In 2004, a large Midwest hospital was losing money, patients, employees, and physicians. A business consultant was hired to engage key employees in a process to improve the quality and efficiency of patient care. The improvement was negligible after the first year, so a 3-man consultancy was added in 2005 to engage all employees in an educational…

The purpose of this evaluative case study was to explore teachers' and administrators' perceptions of the organizational capacity during an initial implementation of a systemic change in professional development at a K-8 school. Educational reform acts such as the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 pressure public school systems to increase student…

The demographics of the United States continue to change, and cultural landscape changes along with it. The American Psychological Association (APA) has begun to address these issues within the field of psychology. These efforts are being made to bring understanding to ethnic identity formation, explore the dangers of ignoring ethnic differences…

The year 2009 will be remembered as one of angst, with the economy dominating news around the world. Few libraries were immune to the extraordinary financial pressures. The library marketplace by year's end was in a weakened position, with prospects of a long recovery at best. Concern persists that even deeper budget cuts will come when federal…

Purpose: The aim of the paper is to explore how multiple modes of knowledge play out in the consolidation of nursing procedures in construction of "local universality". The paper seeks to explore processes where nurses negotiate universal procedures that are to become local standards in a hospital. Design/methodology/approach: The paper…

This paper discusses the challenge of making large-scale improvements in literacy in schools across an entire education system. Despite growing interest and rhetoric, there are very few examples of sustained, large-scale change efforts around school-age literacy. The paper reviews 2 instances of such efforts, in England and Ontario. After…

If learning is a journey between worlds, school governing bodies have a crucial role to play in mediating them. By establishing a public space for the voice of different communities to be expressed and deliberated governing bodies enable schools to understand and engage the cultural sources that motivate young people to learn. This article draws…

Focusing on the current timetabling process at the University of Toronto Mississauga (UTM), I apply David Wesson's theoretical framework in order to understand (1) how increasing enrollment interacts with a decentralized timetabling process to limit the flexibility of course schedules and (2) the resultant impact on educational quality. I then…

This article presents the author's response to to W.G.K. Duncan's 1961 paper, "Agenda for a national association", in the first number of the "Australian Journal of Adult Education," the journal of the newly established Australian Association of Adult Education (AAAE). The brief has been interpreted in this way. Duncan viewed…

This paper shows the implementation of "5S"--a Japanese concept of housekeeping--through action research methodology. The organisational issue it tackles is the cultural inhibition among the Indian population against cleaning. It uses soft systems methodology (SSM), action science and Schein's idea of clinical enquiry to bring about an…

Many chief information officers (CIOs) have come to accept and even embrace the role of outsourcers in their portfolio of IT services. In 2009, 47 percent of the 352 CIOs surveyed by the Center for Higher Education Chief Information Officer Studies (CHECS) said they had selectively outsourced some part of the IT function, up from 43 percent the…

The universities in Europe are finding themselves in a turbulent environment. They are exposed to global and European developments. This article links changes in the structure, culture, and policy of universities to these developments and changes in the broader-than-national environment. The central question is, in short: what is globalisation…

Today's school principals face unprecedented challenges. This article proposes a school-based outline framework in which the principal is the primary agent of change aided by an external coach. In this framework, the principal receives coaching and guides the change process at the school through a variety of coaching practices involving the…

In the 1920s the question of kindergartens was actively discussed in Finnish teachers' journals. The concern was with social and educational demands that kindergartens and lower elementary schools should be combined in the public educational system. Elisabeth Alander (1859-1940), the grand pioneer of the Finnish kindergarten pedagogy, opposed the…

Since 2004, Rhodes State College has been at the forefront of developing an institution-wide model of institutional effectiveness--Strategic and Institutional Effectiveness Planning System (SIEPS). A focus on both measuring mission effectiveness and strategic achievement led to development of a unique electronic application that tracks the direct…