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This quasi-experimental study examines the effectiveness of a psychoeducational group intervention program consisting of psychoeducation sessions and group exercises based on psychodrama warm-up activities resulting from the needs of public sector call center agents in the workplace. Forty municipality call center employees from two municipalities (intervention and control groups) completed pre- and post-test measures before and after the intervention program. Within the scope of the study in sociodemographic form, the Brief Psychological Resilience Scale (BPRS), Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale (WEMWBS), Organization-Based Self-Esteem Scale (OBSES), Group Cohesion Scale (GCS), and Group Atmosphere Scale (GAS) were used. A follow-up session and follow-up test for the intervention group took place one month after the completion of the intervention sessions. The intervention group showed significant pre-to-post-test short-term effects on psychological resilience and pre-to-follow-up long-term effects on group atmosphere scores. However, there was no significant change in burnout, well-being, or organization-based self-esteem scores. Moreover, no significant difference was noted in the control group from pre- to post-test, except for the decrease in the group atmosphere scores.

With the rise of neoliberal reforms and efforts to privatize education, there is a growing need to examine how actors and groups from the public and private sectors influence educational policy change together. In this article, we advance a critical approach to understanding the changing discursive space of educational politics by following discourses through an expansive policy network that goes beyond its traditional boundaries. Specifically, we draw on argumentative discourse analysis (ADA), which allows for the analysis of how and why various actors and groups come together to assign certain meanings to educational phenomena or problems, leading to policy responses or changes. Rooted in Foucault's notions of discourse and power, ADA offers a unique approach to discourse analysis that can illuminate policy change through discourse coalitions. Three case studies from educational policy scholarship are discussed to illustrate the value and utility of ADA in future critical education policy studies.

There is a prevailing consensus within literature that higher education plays a pivotal role in national reconstruction and development. As the primary custodians of knowledge, Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) assume a critical responsibility in producing highly skilled graduates, generating knowledge that is pertinent to economic growth and societal progress, comprehending the major challenges confronting our communities, and proposing viable solutions. However, HEIs in post-conflict Somalia face limited resources, infrastructure, and competency challenges. Thus, there is a growing demand for change within the higher education sector. This research investigates the internal factors affecting the readiness of HEIs in Somalia for Public--Private Partnership (PPP) in implementing a national strategy using the Theory of Organizational Readiness for Change. The research utilizes a questionnaire survey to gather data from high-level administrators of HEIs in Somalia. Additionally, correlation analysis and regression analysis were used to examine the factors affecting readiness to implement national strategies through PPP. All statistical analyses were performed using Jamovi (version 2.3.28). The findings showed a consensus among respondents on the necessity of PPPs and government recognition of HEIs' importance. The findings from a survey reveals that institutional capacity, human resources, and capacity infrastructure are significantly correlated with successful PPP implementation. However, institutional barriers such as unreliable risk-sharing mechanisms, differing organizational cultures, and a lack of supportive institutional environments hinder progress. The research highlights a strong consensus among stakeholders regarding the vital role of PPPs for HEIs in securing government support and fostering a knowledge-based economy. This research contributes to the understanding of PPPs in HEIs within post-conflict contexts and offers valuable insights for policymakers and stakeholders aiming to leverage PPPs for educational development and economic growth.

In this conceptual paper, we aim to revisit key research themes in contemporary organizational institutionalism and by doing this, redirect attention of scholars in public administration towards the most promising domains of application of institutional theory. We propose to shift attention from enabling and power-induced framing of institutional theory towards understanding it as a theory that helps recognize and analyse institutional pressures, constraints and inertia that influence administrative reforms and other organizational change attempts in public organizations. We sharpen the focus of institutional theory, specify the boundaries of institutional explanations by analysing questions that lie beyond institutional theory domain of application and suggest most promising research directions. Thus, we warn against unnecessary inflation of the scope of a theoretical apparatus and "explaining" how actors create, change and disrupt institutions and propose how institutional theory can be applied to predict the patterns of success or failure of changes in the public sector.

Global policy mobilities have been studied predominantly at the national level of education, but their implications and effects at the subnational level have been disregarded. This paper analyzes Proyectá tu Futuro, the first social impact bond (SIB) for education and employability implemented in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Since 2010, SIBs have become a booming type of policy, rapidly traveling and being adopted across countries and policy spheres. SIBs aim to align the incentives of the private sector--the third sector--and the public sector to obtain results while improving public-policy efficiency. However, often it is policy entrepreneurs' agendas and not results or efficiency goals that trigger SIBs' adoption. In this study, we analyze the diffusion of SIBs as policy mobilities and the processes of adoption and translation in the context of Buenos Aires. To this end, we draw on an analysis of policy documents, existing legal frameworks, and interviews with key actors. Our findings point to the role of "glocal" policy entrepreneurs as key agents for the adoption and translation of SIBs, as well as their capacity to advance their own agendas in the context of global policy mobilities in federal education systems.

Tacit knowledge flows can be facilitated by employment transitions, such as for example the transitions of PhDs from university employment to industry. There are however barriers to transitions into and out of university employment, and as a consequence, such transitions are relatively rare. PhDs can circumvent the barriers to permanent transitions by simultaneous secondary employment relationships. Though we know that such cross-employment exists, we do not know how common it de facto is. In this paper, we use a nine-year panel of daily-level employment microdata on the full population of Finnish PhDs to show that about 30% of university-employed PhDs are cross-employed outside of universities. This is a substantial share, and its magnitude alone suggests a central but underappreciated role for cross-employment in contemporary knowledge production and dissemination. We furthermore find that similar numbers of non-university-employed PhDs are cross-employed at universities as university PhDs are cross-employed outside of universities, and that many cross-employment relationships are in non-technical fields, and with public sector organizations. This illustrates the importance of understanding the nature of knowledge flows other than the unidirectional flows of technical knowledge from universities to industrial firms.

Many faculty perform work as public intellectuals, producing essays, op-eds, interviews, and other forms of media to amplify their academic work. However, educational research has not examined how faculty conceptualize non-academic audiences, influencing who faculty address in their public scholarship and what they work on as public intellectuals. This study engaged with 14 education faculty members to explore how these individuals conceptualized the audiences for their public scholarship. Findings suggest faculty often conceptualize audiences of public scholarship as larger, non-academic audiences, speaking to the constraints of academic audiences. However, faculty often described their audiences as being educated, being educators, and being passionate about education--identities that they held--possibly perpetuating a public echo chamber between education faculty and educators in the public sphere. Implications for faculty development and public scholarship are addressed.

This protocol serves as a guiding source for a Campbell registered systematic review aiming to assess the effectiveness of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) in education in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs). The primary question for this review is: What is known about the impact of PPPs on improving access (i.e., enrolment, attendance, drop-out, and completion) and quality (i.e., students' learning outcomes and teachers' teaching practices) of primary and secondary schooling in LMICs? Using a predefined search query, we will retrieve studies from various databases including Scopus, Campbell Library, EBSCO Education Research Complete, NBER, Dissertation and Theses Global (ProQuest), along with other sources of grey literature. Covidence will be used for screening and extraction. A bias assessment tool will be used for the included studies. A standardised mean difference (SMD) effect size of Hedges' g will be calculated for the outcome variables using RevMan.

Lifelong education has proven to be a significant challenge in the policy arena. The combination of formal education and labor-centered institutions has pressed the development of different mechanisms to understand the role of human capital accumulation in socioeconomic mobility and organizational performance. While the narratives of lifelong education have primed labor and educational studies across developed economies, in the case of developing economies, those logics appear contested by development economics conditions. In this paper, I use the context of the expansion of the graduate educational market and its policy reforms to analyze how a developing economy copes with a change in the availability of a highly educated workforce. Using panel and pseudo-panel data, I examine the evolution of educational returns for the graduate workforce in Chile between 1990 and 2018, considering the differences between industries and public and private sectors. The results point out that there are no public-private differences and high heterogeneity across economic sectors. The policy- and individual-level consequences are discussed.

Using data from the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, this paper compares the earnings premium and employment share of jobs in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) across 11 member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The results reveal that the STEM wage premium is higher in the United States than in any of the other comparison countries, despite the fact that the U.S. has a larger share of workers in STEM jobs. We also find evidence that the premium varies significantly across STEM sub-fields and education levels, and that the premium tends to be higher in countries with lower unionization rates, less employment protection, or a larger share of employment in the public sector.

One of the challenges in substantiating deliberative democracy as a normative theory is the educational challenge of how to cultivate civic virtue, especially mutual respect and civility, in children. The cultivation of civic virtue is not limited to school education, but is also an activity related to family education. However, liberal theorists who advocate the theory of deliberative democracy, based on the dualism of public and private, have limited their discussions to the issue of civic development in the field of public education. This article proposes to understand and compare the many competing theories on public-private dualism, particularly in liberal and feminist spaces. Beginning with an analysis of the work of liberal theorists such as David Archard as well as Harry Brighouse and Adam Swift, and moving on to that of feminist theorists such as Susan Okin, this article examines competing theories on education in school and in the family, to whom the responsibility of education belongs, and where feminist and liberal thought enlighten these debates. This article will clarify the theoretical tendencies and principles of liberal arguments aimed at overcoming the public-private dualism in education, and present a strategy for overcoming the challenges that this theory encompasses by seeking reference points in feminist thought, especially with attention to conception of relational autonomy.

The e-learning concept is increasingly receiving attention in education but there seems to be inadequate guidance in developing a formal programme for implementing e-learning, especially in the public sector. Hence, this study focuses on aggregating information on the adoption and utilisation of e-learning in the public sector and attempting the development of a conceptual model for understanding workplace e-learning implementation. A systematic search of the literature was conducted to collect all the literature addressing the adoption and utilisation of e-learning in the public sector. This review brought to light key factors that influence the adoption and utilisation of e-learning amongst public sector employees, including attitude, satisfaction, behaviour intention, continuance intention, or behaviour to use e-learning. The adoption and utilisation of e-learning in the public sector requires a carefully thought-through and evidence-based approach, especially the development of the e-learning programme.

Purpose: The goal of this study was to understand the relationships between mentoring roles, career calling, and the transmission of tacit knowledge in the setting of executive development centers. The purpose of this research was to determine if there is a link between mentoring roles and the transmission of tacit knowledge and, if so, to what extent mentoring structure and culture moderate this link. Design/methodology/approach: The study used a quantitative strategy based on partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to examine information gathered from 287 workers at four executive development centers. Mentoring roles, vocational calling, and the transmission of tacit knowledge were quantified using scales derived from existing research. Findings: Results showed a beneficial association between mentoring roles and vocational interest. Tacit knowledge was more likely to be shared when it was directly related to one's chosen profession. A person's vocation mediated the connection between mentoring roles and the transmission of tacit knowledge. Furthermore, the form of mentoring moderated the relationship of mentoring roles and the transfer of tacit knowledge. Originality/value: This study is novel because it investigates the interplay between mentoring roles, vocational vocation, and the transmission of tacit knowledge in a non-traditional business setting. This research emphasizes the mediating impact of vocation and the moderating effect of mentorship structure in influencing knowledge-sharing practices in Pakistan's public sector.

The aquatic husbandry field, historically dominated by White males, is a unique amalgamation of science, technology, engineering, art, and math (STEAM) disciplines. This article presents insights from one of the few aquatic husbandry Managers of Color, who also co-founded Minorities in Aquarium and Zoo Science (MIAZS) to address racial disparities in the industry. Through personal experiences and industry analysis, the author discusses career trends, shifting demographics, compensation issues, and the importance of individual actions in fostering inclusivity. The article emphasizes the role of allyship, education, and advocacy at individual, departmental, organizational, and industry levels. It explores the impact of MIAZS Ally Skills Workshops, highlighting measurable shifts in participants' perspectives and actions. The article also addresses challenges in hiring practices, proposing solutions to enhance inclusivity and retention within the aquatic husbandry field as well as informal education within aquariums, museums, and other cultural institutions.

The potential benefits and challenges of AI in the workplace are documented with public service facing a particular choice to leverage this tool to better communities. This article explores the use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools in public service education. As students prepare to enter public service, they need to gain the skills to manage the advantages and threats of AI. This article explores one attempt to prepare students for the intersection of public service and AI using a human resource management course. This article explores the use of ChatGPT, as a generative AI tool, for both instructors and students across the academic year. We explore the pedagogical strategies involved and share outcomes and lessons learned for future integration of AI in the classroom.

The use of Open Educational Resources (OER) for training in public administration has yet to see a wide adoption globally, mostly due to challenges related to the discovery and reuse of high-quality OER for training purposes. These challenges, combined with the general lack of openness in the public sector, have greatly impacted the penetration of OER in public administration. This paper presents a case study on the use of OER for expanding and enhancing curricular and resource sharing in public administration in Greece. Within this case study, an OER authoring and sharing platform was introduced to the Greek public sector, employing crowdsourcing methods for supporting trainers and trainees in authoring, sharing, reusing and remixing OER. The paper presents the deployment of this platform and the use of OER in the context of training programmes in the Greek public sector and reports on the lessons learned and the impact on public administration. The results of the case study showed that the use of OER was very positively received by civil servants, with a remarkable response, through active participation and engagement that led to the enhancement of existing OER and the co-creation of new ones for public administration.

Public sector accounting education (PSAE) has recently attracted increasing attention from both scholars and practitioners. Nonetheless, there is still an education/practice gap that undermines public servants' ability to face the complexity of the current working environment. This paper reviews and critiques the PSAE literature, identifies the main practical issues affecting the field, and outlines how education providers can improve formal and non-formal curricula and training. Results reveal that the exploratory nature of a large part of the PSAE research and the lack of a practical perspective able to bridge the gap between PSAE and the requirements in practice of the current public sector context demonstrate the pressing need to develop the topic and how it is investigated. The present review is one of the first attempts to investigate PSAE with a focus on the practical approaches that could be used for the development of graduates and public servants' accounting competencies.

This article investigates stakeholders' learning and transformative action when developing a collaboration platform between a Swedish regional authority organisation (RAO) and civil society organisations (CSOs) to find new ways to provide welfare services. The material is based on 22 semi-structured interviews and observations of seven general meetings at which RAO officials and CSO representatives met. In addition, notes were taken during two workshops with key stakeholders and interviewees, respectively. Learning and transformative action were analysed through a TADS approach. The findings reveal that a signed agreement, stipulating collaboration between the two sectors (public and civil society) became a second stimulus for shared transformative agency. After signing the agreement, conflicts of motives arose, which challenged learning between stakeholders. Surprisingly, it was not the conflicts of motives between the two sectors, but those within each sector that constituted the most severe expansive learning challenges, and consequently also a delay in the development of the collaboration platform that was to provide welfare services. Nonetheless, the conflicts also contributed to small, incremental, steps of transformative action toward what they had set out to do.

Purpose: To assess the potential of a paper diary for strengthening accountability in public agricultural extension services. Therefore a paper diary called 'Diary for Agricultural Extension Officers' was developed and tested in Uganda. Design/methodology/approach: A qualitative case study research approach was applied for the development and assessment of the diary. Data were collected using focus group discussions and individual face-to-face interviews. Data analysis was conducted using the content analysis method. Findings: Paper diaries can strengthen accountability in public agricultural extension services by enabling alignment of the extension activities of the field agents to the goals of the extension service and to the needs of the beneficiaries, in addition to mitigating information asymmetry about the extension activities. However, the implementation of paper diaries requires sensitization of the beneficiaries on the need for verification and feedback. Practical Implications: This study is centred around addressing a practical problem of field agents' accountability and results have the potential to improve management of public services such as agricultural extension. Moreover, the findings could also be relevant for all types of organizations and service delivery methods. Theoretical implications: This study expanded the boundaries of the principal-agent theory by applying it to the accountability of agricultural extension services using paper diaries, which have hitherto not been widely applied. Originality/value: This study advances the debates of accountability and coordination of agricultural extension services by assessing the potential of a paper diary as the literature has to date assessed the potential of electronic diaries.

Education governance networks are increasingly common and very diverse. In a strategic case study, we apply a new social network analysis method to evaluate the sustainability of a public-private education governance network. We examine the balance of satisfaction across public and private sectors and the network's fairness in terms of whether actor groups' investments in the network are proportional to their influence. We find that this established, long-term network is not entirely balanced but is fair, and argue that the fairness contributes to its sustainability. This fairness might arise due to the existing intermediaries in the network. Intermediaries play important roles in many networks, operating between other actors to build capacity and facilitate cooperation. We investigate how intermediaries operate, especially in networks that connect the public and private sectors. We find that intermediaries' roles differ according to sector. Public-sector intermediaries perform a direction function, complementing the effort and interconnectedness of individual actors. In contrast, private-sector intermediaries play a representing role, substituting for individual actors' effort and interconnectedness. These different roles of the public- and private-sector intermediaries contribute to the sustainability of the network.

This article sheds light on governance mechanisms at work when decentralised implementation of national educational and welfare policies encounters a heterogeneous sector of private service provider organisations. It illuminates how isomorphic pressure plays out at the interface between local governance and private providers' organisational strategies for quality development in early childhood education and care (ECEC). Key informant interviews are employed to investigate the function of local non-mandatory quality and competence-developing networks (QCDNs) as a locus for these interactions. Findings indicate that QCDNs contribute to shaping private ECEC providers' quality development efforts, and that coercive, normative, and mimetic isomorphic pressures become intertwined in this process. Most private provider organisations choose to participate in these non-mandatory networks. However, ECEC corporations and small private providers assign different meanings to their participation, and the networks thus appear to spur different organisational strategies. While small private providers harmoniously align their ECEC quality development strategies with institutionalised municipal practice, the provider corporations, while in formal compliance, exploit the resulting inter-municipal variation as one argument among many for more stringent national governmental standardisation. We demonstrate how isomorphic pressure may create and enable an impetus for endogenous and gradual institutional change agency.

This article explores how responses to a generic skills framework are materialised in Irish schools, and the main aim is to shed light on multiple dimensions of policy enactment. The Key Skills Framework (KSF) was introduced as part of a curricular reform in Irish lower secondary schools -- a reform that has met substantial resistance locally and nationally. This study investigated local responses to the KSF specifically by interrogating its particular materialisations in practice through Actor-Network Theory ('spaces of prescription' and 'spaces of negotiation'). The findings indicate that there is an inherent multiplicity to the KSF that nevertheless suggests it has been reduced to represent national traditions of behaviour monitoring and disciplinary routines, rather than intentions of enhancing thinking, learning and living more commonly found in generic skills frameworks. These findings are coupled with discussions of the nature of governing actors in Irish education, including the presence of (new) private vendors.

This paper addresses the perceptions and mechanisms of doctoral student job decisions regarding the pursuit of careers in the government sector in China. Through the lens of social cognitive career theory (SCCT), we analysed 30 semi-structured interviews that had been conducted with doctoral students from two prestigious Chinese universities who wish to work as civil servants. This study describes doctoral students' understanding of careers in government employment from the perspectives of work content, promotion channels and professional norms. The mechanisms influencing student career choices include personal goals, self-efficacy, outcome expectations and environment. The clear goal of political ambition and work--life balance directly drives doctoral students to choose government institutions for employment. The diploma signal of doctoral degree itself and academic training give doctoral students a high sense of self-efficacy, which is necessary for their choice of employment in the government. Occupational safety, occupational benefits and occupational value constitute the expectations of positive outcomes providing doctoral students with good feedback. In the current environment, the labour market situation and the impetus of universities combine to form a push force and the preferential recruitment policies of the state form a pull force, which jointly promote doctoral students to make decisions to work in government sector. In this paper, the fact that the Chinese government introduced the 'special selected graduates' scheme for doctoral students from prestigious universities in hope of recruiting intellectual elites to improve the quality of civil servants and the modernization level of social governance. Universities encourage PhD graduates to enter the government, hoping that this would enhance their social influence and reputation, thereby safeguarding their status as prestigious universities. From an institutional perspective, the process of doctoral students becoming civil servants can be said to be a form of cooperation between the government and universities.

During an assignment as a change leader of a complex IT change program within a Dutch public government organization, I used action learning to develop and support the desired changes and to tackle the complex problems that usually accompany such a change program. During this action learning project, I took the role of facilitator and I devised and presented the initial conceptual tools and their application to two action learning sets. Subsequently, after proposing the idea of ??applying action learning to problem solving, the program team members including the senior managers, were prepared to apply action learning as an integral part of the IT program. We formed two action learning sets, with around 10 persons in each set. One set consisted of diverse and multidisciplinary subject matter experts, and external IT suppliers who participated as program team members. Another set was made up of managers of delivering departments, who would take the lead in adopting the solutions developed by the software development and implementation program. To shape the action learning approaches and processes within the sets during the lifetime of the change program, I developed, and we used, seven instruments (MALS) based on progressive insights, and applied them within the sets for process, quality, and improvement based on progressive insight. This paper describes the seven instruments and explains how they were used within the project.

The present study identifies job crafting profiles of public sector employees and how they differ in terms of employees' work engagement, workaholism, and approach to learning. Participants represent various occupations from educational field (e.g., teachers), technical field (e.g., ICT-experts), and administrative field (e.g., customer servants). Using latent profile analysis, three job crafting profiles could be identified: "Passive crafters" (25%), "Average crafters" (57%), and "Active crafters" (18%). Passive crafters reported the lowest values in all approach-oriented job crafting strategies (increasing job resources and demands) and the highest value in avoidance-oriented job crafting (decreasing hindering job demands). Active crafters reached the highest values in all approach-oriented job crafting and the lowest value in avoidance-oriented job crafting. Average crafters used all job crafting strategies close to the average level. The lowest work engagement, workaholism, and reflective-collaborative approach to learning were reported by passive crafters. Both average crafters and active crafters reported higher workaholism and reflective-collaborative learning approach than passive crafters. Active crafters reported the highest work engagement. Study findings show the interplay between employees' job crafting, work engagement, workaholism, and epistemic approach. This study extends workplace learning research field by offering new theoretical information and is the first one exploring job crafting profiles and their differences regarding employees' epistemic approach; reflective learning, collaborative knowledge-building, and metacognition. Study discusses theoretical contributions and practical implementations, which may be used in work life induction, and in fostering job crafting and continuous workplace learning.

Purpose: This study aims to asses students' sustainability consciousness (SC) in relation to their perceived teaching styles in seven public sector institutions in Pakistan. Design/methodology/approach: A survey technique was used to collect data from respondents. Grasha's (1996) Teaching Styles Inventory and Gericke et al.'s (2019) Sustainability Consciousness Questionnaire were used to collect data pertinent to teachers' teaching styles and students' SC, respectively. This study's population was 1,986 students studying in seven educational institutions. A sample of 993 students was selected for the study. Out of the 993 questionnaires distributed, only 753 respondents returned the questionnaire completely filled, resulting in a response rate of 75.83%. Descriptive statistics and structural equation modeling (SEM) were used to analyze the data. Findings: The results show that students' mean scores on environmental and social dimensions were higher compared with the economic dimension. Similarly, students' scores were relatively higher on the knowledge and attitude dimension while lower on the behavior dimension. Moreover, the expert and formal authority teaching styles were the most prevalent teaching styles. Furthermore, SEM results show that various teaching styles affected students' knowledge and attitude; however, only the delegator teaching style affects all three dimensions of SC. Research limitations/implications: This research has implications for educational institutions and policymakers to ensure dedicated efforts to promote and integrate education for sustainable development into the educational system and achieve sustainability goals by 2030. Practical implications: The study findings will help future teachers to effectively integrate sustainability education into their classrooms. Originality/value: This research expands the discussion on the effectiveness of various teaching styles on SC in teacher education programs.

A prominent factor contributing to the success of Hong Kong as one of the high-performing learning systems around the world throughout the decades is its responsive and innovative as well as resilient and sustainable learning ecosystem. Hong Kong's learning ecosystem has long been remaining tripartite, which involves the conventional top-down and bottom-up dimensions, namely, the government and schools, as well as the middle-out dimension, namely, the cross-sectoral collaboration. Most importantly, all of them are unleashing their unique potentials and creating collaborating synergistic dynamics towards the overarching goal of enhancing student learning in view of the complex, dynamic, and evolving future ahead. Therefore, the notion 'versatile learning ecosystem' can be succinctly employed to portray Hong Kong's learning ecosystem. This conceptual article aims to contribute to the field by offering a springboard for the wide range of nexuses and networks manifested in the public and non-public sectors in education, especially in terms of the dimensions of 'what', 'why', and 'how'. The focus will be placed on illustrating the five major areas of Hong Kong's learning ecosystem that include (1) promotion of consultative and participative policy formulation and implementation; (2) enhancement of learning and teaching experience; (3) facilitation of students' holistic well-being; (4) support of underprivileged students in learning and teaching; and (5) cultivation of collaborative teaching, research, and service networks. In the future, it is anticipated that the public and non-public sectors will be working more frequently, closely, and intensely in supporting and promoting student learning in various levels and modes.

Purpose: In the era of hyper-competitiveness, firms, especially project-based management structures, have to focus on ideas for both new and existing sets of products and services, i.e. ambidextrous innovation. The ambidextrous innovation can be helpful, but achieving such a level is a problem to be solved. This study aims to yield ambidextrous innovation by using innovative culture and knowledge that has been gained from learning. Design/methodology/approach: The present research collected data from Saudi Arabian public-sector firms. The data collected is analyzed using the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). Findings: The findings of the study suggest that a range of factors can be operationalized in project-based firms to establish organizational learning and innovation culture. These factors include agile-based project management, leveraging existing innovative capabilities and growth mindset in case of innovative organizational culture and additional factors of agile-based knowledge management along with others in case of organizational learning. The PLS-SEM further concluded that both organizational learning and innovative organizational culture, in turn, help project-based Saudi Arabian public-sector firms to develop their ambidextrous innovation capability. Originality/value: The PLS-SEM further concluded that both the organizational learning and innovative organizational culture, in turn, help project-based Saudi Arabian public-sector firms to develop their ambidextrous innovation capability.

In most countries, people with intellectual disability are largely excluded from competitive employment. Research has identified school- and workplace-related barriers that may hinder their participation in the labour market. Yet, information about available work opportunities for employees with intellectual disability is lacking. This study aims to address this knowledge gap by mapping work tasks for which Norwegian employers report hiring employees with intellectual disability. Through an online survey, 478 employers in competitive employment companies provided information about whether they had prior experience with hiring employees with intellectual disability and, if so, which work tasks these employees performed. In the study sample, large, private companies within hotel, restaurant and catering were more likely to hire employees with intellectual disability than companies that were small and public and in other sectors. However, findings also indicate that a wide variety of work tasks with different degrees of complexity is available within all of the sectors. These findings may inform adolescents with intellectual disability and transition teams about work opportunities that may be available in their community. This information may further help schools to partner with local businesses for the planning of employment training in upper secondary school.

Recent literature highlights the importance of providing citizens public sector accounting education to help them become public finance literate. This study performs a questionnaire-based survey to a convenient sample of citizens to collect their perspective on the topic. The results indicate an average familiarity of the respondents with key public finance concepts, with male respondents appearing more familiar. The respondents place more importance in being able to monitor and assess the state's financial performance and condition rather than that of the local government. In practice, when making voting decisions during municipal elections they focus less on financial information, compared to when it comes to state elections, mainly due to difficulties in accessing the municipalities' financial information. The respondents are further supportive of receiving public sector accounting education as they believe it could help them monitor the local and state government's financial condition and performance, take more rational election decisions and more actively participate to public matters. They perceive that such an education should take place from high-school and not earlier, and they find useful this educational process to continue via online and on-site seminars. Finally, they make recommendations on the specific content (learning objectives) of public sector accounting education at the different educational levels (school, high-school, municipal seminars, and online seminars).

This study was an initial step toward planning tele-practice in a South Indian state's public-sector services for childhood hearing and speech-language problems. The aim was to understand the perceptions public-sector health care professionals (HCPs) regarding their willingness and need for tele-practice-based diagnostics and rehabilitation services. Focus group discussions (FGD), semi-structured interviews (SSI), and geo-spatial analysis were employed in a cross-sectional study. Different public-sector HCPs participated in the qualitative study. Data sufficiency was assessed using theoretical saturation and cross-case variance. Data was analyzed using hybrid deductive-inductive thematic analysis. Geo-tags and geo-locations of all children with disabilities and all the public-sector service providers were used to generate geospatial maps. HCPs felt that childhood hearing and speech-language disorder services were inadequate and lacked sufficient qualified professionals. There was inconsistent equipment and professional availability in district-level facilities. HCPs were comfortable using technology, and were willing to investigate tele-practice, but they required training in tele-practice.

Transgender (trans) rights are human rights; however, human resource management (HRM) policies often do not consider implications for non-binary gender equity. Instead, trans employees often face adverse working conditions, including discrimination, harassment, and marginalization--a critical HRM issue. As the workforce diversifies, HRM professionals must increase their understanding of identity categories, such as sex and gender. Moreover, HRM professionals must be equipped to critically analyze and uphold or amend workplace policies and practices to protect the rights and address the unique challenges faced by non-gender binary employees. This teaching case study facilitates a discussion on transgender rights and the role of HRM by analyzing issues of access, fairness, safety, and inclusivity in the public sector workplace. Students are challenged to consider how different groups are affected by HRM policy (or lack thereof) and how to balance policies with the needs and safety concerns of various stakeholders.

The effective public sector must facilitate relationships between the government and the public that reflect the increasing cultural diversity of their communities. With the reality of increasing diversity and heightened awareness of the impact of public policies within this expanding reality, public service programs must prepare future public and nonprofit managers. By synthesizing concepts from Critical Race Theory and Cultural Competency, this article creates the DEI Training Ladder as a training framework. Then, the framework is applied to the case study of a specific Master of Public Administration program's DEI core course. The DEI Training Ladder guides the preparation and execution of the course. As a result, the course emphasizes cultural and diversity awareness, disparate policy impacts, and DEI practices. This case study outlines the course context, content, and structure followed by course impact based on student reflections. The concluding discussion makes implementation recommendations for a core DEI course with additional suggestions for incorporating DEI throughout the curriculum.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore how digital technologies at work serve as environments for informal workplace learning in knowledge work. Design/methodology/approach: Digital ethnography was used to investigate the digital environments of one public sector workplace. The data included observations, interviews and participant diaries. Findings: The digital work environment consisted of a complex network of technologies and people connected to them. The ethnographic accounts revealed both expansive and restrictive features of the digital environment. Digital technology extended learning opportunities by providing flexible possibilities for interaction, collaboration and access to a wealth of information. On the contrary, digitally mediated presence could restrict learning if the attendance and learning remained superficial. The complexity and constant change in digital workplace environments presented challenges that could potentially restrict learning. Information overload, constant interruptions and changes were burdens that required employees' skills to manage these challenges. Originality/value: The authors take a novel approach to view the workplace as a phygital environment in which social, physical and digital environments are combined. Because digital environments are becoming increasingly essential parts of the workplace, it is important to understand how they can support learning.

As the privatisation of the public sector has grown rapidly in Sweden in the last decade, private companies have become an imperative part of education. Private companies sell and deliver consultancy, hardware, software, services, etc. to schools and municipalities. This study examines a growing rate of activities from companies and businesses working within public sectors. It also examines consequences of cooperation between private and public actors. Findings show that multiple actors meet in different forms and with different functions, in multiple ways and with diverse agendas. What can be discerned is strong Public-Private Partnerships (PPP), where actors and networks are linked together, directly or indirectly, in fluid and flexible relations and partnerships. Private actors on educational markets not only becomes edupreneurs but policyneurs, a new concept introduced. As private actors engage in the policy making and the public sphere, a complex and disorganised landscape with new formations of strong actors emerge, entailing a number of consequences. One implication is the establishment of lobbyism in the Swedish educational landscape, with potentially negative consequences for democracy. One conclusion is that new formations of power dissolve the roles and functions of private and public actors within education, with implications on decision-making, transparency, and democracy.

A growing number of doctoral students work during their Ph.D., which is commonly associated with higher risks of dropout. This paper investigates whether the sector of employment (public or private) is also a predictor of student outcomes in Ph.D. programs. Using a dataset on doctorate students in Brazil, the association of employment with the likelihood of graduation and dropout is estimated using a logistic regression and an event history analysis. The results indicate that students employed exclusively in the public sector during the program are approximately 80% more likely to graduate than those working only for private organizations.

This explanatory study explored what graduate programs should embrace in educating public serving professionals to become able to respond to paramount challenges unknown at the time of studies. For conceptual frameworks, the study employed: (1) principal-agent theory on how predominant philanthropic organizations pushed the creation of globalized higher education industry post-World War II (WWII); and (2) world-systems theory to delineate the spatial penetration of the hegemonic intellectual core. The study found that the post-WWII's geopolitically driven overseas engagements by US higher education institutions (HEI) orchestrated by well-resourced philanthropic giants such as Ford Foundation made a ground for what we see today: a globalized HEI industry governed by the core with the hegemonic power, termed for the study as a global higher education ecosystem. The study noted that irrespective of if the concerned HEI occupies the position in the core or not, rootedness in the place and its people is the key for public focused programs precisely because of their nature of public-ness. The study then drew three programmatic constructs as referential for latecomer HEI to assume meaningful roles for the society they serve through their public serving professionals focused graduate programs: (1) contextualization of globally standardized academic contents into classroom discussions by connecting with cases/situations surrounding given society; (2) positioning the program as a post-entry milestone for public sector professionals to become better prepared state-building force by focusing on the linkage of theories and practices; and (3) HEI specific, unique intellectual identify exploration that is anchored to the place and to its own constituency. The study concluded that today's graduate programs designed for public serving professionals could frame its objective, as a renewed purpose, to educate academically informed state-builders with the capacity to craft and perform own actions as new realities arise in front of them.

The purpose of this work is to provide empirical evidence as to how state level Freedom of Information or Access to Information and data protection regulator bodies in Mexico carry out their training tasks. We use different theoretical assumptions, particularly those that refer to the idea of "training in the public sector" regarding two aspects that allow to account, at least in part, about the referred training practices: first, the pedagogical model they declared to use; and second, the evaluations regarding trained public officials. FOI/ATI and regulator bodies in Mexico have a legal obligation to train and carry out professional development for public officials. This responsibility associated, with performance management--along with other purposes--and to guarantee the human right to information and data privacy for individuals, is in the hands of public officials that must have not only knowledge and skills but also values and attitudes regarding this fundamental right. These public authorities have several challenges to comply with ATI and data privacy laws; some relate to responding public information requests--that is, in a timely and adequate manner--or publishing the information mandate by law. ATI regulator bodies mitigate these multi-casual issues through training or development courses. Currently, public officials are trained to comply with the law and its implementation in the best possible way. Our main finding is that the local regulator bodies overall comply with their legal training mandate. That is, they do have and carry out training programs, although in an unprofessional and potentially deficient manner.

Context: Against a backdrop of dwindling oil resources and increasing unemployment rates, the government of Oman has set out to diversify its industry and establish a knowledge-based economy. In this context, forming a highly-skilled Omani workforce is considered to be of crucial importance. Yet, the national TVET system suffers from low social status, poor quality, and limited labour market connectivity. This paper offers an analysis of Oman's TVET system in the socio-economic and cultural context of a rentier state. Approach: We draw on the political economy of skills and socio-cultural approaches that understand TVET systems and the broader skills regimes in which they are embedded as part and expression of particular patterns of the social organisation of work. This helps to locate TVET systems' strengths and weaknesses in the context of their underlying social relations instead of considering them as mere dysfunctionalities at the systemic level. This paper draws on an unpublished study on TVET for industrialisation commissioned by an Omani line ministry in cooperation with an international organisation. For this study, the authors carried out a literature review, undertook two field trips to Oman in 2018 and 2019 and conducted forty semi-structured interviews with stakeholders from government, private companies, business associations, and TVET and higher education institutions. Findings: Our analysis highlights how skill formation in Oman is shaped by the socioeconomic and cultural context of the Omani rentier state. First, the availability of cheap expatriate labour and Omanis' traditional preference for public sector jobs culminate in poor incentives for employing Omani nationals in the private sector. Second, reluctant employer attitudes towards national skill formation deepen quality issues in the TVET system, especially with regard to work-based training. This reinforces negative perceptions of the local workforce, which in turn contribute to biased employment patterns. Both social processes mutually reinforce each other, eventually preventing the emergence of strong national skill formation dynamics. Conclusions: While immediate structural change appears challenging, it is evident that reforms of the TVET system alone will not lead to its sustainable improvement. More research into how skill formation relates to Oman's specific socio-economic structures, how employment dynamics relate to educational credentials and how cultural traditions shape educational and work practices is needed.

This study aimed to determine the factors that are considered by accounting students who choose careers as public accountants and private accountants. Three factors that became the focus of observation are intrinsic motivation, career exposure, and quality of life. Data collection in this research was organized in several public and private universities in Java. The survey was distributed online and obtained 445 valid questionnaires used to test the research model. The findings indicated that students who have more career information are more likely to choose a career as a public accountant. Besides, students who have a higher perception of the quality of life tend to choose a career as a private accountant. This study has not found significant evidence on the effect of intrinsic motivation on career choice. This study promotes accounting career institutions and universities in developing the interest of the younger generation in the accounting profession, be it public accountants or private accountants. Developing from the limitations in this study, further research can develop this accountant career research model by considering other factors, as well as observing accounting students in various demographic variations.

Philanthropic initiatives incorporating prescriptive practices have become prominent in K-12 education. This study provides evidence on the reach, character, and impact of the Broad Superintendents Academy, a controversial initiative designed to transform district leadership. A novel data set on Broad trainees linked to data on large districts over 20 years shows that Broad superintendents have had extensive reach, serving nearly 3 million students at their peak, and that, for districts that hired Broad trainees, Broad superintendents were 40% more likely to be Black than non-Broad superintendents, although they had significantly shorter tenures. Estimates provide evidence that Broad-trained leaders had little effect on several district outcomes including enrollment, spending, and student completion. However, they initiated a trend toward increased charter school enrollment.