Search

"Re:Tension" is a short 20 minute film that follows Thapelo, a bright and capable university student, on a day where he is unwittingly forced to question the judgements of his tutors and peers, and delve deeper into his own actions, choices and beliefs. "Re:Tension" addresses the topic of institutional racism and the gap in student retention amongst BAME (Black, Asian and Minority, Ethnic) students within British universities. The film was inspired by analysing statistical data that highlighted the unexplained dropout rate of BAME students as well as attempting to provide real insights into unconscious racial harassment within the higher education system and micro-aggressions that often go unnoticed. To accompany the film, a toolkit, developed by Senior Teaching Fellow Syra Shakir in collaboration with Ricardo Barker, uses the film and the aftermath debate to openly challenge racism and discrimination. It encourages group discussion around accountability and responsibility, this journal hopes to describe how this work has been adapted to bring these challenges to the attention of degree apprentices at Leeds Trinity University, with the aim that it will empower them to challenge such inappropriate behaviour within their workplace and take positive action. (Ricardo Barker, 2021)

University student wellbeing is increasingly seen as a concern, and as demands on university staff time for research, teaching, leadership and pastoral support also increase, this is mirrored in concerns about staff wellbeing. Dominant sectoral narratives frame student and staff wellbeing as oppositional, with initiatives to support student wellbeing positioned as creating additional practical and emotional demands on staff time and resources. Using a large qualitative dataset collected in the UK, including staff and students, this paper argues that that this does not have to be the case. Instead, there is a need to look beyond the provision of reactive services or isolated individual interventions, to proactively and cohesively embed cultural and structural change across the whole institution to support positive wellbeing outcomes for the whole university community. We report on the intrinsic interconnection between staff and student wellbeing; the importance of formal institutional policies in supporting or impeding staff and student wellbeing; access to training interventions to support staff and student wellbeing as a practical manifestation of these policies; and the impact of workplace culture and the centrality of compassion and community. The paper finds that it is important that institutions within higher education acknowledge and respond proactively to both staff and student wellbeing issues. To do so, institutions should seek to foster a sustainable and effective academic environment with a whole university approach.

UK Higher Education is characterised by structural and institutional forms of whiteness. As scholars and activists are increasingly speaking out to testify, whiteness has wide-ranging implications that affect curricula, pedagogy, knowledge production, university policies, campus climate, and the experiences of students and faculty of colour. Unsurprisingly then, calls to decolonize the university abound. In this article, we draw upon the Critical Race Theory method of counter-storytelling. By introducing composite characters, we speak back to assumptions that universities are race-neutral, meritocratic institutions. We illustrate some of the key themes that shape the experiences of faculty of colour in UK Higher Education: institutional racism, racial microaggressions, racial battle fatigue, and steadfast fugitive resistance. We argue that, despite the paradox of working under (what purports to be) a 'decolonial' agenda, widespread calls to decolonize our universities have further embedded rather than dismantled whiteness, thus continuing to characterise the careers, wellbeing, and daily lives of faculty of colour.

"Institutional autism" is understood as a "learned behavior" produced by an institutional environment such as an orphanage. Some autistic-like behaviors may be adaptive in an institution, but become mal-adaptive after the child's adoption into a family. A differential diagnosis between autism as a medical condition and learned autistic-like post-institutional behaviors is to be made. A conclusion is drawn that "institutional autism" is merely a description of certain patterns of post-institutionalized behavior that may appear similar to what is observed in children with autism. Abrupt native language attrition, typical for the majority of international adoptees, could contribute to "autistic-like" behavior.

This study was aimed at identifying the critical interactions within work environments that support the development of early career academics as researchers in institutions with lower order research profiles, that is, environments that differ from research-intensive universities. Ten early career academics, five from Australia and five from the UK, were recruited. Multiple sources of data were subjected to a qualitative analysis from which five interrelated themes identified the features of the research journeys: "institutional environment, individual attributes, postgraduate and other research training, supportive interactions with others," and "outcomes from the research process". A key finding was that individuals differ in their need for redirection, support, challenge, and inspiration which may be important at any time but especially at turning points in their career. Actions that might be taken by those responsible for implementing plans and programs in professional learning and development for early career academics are outlined. This study offers empirical evidence of the changes that are significant for individual neophyte researchers, and the environments and interactions that influence these changes.

This report outlines a method for learning about the internationalization processes at institutions of adult and higher education and then provides the analysis of data gathered from the researchers' own institution and from site visits to three additional universities in the United States and the United Kingdom. It was found that campus internationalization requires a deep understanding and appreciation of the institutional context. In addition, although elements of internationalization may be implemented, the findings indicate there is a need to underpin these approaches with (a) a shared understanding of what internationalization is and the ways it should ultimately impact student learning within an institution and (b) a collection of assessment methods for evaluating internationalization efforts and learning outcomes. Implications and recommendations for further research are also offered.

Despite strong political support for the development of sustainability literacy amongst the UK graduates, embedding sustainability in the higher education curriculum has met with widespread indifference, and in some cases, active resistance. However, opportunities exist beyond the formal curriculum for engaging students in learning about sustainability. Previous research has highlighted the potential of the university campus for experiential, place-based learning about and for sustainability. This has been conceptualised as the "informal" curriculum, consisting of extra-curricular activities and student projects linking estates and operations to formal study. However, the impact of the so-called "hidden curriculum" (the implicit messages a university sends about sustainability through the institutional environment and values) has been overlooked as a potential influence on student learning and behaviour. This article reports on a small-scale research project which utilised a phenomenographic approach to explore students" perceptions of the "hidden sustainability curriculum" at a leading sustainability university. The findings suggest that helping students deconstruct the hidden campus curriculum may enhance aspects of sustainability literacy; developing students' understanding about sustainability and creating solutions to sustainability issues, enabling evaluative dialogue around campus sustainability and also self-reflection, which could be transformative and translate into pro-environmental behaviour change. This research is transferable to other contexts.

Whilst much of the rhetoric of current educational policy champions creativity and innovation, structural reforms and new management practices in higher education run counter to the known conditions under which creativity flourishes. As a review of recent literature suggests, surveillance, performativity, the end of tenure and rising levels of workplace stress are all closing off the space for real creative endeavour, characterised as it is by risk-taking, collaborative exploration and autonomy. Innovation, as conceived in this policy context (i.e., that of the UK and Ireland), is narrow in scope and leaves little room for critical re-examination of the nature of education itself or radical reconceptions of curriculum, raising the question as to whether such are more likely to arise "extra mural," from new forms of organisation. (Contains 1 note.)

In this paper we consider a collection of conversational practices that arise when a professional is faced with extended resistance to their offered advice. Our data is comprised of telephone calls to a UK child protection helpline. The practices we identify occur repeatedly across our corpus of advice resistance sequences and involve (1) the repackaging of resisted advice in more idiomatic form; (2) the combination of that advice with a tag question that treats the client as able to confirm the reformulated version despite their prior resistance to it; and (3) the dampening of the response requirement by continuing past the tag question, which would normally constitute a transition place for the advice recipient. We also discuss the tension between the contrasting projects of callers and call takers, which can lead to both delivery of advice and the resistance of that advice. In doing this we highlight the way in which advice may function as an element of broader institutional practices. In specifying these practices we draw upon analytic tools employed by conversation analysts, including various features of sequence organization (Schegloff 2007) and turn design (Sacks, Schegloff, and Jefferson 1974). The analysis is intended to contribute to three main areas of research: to the applied topic of managing advice resistance, to the growing literature on understanding institutional practices, and to broader concerns in conversation analytic and discursive psychological literature. These concerns include the status of the "psychological" in interaction and the specification of actions across turns and sequences of talk. (Contains 6 extracts and 9 footnotes.)

The metaphor of "monoculture on the intellectual landscape" is used to analyse the effects of large-scale research management regimes. The metaphor of "monoculture on the intellectual landscape", derived from Shiva's "monocultures of the mind", is developed and illustrated with respect to gender and ethnicity. The paper then discusses the production of knowledge in the context of monocultures of the mind, and concludes that large-scale research management regimes are inimical to healthy and diverse intellectual habitats.

Universities are increasingly accountable for their research output, not only to government but also to an increasingly diverse range of funding bodies. However, the growth in research management structures has been neither universal nor evenly distributed. It would be easy to cite lack of resources as the reason for the uneven development between regions. The range of needs and barriers discussed in this article tells two things. First, research management structures are more likely to take root in a favourable institutional environment. Second, the list of issues suggests that institutions and countries will respond to the need for better research management in different ways. Both of these conclusions suggest diversity and unevenness in the growth of research management structures, but neither undermines the notion of a global research management profession. Whatever its individual circumstances, any university that retains research as part of its mission statement needs to find ways in which the resources available for the research function can be maximised, and the results accounted for and applied. To this extent, research management is a universal issue. A discussion of how UK practitioners can help on this issue is presented.

This paper discusses teacher education, institutional growth and the economy of information. It compares the sector of teacher education with global markets, described by Thomas Friedman in his book "The world is flat", as emerging and "flattening" in light of rapid technological and communication advances. The institutional framework of teacher production has tightly aligned with a hierarchy of controls and norms used widely by both private and public universities. Authors argue that the economy of universal information cannot provide an educational system with the tools it needs to train teachers and develop students as valuable contributors to the emerging world economy. Although it may be financially costly in the short-term, the higher-cost variables of particular information will prove vital to giving teacher training programs and independent universities the freedom to innovate, meeting the challenges afforded by a changing world.

Disabled students require full access to the higher education curriculum without suffering from discrimination due to their disability. This is a simple ethic of civilised societies, but is also increasingly becoming a legal imperative. In a relatively small number of cases access may mean accommodating manifest physical impairments such as those that can occur with sight, hearing, and mobility. In the majority of cases however a disability is likely to be far less obvious, such as dyslexia, mental health, or diabetes, but still necessitates special action from those delivering the curriculum. (Contains 2 tables, 9 figures, and 1 note.)

A great deal of value is placed on student research within universities, exemplified by the prominent role of the dissertation or extended written work at the end of many programmes, and the more general benefits of embedding research-based learning into a curriculum in order to develop higher-order learning. This article reports on a collaborative problem-based learning (PBL) activity undertaken by staff and students to run an undergraduate conference for first year students on how to develop a research culture. The aim is to better understand how students undertake research and how a research culture might be inculcated much earlier in undergraduate programmes.

Examines factors associated with abuse of children in residential child care institutions including: failings in staff recruitment, training, and supervision; ineffective management and accountability; development of inappropriate institutional cultures; public ambivalence toward children in care; slow response to threats posed to children in care; and failure to develop coherent and integrated systems of child welfare. (Author)

Draws on emerging trends in British universities to examine arguments concerning the continued specialization of comparative and international education versus its integration into other disciplines. Argues that there is an urgent need for comparativists to become active change agents in the broader transformation of their institutions into learning organizations. (SV)

Maintains that universities have a responsibility to engender "..some sense of minimum universal values" in their students and to influence the adoption and promotion of these values in their lives. Considers ways that a university can accomplish this goal through a code of ethics, innovative management, and the impact of senior teams. (MJP)

Introduction: This research project examines student perspectives on independent learning in the United Kingdom and Hong Kong. Independent learning describes learning undertaken by students outside of standard institutional learning environments. Prior research has suggested that motivations to undertake independent learning and the strategies involved may differ across cultural contexts, institutions, and individual learners. Methods: This research employs primary qualitative research consisting of interviews with 16 students in Business Studies (eight British and eight Chinese). The study takes a social constructionist approach to better establish the ways in which culture may serve as a mediator for motivation to learn independently and the strategies pursued to this end. Results: The study's findings note key differences in the motivations to complete independent learning across either cohort, as well as distinct conceptualizations of what strategies and practices facilitate effective independent learning. Discussion: This research highlights significant cultural differences in the motivations, strategies, and skills related to independent learning between students in the United Kingdom and Hong Kong. It also notes the potential for socioeconomic factors, institutional structures, and assessment methods, alongside culture, to contribute to these differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although auditing standards instruct auditors to avoid issuing standardised key audit matters (KAMs), standard setters warn and financial statement users worry about expanded auditor's reports becoming sticky, generic and boilerplate over time. Based on textual analysis of expanded auditor's reports from the UK, I provide longitudinal evidence of an increase in various textual similarity measures including year‐over‐year similarity (stickiness), within‐peer group similarity (generality) and boilerplate language over time. Next, I identify a number of crucial drivers of convergence and find that disclosure similarity diminishes the positive capital market effect of precise KAM reporting documented in prior studies. Together, these findings suggest that audit firms have successively developed standard text modules for KAM reporting that undermine the aim of expanded auditor's reports to provide informative value. This paper extends the literature on the relationship between institutional environments and unintended effects of auditor disclosure regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The incorporation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in organizations is pivotal to deal with work-related tasks and challenges effectively, yet little is known about the organizational factors that influence AI acceptance (i.e., employee favorable AI attitudes and AI use). To address this limitation in the literature and provide insight into the organizational antecedents influencing AI acceptance, this research investigated the relationship between competitive organizational climate and AI acceptance among employees. Moreover, given the critical role of a leader in employee attitude and behavior, we examined the moderating role of leaders’ power construal as responsibility or as opportunity in this relationship. Methods: Study 1 was a three-wave field study among employees (N  =  237, Mage  =  38.28) working in various organizations in the UK. The study measured employees’ perception of a competitive organizational climate at Time 1, leaders’ power construal (as perceived by employees) at Time 2, and employee attitudes towards AI and their actual use of AI in the workplace at Times 2 and 3. Study 2 was a 2 (climate: highly competitive vs. low competitive) by 2 (power construal: responsibility vs. opportunity) experiment among employee participants (N  =  150, Mage  =  37.50). Results: Study 1 demonstrated a positive relationship between competitive climate and employee AI use over time. Furthermore, both studies revealed an interaction between competitive climate and leader’s power construal in the prediction of employee AI acceptance: In Study 1, competitive climate was negatively related to AI acceptance over time when leaders construed power as opportunity. In Study 2 competitive climate was positively related to AI acceptance when leaders construed power as responsibility rather than as opportunity. Discussion: These results underscore the organizational factors that are required in order for employees to shape favorable attitudes towards AI and actually use AI at work. Importantly, this research expands the limited body of literature on AI integration in organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars assert that, worldwide, doctoral provision is increasingly characterised by accelerated scales of production, competitive funding, centralised administration, and interdisciplinary, cohort-based training. The situation in the UK appears to mirror this picture but scholars have long noted that national settings mediate the forms that broader trends take. We therefore examined the case of the UK's social science doctorates, which have seen both marked growth and a range of policy changes, to explore the potential extent of alignment with these trends. Invoking institutional isomorphism, a conceptual framework which asserts how convergence can be driven by different factors, we interviewed senior staff at a range of UK HEIs to examine the activities and underlying rationales behind their social science doctoral provision. We were able to establish that, while there is a degree of isomorphism around their social science doctorates, this is a complex and uneven situation because different kinds of HEIs are subject to a varying combination of simultaneous and often conflicting forces. Our analysis highlights not only how the relationship between national policies and higher education culture can be fraught, but also how organisations' individual positioning and history has implications for how they are able to act in policy contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What role do domestic institutional and structural factors play in the emergence of national macroprudential regimes? So far, the literature on macroprudential policy has mainly focused on transnational processes of knowledge production. We therefore still know very little about what causes the observed differences in macroprudential regimes at a country level. The paper addresses this issue by way of an examination of housing sector related macroprudential policies in the UK and Germany. It finds that part of the reason for the observed differences is to be found in the fact that macroprudential authorities in the two countries tend to construct the intermediate goals of their macroprudential interventions in somewhat different ways, with the UK paying much greater attention to broader macroeconomic outcomes. These differences themselves, however, can only be properly understood in relation to the wider institutional and structural context (including different types of growth models) within the two countries, which create different links between their housing sectors and the real economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most cyber intrusions are a form of intelligence rather than warfare, but intelligence remains undertheorized in international relations (IR). This article develops a theory of intelligence performance at the operational level, which is where technology is most likely to affect broader political and military outcomes. It uses the pragmatic method of abduction to bootstrap general theory from the historical case of Bletchley Park in World War II. This critical case of computationally enabled signals intelligence anticipates important later developments in cybersecurity. Bletchley Park was uncommonly successful due to four conditions drawn from contemporary practice of cryptography: radio networks provided connectivity; German targets created vulnerability; Britain invested in bureaucratic organization; and British personnel exercised discretion. The method of abduction is used to ground these particular conditions in IR theory, revisit the evaluation of the case, and consider historical disanalogies. The result is a more generalizable theory that can be applied to modern cybersecurity as well as traditional espionage. The overarching theme is that intelligence performance in any era depends on institutional context more than technological sophistication. The political distinctiveness of intelligence practice, in contrast to war or coercive diplomacy, is deceptive competition between rival institutions in a cooperatively constituted institutional environment. Because cyberspace is highly institutionalized, furthermore, intelligence contests become pervasive in cyberspace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that there is a conundrum at the heart of the company law understanding of ostensible minority protection mechanisms (the derivative claim and unfair prejudice): they are terrible at protecting those that they are thought to protect. The hurdles to access the remedies are too high, there is undue focus on the behaviour of the wronged party, costs are uncertain, and relief inadequate. This conundrum can be resolved by applying an institutional analysis and exploring the rules from the perspective of the company. Here, a number apparent weaknesses in the regime are mostly strengths for the company. The remedies are important for the company as they act as a 'lightning rod': all complaints by disgruntled shareholders are funnelled through these hegemonic argumentation structures, which protect the institutional arrangement of the company and, in turn, that part of the institutional environment which is company law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this manuscript we offer an organizational or systems-led lens on psychological support for team performance. Specifically, we draw on approaches adopted within the United Kingdom (UK) high performance system to develop psychologically informed environments. In an attempt to contextualize this approach, we offer an insight into the professional landscape in the UK and the emergence of systems-led approaches. Finally, to support those responsible for advancing team performance in elite sport, we draw on the most recent practice innovations to propose the Head of Performance Environment (HOPE) role. By sharing the scope for HOPE's roles and responsibilities, we hope to capitalize on the confluence of organizational sport psychology research developments and contemporary practice innovations and catalyze the future evolution of applied psychology in high performance sport. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marketization of higher education has emerged as a global trend in many countries, and in the UK, students are now paying among the highest tuition fees globally. Marketization is synonymous with performative management practices that require universities to report on an expanding range of metrics designed to demonstrate value to students and the general public. It is also changing the way educational provision is delivered and managed, including the way in which teaching practice is managed to meet the challenges of marketization, managerialism, and student demand. We use the concept of Organization Climate (OC) to examine the challenges facing U.K. business school academics particularly in their teaching role, focusing on the factors shaping the climate for teaching across different institutions. Using focus groups, we identify the determinants of OC for teaching practice to explore how academics perceive their role and the effect of marketization and performative systems on the changing conceptions of teaching in higher education. Our work has wide-ranging implications for business schools globally in understanding how marketization affects teaching practice, where managerialism and metric outputs are already impacting other key agendas facing the delivery of academic subjects with a strong business orientation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alongside the focus on prime ministers within an institutional setting, it is important to recognise the significance of individual skills, styles and personality. Differing individuals will have differing performative skill levels and different leadership styles. The premise that leadership analysis should focus on the interaction between the political skills of the leader and the institutional environment in which they are operating is one that has gained some traction in contemporary political leadership scholarship. This article concentrates on the impact of the individual on the office, considering first the agent-centred approaches to prime ministerial study and applying the interactive model of leadership capital to the contemporary UK premiership, drawing some comparisons with Japan. Focusing on the three components of leadership capital – skills, relations and reputation of the individual in office – can give us a broader picture of the trajectory of prime ministerial leadership. Individual action, perceptions of the incumbent, decision making and style can all impact on the prime minister in office in the 21st century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ulrich's framework of the human resource business partner model (HRBPM) suggests that both the strategic HRM roles (i.e. strategic partner and change agent) and operational HRM roles (i.e. administrative expert and employee champion) jointly add value to an organization. To deepen our understanding of the link between the HRBPM and organizational performance, this study jointly examines the influence of strategic and operational roles on organizational performance and introduces internal efficiency as a central mediating mechanism that explains how the HRBPM contributes to organizational success. In addition, we offer an institutional perspective on the HRBPM to improve our understanding of how the HRBPM is designed in different institutional contexts and whether the performance implications depend on the organization's institutional environment. Based on data from 300 medium-sized and large organizations from Germany and the UK, we found a joint impact of the HRM roles on organizational performance, mediated by internal efficiency. We also found differences in the design of the HRBPM between the UK and Germany; however, we did not find a moderated mediation for the country comparison concerning the performance implications of the HRBPM. These findings improve our understanding of the success of the HRBPM in different institutional contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How have differently institutionalized welfare regimes dealt with the Covid-19 crisis? In particular, how have they confronted the social and economic inequalities exposed by the virus? Taking three European countries--Germany, Sweden, and the UK, corresponding broadly to conservative-continental, social democratic, and liberal regime types--this paper tracks the virus response in the areas of income and employment protection and health and residential care. With attention paid to issues of "capacity" and the institutional arrangements in each case, we find that institutional histories in Germany and Sweden permitted a certain recidivistic reliance on established practices in the areas of employment and social protection. In sum, certain social and economic inequalities were mitigated as these countries set aside recent trends toward "liberalization" and mobilized longer-standing institutional capacities to protect some groups, although by no means all. Evidence of this trend is less clear in the health and residential care sectors, where Germany had existing capacity, allowing its older population to weather the crisis in better order than its counterparts in Sweden and the UK. In the UK, welfare liberalization has led to increased social and economic inequalities and funding reductions in health and residential care--all of which have reduced the country's ability to deal with severe crisis. The Covid response in this case was agile, but also chaotic, with little being done to ameliorate the positions of the most vulnerable groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing body of research emphasizes the importance of institutions for megaproject performance. Extant studies focus on understanding the characteristics of favourable institutional environments and the governance structures that projects can adopt to navigate both favourable and unfavourable environments. This paper contributes to this research by foregrounding the link between megaprojects and changes in the institutional environments within which they are embedded. Building on a case study of the Thames Tideway Tunnel—the UK's largest water and sewerage infrastructure project since the privatization of the industry in 1989—the paper presents two distinct ways that projects can interact with formal institutions: institutional compliance and institutional change. A more holistic understanding of the latter is essential because megaprojects can reconfigure production and consumption patterns to the benefit of some and the detriment of others. By contributing to changes in the institutional environment, megaprojects can further entrench these reconfigured patterns into long-enduring formal rules and practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over 20 years ago a series of papers identified a strikingly dominant economic cluster – the UK's Motorsport Valley (MSV) – which led to MSV becoming an international exemplar of concepts such as agglomeration, clusters and knowledge-driven systems of regional development. Utilising an evolutionary perspective on cluster development, this paper asks 'whatever happened to MSV?'. Drawing on the framework of strategic cluster coupling, four cluster development episodes are conceptualised that each depict the dynamic evolution of the cluster's multi-scalar institutional environment, strategic coupling trajectories and economic development outcomes. Reflecting the emerging synthesis between evolutionary economic geography and geographical political economy, the paper describes an extended case study of cluster development, an evolutionary process of strategic cluster coupling and, ultimately, an example of cluster resilience. Through a focus on strategic cluster coupling, the paper provides further understanding of cluster evolution and path development mechanisms at key moments of cluster reconfiguration – and an empirical update and continuation of the economic story and cluster lifecycle of MSV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we explore how language centres can and need to seize the initiative in matters of internationalisation, language policy and supporting a multilingual and multicultural institutional environment. We identify and explore a number of challenges and opportunities, using the situation in the United Kingdom as our example, demonstrating how language centres can evidence their existing contribution to a wider interpretation of internationalisation than is often found within university international strategies. In that context, we explore the skillset of the 'global graduate' to which language centres can contribute extensively. We demonstrate how language centres can contribute to the achievement of research excellence in an international higher education environment and the dimensions of institutional language policies within the context of a global university. Finally, we share the AULC manifesto for the role of language centres within global universities and propose that CercleS might elaborate a similar manifesto to raise the profile of language centres at the heart of higher education internationalisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Academic staff often experience pedagogic dissonance when first teaching in another country. • They adopt classroom and curriculum strategies to address these challenges. • These strategies are shaped by their own experiences, student diversity and institutional context. Drawing on material from qualitative research with Chinese academics in a UK university and British academics in the Chinese branch campus of that university, this paper places pedagogy at the centre of geographical debates about mobility and the internationalisation of higher education. In particular, it moves beyond the usual focus on the mobility of pedagogy in schools or the teaching of international students in higher education to consider how pedagogic practices are embodied in mobile academic staff, within particular classroom and wider institutional environments. These individuals bring their prior experience of teaching and institutional cultures to a new environment where they come up against approaches and pedagogic practices which may clash with their beliefs about good teaching. This pedagogic dissonance may create feelings of frustration or insecurity, but may also provide opportunities for creativity and self-reflection. The paper focuses on three aspects of pedagogic practice: classroom interactions, language and assessment. The focus on the embodied nature of pedagogic practice extends geographical debates around academic mobility, hierarchies of knowledge, and the internationalisation of higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the hostile political environments in the US and the UK democracy. Topics include various socialist and socialistic movements, ranging from women's movements to Socialist parties drawing on both commonalities and distinctiveness; and resistance takes shape as a public pedagogy of defence through activism in both the physical and digital spheres.

In this paper, the dynamics of debt-to-GDP ratio is analyzed for three countries with long fiscal records: Sweden, the UK and the US. A novel procedure of testing for recurrent explosive behavior is implemented in order to identify episodes of explosive debt dynamics. The detected periods of explosive debt growth can be attributed to changes in economic, political and institutional environment which required active policy responses subsequently followed by fiscal adjustments. The results of the study indicate that the long-run sustainability found for these countries in other studies can be interpreted as the outcome of fluctuating fiscal policies, some of which were unsustainable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to unpack and analyse the institutional and political dynamics of strategic coupling from a host region perspective, adopting an actor-centred approach that focuses on regional institutions' efforts to attract and embed lead firm investments within global production networks. We are particularly concerned with understanding the strategic agency and shifting coalitions of actors that create couplings and shape their evolution over time. This involves opening up the institutional underpinnings of strategic couplings by focusing more specifically on the key episodes in their creation and the organisation of the temporary coalitions that do the work of creating couplings. This approach is operationalised through a case study of the Siemens offshore wind turbine plant in the Humber region of England. In conclusion, we emphasise the need for regional institutions to develop adaptive coupling creation strategies that co-evolve with the reconfiguration of production networks and the reshaping of national institutional and political environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The connections between Work Relationships and People Management are inevitable, since both involve interactions in the work context. This study aimed to map the scientific production of the areas indexed in the Web of Science (WoS) database from 2000 to 2017. From a quantitative-descriptive bibliometric analysis, it was examined the behavior of the national and international literature in relation to its temporal distribution, by language and periodicals, as well as frequency of authorship and keywords. The main results are: expressive growth in publications; predominance of English-language journals and journals from the United Kingdom and North America; and prevalence of English as the mother language of the main authors. The subjects highlighted were: relations with trade unions, innovation and studies focused on countries with economies in expansion (in the international context); labor market, sustainability, culture and organizational climate, diversity, expatriation (in the national context). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Paper highlights the role of wider extra-regional factors in regional path creation. • Develops an analytical framework based on the interplay between four factors. • Adopts an international comparative approach, covering Germany, the UK and Norway. • Outlines the qualitative characteristics of the paths created. • Emphasises the role of national states in the strategic coupling process. The question of how regions and nations develop new sources of industrial growth is of recurring interest in economic geography and planning studies. From an evolutionary economic geography (EEG) perspective, new growth paths emerge out of existing economic activities and their associated assets and conditions. In response to the micro-economic and endogenous focus of much EEG research, this paper utilises a broader evolutionary perspective on path creation which stresses the dynamic interplay between four sets of factors: regional assets; key economic and organisational actors; mechanisms of path creation; and multi-scalar institutional environments and policy initiatives. Reflecting the importance of extra-regional networks and institutions, this framework is also informed by the Global Production Networks (GPN) approach, which highlights the process of strategic coupling between firms and regions and its political and institutional mediation by state institutions at different spatial scales. We deploy this framework to investigate regional path creation in the context of renewable energy technologies, focusing specifically on the offshore wind industry. We adopt a comparative cross-national approach, examining the evolution of offshore wind in Germany, the UK and Norway. Of the three cases, Germany has developed the most deep-rooted and holistic path to date, characterised by leading roles in both deployment and manufacturing. By contrast, path creation in the UK and Norway has evolved in more partial and selective ways. The UK's growth path is developing in a relatively shallow manner, based largely upon deployment and 'outside in' investment, whilst Norway's path is emerging in an exogenous, 'inside-out' fashion around a fairly confined set of actors and deployment and supply functions. In conclusion, the paper emphasises the important role of national states in orchestrating the strategic coupling of regional and national assets to particular mechanisms of path creation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

FameLab International is a science communication competition for early career scientists pioneered by the Cheltenham Science Festival in the United Kingdom in 2005. At its heart is training in the best practices and techniques of good communication. NASA's Astrobiology Program and its partners implemented FameLab USA, one of over 30 implementations around the globe, from 2012 to 2016. FameLab USA's focus was on providing high-quality training for participants and equipping and empowering early career scientists to become skilled, confident communicators of science. The impacts of FameLab USA on participants have been studied, and results from these analyses are presented here. Significant gains in skills for all participants were documented, especially their ability to make better connections with audiences and use thematic structural elements to organize a presentation. Participants reported gaining confidence in their ability to communicate and expanding their self-identity to include "science communicator" in addition to "scientist." They also reported that the FameLab experience increased the likelihood that they would look for communications opportunities and meet challenges presented by their institutional environment to engaging in communication. The overall conclusion is that improving and expanding communication skills and attitudes have changed how participants value communicating about their work and how competent they feel in doing so, which leads to their communicating more often. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focuses on academics in research-intensive universities in the UK and explores their perceptions of organizational climate, role conflict, role ambiguity and job satisfaction. The findings suggest that the universities have multiple organizational climates. Three organizational climate types – the Clan, the Hierarchy and the Adhocracy – were associated with lower levels of role stress. However, the Market climate was associated with higher levels of role conflict. Only the Clan-type climate was directly related to high levels of job satisfaction. It appears that despite the changes in the styles of management in universities, the collegial/Clan climate is still a very important contributor to the satisfaction of academic staff. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports select findings from an institutional survey designed to support long-term strategic developments at a research-led institution in the UK. These developments include a revised Learning and Teaching Strategy that has at its core the promotion of a 'cross-institutional culture of enquiry-based, independent learning'. The survey findings offer insights into pedagogic practice within the institution and serve to identify key issues that will need to be addressed in order to promote further cultural change. This includes clarification of the institutional description of enquiry-based learning to ensure it has greater cross-discipline relevance. The findings are presented as a contribution to the literature on academic change and as such should have relevance to those concerned with examining the design and implementation of such change in higher education institutions. A planned programme of action structured around a framework of engagement, collegiality and empowerment is outlined to indicate how these issues are to be addressed within the timeframe of the strategy. Key areas for further research are indicated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the current study, we develop an institutional embeddedness explanation of foreign initial public offering (IPO) performance. To explain the performance differentials of these firms, we investigate the effects of both “home” and “host” country institutional signals on IPO underpricing using a sample of foreign IPOs listed in two different institutional environments, namely, the U.S. and U.K. stock exchanges. Supporting the view that signals are institutionally embedded and that their value is not universal, we find the salience of signals associated with country of origin is contingent on the institutional environment of the listing exchange. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do parties react when their institutional environment is federalized or devolved? This article investigates how the three dominant British parties have responded to devolution in terms of internal reallocation of power. Party change is evaluated in the light of a functionalist and an institutionalist perspective. We find that Labour has moved incrementally away from centralism; the Conservative Party has changed more extensively towards stratarchy, while the Liberal Democrats, already federalized pre-devolution, have been the least affected of the parties. Our findings lend some support to the institutionalist thesis that (functionally driven) party change is restrained by distinct organizational legacies. However, critical junctures, typically induced by electoral failure, could facilitate a party’s break with organizational legacies to embark on more extensive reform. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The breadth of the desired planning objectives, the lack of precision surrounding their definition and the complex institutional environment make it a rather difficult task to ascertain the outcomes of spatial planning. This article aims to deal with some of the long-standing challenges of disentangling the conceptual and methodological issues associated with the measurement of spatial planning outcomes and performance in the context of the new spatial planning system in England. It will then put forward a strategic integrative framework for assessing spatial planning outcomes that emphasises the importance of vertical and horizontal integration of policy monitoring within a spatial analytical framework; the flexibility of combining different types of indicators across different themes to develop policy intelligence; and the need for a collaborative approach among key stakeholders in the use of indicators to provide feedback and to reframe their policy vision, objectives and strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]