scholarly journals Our Calendar Stopped! The Organizational Change at UFPB due to COVID-19

Author(s):  
Diana Lucia Teixeira-de-Carvalho ◽  
Jose Jorge Lima Dias Junior ◽  
Ana Carolina Kruta-Bispo

ABSTRACT This teaching case aims to analyze the context of the Federal University of Paraíba, which experiences the impacts of social isolation due to COVID-19, especially in conducting undergraduate classes, considering that the activities face-to-face were suspended. The case presents the facts related to the possibility of implementing a supplementary calendar, based on the concept of remote emergency teaching. Because of this scenario, the Pro-Rectory of Graduation managers needed to plan carefully to manage the uncertainties and resistance to changes that such a proposal would represent, mainly because there were no models to be based on since practically all public HEIs have suspended graduation classes. The case raises a significant dilemma: in the face of the challenges of implementing a supplementary remote calendar, is it better to follow or step back? The pedagogical objectives of this teaching case involve: analyzing the impact of COVID-19 on organizational behavior; discuss aspects related to the implementation of organizational changes; identify the use of data for decision-making and support for organizational change; and making decisions in the face of managerial dilemmas. Its analysis can be done by undergraduate students, in Administration and Public Management courses.

Author(s):  
Diana Lucia Teixeira-de-Carvalho ◽  
Jose Jorge Lima Dias Junior ◽  
Ana Carolina Kruta-Bispo

ABSTRACT This teaching case aims to analyze the context of the Federal University of Paraíba, which experiences the impacts of social isolation due to COVID-19, especially in conducting undergraduate classes, considering that the activities face-to-face were suspended. The case presents the facts related to the possibility of implementing a supplementary calendar, based on the concept of remote emergency teaching. Because of this scenario, the Pro-Rectory of Graduation managers needed to plan carefully to manage the uncertainties and resistance to changes that such a proposal would represent, mainly because there were no models to be based on since practically all public HEIs have suspended graduation classes. The case raises a significant dilemma: in the face of the challenges of implementing a supplementary remote calendar, is it better to follow or step back? The pedagogical objectives of this teaching case involve: analyzing the impact of COVID-19 on organizational behavior; discuss aspects related to the implementation of organizational changes; identify the use of data for decision-making and support for organizational change; and making decisions in the face of managerial dilemmas. Its analysis can be done by undergraduate students, in Administration and Public Management courses.


2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-18
Author(s):  
Ian Miles ◽  
◽  
Veronika Belousova ◽  
Nikolay Chichkanov ◽  
Zhaklin Krayushkina ◽  
...  

Knowledge-Intensive Business Services (KIBS) are problem-solvers for other organizations. The coronacrisis affects KIBS directly, but also means that their clients are confronting new problems. How are KIBS addressing these two sets of challenges? This paper draws on material available in the trade and industry press, on official reports and statistics, and the early academic studies addressing these themes. We find that KIBS have been active (alongside other organizations) in providing a substantial range of services aimed at helping their clients (and others) deal with various contingencies thrown up by the crisis. Not least among these is the need to conform to shifting regulatory frameworks, and requirements for longer-term resilience. KIBS themselves have had to adapt their working practices considerably, to reduce face-to-face interaction with clients and within teams collaborating on projects. Adaptation is easier for those whose tasks that are relatively standardized and codified, and it remains to be seen how far a shift to such activities - and away from the traditional office-based venues of activity - is retained as firms recover from the crisis. KIBS are liable to play an important role in this recovery from the crisis, and policymakers can mobilize their services. Some KIBS are liable to be critical for rendering economies more resilient in the face of future pandemics and we argue that these firms are also important for confronting the mounting climate crisis.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-64
Author(s):  
Bahram Sattar Abdulrahman

The present study aims at investigating the use of prosodic features by Kurdish EFL undergraduates in their face-to-face interactions inside/outside the classroom from the university instructors’ perspectives. The study hypothesizes that the majority of Kurdish EFL undergraduates are not fully aware of the fact that any misuse of prosodic features would probably affect the emotions, feelings, and attitudes that the face-to-face interaction is intended to convey. Building on an analysis of a questionnaire given to 54 university instructors at 10 Iraqi Kurdistan Region different universities, the study concludes that the majority of problems the students face can be related to the misuse of stress, intonation, and other prosodic features. Therefore, EFL instructors should pay more attention to make students learn how to use prosodic features and enable them to send messages adequately while engaging in face-to-face interactions. This would require special classes about prosodic features so that EFL students can overcome the misuse they have in face-to-face communication. This is inevitable because accuracy and fluency in communication require EFL students to master both features: segmental and suprasegmental. The reason behind this necessity could be attributed to the fact that broken and/or incorrect pronunciation can be considered as one of the most prominent factors behind misunderstandings in communication.


Author(s):  
Hanyu Sun ◽  
Frederick G Conrad ◽  
Frauke Kreuter

Abstract Audio computer-assisted self-interviewing (ACASI) has been widely used to collect sensitive information from respondents in face-to-face interviews. Interviewers ask questions that are not sensitive or only moderately sensitive and then allow respondents to self-administer more sensitive questions, listening to audio recordings of the questions and typically entering their responses directly into the same device that the interviewer has used. According to the conventional thinking, ACASI is taken as independent of the face-to-face interaction that almost always precedes it. Presumably as a result of this presumed independence, the respondents’ prior interaction with the interviewer is rarely considered when assessing the quality of ACASI responses. There is no body of existing research that has experimentally investigated how the preceding interviewer–respondent interaction may create sufficient social presence to affect responses in the subsequent ACASI module. The study reported here, a laboratory experiment with eight professional interviewers and 125 respondents, explores the carryover effects of preceding interactions between interviewer and respondent on responses in the subsequent ACASI. We evaluated the impact of the similarity of the live and recorded interviewer’s voice for each respondent as well as respondents’ rapport with interviewers in the preceding interview. We did not find significant main effects of vocal similarity on disclosure in ACASI. However, we found significant interaction effects between vocal similarity and respondents’ rapport ratings in the preceding interview on disclosure in ACASI. When the ACASI voice was similar to the interviewer’s voice in the preceding interaction, respondent-rated rapport led to more disclosure but, when the ACASI voice is clearly different from the interviewer’s voice, respondent-rated rapport in the prior interaction did not affect disclosure.


Author(s):  
Juan Chaves ◽  
Antonio A. Lorca-Marín ◽  
Emilio José Delgado-Algarra

Different studies show that mixed methodology can be effective in medical training. However, there are no conclusive studies in specialist training on advanced life support (ALS). The main objective of this research is to determine if, with mixed didactic methodology, which includes e-learning, similar results are produced to face-to-face training. The method used was quasi-experimental with a focus on efficiency and evaluation at seven months, in which 114 specialist doctors participated and where the analysis of the sociodemographic and pre-test variables points to the homogeneity of the groups. The intervention consisted of e-learning training plus face-to-face workshops versus standard. The results were the performance in knowledge and technical skills in cardiac arrest scenarios, the perceived quality, and the perception of the training. There were no significant differences in immediate or deferred performance. In the degree of satisfaction, a significant difference was obtained in favour of the face-to-face group. The perception in the training itself presented similar results. The main limitations consisted of sample volume, dropping out of the deferred tests, and not evaluating the transfer or the impact. Finally, mixed methodology including e-learning in ALS courses reduced the duration of the face-to-face sessions and allowed a similar performance.


Author(s):  
Sonja Treven

The paper presents various approaches to studying cultures of different countries. The starting point is the Hofstede's dimensions of cultural values as well as Hall's approach to high- and low- context cultures and Trompenaars model of cultural differences. After that the interaction between culture and organizational behaviuor is discussed. A special attention to the impact of culture on motivation of employees, communication, conflict resolution and organizational changes is given.


This case study conducted to investigate the impact of a responsive leadership approach in meeting customers' needs in a higher education institution in the UAE during the COVID-19 pandemic. For this purpose, a mixed-method model has been used. The data has been collected from a convenient sample working and studying at Al Qasimia University Language Center, in fall 2020. This result indicates that the provided responsive leadership support during COVID-19 was effective and helped in motivating learners and customers to keep learning and making progress greater than what was shown before COVID-19, during the face-to-face teaching and physical assessment. Although the qualitative and quantitative results in this case study revealed a significant impact of responsive leadership approach on customers’ progress, there is still a need to conduct other researches to develop and validate a responsive leadership inventory to facilitate measuring of responsive leadership attributes in a large scale sample and/or population.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-81
Author(s):  
Jyothi Thalluri ◽  
Joy Penman ◽  
Minh Chau

The ScienceReady preparatory course is an intensive study designed to improve beginning university undergraduate students’ understanding of medical/scientific concepts, and reduce their anxiety about studying the science component of their enrolled programs. Its goals are to stimulate students’ science curiosity and provide the fundamental scientific content they are expected to know and build further on the knowledge that will feature in their upcoming programs. This article aims to describe the ScienceReady course, discuss the impact of the course on the participants, determine the relationship of the course with self-efficacy, and explain the implications of the results. Students were tested before and after the course to ascertain whether it increased or decreased or not affected self-efficacy. The results of the pre- and post-test surveys were unequivocal. The majority of the individual items for the self-efficacy questionnaire showed a significant increase in self-efficacy post-course.


Author(s):  
Jennie Rose Steres Blake ◽  
Nicola Grayson ◽  
Sami Karamalla-Gaiballa

Traditional investigations into the impact of skills support on student success tend to focus on embedded or curriculum linked modes of delivery. The subject of this investigation concerns a study of the impact of ‘open’ support delivered through the University of Manchester library’s My Learning Essentials skills programme (MLE). MLE is a blended service providing both face-to-face and online support through two dominant pathways: one which is embedded in the curriculum and one which is ‘open to all’ regardless of degree programme or level of study. The ‘open’ nature of this type of support and the variety amongst the student population who engage with it means that measuring the impact on areas such as attainment has always been difficult. This article will present the results of a small study that investigated a specific cohort of undergraduate students in order to assess whether connections could be drawn between attendance at MLE ‘open’ workshops and degree classification. Although the cohort investigated was quite small, there is evidence of significant positive impact on student attainment as a result of engagement with the MLE programme. The data was run through a regression analysis that controlled for factors that could influence attainment and compared attendees of MLE open workshops with those who did not attend. Beyond the results of the regression analysis the study reveals interesting data around student uptake of MLE as a service and presents the methodology used, the results gained, and the lessons learned throughout the process.


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