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The purpose of this paper is to describe the authors’ experience operationalizing the care delivery value chain (CDVC) as a management and continuous quality improvement (QI) approach to strengthen HIV/AIDS services provided in Northern Togo through addressing gaps across a care continuum.

The authors led a series of discussions to develop a CDVC specific to existing HIV/AIDS services in Northern Togo. Using the CDVC framework, 28 specific gaps in service delivery were identified and integrated into a strategic QI plan.

At 12 months, 92 percent of delivery gaps had demonstrated improvement. The CDVC framework proved to be valuable in the following ways. First, it facilitated the first comprehensive mapping of HIV/AIDS services in the Kara region of Togo. Second, it enabled the identification of gaps or insufficiencies in the currently available services across the full continuum of care. Third, it catalyzed the creation of a strategic QI plan based on identified gaps.

This case description is the authors’ experience in one setting and should not be considered comparative in nature. Furthermore, the approach described may not be applicable to all initiatives and/or organizations. As described, the lack of sophisticated and comprehensive data collection systems limited the authors’ ability to collect reliable data on some of the QI initiatives planned.

The operationalization of the CDVC framework is an effective approach to drive continuous QI.

Through the operationalization of the CDVC, the authors developed a new approach for assessing existing services, identifying gaps in service delivery and directing continuous QI initiatives in a strategic manner.

Much of the scholarship relating to educator learning in the context of school change centers on promising organizational structures that support educator knowledge-building and sharing. However, recent studies have found that educators' social networks also enhance learning of new practices. This study aims to explore how informal interactions support organizational learning in schools.

Applying structuration theory to concepts of organizational learning mechanisms, this paper proposes a framework for examining informal interactions and organizational learning. Employing an exploratory sequential mixed-methods design, this paper utilizes social network analysis of survey data and thematic analysis of interview data of a purposive sample of participants in a rural school district.

Within this rural district, organizational and social conditions supported recursive interactions where educators developed and shared knowledge of new instructional practices. Organizational resources and routines, and individuals' habits of mind mediated these recursive interactions, resulting in somewhat dependable knowledge-sharing spaces. Through these recursive interactions between individual agents acting within the opportunities and constraints of the normalized organizational expectations of each school, informal knowledge structures emerged.

This article applies structuration theory to examine organizational learning mechanisms in schools. This novel approach provides researchers with a new perspective on the organizational learning process—one that facilitates the exploration of the role of informal knowledge-building in this process.

Adopting a multidimensional view is a characteristic of systems thinking in school leadership, which involves recognizing that each component of the school system necessarily has more than one cause, result or solution. This study explores how case-based learning has contributed to the development of adopting a multidimensional view in educational leadership students.

The present study was qualitative in nature. Study participants were 32 graduate students from an Israeli college of education who participated in case-based learning held in a 14-session course. The data collected for this study included journal entries written by these students after each session. Overall, 318 journal entries were analyzed through a four-step process: sorting, coding, categorizing and theorizing.

Data analysis indicated three aspects of adopting a multidimensional view developed through case-based learning: acquiring a principal's perspective, recognizing other schools' perspectives and exposure to other individuals' perspectives.

This study joins other recent efforts to find ways to develop influential educational leaders, suggesting that case-based learning contributes to the development of adopting a multidimensional view in educational leadership students.

Turning an education reform program into school reality greatly depends on the principal. In certain cases, principals choose to implement reform instructions only partially. The purpose of this paper is to explore school principals’ considerations leading to their decisions not to fulfill a national reform’s guidelines in a full and complete way.

This qualitative study is based on interviews with 59 school principals. Generating themes was an inductive process, grounded in the various perspectives articulated by principals.

Data analysis yielded three major considerations: adjusting to school reality; caring for teachers; and using discretion.

Longitudinal studies in order to explore how principals’ considerations and mediation strategies evolve and unfold throughout the reform implementation would be useful. The authors suggest complementing principals’ verbally expressed perceptions with more objective measures such as direct observations (recorded on video and then reflected upon), to evaluate their considerations and mediating strategies.

Providing prospective and in-service principals with leadership education programs in order to develop an upgraded understanding of their role as mediating agents between the inner and outer spheres of school-life.

As principals serve as mid-level policymakers who leave their “fingerprints” on policies received from the authorities, exploring these considerations may contribute to both the scholarship and the practice of the leadership role in times of education reforms.

Existing conceptualizations of organizational learning focus on processes and structures while also acknowledging a social element, usually framed as bringing people together through formal structures. While much scholarship notes that school culture mediates organizational learning, culture is often relegated to the realm of context. Affective and relational components of organizational learning remain undertheorized. The authors argue that attending more closely to the relational component of organizational learning will offer new insights into the enactment of organizational learning in schools.

The study briefly discusses schools of thought regarding organizational learning. It also summarizes extant conceptualizations of school climate and culture, laying these alongside the sense of community (SOC) framework (McMillan and Chavis, 1986). Utilizing prior research, it illustrates the value of bringing this framework into conversation with theories of organizational learning in schools to enrich understandings of the conditions under which organizational learning occurs.

The authors suggest a conceptualization of relationality in organizational learning rooted in SOC, a conceptualization that is both broader than merely transactional interactions and more precise than that offered by extant notions of school culture and climate.

The relational perspective captured by SOC offers researchers new avenues to more fulsomely explore the ways that trust, belonging, caring and shared values facilitate organizational learning. A more thorough understanding of the role of relationality in organizational learning may provide answers to salient questions, including why some teachers go above and beyond to seek out opportunities and why some changes stay bounded within departments and substructures.

Ambidexterity increases an organisation’s capability to successfully navigate dynamic and uncertain environments. While leaders are expected to model flexible learning and practices throughout the organisation, little is known about the leader characteristics and contextual factors that underpin ambidexterity. This study aims to explore whether paradoxical thinking, integrator behaviours and managerial role and level influence the likelihood of leaders exhibiting ambidexterity.

This study relied on a self-report questionnaire completed by 152 managers of a large, public health-care organisation in New Zealand. A k-means cluster analysis of the data was conducted to identify leader ambidexterity clusters, and the hypothesised effects were tested with multinomial logistic regressions.

Health-care managers favoured exploitation and moderate ambidexterity. Higher levels of integrator behaviours (i.e. reflective learning and context responsiveness) were found among leaders who showed high ambidexterity. Context responsiveness was the sole significant predictor distinguishing between high ambidexterity and other ambidexterity profiles. No statistically significant differences in ambidexterity cluster membership were found between clinical and non-clinical roles and across managerial levels.

While our study relied on a cross-sectional self-reported design, the findings underscore the importance of learning behaviours and context responsiveness to ambidexterity. This study discusses avenues for future research and leadership development towards improved organisational learning systems and practices.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first to test the contribution of paradoxical thinking and integrator behaviours to health-care leader ambidexterity and to examine differences in ambidexterity profiles across managerial levels and roles. The factor analysis suggests that integrator behaviours represent two distinct constructs: reflective le`arning and context responsiveness.

Machiavelli's dictums in The Prince (1977) instigated the modern discourse on power. Arguing that “there's such a difference between the way we really live and the way we ought to live that the man who neglects the real to study the ideal will learn to accomplish his ruin, not his salvation” (Machiavelli, 1977, p. 44), his approach is a realist one. In this text, Machiavelli (1977, p. 3) endeavors to “discuss the rule of princes” and to “lay down principles for them.” Taking his lead, Foucault (1978, p. 97) argued that “if it is true that Machiavelli was among the few…who conceived the power of the Prince in terms of force relationships, perhaps we need to go one step further, do without the persona of the Prince, and decipher mechanisms on the basis of a strategy that is immanent in force relationships.” He believed that we should “investigate…how mechanisms of power have been able to function…how these mechanisms…have begun to become economically advantageous and politically useful…in a given context for specific reasons,” and, therefore, “we should…base our analysis of power on the study of the techniques and tactics of domination” (Foucault, 1980, pp. 100–102). Conceptualizing such techniques and tactics as the “art of governance”, Foucault (1991), examined power as strategies geared toward managing civic populations through shaping people's dispositions and behaviors.

The involvement of parents in schools and their contribution towards their children’s academic learning have been a focal point in educational research. The purpose of this paper is to identify the factors that influence parental involvement in secondary schools and subsequently proposed a comprehensive parental involvement model.

Research articles, reports and dissertations on the factors that influence parental involvement were reviewed to obtain related empirical evidence for the development of a workable model.

A conceptual framework was proposed to understand the factors that influence parental involvement. The role of creativity in principals’ leadership practices and parental involvement in secondary schools were found to be related. Additionally, this relationship was found to be mediated by school practices and school climate.

A framework on the factors that influence parental involvement guided by literature review and three main hypotheses for testing were proposed, which require further empirical assessment.

The school–parent partnership shares a common understanding of the educational needs and social development of the children. The school administrators, school community, stakeholders and related policymakers can effectively leverage the findings of this study in the effort to enhance parental involvement within the school context.

Only a handful of research-based studies probed into the factors that influence parental involvement in secondary schools within the Malaysian context. This study identified several significant factors that enhance parental involvement in secondary schools.