Sharon Conley, Jewell Gould and Harriet Levine
Despite the critical role of support personnel in education, the literature about their supervision has been less than informative. In an effort to provide additional guidance to…
Abstract
Purpose
Despite the critical role of support personnel in education, the literature about their supervision has been less than informative. In an effort to provide additional guidance to school leaders seeking to improve the supervision of such personnel, the purpose of this paper is to examine and compare three distinct groups of support personnel: school custodians/janitors, school secretaries, and paraprofessionals in special education.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper begins with two analyses. One is that of the general importance of the role of support personnel in public schools in the USA. The other consists of a brief argument as to why the literature about the supervision of support personnel has not been overly informative. The paper proceeds with descriptions of three distinct support personnel groups.
Findings
The examination of three support personnel groups highlights the visibility of the school custodian/janitor, the multi‐dimensional responsibilities of the school secretary, and the background of the paraprofessional in special education.
Research limitations/implications
A comparison of three distinct groups of support personnel has implications for their training, compensation and scheduling, and work design and supervision.
Originality/value
The paper content offers an information‐rich and multi‐faceted view of support personnel in schools, with implications for their overall supervision and the importance of their contribution to the organization.
Details
Keywords
WE have to announce with deep regret the death of Mr. I. Chalkley Gould, founder and director of the Library World since its establishment in 1898. Mr. Gould was a member of an…
Abstract
WE have to announce with deep regret the death of Mr. I. Chalkley Gould, founder and director of the Library World since its establishment in 1898. Mr. Gould was a member of an old Essex family associated with Loughton and its neighbourhood, and was born in 1844, his father being the late George Gould, of Traps Hill House, Loughton. His connection with the firm of Marlborough, Gould & Co. and other stationery and printing concerns led him many years ago to give some attention to library and museum work, towards which he had always been attracted because of his personal interest in archaeology and literature. In this way he became associated with many museums, libraries and antiquarian societies, and identified himself more particularly with the movement for the preservation of ancient British earthworks. He was a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, vice‐president of the Essex Archaeological Society, the Essex Field Club, and the British Archaeological Association. Within recent years he acted as hon. secretary of the Committee for Recording Ancient Earthworks and Fortified Enclosures—a committee for the formation of which he was largely responsible and in the work of which he took a very deep interest. He was chairman of the Committee for the Exploration of the Red Hills of Essex—an important undertaking which is not yet completed. He also contributed several valuable papers to the Victoria History of Essex, and assisted the editor of that publication in revising the earthworks sections of other counties.
In the competitive environment of the 1980s, business and technological innovation must be more closely linked than ever before. The author examines the reasons why and explores…
Abstract
In the competitive environment of the 1980s, business and technological innovation must be more closely linked than ever before. The author examines the reasons why and explores some ways to ensure closer coordination.
Peter Gilbert and Michael Clark
English governance has repeatedly had a tendency to veer between national, regional and local centres of power and influence. This has often led to profound disagreements…
Abstract
English governance has repeatedly had a tendency to veer between national, regional and local centres of power and influence. This has often led to profound disagreements, sometimes even open conflict. National policy guidance is usually helpful, if developed through consultation, to steer a clear, coherent direction for the system. But a narrow, excessively top‐down, mechanistic target‐driven approach can lead to a prevailing culture of ticking boxes at the expense of real patient priorities. Government ministers and civil servants, however, are often caught in a tension between being too dogmatic, or alternatively too flexible and giving responsibility to local agencies, whereupon people may complain about a ‘postcode lottery’ in services. Balancing perspectives and narratives in a coherent way for policy development and implementation and service improvement is a major challenge of leadership. The creation of the National Institute for Mental Health in England (NIMHE) was designed to bring together the local, regional and the national in a form that would see policy and practice mutually developed and nurtured at all levels of governance.
Details
Keywords
Jaruwan Daengbuppha, Nigel Hemmington and Keith Wilkes
The purpose of this paper is to present grounded theory as an alternative approach for conceptualizing and modelling the consumer experience. The basic theoretical tenets of the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present grounded theory as an alternative approach for conceptualizing and modelling the consumer experience. The basic theoretical tenets of the grounded theory approach are contrasted with more traditional assumptions and methods used in consumer research.
Design/methodology/approach
The approach is based on qualitative methods and a series of systematic ethnographic procedures, which along with the simultaneous processes of data collection and analysis, lead to the development of an inductive derived grounded theory of the visitor experience. In order to develop a model of the interactive experience of visitors to heritage sites, case studies are conducted at three World Heritage Sites in Thailand.
Findings
The findings indicate that the grounded theory approach has the potential to reveal a rich and deep understanding of visitor experiences, including the ways that visitors interact with the site, their interpretation of the site, and the meaning of the site for them.
Practical implications
It is suggested that the grounded theory approach can be a valuable tool in exploring the insights and meanings of visitors' experience and could be applied to future research in consumer behaviour. There are practical implications of this kind of research for the management of heritage sites in terms of visitor expectations, interactions and interpretations.
Originality/value
This study has developed a model of the experience and interaction of visitors to Thai World Heritage Sites which could be applied to other heritage sites. It illustrates the theoretical and practical issues of grounded theory approach to exploration and inductive development “interactive experience” of visitors at heritage sites. This is a qualitative research approach that could be adopted for a range of experience based industries such tourism, leisure and hospitality.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this paper is to re‐examine a celebrity CEO account using a variety of literary forms to uncover discourses of colonisation. Focuses on the probanza de mérito and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to re‐examine a celebrity CEO account using a variety of literary forms to uncover discourses of colonisation. Focuses on the probanza de mérito and the wonder tale or traveller's tale. Ideas of Non‐Place (Augé) and spatial practices (Lefebvre) conclude the analysis.
Design/methodology/approach
A close reading of the account of the building of the Starbucks retail empire, given in the CEO account: Pour Your Heart into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time against the text, gives insights into the strategy and internal logic of the company founder which might otherwise be missed.
Findings
The account reveals the nature of the published account of the growth of the company as analogous to many of the accounts of the colonisation of the new world. The analysis of spatial practices at the company is used to explain some of the most successful resistance to its expansion.
Originality/value
Uses a wide range of theory to unpack celebrity success narrative and reveal counter‐narrative of practice.
Details
Keywords
MANY indications of the growing importance of work study as an aid to increased productivity will be in evidence at the Third Annual Production Exhibition and Convention (Olympia…
Abstract
MANY indications of the growing importance of work study as an aid to increased productivity will be in evidence at the Third Annual Production Exhibition and Convention (Olympia, May 12–21) where many of the improved methods displayed by upwards of a hundred firms and organisations are the direct or indirect results of the application of work study techniques.
In the final quarter of the twentieth century, organizational management had been rocked by a theory more powerful than anything since the days of Taylor's theory of scientific…
Abstract
In the final quarter of the twentieth century, organizational management had been rocked by a theory more powerful than anything since the days of Taylor's theory of scientific management. The new theory was called Total Quality Management (TQM). TQM has largely been eclipsed by other management fads since such as Sigma 6 but none had such an explosive effect on business, schools, and government agencies as TQM (Juran, 1995). The gurus of TQM included J. M. Juran (2003), P. B. Crosby (1995), and even the sage of organizational theory, Peter Drucker (2008). No one, however, stood as tall among this class of gurus as did the notable W. E. Deming (1982). TQM has often been criticized over the years for failing in practice. Deming and his followers retort that it is because organizations seldom incorporated the entire 13 point program. The part so often left out were points that implicitly reflected moral commitments Deming thought organizations ought to have. What Deming relegated to matters of team spirit and other psychological commitments are accommodated in the most scientific sense by recent developments in biology and economics showing that there is an instinct driving evolution among herd animals such as humans to cooperate. This focus on instinct is captured in the most practical sense for organizational analysis in the present author's work on moral architecture. The concept of moral architecture will be sketched as a means for understanding and strengthening, schools, law enforcement agencies and prisons, and other correctional facilities.