Browsing by Subject "Leadership"
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Item Accountability mechanisms in public multi-campus systems of higher education.(2011-03) Rothchild, Mary ToddSince the 1990s, higher education has been faced with a significantly different context for performance expectations. Public policy makers and governing boards of state systems entrusted by the public to serve them have faced increasing scrutiny for outcomes related to student access and success, tuition affordability and efficiency in operations. During this time, policy reform largely focused on the structural design of higher education but with less attention paid to governance methods and the effectiveness of accountability tools to meet performance expectations. This study is guided by the theory that public multi-campus systems of higher education, as loosely-coupled organizations, could enhance performance when utilizing governance practices and accountability mechanisms that encourage high levels of autonomy and accountability. Using a two-part, quantitative and qualitative research methodology, this study was designed to define and measure accountability mechanisms used in the transactional environment between state higher education leadership (board members and system leaders) and institutional leaders. Using a subset of ten state systems of public higher education, each state was determined to be either high-performing or low-performing. In the quantitative study, institutional leaders were asked in an Internet survey to rate or rank 18 accountability mechanisms on five characteristics: importance, discretion, "high stakes," and whether they reflected professional norms of higher education or were political or market-based. In the qualitative study, interviews of system leaders examined their views on the balance between accountability and autonomy in multi-campus systems. The results from the survey indicated that four mechanisms were considered high in importance and high stakes by institutional leaders in both low- and high-performing states: strategic planning, state funding, institutional accreditation and system policies. While these mechanisms each play different roles in system governance and accountability, system leaders can utilize these accountability mechanisms as tools to develop flexible system policies and funding mechanisms, coordinate planning between system and institutional goals, and use data systems for assessment and accreditation. Governing leaders of public multi-campus systems of higher education could use the study results as they design normative values for accountability and autonomy by considering them as mutually supportive constructs. Evidence from the study illustrated the importance of building shared commitment through connections between campuses and the system/state. In addition, system leaders should be attentive to governance policies and practices that encompass aspects of campus self-determination and provide effective incentives for responding to the system's organizational priorities.Item African American women working in the Twin Cities during the mid-twentieth century: discovering their vocational identity.(2010-03) Kelly, Sharon FExisting scholarship has no examination of attributing the discourse on vocational identity to African American women, which in this study, has been defined as what a woman ought to be and do. African American women have been a subject of scholarly inquiry on having the longest history of paid work. This qualitative dissertation contains their narrative excerpts on working in the Twin Cities during the mid-twentieth century (1945-1985) from interviews with seventeen women aged 65 to 87. Analyzed topics were the concept of vocation, the ideology of vocation within the intersections of race, gender, and class related to paid and unpaid work. Hermeneutic philosophy advanced by Gadamer (1960/1975) formed the methodological approach to elicit themes of their perceived vocational identity.Item Africa’s First Democrats(2017) Samatar, AbdiAbdi Ismail Samatar provides a clear and foundational history of Somalia at the dawn of the country’s independence when Africa’s first democrats appeared. While many African countries were dominated by authoritarian rulers when they entered the postcolonial era—and scholars have assumed this as a standard feature of political leadership on the continent—Somalia had an authentic democratic leadership providing fundamental lessons.Item An Analysis of Leadership Succession in International Schools: Novelty, Disruption, and a Path to Resolution(2018-06) Kokonas, DeanThis research project is an exploratory multiple sample study of three European international schools and utilizes semi-structured interviews to gather data to better understand the phenomenon of leadership succession events at the director level of the organization. The succession of leadership is a significant event in the life of an international school and is viewed as a novel event with disruptive strength. As such, Event System Theory is used as the theoretical framework to view and analyze the event of leadership succession. The purpose of this study is to determine recurring themes influencing the process of leadership succession in international schools. The following research questions assist to focus the study: Q1. Within the boundaries of the three sample schools, what are the director and Board Chair person’s perceptions and understandings of planning and management for director leadership succession events? Q2. In what ways have past school leadership succession events been a disruptive influence in the life of the three sample schools, and what is the nature of the disruption? Q3. In what ways are sample schools actively engaged in strategic succession planning, and what elements of that strategy, if any, have been effective? From an analysis of data eight salient themes emerge: Certain change, Transition, Disruption, Strategic Succession Planning and Management, Internal Leadership Development, Necessary Conversations, Policymaking, and Deputy Director Appointment. Recommendations for practice are distilled from the analysis of data, which can help to moderate the disruptive effects of leadership succession for the benefit of the entire school community.Item An analysis of traditional Ojibwe civil chief leadership(2013-05) Flocken, HenryLittle is known about traditional Ojibwe civil chief leadership. This critical ethnography is an analysis of traditional Ojibwe civil chief leadership. Hereditary chiefs are interviewed. Chief leadership lies nested in the Anishinaabe Constitution. It is clan-based and value-based. It includes all of creation. Leadership is emergent and symbolic. Chiefs symbolized and are spokespersons for the will of the people. They were selected based on their virtues. The real power is in the people, in clans in council. Hunting groups had spokesmen in clans. Chiefs were chosen from the clan headmen in council. Larger area councils selected a chief from the chief-council. This system is spiritual, holistic, consensual, and egalitarian. It empowers the people. Colonial oppression has transformed what was a bottom-up structure to a Western top-down structure often filled with nepotism, favoritism, and corrupt and coercive leadership. Coupled with historic trauma, this engenders self-oppression and social dysfunction. Many activists call for a return to traditional Anishinaabe government, but little is known about what that is. The purpose of this critical ethnography is to know traditional Ojibwe civil chief leadership, add to leadership knowledge, and use that knowledge in Anishinaabe leadership models for tomorrow.Item The application of a person-oriented criterion-related configural approach to the relationship between personality traits and work behaviors(2011-07) Shen, WinnyWithin industrial-organizational psychology there exists a voluminous literature linking big five personality traits (i.e., emotional stability, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness) with work criteria, demonstrating that personality is a consistent predictor of work outcomes of interest. However, the existing research literature has generally utilized a variable-oriented perspective, looking at relationships among variables, with much less research employing a person-oriented perspective, examining configurations of personality traits within an individual. As a complement to the existing variable-oriented research, the present study utilizes a new criterion-related profile pattern technique developed by Davison and Davenport (2002) to examine the relationship between big five personality configurations or profiles and job performance (i.e., task performance, organizational citizenship behaviors, counterproductive work behaviors) in Study 1 and leadership (i.e., evaluations of performance, promotion potential, and derailment potential) in Study 2. Overall the present results show that the relative contribution of personality level and personality profile mostly cross-validated within a given sample, but there also appeared to be variability in both the form and contribution of the personality profile across samples. Generally, personality level (i.e., mean elevation across big five traits) was consistently related to the work criteria examined across samples. Future research directions regarding the utility of configural methods, sources of variation regarding profile and level effects, substantive meaning of personality level effects, and the usefulness of a configurally-based approach to employee selection are proposed and discussed.Item Becoming global without leaving home: internationalization at home, a case study of San Jorge, a Spanish Private University(2013-08) Sierra Huedo, Maria LuisaThe process of campus internationalization at San Jorge University, a small private Spanish university is analyzed as a case study in this dissertation. San Jorge University was selected as a unique case because of its recent creation and its being one of the first Spanish universities to implement and adapt to the Bologna process. The assumption was that the main Internationalization at Home (hereafter, IaH) elements were being implemented at USJ. The complexity of the analysis of an institutional internationalization process is found in how each one of those internationalization elements are connected to each other affecting the implementation of the whole process. Therefore, the main conceptual framework used was Mestenhauser´s systems perspective for understanding internationalization. To analyze and describe the current status of IaH at San Jorge University, an explanatory case study methodology was followed, using document analysis, focus groups, in-depth semi-structured interviews and participant observation as main methods for data collection. The findings of this study reveal that although there is no formal IaH policy at USJ, the main IaH elements are actually being implemented. Identified are both institutional and individual factors influencing such a process. The implementation of a supra national reform implemented in a private institution, is found to be greatly influenced by the institutional structure, policies, strategies, degree programs and educational model. However, the main IaH element, an internationalized curriculum, is being promoted by active faculty who are key champions of change. Transformational leadership has been found to be the key to implement important changes. The combination of institutional and individual factors, with both top-down and bottom-up leadership, have proven to be the right combination to promote internationalization initiatives.Item Beyond The Barriers: Women-To-Women Mentoring In/To Secondary School And Central Office Leadership(2015-04) Anderson-Hume, BobbiDespite the fact that the pool from which most school leaders come is made up of a majority of women, most school leaders are men. Notwithstanding extensive research regarding this issue, the number of women principals in secondary schools and in the office of the superintendent remains low. The barriers, for those women not hired, identified by the reviewed literature can be classified as issues of job structure, age, and career paths. Because these issues are ones connected to women's family and domestic responsibilities, a simple solution for increasing the number of women school leaders has remained elusive. However, one barrier, a lack of mentors, has not been as widely explored. The impact a mentor has is undeniable and having a role model serves to make positions of school leadership more achievable. Further, having a woman mentor not only identifies the barriers, but also allows an aspiring women school leader assistance in their navigation. The purpose of this qualitative study is to explore the concept and practice of women-to-women mentoring through the perceptions of women school leaders who were seated secondary school principals, assistant principals, and superintendents, and are or were mentored by other women school leaders. Specific questions included: 1) How do study participants perceive the concept and practice of mentoring? 2) What are the lived experiences of women who have been mentored by women school leaders? 3) Why and how are or are not study participants supporting, through mentoring, other women who aspire to school leadership? This qualitative study, used interviews, observations, and documents/artifacts to gather data regarding the concept and practice of women-to-women mentoring. A phenomenological approach, including bracketing and reduction, was used to bring forth the prominent themes. Findings emphasized and illustrated original learning in the areas of: 1) mentor theory, 2) the practice of mentoring school leaders, 3) women-to-women mentoring, 4) the specific needs of women school leaders, 5) the gender of the mentor, 6) benefits to mentoring for women, 7) misuses of mentoring, and 8) a seated woman leaders choice to mentor.Item The Board Chair and Executive Director Dyad: Leadership Role Perceptions Within Nonprofit Civic Engagement Organizations(2016-07) Mathews, MelissaScholarship has identified that board and executive director leadership consists of dynamic interactions and enactments; however, limited research has examined the board chair and executive director leadership dyad within explicit organizational contexts. The purpose of this study was to understand how board chairs and executive directors perceived their roles within leadership dyads of nonprofit civic engagement organizations. Civic engagement organizations are recognized by municipalities for representing and engaging neighborhood constituencies through participatory processes. This inquiry also determined how leadership role perceptions varied as a function of dyadic position and according to individual, organizational, and environmental characteristics. The research was structured as an instrumental multiple case study analysis of 17 board chair and executive director dyads of neighborhood councils within a municipal civic participation system. The study’s findings indicated that executive directors and board chairs reported diverse leadership perceptions and varying accounts of inter-dyadic role congruence, ambiguity, and conflict. Specifically, leadership role perceptions varied within dyads and according to dyadic position. Board chairs and executive directors interpreted their leadership roles as facilitating participatory processes, organizing communities, and representing neighborhood constituents. Further, the majority of participants characterized leadership as situational and noted the importance of assessing circumstances to determine leadership needs. The findings underscore the complexity of nonprofit leadership and reveal latent influences of organizational fields on board chairs’ and executive directors’ dyadic leadership role perceptions. This exploratory qualitative study concludes with suggestions to enhance board chair and executive director dynamics within civic engagement organizations. Recommendations for future research are provided to advance human resource development research concerning nonprofit organizational leadership. Keywords: board chair, executive director, leadership, dyad, role perception, nonprofit organization, civic engagement, neighborhood council, human resource development, instrumental multiple case study, qualitative research, role theoryItem Bridging Brown County Case Study: Connecting Communities and Finding a Future(University of Minnesota. Extension Service, 2006) Brandt, ErinItem Case Analysis of Merging Office Cultures Using An Appreciative Framework(2015-08) Konkle, ErinExamining student persistence from both an individual and an institutional perspective provides important knowledge and increased understanding of the student and institutional factors that contribute to student persistence or early student departure. Specifically, this study examined how Appreciative Advising shaped an office culture and perceptions about student success. The benefits of Appreciative Advising to a collegiate office and their students have been illustrated through this case study: a growth mindset, design management, proactive programming, collegial workspaces, and shared responsibilities. Institutions continue to look for the best ways to support employees and to illustrate the influence that creating a strong and cohesive culture plays in furthering the goals of student success. Continuing to understand how institutions are supporting and engaging staff offers hope and promise to the students who stand to benefit and are critical to these institution’s ability to fulfill their missions.Item Characteristics of principal leadership influencing school culture.(2012-05) Hudson, Norma J.The primary purpose of this study is to examine characteristics of principal leadership influencing school culture as viewed by stakeholders involved in the International Schools Group (ISG) in Saudi Arabia. A secondary purpose of this study is to inform ISG educational leaders about the perspectives of their respective stakeholder groups regarding principal leadership characteristics and school culture. Four research questions guided this study. The research questions focused on the characteristics of principal leadership that influence school culture as viewed by ISG parents, support staff, teachers, administrators, and Board of Trustees members. Other questions were analyzed according to perspectives from each division within ISG: the American Division, the British Division, and the International Division; gender; and Western and non-Western nationalities. A mixed methods study was conducted for this research. The design included an electronic survey, focus groups, and individual interviews, and data were gathered through qualitative and quantitative methods. Using a concurrent triangulation strategy, quantitative data were analyzed using SPSS v. 18. Descriptive statistics were used for research question 1, an ANOVA for research question 2, and t-tests for research questions 3 and 4. Qualitative data was analyzed by comparing and contrasting the results from the focus groups and individual interviews to determine similarities and differences. Using a one-way factorial ANOVA, the results indicate that there are statistically significant differences in seven leadership characteristics as viewed by the American Division, the International Division, and the British Division. An independent sample 2-way t-test was conducted to determine if there were any statistically significant differences in gender perspectives or Western and non-Western perspectives. Five leadership characteristics were statistically significant according to gender, while the findings indicate that there were 14 characteristics that were statistically significant between Western and non-Western participants. Qualitatively, focus groups and individual interviews resulted in identifying two primary leadership characteristics that influence school culture: being an effective communicator and being ethical while demonstrating integrity. It is hoped that this dissertation will help ISG leaders and other educational professionals understand the role that leaders play in impacting school culture.Item Citizenship education in public higher education: curricular strategies to promote the development of civic knowledge, skills, and attitudes.(2012-06) Nobbe, June EllyCitizenship education has long been recognized as a function of public higher education in the United States, and as a public good. Many authors and higher education organizations assert that the civic mission of higher education has receded in the past 15 years. This study examined recommended strategies to reinvigorate the civic mission that included integration of civic themes in curriculum and the use of active learning methods in the classroom. Exposure to a leadership minor course that integrates the two strategies was also included in the research design. The research design examined the effect of these two recommended strategies on the eight outcomes of the Social Change Model of Leadership Development. A web-based survey instrument included items associated with civic themes, active learning methods, exposure to a leadership minor course, demographic variables, pre-college experiences, and selected experiences during college. The Socially Responsible Leadership Scale - Revision 2 was used to measure the dependent variables. The survey was administered to a random sample of junior and seniors at a large public university with very high research activity. The survey was completed by 331 respondents for a 17 percent response rate. Analyses included correlation, t-tests, ANOVA, and multiple regression. The results provided evidence that the recommended strategies were positively correlated with the dependent variables, and had a positive significant effect on most of the eight outcomes. In the regression analyses, exposure to civic themes in curriculum and active learning methods in the classroom was the only block that resulted in a statistically significant F-change value for all eight outcomes when added to the model, highlighting the explanatory power of these two strategies. In summary, the research design found that these two strategies have merit in efforts to develop civic knowledge, skills, and attitudes among undergraduates as defined by the Social Change Model of Leadership Development.Item Coaching High School Athletics: A Descriptive Case Study(2009) Michalicek, Kevin Paul; Riordan, Kim; Damme, SusanThe coach of an athletic team plays an integral role in the lives of the student athletes with whom he or she is involved, not only as the leader of the team, but also in the development of the athletes as they progress from adolescence to adulthood. This dual role can lead to some very positive benefits for the coach and the athlete. However, there can be some very negative aspects of coaching when dealing with teenagers, parents and fans. In this descriptive case study, I personally interviewed several coaches from a Midwestern high school about their experiences as a coach, both the joys and the pains. The responses give clear insight into the world of the high school coach.Item Crossborder management education alliances:case study of the Sasin Graduate Institute of Business Administration in Bangkok, Thailand.(2011-06) Pembleton, Deborah JacksonThe Sasin Graduate Institute of Business Administration at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok has celebrated a twenty-five year partnership with the graduate schools of business at Northwestern University (Kellogg) and the University of Pennsylvania (The Wharton School) in the United States. The research question for this study is: "What factors have contributed to the success and sustainability of the crossborder management education alliance at the Sasin Graduate Institute of Business Administration?" The objective of this study is to understand and describe the intercultural working relationships between U.S. and Thai faculty and staff who work within the alliance. By incorporating the U.S. perspective as well as the Thai perspective, this research demonstrates how the national cultures of Thailand and the U.S. influence organizational effectiveness within the crossborder education alliances among these universities. Methods for data collection have involved major triangulation, including participant observation, in-depth semi-structured interviews, and document analysis. Several months of fieldwork were undertaken in Bangkok interviewing key Thai faculty and staff as well as the U.S. visiting faculty and staff. There are three major implications of this study. First, the case demonstrates that organizations rooted in quite different cultures can collaborate effectively and successfully create a long-term sustainable relationship. A key factor related to this success is the cross-culturally sensitive leadership demonstrated by all parties and their abilities to negotiate significant cultural differences. Second, given the escalating costs of higher education associated with the Baumol Disease, alliances among universities can provide a cost-effective approach to providing high-quality and innovative education. Third, the alliance described in this study is an example of the effective internationalization of higher education in a multicultural transnational context. Abstract – Thai Version: available on-lineItem Culturally Responsive School Leadership: Educational Leaders' Reflections on Equity Behaviors in Predominantly White Schools(2022-04) Krebs, JoshuaThe purpose of this study was to explore school leaders’ perceptions regarding behaviors need to lead change for equity in predominantly White suburban schools. The study was carried out by interviewing 14 school leaders in predominantly White suburban schools with public statements in support of equity. The semi-structured interviews were created using the framework of Culturally Responsive School Leadership (CRSL) behaviors identified by Khalifa, Gooden, and Davis (2016) in their synthesis of the literature. Five themes emerged: (1) Communities Divided, (2) Inappropriate and Ineffective use of Data & Feedback, (3) Structural Barriers to Equity, (4) Staff Resistance, and (5) Whiteness Protecting the Status Quo. The author recommends that school leaders focus on three areas to lead toward a more equitable learning environment: (1) Improving community relations by embracing their role as a public intellectual (Khalifa, 2018), countering false narratives, information sharing, and understanding Whiteness, (2) Using data, community feedback, and student voice more effectively by investing in training, countering deficit ideologies with a focus on cultural strengths, taking direction on needed change from historically marginalized groups, equity audits, and tracking racial harm, and (3) Creating more inclusive policies and practices through professional development that is consistent and comprehensive, proactive messaging, CRSL teams for collaborative walkthroughs, and moving away from traditional grading practices to minimize or eliminate subjectivity.Item Developing physician leaders as coaches: A case study(2015-07) Kang, Ji-YunToday's healthcare is faced with enormous challenges with the changes in healthcare policies that require delivering higher quality at a lower cost and at the same time with internal challenges of low tolerance for mistakes, complex nature of the industry, and multidisciplinary teams working together. As a consequence, the need to develop physician leaders to lead through these changes has become critical for the success of the organization. As part of leadership development efforts, an academic medical institution in the U.S. has identified coaching skills to be an important leadership skill to lead through the change. In order to create a coaching culture where leaders use coaching approach to develop staff through the change management, Leader as Coach training was given to group of high level physician and administrative leaders followed by matching the trained leaders as coaches with junior staff who are in the leadership pipeline. Case study was conducted to investigate the processes and challenges of developing physician leaders as coaches and the benefits of leaders engaging in coaching in the organization. Data collection was done through semi-structured interview of twelve physician leaders and documents of program evaluation as well as coachees' evaluation of the coaching engagements. Data analysis consisted of category (or theme) construction, sorting the data according to the categories constructed, and finally by making inferences about the relationships among the categories, developing a model that presents the visual representation of how the concepts or categories are related to one another. As a result, six themes were identified: understanding coaching and its philosophy, coaching as a leadership skill, coming together, coaching process and competencies, coaching challenges, and coaching outcomes. The study provided insights into the learning processes and challenges for physician leaders to be developed as coaches and indicated that increasing the internal coaching capabilities in health care organizations by developing physician leaders as coaches can have great impact in paving the way into many changes and challenges that are facing health care today. Coaching has been shown to be an effective way to operationalize approaches to leadership needed in time of uncertainly and complexity, and to enable continuous learning for the staff by constructing context-specific, tacit knowledge, leveraging the social capital and upholding the organizational values.Item Developing Youth Leadership and Its Importance in Youth Organizations(2010) Ammann, JoAnn M; Rauschenfels, Diane; Hyman, RandyDeveloping youth leadership and its importance in youth organizations is a quantitative study that involves 47 Nobles County 4-H members and adult leaders, who actively participate in the 4-H program and other youth leadership organizations. It represents results of a study within a small outreach in Nobles County, which resides in Southwestern Minnesota. It was the researcher’s intent that the study noted leadership qualities that were gained from involvement in extracurricular activities including 4-H.Item Effect of Mentoring in a Corporate Environment(2009) Schick, Theodore L; Marchel, Mary Ann; Williams, JuliaThis phenomenological study explores the role of mentoring and its effect on leaders and their leadership development in a corporate environment. Implemented in conjunction with a leadership development program, a group of six junior leaders were assigned a mentor. With both mentors and mentees informed of the expectations, mentoring sessions occurred bi-weekly over a period in excess of 90 days. Following the mentoring period, both mentees and mentors were interviewed as to their experience from a personal and professional leadership development perspective.Item Effective 4-H Volunteer Management(2010) Sandager, Nancy; Rauschenfels, Diane; Hyman, RandyThis mixed methods research study gathered data from members, parents, and adult volunteers associated with the Rock County Minnesota 4-H program. The purpose of this research was to identify characteristics of volunteers and to determine possible areas needing improvement in the management of the program's volunteers. Separate questionnaires were sent to youth and adults involved with the program. The adult results were analyzed to see if any demographic variables relate to volunteer service, and to establish themes from responses regarding motivation, training, recognition, and enrollment. The youth results were used to identify the characteristics associated with effective leaders and to compare these with the adult responses. The data gathered contributes to the body of research about volunteers, and more specifically, about 4-H volunteers. Comparing this data with county demographics offers insight into potential areas to target for volunteer recruitment.