Language games: University responses to ranking metrics

League tables of universities that measure performance in various ways are now commonplace, with numerous bodies providing their own rankings of how institutions throughout the world are seen to be performing on a range of metrics. This paper uses Lyotard's notion of language games to theorise that universities are regaining some power over being placed on league tables by creating narratives that manipulate their rankings to promote their own strengths. This paper examines the findings of a study involving university responses to global rankings throughout 2016 produced by two major ranking bodies, Times Higher Education and QS Top Universities. The existing literature has established that ranking tables can be used as a vehicle for humiliation and can produce terrors for all those involved. Thus, the significance of this study's findings is in new ways of theorising university responses to appearing on league tables at a time when academia is a high‐stakes activity where institutions’ abilities are measured and reported on at a global scale.     

The relationship between behavioural integrity,competence, goodwill,trustworthiness, and motivating language of a principal

Utilising the oral language of a principal leading an inner-city at-risk elementary school in a large urban school district in the southwestern USA, the researchers tested behavioural integrity and the dimensions of source credibility (competence, goodwill, and trustworthiness) as antecedents to Motivating Language Theory and the ML Model. Teacher perception data at the Title I elementary school was used for this quantitative study. Over 95% of the teachers responded to a survey each year for a three-year period. Each year, there were statistically significant correlations between each of the antecedents and motivating language. The antecedents accounted for 66–75% of the total variance for motivating language depending on the year based on regression analysis. The results of this study extend the field of Motivating Language Theory and the ML Model, and further explain how the work of principals is accomplished.     

Deploying a Corporate Learning System at the Innovative Startup

The article discusses an empirical study that was conducted by the authors, in which they surveyed focus groups of young innovative entrepreneurs who are at different stages of creating their own projects. The authors devote particular attention to how training programs for the founders and staff should be implemented as the startup develops from its early phases into a sustainable-growth business.