers, union representatives and companies over several decades.
Originality/value
Limited literature has explicitly linked the formal structures of the Nordic model of work life and the effort to develop learning organizations. This paper addresses criticism that the research field has not fully considered power issues when developing a learning organization. It demonstrates how the Nordic model as a formal structure creates a system of democratic norms and rules that facilitates a safe arena for employees to invest their effort in co-generating a learning organization.
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In this chapter, the author delves deeper into adaptive and sustainability challenges, specifically discussing the roles of management and leadership in addressing these problems…
Abstract
In this chapter, the author delves deeper into adaptive and sustainability challenges, specifically discussing the roles of management and leadership in addressing these problems. Both responsible leadership and management are essential for tackling sustainability challenges. Leadership focuses on establishing a vision and inspiring others to attain it, while management is concerned with devising and executing strategies to realize that vision. Addressing wicked problems necessitates collaboration, engagement and innovative solutions, involving both leadership and management. To effectively conquer sustainability challenges, organizations must embrace a more holistic and sustainable approach to management and leadership. This might include collaborating with stakeholders to discover innovative solutions that prioritize sustainability and social responsibility. Resolving wicked problems calls for a distinct management and leadership approach that is cooperative, systemic, and sustainable.
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This essay considers educational administration in developmental terms and incorporates concern for culture and political ethics. It argues the need for theory of a different…
Abstract
This essay considers educational administration in developmental terms and incorporates concern for culture and political ethics. It argues the need for theory of a different kind: partly empirical and partly moral; partly sympathetic and partly critical; and always concerned with the accomplishment, through deliberation, practice and the just use of power, of the best traditions of the culture in which it is located.
Abigail A. Sewell and Rashawn Ray
Past research indicates that blacks are less trusting of physicians than are whites; yet, researchers have not examined within group differences in physician trust by religious…
Abstract
Purpose
Past research indicates that blacks are less trusting of physicians than are whites; yet, researchers have not examined within group differences in physician trust by religious denomination – an effort that is complicated by the high correlated nature of race and religion. To better understand black-white differences in physician trust, this chapter examines heterogeneity in trust levels among blacks associated with religious designations that distinguish Black Protestants from other ethnoreligious groups.
Methodology/approach
Using data from the 2002 and 2006 General Social Surveys, this study adopts an intersectional (i.e., race x religion) typology of religious denomination to understand the black-white gap in physician trust. Weighted multivariate linear regression is employed.
Findings
Black-white differences in physician trust are identified only when religious affiliation is considered but not when religious affiliation is omitted. Blacks who are affiliated with Black Protestant churches are more trusting than other religious groups, including Evangelical Protestants, Mainline Protestants, and blacks who are affiliated with other faiths.
Originality/value
This chapter indicates that there is more heterogeneity in trust levels among blacks than between blacks and whites. Moreover, the findings suggest that religion can play an important role in bridging the trust gap between blacks and the medical sciences.
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Karen Joe Laidler and Maggy Lee
This paper, aims to contribute to the wider project of understanding the production of knowledge about crime and justice and, “to cultivate and sustain a reflexive awareness about…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper, aims to contribute to the wider project of understanding the production of knowledge about crime and justice and, “to cultivate and sustain a reflexive awareness about the conditions under which such knowledge is (or is not) produced” (Loader and Sparks, 2012, p. 6). In reviewing the core issues and concerns about crime and control from the 1980s as articulated in these research dissertations, the authors seek to be self-reflexive about academic criminology as a field of enquiry in Hong Kong.
Design/methodology/approach
In this research, 209 dissertations, completed between 1988 and 2015, are categorized on the basis of the main subject or theme of investigation carried out by each of the research paper.
Findings and originality/value
This discussion is among the first and few attempts to look at the development of criminology in the Hong Kong China region and draws from the unique perspectives of practitioners – those working on the front lines – in their attempts to understand crime and its control with a criminological imagination.
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Tony Huzzard, Andreas Hellström, Svante Lifvergren and Nils Conradi
This chapter presents a framework for an action research based intervention to develop and transform sustainable healthcare in a regional context. The framework is illustrated by…
Abstract
Purpose
This chapter presents a framework for an action research based intervention to develop and transform sustainable healthcare in a regional context. The framework is illustrated by the case of the Regional Cancer Centre (RCC) West in western Sweden.
Design/methodology/approach
The framework draws upon and develops Pettigrew’s context–content–process model of strategic change and applies it to the unfolding narrative of the change effort. The empirical focus is the activities of a learning platform consisting of the RCC leadership, senior cancer physicians designated as process owners and an action research team. Data were collected from documents, observations of the learning platform, notes from meetings and interviews. Outcome data were obtained via the self-reporting of the physicians.
Findings
The learning platform established the capability for wide ranging development and quality improvement on the 23 cancer pathways as well as some support activities around principles of patient-centred care. A clear result is greater inter-organisational collaboration between care professionals as well as the introduction of new medicines, clinical methods, joint learning activities and new forms of measurement and monitoring of care practices. All of the improved measures are sustained.
Originality/value
Whilst there is no shortage of rhetoric on patient-centred care, the reality is that in complex healthcare systems solutions such as process-oriented approaches often fail. This case presents a model and an approach that eschews clear visions for change and instead places an emphasis on dialogue, participation, professional autonomy and collaborative communities as means for achieving the patient-centred ideal. The case also shows the value of seeing sustainable health systems as being grounded on practitioner–scholar collaboration that combines practical knowing with scientific knowledge.
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FEW LIBRARIANS, one imagines, will be feeling as sorry for President Nixon as Bernard Levin is. (Though no‐one would wish the President to be ill at this time.) It is always…
Abstract
FEW LIBRARIANS, one imagines, will be feeling as sorry for President Nixon as Bernard Levin is. (Though no‐one would wish the President to be ill at this time.) It is always saddening when Levin, nurtured on Leigh Hunt, Lamb, Hazlitt and Coleridge, turns his talents from marvellously funny pieces on rabbits and rhubarb, the law, motor cars and Wagner, to arrogant, arrant political nonsense pieces—not to mention Public Lending Right. Having supported the President through the perils of Vietnam and two election campaigns, he could hardly turn back at a mere Watergate.