Search results

Many have suggested that over the last 25 years or so the debate over organisational change has been dominated by the issue of power and politics in the form of an approach consistent with a free‐market spirit. For too long, power and politics have influenced strategic decisions and “top down” management has been the dominant paradigm. However, the author's work with Toshiba has led to the conclusion that the principles of social responsibility and ethical change, as championed by Kurt Lewin and John Dewey, are emerging as a more amenable and desirable approach to change and appear to be embraced by many in the workforce. Many US observers have argued that such events as the bankruptcy of Enron and the indictment of senior executives from this company and others, as well as the recent events in the UK concerning a perceived lack of financial probity in the banking and political milieux, have shown that a disregard for ethics in decision making can have deleterious consequences for business and society. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the increasing sensitivity to issues of social responsibility, ethical behaviour and democratic ideas and ideals.

A case study is presented using Diploma students from Toshibatec in partnership with Middlesex University to illustrate this increasing sensitivity.

The author contends that Lewin's and Dewey's beliefs are indeed still alive and relevant and that these students are embracing such ideas in their push for organisational change at Toshiba.

The originality of the case study is that, to the best of the author's knowledge, no research has been undertaken either by this company or on this company before. The paper's findings will be interesting for the company and perhaps for working practice to be disseminated to other companies looking to make deep and lasting changes.

The purpose of this paper is to persuade curriculum developers that the aims of incorporating English literature, particularly in the concern with developing a responsive openness of mind, could and perhaps should be a part of any work based learning programme.

Using a qualitative approach and drawing on the experience at a university in the south‐east of England, this study provides an exploration of and insights into incorporating English literature in journal reflection within the context of work‐based learning.

The purpose of this paper was to present a case study of a course that was taught through a blend of requiring research on writers and reflective journaling and then assessed by a means of formative (journal entries shared and discussed) and summative (final formal presentations) feedback.

The author believes that the paper has demonstrated some ideological and practical insights to offering a work‐based learning course marrying literature and journal use. The author is convinced that the learning journal remains a potent tool in the arsenal of materials used to engage learners in the skills of enquiry. Furthermore, incorporating aspects of a rich field such as English literature allowed students to become open to alternative theories, challenge their attitudes, jettison old ways of thinking – in short, through learning, self‐analysing and reflecting, to improve practice.

Students investigated whether the commonly accepted net promoter score was an accurate way of measuring the quality of service, whether presenteeism was just as corrosive as absenteeism and what internal and external factors contributed to business success or failure. What the paper tried to foster from the outset was the concept of a learning society in order to gauge how students experienced the need to reinforce their arguments with theory. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The author's interest focused on the link between business and academia, what constituted an academic presence in the workplace and whether or not this academic input helped students to become more effective members of their organisation. The author surveyed 30 students for this qualitative study.

Students welcomed clear direction and an opportunity to translate their experience into a problem-solving exercise. They realised they were in the business of developing themselves and strove to bring clarity to their life and work and to demystify their own texts.

This is not a longitudinal study but a sample of questionnaire responses from 30 out of a possible 150 students. The “measurement” is broad, rather than precise.

By engaging in a partnership with Middlesex University, the Halifax Community Bank appeared to want to effect radical change in its organisational culture. To the students this was no vacuous public relations exercise but a commitment to getting staff/students to re-examine the contingencies of contemporary business and come up with solutions to a range of business problems.

This paper consists of a case study that reports on a pedagogical intervention undertaken among a group of postgraduate students in the area of coaching. The purpose of this paper is to design an intervention to bridge the gulf between coaching theory and practice, a gap identified by coaching research and corroborated by professional practice students on the university course examined here.

The study gives an account of how literary fiction was used with a cohort of students as a source of hypothetical scenarios used to simulate workplace problems and as a simulative context in which coaching students could apply theoretical models to make-believe scenarios. In this case study, the author evaluates the success of this innovative pedagogical methodology based on a qualitative analysis of excerpts from students’ written work.

The author advocates the use of literary fictional texts as a means of enhancing coach training and makes a case for the benefits of exposing students to literary fiction as part of a rich humanities curriculum. Reading about how fictional characters negotiate the terrain of life and work can help coaching students to create stronger, more creative narratives in their work-based projects.

Exploring how fictional characters respond to challenges in the workplace (and in life generally) will support students to formulate their own coaching interventions in a more coherent fashion. The paper contends that stories are the cornerstone of learning, and that educators can support students to explore issues of core identity, (in)coherent life themes and narrative representation in students’ professional practice by getting them to read fiction.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the key findings, themes and concepts in coaching from the inception of the International Journal of Mentoring and Coaching in Education in early 2012 to the end of 2018. The review examines how coaching is theorized and practised in an educational context, and how coaching has evolved across educational disciplines.

The study is based on an analysis of research trends published in the International Journal of Mentoring and Coaching in Education from Volume 1 Issue 1 (2012) to Volume 7 Issue 4 (2018). The criterion according to which the articles were selected for inclusion in the literature review is whether the word “coaching” is used in the title, abstract or keywords.

Across a wide range of geographical and institutional contexts, the studies surveyed in this literature review point to the different ways in which coaching interventions support success in teaching and leadership. This review identifies three principal themes across the literature on coaching: confidence, trust and identity.

The literature review is confined to studies published in a single publication and is therefore not representative of the entire field of coaching research.

The focus of this review is coaching in education. The review comprises a survey of research concepts, innovation and creativity in the area of coaching and education. It highlights advances in the field of coaching and education and points to areas of development for future research.

By bringing together existing research in a number of areas across the field of coaching, this literature review provides a coherent overview of a rapidly evolving and diverse field.

Leadership coaching is an increasingly popular development tool for school principals. However, specific coaching behaviors are rarely conceptualized or examined in prior research. This study presents a coaching behavior framework and then analyzes actual coaching conversations between principals and coaches to illustrate how specific coaching behaviors create opportunities for principals to reflect and think critically about their leadership.

Building on theories of interpersonal learning, the authors develop a framework of coaching behaviors to distinguish coaching inquiries and assertions that facilitate critique and reflection and, therefore, activate opportunities for learning. The authors use this framework to code transcripts of 55 principal coaching sessions. The authors analyze the prevalence of certain coaching behaviors and then examine qualitative patterns in how the use of certain behaviors shapes the nature of coaching conversations.

Only about one-third of coded coaching behaviors in the analytic sample are categorized as coaching inquiries and assertions that activate opportunities for learning. In the qualitative comparisons of extracts from coaching conversations, the authors find coaches' use of these behaviors produced richer, more meaningful dialogue.

Unlike much of the past research on leadership coaching, this analysis examines what happens in conversations between coaches and principals. This framework could be applied to a broad range of coaching programs intended to promote professional learning.

Facing intense global competition and pressure from public authorities, several universities in Europe have engaged in merger and concentration processes. Drawing on two in-depth case studies, this paper considers university mergers as an opportunity to explore the processes involved in the creation of a new organizational structure. In line with recent scholarly calls to revisit the notion of organizational design, we combine insights from three different research streams to address the functional, political, and institutional dynamics that shaped the organizational architecture of the merged universities. Two main results are presented and discussed. First, although these mergers were initiated largely in response to the diffusion of new global institutional scripts, these scripts had little influence on organizational design: deeply institutionalized local scripts prevailed over global mimetic pressures. Second, while these institutional scripts provided many of the basic building blocks of the new universities, in both cases their design was also heavily shaped by time pressures and power games. While a few powerful actors used the merger as an opportunity to promote their own reform agenda, some of the key features of the two merged universities stemmed from choices by exclusion, whose primary aim was the avoidance of conflicts.

Drawing on Dewey’s accounts of learning the Alexander Technique (AT), this chapter explores why he found the process so powerful. As AT teachers, we explain how the technique enables practitioners to become aware of fixed, unconscious habits and to bring them under conscious control. With a new student, work begins with physical habits. However, because physical, cognitive, emotional and social functionings are interdependent, AT lessons typically enable flexibility in each of these spheres. Dewey’s writings show his strong theoretical commitment to the idea of learning as practical and experiential. His AT lessons were truly revelatory in providing him with both direct, embodied experience of the power of habit to drive human behaviour and a practical means of becoming aware of, and resisting, his own habits of thought and action.

Perceptions are shaped by habit in such a way that the senses can be unreliable in working out how to respond in a given situation. Dewey’s practice of the AT revealed to him the dissonance between his habitual self in activity and his conscious view of himself. Dewey was challenged by his AT lessons, which required an open, enquiring attitude and sense of humility. In the AT, Dewey found a means of pursuing an active, critical, self-directed process of discovery and adaptation akin to childhood learning. AT begins with the self, our ‘tool of tools’. Through fundamentally modifying the self, the AT supports the openness and flexible response to the physical and social world that characterize productive experiential learning.