Learning and Change In Organisations

"Re-imagining 21st century education is ambitious, an ambition born of a sadness as I reflect on a book written 30 years ago.  And I shall of course fall far short of the ambition.  Just to reiterate again the question raised in the invitation to this talk.

What sort of educational vision and practice may be fostered to underpin a new world where people matter?

This is an age-old question.  Its origins is in the idea of the good society that has long been the object of philosophical and political debate. So, specifically we can ask, what sort of education does a vision of the good society demand?  And how should schools be organised to lay a foundation for the realisation of this vision?
"

The European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) Excellence Model® self-assessment tool has been used extensively in the UK private sector and increasingly in the state sector to raise standards. Furthermore, the European Quality Assurance Reference Framework identifies its use as best practice. However, only 2% of FE Colleges in the UK currently use the Model®.

Mixed methods were used to investigate quantitative evidence from a national on-line Leadership and Management survey sent to all UK FE Colleges and qualitative evidence from semi-structured with 42 senior managers, quality managers, consultants and staff. Six case studies of EFQM Award-winning Colleges were also investigated. The findings indicate a positive correlation between a) the use of the EFQM Model® and the achievement of Grade 1s in inspection and b) between the achievement of Grades 1s in inspection and Category A financial status. Across the four UK regions, the most effective use of the Model® is currently occurring in Scotland’s FE sector.

The study highlights the need for leaders to take a long-term approach to achieving excellence through using the EFQM Model® and embedding its underlying principles of Total Quality Management. The main outcome of the study is Cartmell’s “Three-Layered Egg” Model which identifies strategic, tactical and operational priorities, enabling leaders to achieve world-class standards through a process called “Questing”.

The EFQM Model® could be applied to FE Colleges, but there are cultural and environmental factors which are hindering its applicability including decreases in funding; rapid changes in the 14-19 and post-19 landscape; increased numbers of mergers, acquisitions and restructures; tightening inspection frameworks leading causing pressure to increase success rates; increased competition for students; lack of effective leadership; low staff morale; mobility of senior managers; pressure on leaders to produce short-term improvement; the significant resource implications involved of using the Model® and lack of direction and support from government.

Purpose: Problematic performances of megaprojects have shifted away attention from instrumental towards interpretative focusing at daily work life, practices, power, ambiguity and sense making in project organizations. Such an interpretative perspective helps to better understand practices of collaboration in complex mega projects, which we studied in the Panama Canal Expansion Program (PCEP). Design: Given the focus on daily work life we have chosen for an in--depth single case study. Practices of collaboration have been studied during a one--year ethnographic fieldwork period in Panama in which the daily work life of project participants was intensely observed. Findings: Firstly, we found that practices of collaboration in complex projects change in periods of conflicts. In these periods actors are forced to reflect upon their practices and to negotiate about new practices. Secondly, we identified collaborative practices in which a consultancy firm teaches their client and supervises its appropriate behavior. We have labeled these as chaperoning. Practical Implications: This study illustrates that when innovation in contracts requires an innovative relationship between project partners, specific attention to this innovation and the related practices of collaboration enhances the collaborative relationship among partners, which can prevent cost overruns and delays. Originality: Ethnographic fieldwork has not been used frequently to study project management practices. This study builds upon a one--year ethnographic fieldwork period to study practices in the daily work life of the project participants from 'within'.

Housing condition is a widely accepted facet of living standards. The materials used for the walls and roof do not necessarily focus the livable condition of the house. This study has attempted to develop a comprehensive index of housing deprivation for each state in India. This index combines four indicators of housing condition viz. percentage of households having kancha house; percentage of households use unsafe source of drinking water; percentage of non-electrified households and percentage of households without improved sanitation facility. First, we have placed the indicator in scale 0 to 1 which indicates the deprivation index for the particular indicator. The Index of Housing deprivation (IHD) has been computed measuring the normalized inverse Euclidian distance of the deprivation index vector from the worse situation of deprivation. Ranks of the states in accordance with the indices have revealed that among the states in India, housing deprivation is highest in Orissa followed by Bihar, Jharkhand. On the other hand, housing deprivation is least in the states of Delhi, Kerala, Goa and Hariyana. It has been observed that the association between IHD and HDI is close and negative. However, housing deprivation indices are invariant with the states' population backwardness index measured by percentage of population belonging to backward social groups.

Reinwardt Academy, Master of Museology 2011-2012. Cover: Title: Watson, S. (red.) 2007. Museums and their communities. London: Routlegde and ertovec, S. 2007. Super-diversity and its implications. Ethnic and Racial Studies 30(6): (1024-1054) Artwork: Paul De Vree, Kissinger ,1972 photo collection M HKA -… culture can be understood as the domain of all that becomes more by sharing it‖.

There has been a continuous attack on education, particularly alternative, progressive, democratic and liberatory forms of education that seek social justice and an equality of opportunity for all to develop.  In the UK this has led to an attack on educators as 'the enemies of promise' by the Secretary of State for Education.  However, what is being proposed by policy makers are the old 'know your station in life' strategies of managing inequality.  These have always resulted in a violation of the intelligence of people.

Acknowledgments Special thanks to Dr. Pat Shields for her guidance throughout this project and for suggesting the systems analysis model which was so well suited to my personality and organizational skills. Many thanks to all my family and friends whose support and confidence always means so much to me. To my parents who taught me the importance of an education at a very early age and who have encouraged me in all my endeavors. And, to Connie for seeing me through this project with her patience and support.

Purpose -The New Zealand Benchmarking Club (NZBC), a multi-organisational network, aimed to improve the performance of member organisations through best practice benchmarking. The purpose of this paper is to critique the NZBC self-assessment process, report the scores for self-assessments from 2000-2002, and present an analysis of the 2001 self-assessment data. Design/methodology/approach -A questionnaire measured the improvement rate of NZBC organisations through annual self-assessments against the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence (CPE). Training was provided for facilitators in each organisation, who supported teams of four to six persons who completed the self-assessment. Correlation coefficients of pairs of CPE categories and items were used to identify strong relationships between them. Findings -Self-assessment data from 2001 identified 57 strong relationships between different CPE categories and items. The strongest correlation identified (0.94) among CPE items was found between "customer focused results" and "financial and market results". Acting on the self-assessment results, management initiatives were implemented and scores in 2002 showed significant improvements over 2001.

This article examines five common misunderstandings about case-study research: (a) theoretical knowledge is more valuable than practical knowledge; (b) one cannot generalize from a single case, therefore, the single-case study cannot contribute to scientific development; (c) the case study is most useful for generating hypotheses, whereas other methods are more suitable for hypotheses testing and theory building; (d) the case study contains a bias toward verification; and (e) it is often difficult to summarize specific case studies. This article explains and corrects these misunderstandings one by one and concludes with the Kuhnian insight that a scientific discipline without a large number of thoroughly executed case studies is a discipline without systematic production of exemplars, and a discipline without exemplars is an ineffective one. Social science may be strengthened by the execution of a greater number of good case studies.

▶ Substantially revised and updated edition of International Handbook of Lifelong Learning ▶ Most comprehensive survey, analysis, exploration and development of problems, themes and issues in the field of lifelong learning ▶ State of the art contributions from a wide range of international contributors from an extensive number of countries ▶ Lifelong learning policies, programs and practices are being conceived, articulated, implemented and assessed

Este artigo vem mostrar uma possível utilização dos games na construção de conhecimento com o método da pesquisa–ação participativa nas áreas de agroecologia, engenharia de pesca e economia solidária. O trabalho apresenta o estado inicial das atividades do Projeto Pirarucu-Gente, um projeto de pesquisa e extensão voltado para a assessoria, capacitação e mudança social. O projeto tem como objetivo assessorar agricultores, pescadores artesanais e piscicultores da região denominada Território Central da Cidadania de Rondônia na utilização de práticas sustentáveis de gestão de empreendimentos de produção, beneficiamento e comercialização de modo a garantir sua autonomia e sustento. Um metaverso será usado como ferramenta de trabalho e de divulgação de boas práticas.

Over the decades there has been a paradigm shift in school design and operations. Schools have been transformed static, authoritarian systems to dynamic learning organisations. A new tenet in the education world is 21 st century learning organisations. This paper reviews the traditional schooling system in Nigeria and juxtaposes it with recent developments in advanced countries. It provides a framework for how schools in Nigeria can be transformed into 21 st century learning organizations.

"A study into the adoption of social media and web technologies in organisations and communities. The findings dispel the myth of the Generation Y dominance on social media, and reveal that the barriers to adoption include individual perceptions and boundaries toward new technologies, incorrect assumptions of prior learning and the need to change leadership styles when utilising social media. The scope of the research and its longitudinal nature make the study original.


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Phronetic organizational research is an approach to the study of management and organizations focusing on ethics and power. It is based on a contemporary interpretation of the Aristotelian concept phronesis, usually as ‘prudence’. Phronesis is the ability to think and act in relation to values, to deliberate about ‘things that are good or bad for humans’ in the words of Aristotle (1976:1140a24–b12). Phronetic organizational research effectively provides answers to the following four value-rational questions, for specific problematics in management and organization studies: 1. Where are we going with this specific management problematic? 2. Who gains and who loses, and by which mechanisms of power? 3. Is this development desirable? 4. What, if anything, should we do about it?

The Aalborg Project may be interpreted as a metaphor of modern politics, modern administration and planning, and of modernity itself. The basic idea of the project was comprehensive, coherent, and innovative, and it was based on rational and democratic argument. During implementation, however, when idea met reality, the play of Machiavellian princes, Nietzschean will to power, and Foucauldian rationality-as-rationalization resulted in the fragmentation of the project.

At the same time that case studies are widely used and have produced canonical texts, it may be observed that the case study as a methodology is generally held in low regard, or is simply ignored, within the academy. For example, only 2 of the 30 top-ranked U.S. graduate programs in political science require a dedicated graduate course in case study or qualitative methods, and a full third of these programs do not even offer such a course. In contrast, all of the top 30 programs offer courses in quantitative methods and almost all of them require training in such methods, often several courses. In identifying this paradox of the case study’s wide use and low regard, Gerring rightly remarks that the case study survives in a “curious methodological limbo,” and that the reason is that the method is poorly understood. In what follows, we will try to resolve Gerring’s paradox and help case study research gain wider use and acceptance.

[ The original PhD dissertation may be read and authenticated from the website of the University of Newcastle, NSW, at http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/804346 ]

This thesis argues that foreign and second language teaching productivity can only reach its proper potential when it is accorded priority, second only to language learner productivity, amongst the many competing productivities which are always asserted by stakeholders in educational institutions.

A theoretical foundation for the research is established by examining the historical concept of productivity, and its more recent manifestation as knowledge worker productivity, especially as applied to teachers.

The empirical basis of the thesis is sourced from a chronological series of twenty biographical case studies in language teaching venues in Australia, New Zealand, Oceania and East Asia. The biographical case study methodology, although rare in applied linguistics, is justified by reference to its wide and growing application in other fields of qualitative research. The case studies are analysed for common patterns of productivity, as well as teaching productivity inhibition or failure.

It was affirmed across all of the case studies without exception that external parties could not control or even reliably predict what individual students might learn, and how well, from instances of instructed language teaching. This was regardless of the power of institutional players, external resources, curriculums or the teacher. Student belief in the immediate value of what was to be learned in a given lesson, and personal confidence in an ability to learn it were the most critical factors.

Teaching productivity was found to turn, ultimately, on the teacher's ability to influence the probability of student learning. The teacher could best influence learning probability by enhancing student motivation. The most effective environments for teaching productivity were seen to be those where the teacher was professionally equipped and politically enabled to exercise judgements which maximized opportunities for student language learning productivity. A negotiated pact concerning both curriculum and method often proved effective, especially with mature students, and at times required some deception of institutional authorities.

Empirically, the encouragement of reciprocal learning relationships between teacher and students was found to be powerfully enabling for language teaching productivity in the case studies.

In many venues a small but effective minority of 'intimate learners' were also able to leverage their language learning productivity by forging more personal relationships with the teacher.

The wider cultural paradigm within each of the countries represented in the case studies sanctioned different paths and limitations for both language learners and teachers, and hence was seen to influence teaching productivity in critical ways. It was found that under certain conditions, notably (but not exclusively) those prevailing in many East Asian educational institutions, that certification of foreign language skills had a higher cultural, employment and monetary value than the actual ability to exercise foreign language skills.

A negative influence on teacher productivity in many of the case studies was an ignorance about language learning and teaching amongst institutional players. The disregard of language teacher professionalism was fed by a belief that being able to speak a language was all that was necessary to teach it, and reinforced by misinterpreting the meaning of test results. Related to this, an imbalance of power relationships between teachers or students with other institutional interests was consistently found to interfere with teaching and learning productivities. Overall, the model of productivity understood in institutions instanced by the case studies tended to reflect a 19th Century economic paradigm of capital, raw materials (students) and labour (dispensable classroom workers) rather than any more sophisticated grasp of knowledge worker productivity.

It was demonstrated in the context of the case studies that productivity, and in particular knowledge worker productivity, is a complex concept whose facets require detailed analysis to arrive at a proper understanding of the role that foreign and second language teachers play in educational institutions.

"Alexander's Decision-making as a Historical Problem", Revue des Etudes Militaires Anciennes 6 (2013), 113-25.

This paper examines Alexander's record of "winning", first through a detour via the undergrowth of management studies writings on Alexander, then by looking at the narrative of his decision-making. The possibility that his decision-making is influenced by formal logic is canvassed: was the secret weapon the syllogism rather than the sarissa  ?  The structural and organisational features of Alexander's "brilliant army" or "fourth-generation army" offer other ways of understanding decision-making than "genius"; but the "king's two brains" also posed a political problem.

A version of this paper was given in at the University of Boulder, at the first Celia Fountain Symposium.

This was the first-ever article to describe and analyze the possibility of a One-State Solution for Palestine/Israel from a Mizrahi positionality both in the Hebrew original and the English translation. Its composition -- like all of Lavie's writing about the Mizrahi feminist struggle in the context of the Question of Palestine -- has been fraught with all manner of relentless campaigns by those elements in academia that
would rather have Lavie and her research disappear. Needless to say that shortly after this article saw print in the Hebrew original in 2008 its analysis of the possibility for a one state solution for the Israel/Palestine conflict was appropriated and published without proper quotation or citation.

Knowledge management is a concept which has emerged during the previous years. The present thesis aims to explore knowledge management in relation to the economic crisis using the case of Greek firms. For that purpose a sample of 120 employees was selected from firms in various sectors, and an additional 11 managers and employees were interviewed. The results of the research indicate that employees have an overall positive perception over knowledge management but there are some issues, mostly having to do with corporate culture and the lack of use of state-of-the-art KM information systems. However, knowledge management can be a vehicle of development for firms that seek to exit from the economic crisis. Hence, firms should not allow the economic crisis to drive them into reductions of knowledge management programs and strategies, but instead should focus on utilizing knowledge management so as to improve their performance

The aim of this study is to use grounded theory methods to develop a theory about how children are been abused and the consequences of these abuse in Nigeria with specific reference to Niger Delta region. The theory generated is intended to derive a general, abstract process of the nature, types, causes and consequences of child abuse in Nigeria in the view of participants in the study.  The process will involve using multiple stages of data collection and the refinement and interrelationship of categories of information

The structure and culture of KBR is quite strong. It leads to promotion of understanding amongst the resources of the organization. A strong culture and structure of an organisation encourages understanding among the different organisational resources in the organization. These resources might be technological resources or human resources.

This chapter is about managing sociotechnological risks. It is in the 70s that the notion of ‘high-risk’ (or ‘safety critical’) systems started to be distinguished and grouped into an independent category including industries such as the nuclear, aviation, marine, petrochemical or the railways. Any attempt such as this one to introduce this background in a few pages is necessarily restrictive, partly unfair but also a simplified account. And, there are of course many different strategies to do so. One option is to consider the field through the scientific disciplines involved, say sociology, engineering, psychology, ergonomics, management, etc. A second one, quite related to the first, is to introduce pioneers who, from different disciplinary backgrounds, produced seminal contributions used as shared references among various research communities interested in the safety of complex sociotechnological systems. A third one is to look into industry (aviation, nuclear or petrochemical) in order to illustrate and to differentiate the diversity of problems related to sociotechnological risks and how they materialise. Another option is to identify core concepts that sometimes cut across a range of disciplines, authors and industry which offers also good insights into the issues involved with sociotechnological risks. In any case, it is a very challenging task. The intention in this chapter is to combine a bit of these strategies in order to offer the reader a broad vision, and to follow editors’ guidelines specifying the following structure: first, key concepts, second, major debates and third open questions/perspectives.

In this paper we argue that the use of the communicative theory of Jürgen Habermas in planning theory is problematic because it hampers an understanding of how power shapes planning. We posit an alternative approach based on the power analytics of Michel Foucault which focuses on ‘what is actually done’, as opposed to Habermas’s focus on ‘what should be done’. We discuss how the Foucauldian stance problematises planning, asking difficult questions about the treatment of legitimacy, rationality, knowledge and spatiality. We conclude that Foucault offers a type of analytic planning theory which offers better prospects than does Habermas for those interested in understanding and bringing about democratic social change through planning.

Purpose – Recent operations management research suggests that adopting and implementing the right practices are essential to attaining “world-class” performance. The purpose of this paper is to report the leading operations management practices and the strategy deployment framework that emerged from a qualitative study that addressed the question of how managers implement strategy in an organisational excellence environment.
Design/methodology/approach – Group work with managers responsible for implementing strategic initiatives was followed by case studies of seven organisations via in-depth semi-structured interviews. A survey questionnaire strengthened the validity of the constructs of strategy deployment that were identified in the case analyses.
Findings – In total, seven strategy deployment constructs were identified and linkages between them are described. The 50 leading deployment practices indicate a mix of hard and soft management skills applied across the seven constructs.
Practical implications – The leading deployment practices have the potential to raise the performance of organisations by improving the implementation of strategic initiatives. The framework is relevant to the deployment of both corporate and business unit strategy such as manufacturing or operations, and should be of interest to managers in these areas.
Originality/value – Researchers have noted for more than a decade that no generally accepted framework of operations management practices has emerged for strategy implementation. Most strategy studies have focused on strategy formulation, content, or on project/programme management. There have been few multiple case studies of leading strategy deployment practices in diverse organisations from both private and public sectors.

This research, conducted by the author when a Senior Researcher at Newcastle University, UK, was funded by a UK governance organisation to help them assess, integrate and improve their understanding of the governed population.

ABSTRACT: Governance organisations have been urged to develop more holistic evidence-based approaches with partners to better deal with issues affecting the governed population. This presupposes an understanding of the population, yet there has been little research work addressing how governance organisations come to understand their governed population, nor how this understanding can be improved upon within such organisations.

This case study examined in-depth how understanding of a governed population was developed within one UK local governance organisation and it explored how such understanding might be developed and improved through more holistic and evidence-based organisational learning within the organisation and its governance partnerships.

The research methodology involved placement within the governance organisation, participant observations on several projects and innovative initiatives, observations within, across, and outside the organisation, and also interviews with varied key stakeholders.

The study examined:

- stakeholder engagement and networks
- current and varied understandings of the population
- mechanisms actually used for developing understandings
- the influence of context on organisational learning

and analysed these to arrive at a recommendations to improve organisational understanding of the governed population.

In the case studied, significant strengths were found: including innovative past learning trials for development, extensive ongoing networking activities, and many varied and accumulating quantitative datasets available across partnerships.

However, entrenched organisational approaches and practices constrained the development of holistic evidence-based understanding, for instance: the absence of systematic maintained collective learning processes; weak recording and forgetting of understandings; methodological exclusion of stakeholders from the development of understanding; the relative neglect of qualitative data, explanations, investigations, interpretations, and reflexivity; and also implicit organisational acceptance of such limitations and low aspirations.

Nonetheless, untapped opportunities existed to enable change including: latent practitioner knowledge and innovative management champions, the desire for improvement and raised aspirations within learning networks, and the development potential of alterative learning approaches.

It was concluded that more holistic evidence-based understanding was possible, but required new learning approaches beyond those then in use in both local government or academia.   

Recommendations are made to utilise and develop improved organisational learning approaches trialed and reported in the case study.

It is argued that the case study findings, conclusions, and recommendations may be applicable to other similar local governance organisations and partnerships that seek to better understand local populations, services and interventions.

The work was also submitted for, and awarded, an MPhil (at Newcastle University, supervised by Prof. Patsy Healy)

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Abstract: This article relates common ways of conceptualising action research as “intervention”, “collaboration”, “interactive research”, “applied research”, and “practitioner research” to a number of different ways of knowing extracted from the works of Aristotle. The purpose is not to disavow any of these practices but to expand the philosophical, methodological, and theoretical horizon to contain the Aristotelian concept of praxis. It is claimed that praxis knowing needs to be comprehended in order to realize the full, radical potential in action research providing real “added value” in relation to more conventional social research approaches. Praxis knowing radically challenges the divisions of labour between knower-researchers and the known-researched. Thereby it also challenges both the epistemologies and institutionalisations dominating both conventional research and conventional ways of conceptualising action research.

This article presents the theoretical and methodological considerations behind a research method which the author calls ‘phronetic planning research’. Such research sets out to answer four questions of power and values for specific instances of planning: (1) Where are we going with planning? (2) Who gains and who loses, and by which mechanisms of power? (3) Is this development desirable? (4) What, if anything, should we do about it? A central task of phronetic planning research is to provide concrete examples and detailed narratives of the ways in which power and values work in planning and with what consequences to whom, and to suggest how relations of power and values could be changed to work with other consequences. Insofar as planning situations become clear, they are clarified by detailed stories of who is doing what to whom. Clarifications of that kind are a principal concern for phronetic planning research and provide the main link to praxis.

The "Greek crisis" was officially inaugurated on May 2010 with the loan the Greek government took from the IMF-European Union-European Central Bank troika, the largest a country had ever taken (€110 bn). Since then, the social implications of this crisis have been dramatic. The form and the scale of social phenomena observed today in Greece and particularly in Athens--e.g., extreme poverty and inequality, profound police violence, organized racist violence--are unprecedented for the country. Nevertheless, a diachronic examination of some socio-spatial aspects of Athens reveals that the social character of the current crisis has been taking shape for some time. This article aims shed light on the social shape of the crisis by outlining three such socio-spatial dimensions as they materialized in the case of Athens during 1990s and 2000s: first, the emergence of new forms of social exclusion and inequality; second, the vast project of urban (re)development and the new spatialities it produced, and third the emergence of novel forms of political and xenophobic violence.

ABSTRACT

This study explored the organizational changes relating to stewardship and empowerment of junior personnel and telemarketers, stewardship, and organizational changes employed in governance and accountability of telemarketing work systems.  The intent of the study was to contribute to an understanding of leadership roles and empowering employees.  Data was taken from the questionnaire data of a sample of 20 telemarketing professionals from various locations and industries in the Southern United States.  The objective was to obtain data that would demonstrate the areas of deficiency in organizational changes, leadership roles, and empowerment practices of junior telemarketers in telemarketing organizations.  There were six themes that emerged from the investigation in the identification of areas of deficiency that were found in organizational changes, leadership roles, and empowerment practices of junior telemarketers in telemarketing organizations as perceived by the participants.  The important deficiencies can be improved with changes to enhance telemarketer positions and to meet company goals.  The study results showed that there are many relevant changes that would be beneficial to the telemarketing industry regarding improvement in leadership, empowerment, and abiding by the rules and regulations of the Do Not Call List.

Back cover text: If the new fin de siècle marks a recurrence of the real, Bent Flyvbjerg’s Rationality and Power epitomizes that development and sets new standards for social and political inquiry. The Danish town of Aalborg is to Flyvbjerg what Florence was to Machiavelli: a laboratory for understanding the real workings of power, and for grasping what they mean to our more general concerns of social and political organization. Politics, administration, and planning are examined in ways that allow  a rare, in-depth understanding. The reader witnesses, firsthand, the classic and endless drama which defines what modernity and democracy are and can be.

"Radical Research explores the view that research is not a neutral tool to be employed without bias in the search for truth. Rather the radical roots of research are to be seen in the focus on freedom and emancipation from blind allegiance to tradition, ‘common sense’, religion, or powerful individuals and organisations.

Radical Research introduces and draws upon leading contemporary debates and data gathered from a diversity of funded projects in; health, education, police training, youth and community, schools, business, and the use of information technology.

This book presents a radical view of research in a way that enables both beginner and the experienced professional researcher to explore its approaches in the formation of their own views and practices. It progressively leads the reader from discussions of case studies to critical explorations of the philosophical and methodological concepts, theories and arguments that are central to contemporary debates. In essence, this book shows how to design, develop and write radical research under conditions where ‘normal’ research rules apply and it offers a ground-breaking and proven alternative to traditional research techniques."