The Role of External Change Agents in School Improvment

2001 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alma Harris
Urban Studies ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 807-825 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carl Grodach ◽  
Nicole Foster ◽  
James Murdoch

The arts have long played a role in debates around gentrification and displacement, yet their roles and impacts as change agents are not clear-cut. According to the standard account, artists facilitate gentrification and ultimately engender the displacement of lower income households, but more recent research complicates the accepted narrative. This article seeks to untangle the relationship between the arts, gentrification and displacement through a statistical study of neighbourhood-level arts industry activity within large US regions. The findings indicate that the standard arts-led gentrification narrative is too generalised or simply no longer applicable to contemporary arts-gentrification processes. Rather, the arts have multiple, even conflicting relationships with gentrification and displacement that depend on context and type of art. These results have important implications for how we study the role of the arts in neighbourhood change and for how governments approach the arts and creative industries in urban policy.


1971 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 337-346 ◽  
Author(s):  
Howard Moody

Howard Moody is pastor of Judson Memorial Church in New York City and a Director of the New York Civil Liberties Union. In 1967, Moody brought together a small group of clergymen to help counsel women with “problem pregnancies.” Risking public censure and criminal prosecution, the Clergy Consultation Service on Abortion referred thousands of women for safe abortions. In addition, Moody and others formed a coalition to support the passage of a bill to legalize abortion. The New York Legislature passed such a bill in April, 1970, which permits abortions by licensed physicians within the first 24 weeks of pregnancy. On July 1, 1970, the New York Clergy Consultation Service, which had served as a model for other organizations in other states, was disbanded and reconstituted as Clergy and Lay Advocates for Hospital Abortion Performance. The new organization is designed to deal with local restrictions on abortions and the growth of high-priced “abortion brokers.” This article is reprinted from the March 8, 1971 issue of Christianity and Crisis, Copyright © 1971 by Christianity and Crisis, Inc. The article is used with permission and is reprinted not only as a commentary on a controversial issue but as a case-study of the problems involved when clergy and churches take on the role of social and cultural change-agents. It's definitely not easy, but apparently it can be done. Dr. Moody wishes to acknowledge the assistance of his associate, Arlene Carmen.


2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 20
Author(s):  
Alkida Ndreka

Migration has reciprocal economic implications between the origin and host countries. While scholars draw attention to the globalization of migration, since the 1960s there is a perpetual debate about the migration and development nexus. The role of international migrants and their financial remittances are identified as having a highly positive effect on the home country’s development. Emigrants’ remittances tangibly benefit the income for the families in the home country and investments in different sectors (housing, education, health, entrepreneurship, etc.). Next to remittances, returned migrants, especially those highly skilled are recognized as actors and drivers of significant economic development in the homeland. The contribution of return migrants to the development in origin countries can be beneficial not simply by investing the financial capital they accumulated during the migration cycle but also by the transferring of expertise, knowledge and new skills acquired abroad, and acting as social change agents in the home society. Empirical studies indicate a positive relationship between return migration and entrepreneurial activity, therefore enterprises can be a substantial contributor, among others, to economic growth and alleviating poverty of the origin country. Governments and policymakers are increasingly interested in the issue of return migration and return migration policies that attract and facilitate the returnee’s reintegration. Reintegration programs, especially those in the business sector, benefit the development of the origin country through savings, investments, easing of entrepreneurial opportunities and the expertise of returnees. This paper aims to identify whether return migration is beneficial for the origin country and especially to analyze the role of return migrant’s in the economic development of the origin country through engaging in entrepreneurial activity


Author(s):  
Stuart Sims ◽  
Wilko Luebsen ◽  
Chris Guggiari-Peel

Throughout the REACT project, the core institutions of Winchester, Exeter and London Metropolitan have been conducting an in-depth, multi-faceted evaluation of selected co-curricular student engagement activities – ‘Student Fellows’, ‘Change Agents’ and ‘Peer-Assisted Student Success’ respectively. This involved the collection of survey data to explore key concepts related to the motivations of students to participate in these initiatives. This survey explores areas including employability, academic study and partnership, with an aim of improving co-curricular initiatives to make them more inclusive of ‘hard to reach’ students. These ‘motivations’ to participate are used to contextualise data about the attainment and continuation of active student participants. Rather than seek to assert or confirm that various groups are ‘hard to reach’, this research seeks to understand better what does and does not make co-curricular activities inclusive of hard-to-reach students. In this sense, the aim is to have a greater understanding of how students are successfully ‘reached’. Discussion will focus on how attainment and retention can help us to explore whether a wide range of students is benefiting from participation.


Author(s):  
Devi Akella ◽  
Grace Khoury

Resistance to change happens to be a phenomenon in which both the change agents and change recipients are equally responsible for all forms of resistance. Resistance and its various forms are an outcome of the change agents' observations and their interpretations of the conversations, behavior, and reactions of the change recipients. This chapter uses auto-ethnographic reflexive narratives of two change agents involved in the self-assessment process at a college planning to seek US-based business program accreditation to make sense of the change process. The purpose of this chapter is to emphasize the under-reflected role of the change agents and how they influence and affect the behavior of change recipients and thereby contribute towards employee resistance. The chapter also emphasizes the crucial role of reflection and introspection in the sensemaking activities of the change agents in the entire change initiative and thereby adds evidence-based organizational change and development initiatives in an academic setting where research is limited.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 1941 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annina Lattu ◽  
Yuzhuo Cai

Universities are increasingly engaged in marketization and are also expected to transform into more sustainable institutions and be change-agents pushing forward the movement of sustainable development. This article introduces an analytical framework originated by Hahn et al. (2015) for understanding tensions concerning corporate sustainability to the context of the Finnish university system in order to answer the following questions: What are the tensions relating to Finnish universities’ social and economic sustainability, and what strategies might universities use to cope with these tensions? Through analyzing interviews with university managers and officials from the Ministry of Education and Culture in Finland, we find that Hahn et al.’s framework is generally applicable in analyzing tensions of sustainability in universities, and we identify six tensions relating to the sustainability of Finnish universities. The tensions are related to (1) academic leadership and management legitimacy, (2) regional political tensions and university profiling, (3) political power over the university system, (4) changing academic work and profession, (5) academic autonomy and the role of the state, and (6) the future role of the university institution. Moreover, the article discusses issues regarding how to adapt the framework of corporate sustainability to the context of higher education.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (11) ◽  
pp. 4635 ◽  
Author(s):  
Małgorzata Dzimińska ◽  
Justyna Fijałkowska ◽  
Łukasz Sułkowski

This paper aims to propose a conceptual model that synthesizes the existing findings concerning universities as culture change agents for sustainable development. The model could serve as a guidance on how universities might get involved in the pro-SD activities. It also underlines the prerequisite of the quality culture that should be introduced within all the activities of universities to successfully act as culture change agents for SD. This paper builds upon the holistic and inter-disciplinary approach to demonstrate that SD does not happen in isolation and that the role of universities in its creation is significant. This study includes a literature review to contextualize the impact of universities on culture and their potential role in SD. The conclusions stemming from the literature review materialize in the proposal of the conceptual model of the university as the culture change agent for SD. The elaborated framework responds to the need for greater clarity, ordering and systematization of the role of universities in the processes of initiating, promoting and modelling the SD-oriented changes while appreciating the role of culture as an enabler, means of social change and a result of SD-focused interventions. The paper contributes to the body of knowledge by offering a novel perspective on the assumed interrelations between university, its quality culture, university main operations such as education, research and engagement with the society as well as the culture and the agency of stakeholders in the context of meeting the world’s current demands without compromising the needs of future generations.


2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 895-919 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jie Xue ◽  
Zhengang Zhang

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze how internal-driven management innovation (IDMI) takes shape, which highlights the objective-oriented and problem-oriented property of the innovation. Design/methodology/approach Based on a case study of a new practice called 11X integration strategy in Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Holdings Limited, a Chinese pharmaceutical group in Guangdong province, through applying Grounded Theory the authors get a concise systematic framework of generation process that is more practical and more understandable than the counterparts in current literature. Findings First, this paper uncovers five stages and two parallel sub processes in the generation process of IDMI. The sub processes involves practical exploration process (i.e. primary activities) carried out by the internal change agents and theoretical support process (i.e. support activities) carried out by the external change agents. Second, by adopting a process perspective the authors are able to demonstrate how the different activities in both types of processes are combined over time in an intertwined way. Research limitations/implications First, the case the authors studied is embedded in the context of China’s transitional economy, and the single case study limits us to make comparisons of the generation process of management innovation between different market economies. Second, the external-driven management innovation is still a field untouched. Third, in the research the authors explore the issues of how new management innovation is generated and implemented, but the authors do not systematically research on why different companies exhibit different levels of management innovativeness. Practical implications First, the findings suggest that firms should consciously and systematically invest in IDMI to create sustainable competitive advantage. Second, the process framework provides a clear guidance to the managers in Chinese state-owned enterprises who are engaged in developing or adopting management innovation. Third, the study indicates the managers in Chinese company should be aware of the importance of external change agents to IDMI. Fourth, this study could facilitate the enterprises to develop or adopt management innovation based on their real needs rather than just “jumping on the bandwagon” when adopting certain new management skills. Originality/value This study offers a new generation framework by identifying possible facilitators of IDMI that does not yet exist in extant literatures, and the two sub processes – the practical exploration process and the theoretical support process – deepen the understanding of the generation mechanisms of IDMI. Furthermore, the study contributes to reaching a better understanding of management innovation in the context of transitional economy such as China.


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