Grit Laudel, Martin Benninghoff, Eric Lettkemann and Elias Håkansson
Evolutionary developmental biology is a highly variable scientific innovation because researchers can adapt their involvement in the innovation to the opportunities provided by…
Abstract
Evolutionary developmental biology is a highly variable scientific innovation because researchers can adapt their involvement in the innovation to the opportunities provided by their environment. On the basis of comparative case studies in four countries, we link epistemic properties of research tasks to three types of necessary protected space, and identify the necessary and facilitating conditions for building them. We found that the variability of research tasks made contributing to evolutionary developmental biology possible under most sets of authority relations. However, even the least demanding research depends on its acceptance as legitimate innovation by the scientific community and of purely basic research by state policy and research organisations. The latter condition is shown to become precarious.
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G. Devos, D. Bouckenooghe, N. Engels, G. Hotton and A. Aelterman
The goal of this inquiry is to indicate which individual, organisational and external environment factors contribute to a better understanding of the well‐being of Flemish primary…
Abstract
Purpose
The goal of this inquiry is to indicate which individual, organisational and external environment factors contribute to a better understanding of the well‐being of Flemish primary school principals.
Design/methodology/approach
Data from a representative sample of primary schools in Flanders (n = 46) were gathered through questionnaires (principals and teachers) and semi‐structured interviews (principals).
Findings
The quantitative and qualitative outcomes suggest that well‐being is a complex psychological phenomenon affected by a myriad of factors. The analyses indicate that general self‐efficacy and achievement orientedness are significantly correlated with several aspects of positive (i.e. job satisfaction and job enthusiasm) and negative well‐being (i.e. cynicism and personal accomplishment). With respect to school culture and structural characteristics, very weak almost negligible effects are noted. In addition, the analysis demonstrates the significant role school boards fulfill in explaining both positive and negative well‐being. Finally, the role of central government in generally is found to affect well‐being in a negative way.
Practical implications
The findings of this paper provide important information for policy makers concerned with the improvement of the well‐being of primary school principals.
Originality/value
Although prior research investigated the influence of different antecedents on well‐being, several limitations in method and conceptual framework yielded information of which the usefulness must be considered tentative. In this inquiry an attempt is made to overcome these limitations and contribute to the literature in a double way: this study adopts a concurrent mixed method approach of data collection; and well‐being is examined from a positive psychology (job enthusiasm and job satisfaction) and negative psychology approach (burnout), whereas prior research almost exclusively looked at the negative pole of well‐being.
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Dong Nguyen, Alma Harris and David Ng
The purpose of this paper is to outline key findings from a contemporary review of the international empirical literature focused upon teacher leadership. It synthesises what is…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to outline key findings from a contemporary review of the international empirical literature focused upon teacher leadership. It synthesises what is currently known about the nature, practice, conditions and impact of teacher leadership and to outline patterns in the contemporary empirical research base.
Design/methodology/approach
This review is based on an analysis of 150 empirical articles published in Scopus/SSCI-indexed journals between January 2003 and December 2017.
Findings
The paper draws upon this contemporary knowledge base to explore: contextual and methodological patterns of teacher leadership research; definitions of teacher leadership; and evidence on the enactment of teacher leadership, factors influencing teacher leadership and impacts of teacher leadership.
Originality/value
This paper highlights the progress and issues of the empirical research on teacher leadership since 2003 and identifies gaps in the knowledge base as well as areas for future scholarly enquiry.
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Michael K. Hui, Michel Laroche and Chankon Kim
Examines consumption as a function of two ethnicity indicators. Ethnic origin, a reflective indicator, is not subject to the volition of a person and is hardly changed by…
Abstract
Examines consumption as a function of two ethnicity indicators. Ethnic origin, a reflective indicator, is not subject to the volition of a person and is hardly changed by continuous contact with the mainstream group. On the other hand, media usage is partly determined by the extent and duration of one’s contacts with the mainstream group, and is therefore considered as a formative indicator. Using a sample of French‐ and English‐Canadians drawn from the Toronto area, this study provides preliminary evidence showing that ethnic origin, media usage, and other ethnicity indicators vary in terms of the extent to which they are amenable to acculturative pressure. A new typology of consumption is also introduced based on the distinction between ethnic origin as a reflective indicator and media usage as a formative indicator.
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David Ng, Dong Thanh Nguyen, Benjamin Koon Siak Wong and William Kim Weng Choy
The purpose of this paper is to present a review of empirical studies on principal leadership in Singapore. It seeks to provide a general picture of Singapore principals’…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present a review of empirical studies on principal leadership in Singapore. It seeks to provide a general picture of Singapore principals’ leadership qualities, styles, and roles.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a systematic review of empirical studies, using a “bounded” approach with a focus on the main findings of the reviewed studies. In all, 36 studies were selected for the interview. The findings of these studies were open coded, synthesized, and clustered into different themes.
Findings
The review revealed several qualities, characteristics, styles, and enacted roles of Singapore principals. While there are similarities between Singapore principals and principals elsewhere in the world, the review brought out some features unique to Singapore principals.
Originality/value
This review contributes to the growing literature in comparative research on principals’ leadership and their enacted roles, and concurrently functions as a guide for further research on school leadership in Singapore.
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Meng Tian and Stephan Gerhard Huber
The purpose of this paper is to examine the development of educational leadership, administration and management (EdLAM) research by identifying thematic strands that hallmark key…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the development of educational leadership, administration and management (EdLAM) research by identifying thematic strands that hallmark key publications and synthesise major research findings and limitations.
Design/methodology/approach
This study combines bibliometric and content analysis methods to review 2,347 publications from 15 core EdLAM journals published from 2007 to 2016.
Findings
The bibliometric analysis identified five EdLAM thematic strands: school leadership for enhancing students’ academic achievement and teachers’ effectiveness; leadership for educational change, accountability and promoting democratic values; leadership for social justice, equal education and narrowing achievement gaps; principal’s instructional leadership for school improvement; and distributed leadership and its impact on organisational climate and teachers’ attitudes and stress. The content analysis revealed that the EdLAM research from 2007 to 2016 further developed the following research areas: the dynamics between leaders and teachers in leadership work, the potential risks of distributed leadership and the EdLAM challenges brought by the New Public Management and neoliberalism.
Originality/value
This study depicts state-of-the-art EdLAM research. It confirms the combination of bibliometric and content analyses as a useful approach for large-scale review studies. Finally, this review suggests future research directions.
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Marianne Gravesteijn and Celeste P.M. Wilderom
The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how a newly constructed organization behavioral lens for participative action research (PAR) may aid a public-sector organization in…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how a newly constructed organization behavioral lens for participative action research (PAR) may aid a public-sector organization in successfully digitalizing its internal shared services. In addition, the intervention is aimed at fostering a continuously improving type of learning culture on the workfloor of a new service unit.
Design/methodology/approach
In a large Dutch municipality, the installation of a new digitalized process of offering internal services was studied. A PAR method, the so-called Fourth Generation Evaluation, was used on seven internal actor groups. This method enables various intra-organizational actors to reflect collectively on the ongoing change progress. Their explicit views on the change were communicated to all actors and the change agents.
Findings
The study describes the attempt of establishing a continuously improving learning culture during an internal digitalization process: substantial participation of the non-managerial employees was enabled. The paper highlights the practical value of the internal digitalization approach used, and concludes with four change process lessons learnt for those wanting to initiate a continuously improving culture on the workfloor.
Research limitations/implications
Even though the findings are based on one case, they may be of interest to other public/private organizations aiming to establish a continuously improving culture within workfloor units that interact, on a daily basis, with (internal) customers.
Originality/value
The paper offers a theoretical framework and a matching practical approach to the process of creating an internal shared service unit that aims to evolve further into a customer-oriented, continuously improving culture.
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This article investigates the links between universities’ opportunities to shape their research profiles, the changing state interest concerning these profiles, and the impact of…
Abstract
This article investigates the links between universities’ opportunities to shape their research profiles, the changing state interest concerning these profiles, and the impact of profile building on research at university and field levels. While the authority of the Dutch state over research profiles of Dutch universities has increased, university management has considerable operational authority over the inclusion of new research fields and removal of existing research fields. Since all universities have begun to follow the same external signals prescribing applied research, research that has easy access to external funding, and research in fields prioritised by the state, a ‘quasi-market failure’ may emerge, as is demonstrated for evolutionary developmental biology and Bose-Einstein condensation.
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Aamer Shahzad, Mian Sajid Nazir, Flávio Morais and Affaf Asghar Butt
The role played by corporate governance mechanisms on corporate deleveraging policies has not been clarified. Empirical evidence is confined to developed economies, even with…
Abstract
Purpose
The role played by corporate governance mechanisms on corporate deleveraging policies has not been clarified. Empirical evidence is confined to developed economies, even with conflicting and inconclusive results. This paper aims to examine the role of corporate governance mechanisms, such as ownership structure, board composition and CEO dominance, in explaining corporate deleveraging policies.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a sample of listed Pakistani firms between 2010 and 2022, this study resorts to binary response models to examine the effects of governance mechanisms on firms’ decision to go debt-free.
Findings
A greater ownership concentration, institutional ownership and family ownership increase the propensity for zero leverage. Board gender diversity decreases the propensity for deleveraging policies, which seems to indicate that the presence of females reinforces the monitoring function of the board. Finally, lower managerial ownership or CEO dominance decreases the propensity toward zero leverage (interest convergence hypothesis), but higher managerial ownership or CEO dominance increases the propensity toward zero leverage (managerial entrenchment hypothesis).
Practical implications
Risk-averse managers who prefer to control a firm using little or no debt will find it easier to implement these financing policies in firms with greater ownership concentration and where institutional holders have a substantial stake. For shareholders, this study suggests that investing in firms with females on board reduces the risk of corporate deleveraging policies being adopted for entrenched reasons.
Social implications
The presence of females on board seems to decrease the propensity of managers to adopt opportunistic actions and may also contribute to enhancing human welfare and society in developing countries.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study considering the effect of board diversity on zero leverage. Another singularity is that this study exhibits a nonlinear relationship between managerial ownership and corporate deleveraging policy.
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Whilst professional learning communities (PLCs) have been widely explored at the school level, they have received less attention at the departmental level. The study takes the…
Abstract
Purpose
Whilst professional learning communities (PLCs) have been widely explored at the school level, they have received less attention at the departmental level. The study takes the variance between departments and the role of departmental teacher leaders into consideration, and the relationships amongst departmental-level PLC dimensions, two types of teacher leadership (TL) and individual teacher self-efficacy are investigated.
Design/methodology/approach
The sample consisted of 907 teachers from 81 departments in Chinese schools. The associations between the studied variables were explored through a multi-level analysis approach.
Findings
The results show that two specific characteristics of departmental PLCs, namely reflective dialogue (RD) and collective responsibility (CR), exhibit a positive correlation with individual teacher self-efficacy. Additionally, the findings indicate that teacher transformational leadership significantly predicts teacher self-efficacy, whereas teacher instructional leadership (IL) does not emerge as a significant predictor. These findings may be attributed to the contextual factors of Chinese teachers' collective work and the practice of teacher leaders.
Originality/value
This research contributes to the existing literature by addressing the variance between departments and uncovering the impacts of departmental PLC dimensions on individual teachers. Furthermore, two TL styles at the departmental level are differentiated, and their distinct influences on teacher self-efficacy are further analysed.