Stephen Anderson, Caroline Manion, Mary Drinkwater, Rupen Chande and Wesley Galt
The purpose of this paper is to review the findings from a study of teacher professional learning networks in Kenya. Specific areas of focus included network participation…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to review the findings from a study of teacher professional learning networks in Kenya. Specific areas of focus included network participation, network activities, network leadership, and professional impact on network members and their schools.
Design/methodology/approach
The research was grounded in the literature on education networks and teacher learning. The research employed a qualitative design and was implemented from September 2015–March 2017, including three two-week field trips to Kenya. Data included network records, 83 personal interviews, 4 focus group interviews, 19 observations of network meetings, and classroom observation of network and non-network teachers in 12 schools.
Findings
Network participation had positive effects on teachers’ sense of professionalism and commitment to teaching and on their attitudes toward ongoing professional learning and improvement in student learning. Teachers also highlighted network benefits for learning to use new teaching strategies and materials, responding to student misbehavior and misunderstanding, and lesson preparation.
Research limitations/implications
Research constraints did not permit longitudinal investigation of network activities and outcomes.
Practical implications
The paper identifies challenges and potential focuses for strengthening the learning potential of network activities, network leadership, and the links between network activity and school improvement.
Originality/value
Prior research has investigated education networks mostly in North American and similar high income settings. This paper highlights the benefits and challenges for networks as a strategy for continuous teacher development in a low income low resource capacity context.
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IT is with peculiar pleasure that I find myself once more engaged in University Extension work under the presidency of Lord Goschen. Until your well‐remembered tenure of the…
Abstract
IT is with peculiar pleasure that I find myself once more engaged in University Extension work under the presidency of Lord Goschen. Until your well‐remembered tenure of the Chancellorship of the Exchequer drew you from active service with us, my lord, you presided for many years over the London Society for the Extension of University Teaching, and therefore, over myself as a humble member of the Council. I trust you have as pleasant memories of us, as obedient and diligent workers, as we have of you as an energetic and enthusiastic chairman. Many changes have come since then. The London Society is a thing of the past, absorbed into my own University, which itself has changed almost beyond recognition. One of the members in your time is now a Bishop, another rules South Africa, you, yourself, no longer sway the House of Commons. If we still existed and had now to hold a sub‐committee in the chamber of our colleague Milner, we should have to travel many hundreds of miles instead of walking round to Duke Street, St. James's, as you will remember we did in those old days.
Esteban M. Lafuente and Yancy Vaillant
The purpose of this paper is to examine the differential impact of entrepreneurial role models over entrepreneurial activities at different stages of an individual's life cycle in…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the differential impact of entrepreneurial role models over entrepreneurial activities at different stages of an individual's life cycle in Romania.
Design/methodology/approach
To attain this objective, the paper adopts a socio‐institutional approach to entrepreneurship. The authors carry out a rare‐events logit model using a robust Romanian dataset from 2006 comprising 1,449 individuals.
Findings
The results indicate that the effect of entrepreneurial role models on entrepreneurial activities differs across age groups. The results indicate that for older individuals the positive effect of role models over entrepreneurship is diluted. In contrast, younger individuals, who have been mainly exposed to a market‐based economy, have a more positive societal valuation of entrepreneurial examples, which increases the positive effect that the knowledge of an entrepreneur has on their attitudes towards entrepreneurial activities.
Originality/value
The main contribution of the study lies in the identification of the specific effect that role models have over individuals' level of implication in entrepreneurial activities. This gives ammunition to the argument that, rather than uniform entrepreneurship support programmes, the effective implementation of policies aimed at fostering entrepreneurship should be designed according to the specific profile of the targeted group of beneficiaries. In this case, the implementation of role models as an effective entrepreneurial promotion tool should take into account the differential impact that entrepreneurial examples have over individuals' behaviour towards entrepreneurship.
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Ofrit Kol, Dorit Zimand-Sheiner and Shalom Levy
Buying directly from farmers online has become increasingly popular in recent years. This study aims to investigate the effect of the interaction between various consumption…
Abstract
Purpose
Buying directly from farmers online has become increasingly popular in recent years. This study aims to investigate the effect of the interaction between various consumption values that drive consumers to buy directly from farmers online. The proposed conceptual framework suggests that consumers who buy online directly from farmers are driven by an interaction of weighted individualistic consumption value (i.e. an integration of values such as saving money, getting quality and fresh produce) and collectivistic values (pro-environmental behaviour and ethnocentric perception).
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected using a representative sample of 576 consumers via an online access panel and analysed using AMOS SEM.
Findings
A weighted individualistic consumption value affects consumer attitudes and, consequently, consumers' intention to buy agri-food products directly from farmers. Nonetheless, individualistic consumption value is more effective in enhancing attitudes among consumers with high pro-environmental behaviour. Moreover, ethnocentric perception lowers the effect of individualistic consumption value on attitudes and enhances the positive effect of attitudes on buying intention.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the literature on consumer online behaviour when buying food products directly from farmers. Its originality lies in the effect of interacting individualistic and collectivistic consumption values to explain consumer motivation for this behaviour.
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Dana Abdullah Alrahbi, Mehmood Khan, Shivam Gupta, Sachin Modgil and Charbel Jose Chiappetta Jabbour
Health-care knowledge is dispersed among different departments in a health care organization, which makes it difficult at times to provide quality care services to patients…
Abstract
Purpose
Health-care knowledge is dispersed among different departments in a health care organization, which makes it difficult at times to provide quality care services to patients. Therefore, this study aims to identify the main challenges in adopting health information technology (HIT).
Design/methodology/approach
This study surveyed 148 stakeholders in 4 key categories [patients, health-care providers, United Arab Emirates (UAE) citizens and foresight experts] to identify the challenges they face in adopting health care technologies. Responses were analyzed using exploratory (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).
Findings
EFA revealed four key latent factors predicting resistance to HIT adoption, namely, organizational strategy (ORGS); technical barriers; readiness for big data and the internet of things (IoT); and orientation (ORI). ORGS accounted for the greatest amount of variance. CFA indicated that readiness for big data and the IoT was only moderately correlated with HIT adoption, but the other three factors were strongly correlated. Specific items relating to cost, the effectiveness and usability of the technology and the organization were strongly correlated with HIT adoption. These results indicate that, in addition to financial considerations, effective HIT adoption requires ensuring that technologies will be easy to implement to ensure their long-term use.
Research limitations/implications
The results indicate that readiness for big data and the IoT-related infrastructure poses a challenge to HIT adoption in the UAE context. Respondents believed that the infrastructure of big data can be helpful in more efficiently storing and sharing health-care information. On the technological side, respondents felt that they may experience a steep learning curve. Regarding ORI, stakeholders expected many more such initiatives from health-care providers to make it more knowledge-specific and proactive.
Practical implications
This study has implications for knowledge management in the health -care sector for information technologies. The HIT can help firms in creating a knowledge eco-system, which is not possible in a dispersed knowledge environment. The utilization of the knowledge base that emerged from the practices and data can help the health care sector to set new standards of information flow and other clinical services such as monitoring the self-health condition. The HIT can further influence the actions of the pharmaceutical and medical device industry.
Originality/value
This paper highlights the challenges in HIT adoption and the most prominent factors. The conceptual model was empirically tested after the collection of primary data from the UAE using stakeholder theory.