Rewarding academics: Experiences of the Tenure Track System in Pakistan

Pakistan introduced the Tenure Track System (TTS) as a new performance-based reform in public universities in 2005. The purpose of this study is to understand the experiences of higher education authorities, university leaders and tenure-track faculty about the implementation of this reform. This is a qualitative interpretive study and utilised a nested case study design, focusing on two cases—Science Faculty and Social Sciences and Humanities Faculty in a large provincial university. It utilises three perspectives taken from organisation theory—instrumental, cultural and myth perspectives. The main results show instrumental problems of hierarchical authority and horizontal coordination, lack of expertise to implement, cultural compatibility problems through active resistance from some groups and active use of symbols to modify the impression of a challenging reform implementations. Summing up, this is a Western-inspired reform that meet challenging conditions in Pakistan, making is rather less successful.     

Accommodating project-based professionals in higher education institutions in Japan

In the shifting environment of higher education, characterised by financial constraints, institutional competition and governmental steering, universities adopt a new stream of missions. In Japan, internationalisation and the acquisition of a global outlook have become a key strategy. The trend is endorsed through competitive public funding schemes, based on the belief that competition fosters so-called world-class universities. These schemes necessitate not only internationalisation of curriculum and research but also a wide range of projects and programs, which require talents that may not be readily found in the existing cadres of university workers. This empirical research assesses experiences and perceptions of project-based professionals in Japanese universities. It found unique ways in which ‘Specially appointed academic staff’ are given project and administrative responsibilities but with limited access to environment and/or support system for research. Discussions focus on impacts of such appointment on their academic career and explore how these institutional projects may be handled in regards to university organisation.     

From nurturing the H in HR to developing the D in OD – systemic benefits where action learning and organisational development combine

The authors review the Organisational Development and Design (OD&D) capability building programmes they have facilitated in the UK Civil Service and consider the learning and impact which they have had at an individual and organisational level. These programmes have been delivered to over 350 professional civil servants across a broad range of business functions, ministries, departments and agencies. This paper builds on the article published in this journal entitled ‘Nurturing the H in HR’ (Hale, R. and Saville, M. 2014. “Nurturing the H in HR: Using Action Learning to Build Organisation Development Capability in the UK Civil Service.” Action Learning: Research and Practice 11 (3): 333–351) which explained the early stages of programme roll out. Data to inform these findings has been drawn from a desk based review of the postgraduate level accredited papers written by participants as an integral requirement of the programme and an impact review exercise which used a storytelling approach in order to understand and interpret real accounts of practice. It can be seen how combining the Action Learning Question methodology with a humanistic approach to organisation development has made a significant cultural contribution beyond individual learning and this is impacting the wider system of a complex and dynamic government organisation that has faced, and most likely will continue to face, unprecedented and unpredictable political, social and economic change.     

Franchisees in crisis: using action learning to self-organise

The present article describes the use of action learning by a group of 30 franchisees to organise themselves and work through a period of upheaval and uncertainty when their parent company faced liquidation. Written from the perspective of one of the franchisees who found herself adopting action learning principles to facilitate the group, it describes the value of this way of organising until a point where the context became both clearer and more time-pressured, for which the group adopted a project management approach to organising.     

Developing assessment policy and evaluating practice: a case study of the introduction of a new marking scheme

In 2011, Southampton Solent University, a post-1992 university in southern England, introduced a new marking scheme with the aims of changing marking practice to achieve greater transparency and consistency in marking, and to ensure that the full range of marks was being awarded to students. This paper discusses the strategic background to the scheme's development, analyses the role of the working group and stakeholder involvement in developing the initiative, and presents a critical commentary on its success within the frame of the university as a ‘learning organisation’ [Senge, P. M. (2006). The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organisation. London: Random House].     

Enacting educational partnership: collective identity,decision-making (and the importance of muffin chat)

The rhetoric of partnership is ubiquitous in the current policy context. In education, partnerships take a number of forms among which is ‘interorganisational collaboration’ (IOC), defined as a partnership between institutions/organisations aimed at developing synergistic solutions to complex problems. But policy has a tendency to veneer, obscuring its enactment. The purpose of this paper is therefore to examine what such partnerships look like on the ground. Here we present an empirical analysis which aims to produce knowledge about the working of such collaborative groups and to provide insights into leadership within such partnerships. Drawing on communicative constitution of organisations operationalised within a schema for understanding the emergence of collective identity in IOC, we undertake an analysis of meetings held by a working group comprising academics and local authority staff set up to develop masters-level work-based professional learning for teachers. We ask, how do professionals working within different contexts create a collective identity that supports decision-making, and what are the implications for leadership?     

Building commitment: an examination of learning climate congruence and the affective commitment of academics in an Australian university

The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between learning climate congruence and the affective commitment of university academics. The strategy of inquiry for this research is quantitative, involving a non-experimental design for the survey research. A non-probability sample of 900 academics from a large Australian university was selected, with a response rate of 30.33%. The major conclusion drawn from this study was that the congruence between current and preferred learning climate was related to the affective commitment of university academics. More specifically, academics’ level of affective commitment was enhanced in a learning climate where they were encouraged to take risks, had plenty of time to learn new tasks and were encouraged to openly express their ideas and opinions. This study is important in a practical sense for academic managers and universities to build relationships and develop better connections with their academics.     

Fast food,fizz, and funding: Balancing the scales of regional sport organisation sponsorship

Tobacco, alcohol and gambling-related sport sponsorships have faced widespread scrutiny due to a critical consciousness that questions the alignment of unhealthy products and damaging addictive behaviours with a healthy activity such as sport. The purpose of this study was to explore how a public health agenda may influence rugby union organisations in their negotiation of sponsorship relationships with food and beverage companies. Interviews with a purposeful sample of New Zealand regional rugby organisation managers reveal the potential influence of emergent threats about government-regulated restrictive sponsorship measures on the delivery of community and youth sport. Findings indicate that many regional rugby organisations depend on sponsorships to fund required and desired activities. In addition, some organisations in more rural regions of New Zealand not only contend with the difficulty of securing sponsorships, but fear that criticism of, and impending restrictions on, fast-food and beverage companies are likely to have detrimental consequences for the provision of rugby.     

Building an inclusive cycling “movement”: Exploring the charity-led mobilisation of recreational cycling in communities across Merseyside,England

In this article, the authors examined the charity-led implementation of an inclusive cycling programme across Merseyside in the North West of England. The project itself is delivered via a network of cycling 'hubs' that the charity has set up and run typically in deprived communities. Using resource mobilisation theory, the authors specifically examined how the Cycling Projects charity mobilises a raft of diverse resources from the financial to the human, and from the cultural to the physical, to drive and sustain its Pedal Away product. To do this, the authors utilise qualitative data captured from 15 in-depth semi-structured interviews undertaken with stakeholders both internal and external to the charity, as well as focus group data yielded from programme participants (n = 32). The findings illustrate how the charity is able to garner and exchange resources from its partners and funders, and the ways in which it mobilises both participants and personnel from within the communities it serves. As an original contribution to the sport management field, the authors demonstrate both the value and applicability of resource mobilisation theory as a theoretical framework by which to understand how a non-profit organisation derives the resources it requires in order to deliver a network of community embedded recreational cycling programmes.     

Exploring the applicability of the Semantic Web for discovering and navigating Australian Indigenous knowledge resources

ABSTRACT

Semantic Web ontology files can be flexibly programmed to delineate metadata relationships in machine-readable formats to create relational pathways for discovering resources both on and off the Internet. There is a global community of Semantic Web developers and users across a broad multi-disciplinary range of interests who create and share extensible open-source ontologies. In this article, the author will explore the functionality of Semantic Web techniques for representing the ontologies of relatedness through kinship that typically underpin Australian Indigenous knowledge systems, and investigate their potentials for meeting persistent demands among leading Australian Indigenous collections creators and users to be able to search and discover their hereditary knowledge resources in ways that reflect and reinforce their enduring cultural values, ways of knowing and rights-management concerns.