Search results

This paper features a narrative case study of a leadership team engaged in an effort to transform both culture and instructional practice at an urban charter school. The paper describes the team's effort to align their decision-making with two frameworks selected to anchor the school's institutional change process: restorative justice and deeper learning. Interweaving rich case data with analysis, the paper explores the dilemmas that emerged as leaders struggled to “walk the talk” of these two frameworks, using this to theorize about the synergies between them and to explore the broader leadership challenges involved in transforming schools from authoritarian to humanizing institutions.

The researcher employed an ethnographic approach with the goal of generating a thickly-textured single case study. Data-gathering activities included more than 400 h of participant-observation, in-depth interviewing and artifact collection, conducted over the course of a ten-month academic year. Data analysis was iterative and included frequent member checks with participants.

The paper finds that restorative justice and deeper learning have powerful epistemological connections that school leaders can harness in order to ensure a coherent approach to change processes. The paper also illuminates several of the core dilemmas that school leaders should anticipate facing when embracing these two frameworks: the dilemma of responding to feedback, the dilemma of power-sharing and the dilemma of balancing expectations with support.

The case study approach employed in this paper allows for rich understandings of specific phenomena while also providing a platform for exploring the general qualities that these phenomena might illustrate. This approach does not allow for statistical generalizability.

The paper suggests that it is imperative for school leaders to explore what it means to lead in ways that are coherent with their vision for change, e.g. to cultivate symmetry. Moreover, the paper demonstrates that the value of such explorations lies in the process of grappling with the tensions that arise when humanizing frameworks are implemented within systems that uphold traditional power hierarchies. Additionally, the paper affirms the value of de-siloing the transformation of school culture from the transformation of instructional practice.

This paper offers an unusually textured account of the messy and uncertain processes that constitute the work of school change. This paper also draws together two educational paradigms which are rarely brought into conversation with each other despite their epistemological synergy.

Socially disadvantaged parents often concentrate on providing for their children instead of stimulating them to learn because of their own low self‐efficacy as learning agents. This study describes the development and pilot evaluation of a programme designed to empower new immigrant parents in Hong Kong to assume active, systematic and confident roles to teach their pre‐school children learning skills. A needs assessment was conducted to guide the development of the programme, which was also informed by research evidence and community engagement. A pilot trial was conducted and qualitative data were obtained from the participating parents. Parents reported improvements in their children's motivation to learn and the parent‐child relationship. The research provided information on programme design, delivery and implementation strategies. It suggested important entry points to engage and empower parents to provide timely stimulation to their young children.

There is a tension between the literatures on incomplete contracting and transactions cost economics regarding the importance of ex post governance and the extent to which formal theories of incomplete contracting capture salient aspects of exchange relations. In this paper, we empirically examine how firms structure joint R&D agreements to illuminate how contracts can be incomplete and how governance can matter. We employ a dataset of 96 contracts to construct a taxonomy of the types of mechanisms firms use in organizing collaborative R&D, and indicate how groups of mechanisms line up with various types of contracting hazards. The results suggest that the allocation of property rights over innovations at the time of contracting between R&D partners is an important aspect of contract design. But they also suggest that weak property rights admit scope for other dimensions of contract. In particular, the research indicates that while knowledge spillovers may give rise to appropriability hazards, efforts to contain or channel knowledge spillovers may enable joint venture members to strategically block other members’ follow-on commercialization or research. Firms design joint R&D governance mechanisms to balance spillover hazards and strategic blocking.

Although issues of intellectual property rights would seem to be ones of interest only to obscure groups of academics and lawyers, they have become topics of everyday discussion among the regular population. Alleged copyright infringements by teenagers downloading music from the internet and accompanying threats of prosecution as well as charges of strategic patenting to harm competitors in recent high profile antitrust cases have placed intellectual property into public and political debate.

This paper describes the services offered in an information commons that primarily serves undergraduate students at a large research university. This paper provides background information on the implementation of a learning or information commons and describes the effect of the commons environment on reference services and environment and highlights the importance of a strong relationship between libraries and information technology providers in developing successful public services in an information commons.

This article describes the transformation of an Undergraduate Library into the Information Commons and describes the implications for library services in a public services partnership.

The information commons environment is one part of a library system that is evolving in response to and in anticipation of user needs.

This paper documents a successful partnership in creating an information commons that primarily serves undergraduate students at a large research university.

The partnering approach in developing an information commons can result in a cohesive suite of services that support students. The implications for reference services provide insight for other libraries that are planning information or learning commons.

University libraries are creating new opportunities by establishing a variety of partnerships, extending the library’s services and programs through alliances, relationships, and ventures. Libraries must work closely, creatively, and consistently with campus constituencies to achieve their goals and objectives successfully, and to remain a key campus resource. Partnerships with campus bookstores, architects, fund‐raisers, and others results in such endeavours as cultural performances in the library, campus author celebrations, cyber cafés, and collaborations with parents groups, athletics, musicians, artists, and writers. Partnerships improve the learning environment, enrich the cultural life of the campus, stimulate intellectual discourse, and help the library to stay visible as an indispensable component of the campus community.

This study aims to examine how innovation can be accelerated within the New Zealand (NZ) building industry to improve the productivity and efficiency of the industry.

The study adopted a mixed philosophical approach combining interpretivism and post-positivism. Data for the study were obtained through a focus group of 50 practitioners that were selected using a stratified sampling procedure. All focus group data were audio-recorded, notes of the discussions were taken and then transcribed, de-identified and managed using NVivo software. Data analysis was undertaken using thematic analysis and inductive reasoning consistent with interpretative phenomenological analysis.

The study findings revealed that the industry could benefit from the adoption of new and emerging technologies to improve its performance, especially its productivity and efficiency. Key drivers for the adoption of innovative practices included the adaptation of “local best practices” from case studies that would consist of stories of successful innovations that could foster confidence in future innovation. It was also identified that Government and industry should nurture innovation through collaborative contracts, policies and regulations. Further, it was highlighted that a culture of innovation needed to be developed to help nurture competencies and capability within the industry workforce.

This study provides an in-depth examination of the need for innovation from the point of view of building industry practitioners. This study provides a useful starting-off point for further research and for the creation of policies that could help to support and accelerate innovation within the NZ building industry.

NZ’s building industry productivity and efficiency have been sub-optimal relative to other industries. But using evidence from the experiences and knowledge of industry practitioners, strategies can be developed to accelerate innovation within the NZ building industry that could help reverse industry performance. Further, the research findings can help inform government policies to develop support mechanisms that could encourage innovation in the industry in NZ. In addition, it is anticipated that the findings will provide a useful set of guidance for other countries that have similar market and physical constraints as those encountered by NZ.

There is a dearth of empirical studies on innovation in the NZ building industry which the current study contributes to. By sharing industry practitioners’ experiences and knowledge of innovation, the paper seeks to counteract more technocratic and technological optimist accounts of innovation within the building industry. Further, the paper provides insights into how the NZ building industry can transform its performance through innovation.

Strengthening management capacity within the health care sector could have a significant impact on population health. However, many training programs in this area are still delivered using a classic lecture-based approach. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate and better understand the feasibility of using a problem-based learning (PBL) approach in health services management training programs.

A PBL teaching approach (based on the Maastricht University model) was tested with second-year postgraduate students from the Master in Public Health Management program at the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences. Students’ opinions about PBL were investigated using a questionnaire with eight open-ended questions. Thematic content analysis was chosen to reflect the search for patterns across the data.

Respondents stated that the main advantage of PBL was that it was a more interesting and effective way of learning: “It is easier to remember, when you study by yourself and discuss with all peers”. In addition, it was mentioned that PBL initiated a rapid exchange of ideas and sharing of personal experience. Students stressed that PBL was a good tool for developing other skills as well, such as “public speaking, communication, logic thinking”. All students recommended delivering all other courses in the health services management program using PBL methodologies.

Findings from our study suggest that PBL may be an effective approach to teaching health services management. Potential problems in implementation are noted.

There has been a lack of research, particularly within the New Zealand (NZ) context, focusing on the identification and assessment of risk factors for construction projects, leading to a wide variation between design-phase elemental cost plans (ECPs) and the outturn tender sums (OTS). Still to be investigated is how risks interact to produce such variability. This study aims to determine the risk-influencing factors, identified through risk measurement, during design development.

This study adopted literature review and online questionnaire survey. The literature review was used to identify the factors affecting project budgetary performance, which was used to design the questionnaire survey culminating in data analysis. The questionnaire was administered to 64 practising project managers (PMs) in NZ. Their responses were analysed using descriptive statistics, mean ranking analysis, degree-of-risk measure and correlational analysis, to find the top-five risk factors impacting the variability observed, through ranking the mean and degree of risk values that produce such variability.

Significant risk factors were identified from the questionnaire survey analysis, such as changes in project owner/stakeholder requirements, experience of project team, site condition information, competency of consultants and information flow and quality. These provided some insights in explaining the variability between the design-phase ECPs and OTS based on risk impacts from PMs’ viewpoints.

Findings revealed a drift of 23.86% in budgeted costs (inflated risks), which seems significant. Prioritising top risk factors may provide handy information for researchers on the variables that could be relied upon for the development of a forecasting model for application in NZ.

The study findings have implications for PMs seeking to provide information on mitigation strategies by using risk management approach, considering the influence of development risks on building project delivery and, consequently the project owner’s financial position. To guard against wide variation between design-phase ECPs and OTS, the main contribution of this study is to raise consultants’ awareness of the important risk factors for their planning at the outset, thus assisting PMs in pro-actively managing their clients' budgets.

This study creates value by synthesising literature on construction project budgeting and highlighting areas for further research. By giving adequate attention to key risks associated with budget overruns in commercial projects, variability between ECPs and OTS, a common phenomenon in NZ, can be controlled to achieve cost savings. Based on this, further study suggests the development of a model that could assist the stakeholders in NZ to more reliably predict OTS from the design-phase ECP and pro-actively avoid unfortunate budget/cost overruns, disputes and even project abandonment.