The academic library middle manager (ALMM) role is little understood and understudied. Using Organizational Role Theory, Middle Managers' Four Strategic Roles, and the Taxonomy of Managerial Performance Requirements as frameworks, this study was designed to identify and describe the expectations of the middle manager role in academic libraries; to…

This paper offers a new perspective on exploring peer observation (PO) as an event or system, and contributes to the discussion on what happens "after" the PO cycle in terms of opportunities for dissemination. Data were gathered from semi-structured interviews with members of academic staff in a UK higher education institution about…

This paper examines middle leadership of the heads of English, maths and science departments in four international secondary schools in Malaysia. It focuses on their roles, responsibilities, role relationships, instructional engagement and leadership involvement within the theoretical framework of instructional, distributed and teacher leadership.…

Research has long accorded heads of subject departments a key middle leadership role in secondary schools. Unfortunately, researchers have found that the exact nature of this leadership is "blurred" in that it is difficult to isolate its distinctive qualities. In addition, there are also debates concerning whether professional and emotional…

Six middle management continuing educators observed for three working days spent time as follows: 12 percent phone calls, 22 percent desk work, 31 percent scheduled meetings, 17 percent unscheduled meetings, 3 percent observing subordinates, and 7 percent travel. The workday was characterized by "hot action"--decision making in short bursts of…