Although action research in education offers researchers and practitioners a clear and philosophically appealing way of making improvements, fostering learning, and developing the individual and the organization, adherents sometimes find themselves defending this type of research because it has been practiced without appropriate rigor. This book…

This book relates the radically new sciences of the 20th century--quantum mechanics, chaos theory, and complexity theory--to organizational problems and challenges facing corporate leaders. The book draws on the science of the human brain, with its three different kinds of neural structures--mental, emotional, and spiritual--to illustrate how to…

This document is written by employers whose companies participated in the Learning in Smaller Companies (LISC) project, during which a university and two further education colleges created a number of work-based learning schemes for employers in small and medium-sized enterprises in Scotland. The foreword (Peter Swinson) discusses the importance…

The evolution of Usmania University in Hyderabad, India, is chronicled. The idea of establishing a university in Hyderabad in which instruction took place in Urdu was presented in 1878, 1885, and 1894, and in 1914 the proposal became a movement, with the nation's education department undertaking the early work, designing a syllabus to correspond…

Published 10 times a year, Systems and Procedures Exchange Center (SPEC) Kits and Flyers contain information on issues of concern to libraries and librarians; they are the result of surveys on topics related to practice and management of library programs in the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). This document focuses on the organization of…

Researchers examined the way selected Australian organizations understand and enact the notion of a learning culture. The diverse approaches that have been used to foster the learning cultures revealed through the case studies confirmed that the concept of a culture of learning was not a homogenous one. The study revealed that embedding a culture…

This practical book introduces strategic management for leaders and senior managers in schools and shows how it can contribute to school development. Following the introductory chapter, chapter 2 discusses the concept of strategy and the conceptual stages of developing strategy--analysis, choice, and implementation. Chapter 3 examines the…

This publication highlights the role of the tutor (a person providing on-the-job training to new hires and persons moving into new jobs while still functioning in the same or a similar job, rather than being a full-time trainer) in industry through a comparative study of these four European countries: Austria, France, Germany, and Spain. Following…

Student achievement in American schools must improve dramatically if all young people today are to have equal access to the labor markets and be contributing members of society as adults. Currently, only 20 to 25 percent perform proficiently. Standards-based education reform aims to raise that level to at least 75 percent of students mastering the…

Launched in 1994, Smart Start is the statewide early childhood initiative in North Carolina designed to ensure that every child "arrives at school healthy and ready to succeed." This guide provides a practical reference to the lessons learned from Smart Start as the program was developed and experienced from the local county partnership…

Though career plateauing can be put off, it can seldom be entirely avoided. Distinction is made between plateauing of the job content type and plateauing of the structural or organizational type. Primary solutions involve job enrichment, performance goal adjustments, lateral transfers, or modified standards of appraisal. (SSH)

Addresses the subject of organizational termination, suggesting it is an appropriate concern for the field of organization development, and that present methodologies are inadequate to deal with it. Describes a consulting experience with one dying organization and experimental intervention strategies. Describes behavioral reactions of staff to…

Examines, in 13 articles, counseling psychologists' level of interest in business and industrial settings and their interaction with clinical and industrial/organizational specialties. Focuses on specific professional services that psychologists can provide and issues they will face. Discusses the potential contribution psychologists can make in…

Reviewed published studies (N=36) of an organization development and team building strategy, focusing on research designs, sample sizes, dependent variables, and the length of time the intervention was investigated. Results indicated team building appeared to be an intervention with great potential for improving employee attitudes and…

Effective leaders require a state of mind without which skills and information become ineffective. Leading-edge leaders idealize, imagine, and predict; they are sensitive to the cultural environment and attempt to escape mechanistic organizational norms. (RC)