Colliding Identities During COVID-19: Identifying and Addressing the Challenges of Being an Academic Mother During a Global Pandemic

Academic workloads require a careful balance of teaching, research, supervision, and administrative responsibilities. Being an academic parent adds an additional level of responsibility to this, which has traditionally been successfully managed with organisation, careful planning and support. For many academic parents the Covid-19 pandemic disrupted this carefully curated balance, forcing them to work from home while also dealing with the loss of childcare and the requirement to provide homeschooling. The pre-existing gender disparity in childcare and housework was exacerbated by lockdown, with a disproportionate impact on academic mothers who were often forced to take on additional childcare and housework responsibilities, alongside remote schooling. The gender disparity further affected job stability, with women losing a greater number of paid working hours during the pandemic and having greater employment instability. This article reflects upon the impact of gender disparity in academic parents during the Covid-19 pandemic, and considers potential barriers to productivity and progression, including the role of interruptions, delivering sensitive materials in a workspace shared with children and technological challenges.

Associations between Traditional and Digital Leadership in Academic Environment: During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Objectives: Notably, as a result of the unique circumstances that the global population is facing (Covid-19), there has been an increase in interest in educational leadership science, particularly in academic environment, with the aim of enhancing an ecosystem that is inclusive, open to change, monitoring, and often unforeseen challenges. Of the various types of educational leadership, transformational leadership is recognized as the most suitable for use in academic environment. It focuses on the division of leadership responsibilities among academics with varying skills in order to handle collectively the spectrum of leadership responsibilities needed in a variety of contexts. Methods/Analysis: This perspective is embodied in this study paper, which examined the degree to which members of the Senate of three Universities of Greece, engaged in three distinct types of leadership (transformational leadership, transactional leadership, and leadership to be avoided) via digital leadership. The findings were interpreted using descriptive, diagnostic, predictive and prescriptive data analysis algorithms. Findings: The findings indicate that participants demonstrate a high level of Transformational and Transactional Leadership. They demonstrated a high level of Digital Leadership while avoiding Passive - To Avoid Leadership. The study demonstrates that Digital Leadership has a relatively favorable association with the leadership outcome, which is translated as a high level of performance and satisfaction coexisting with a high level of digital leadership execution. Novelty /Improvement: The research project indicates that a good leader who practices transformational leadership and is prepared with the necessary digital skills would be more effective in carrying out administrative responsibilities in an academic environment. Doi: 10.28991/esj-2021-01286 Full Text: PDF

Symbolic Convergence or Divergence? Making Sense of (the Rhetorical) Senses of a University-Wide Organizational Change

This research investigates the extent to which organizational change initiatives may lead to divergent patterns of sensemaking among organizational members. Drawing on the symbolic convergence theory, we performed an in-depth fantasy theme analysis of organization members’ rhetoric around an organizational change at a private university. Our analysis uncovers six fantasy themes and two corresponding fantasy types, which lead to no rhetorical vision. The lack of cognitive convergence between change initiators and change recipients suggests the inherent incompatibility between managerial and employee fantasies around organizational change, barring the exceptions of dual-responsibility change recipients (e.g., faculty members who also assume administrative responsibilities), who tend to adopt the change initiator rhetoric. Overall, this study informs our extant knowledge of change sensemaking with novel theoretical and methodological insights and bears implications for organizational change researchers and practitioners alike.

Factors Affecting the Takers of the Qualifying Examinations as Part of the Accountancy Program Retention Policy: The Case of a University in Central Luzon Philippines

This research was carried out to assess the qualifying examinations being administered by a school’s department for a of university in Central Luzon, Philippines for the Incoming Second Year, Third Year and Fifth Year BS Accountancy Students. Using the physical and administrative factors are from Aiken et al. (2008), and the Psychological Testing and Assessment, and University of Waterloo’s Center for Excellence (2016), when Preparing Tests and Exams are the guidelines for qualitative factors of exams revealed that the quality of exams had the lowest mean rating compared to physical environment and administrative responsibilities as the factors when assessing the qualifying examinations. The participants were two hundred ninety four (294) students who took the qualifying examinations. The analysis of variance findings confirmed that there is a significant difference on the assessment of the qualifying exams if grouped according to incoming year level and status. The return of the two strike policy to replace the one strike policy, is the most preferred recommendation by the examinees followed by the special remediation program for deserving ‘late bloomer’ students and the special review classes in preparation of the examination.

Pharmaceutical Consultation in Hospitals at Northern Border Region, Saudi Arabia

Background: Pharmacists' traditional position as drug dispensers has recently developed into a more active role in risk evaluation and management. Dispensing is often handled by pharmacy technicians in Saudi Arabia because pharmacists are so preoccupied with their managerial and administrative responsibilities. Pharmacists' meetings with patients are limited to medication dosage and frequency, as well as rare adverse effects and drug interactions. Methods: We conducted a quantitative questionnaire study in Saudi Arabia to look into the role of hospital pharmacists in patient counseling, the assessment of pharmacists' patient counseling opinions, and the possible determinants of personal consultation. Results: The number of patient inquiries was found to be very low, ranging from 5 to 20 per month. The amount of private pharmaceutical consultations was also poor. This finding showed that people trust pharmacists. Conclusion: Reorganizing the pharmacist's operations will help to enhance pharmaceutical consultations. This will help patients make better decisions about their medications and improve their quality of life.

Digital Transformation of the German State

Digital transformation of the German public sector is embedded in a large-scale reform focussing on digitalisation and de-bureaucratisation of public services. By 2022, 575 public services will have been digitised. Digitalisation is, however, a contested topic in Germany: modernisation efforts have been stalled resulting in backlogs and the delay of IT consolidation of outdated legacy systems. At the same time, however, innovation pockets are emerging across all levels of government. The chapter first provides an overview of the legal basis of digital transformation, centralised and decentralised organisational embeddedness of administrative responsibilities and then highlights insights into selected implementation cases.

The Interests of Family Medicine Residents in Future Faculty Positions Across the Senior Year

Background and Objectives The shortage of residency faculty in the pipeline is a growing concern to meet future workforce needs, though there is little research on attracting residents to be future faculty or what factors would influence their interest in this role. The objectives of this study were: (1) To assess the interest of third year residents (R3s) in faculty positions, and the various factors that might positively or negatively affect this decision; (2) to compare whether this changes across the R3 year; and (3) to compare between chief residents and other R3s. Methods Longitudinal survey at two points in time for each of three consecutive cohorts of R3s (2016-2018) from a regional network of family medicine residency programs. Results Among the final sample of R3s (176/545, 32% response), nearly half were interested in a residency faculty role. Strong positive influences on interest include the teaching role, advising/mentoring role, range of practice scope, and ability to perform procedures; salary and administrative responsibilities detract from interest. Among the matched sample of 96 R3s who also responded at Time 2 (55% response), non-chief residents had an increase in knowledge of and interest in the faculty role across the R3 year. Conclusions Nearly half of senior family medicine residents report positive interest in residency faculty positions and in most components of the role. Mentorship may encourage more residents to consider these positions upon graduation or shortly thereafter. More research on other specialties and with career follow up is recommended.

Perceived Leadership Capacities of Elementary School Head Teachers: Potential Differences of Gender and Experience

Successful leadership mainly depends upon the knowledge and understanding about various leadership skills together with leader’s personal capacity to execute these skills efficiently. Elementary school head teachers, therefore, require notable expertise to professionally perform their important administrative responsibilities for achieving the school goals and objectives. In this context, this survey study was mainly conducted to investigate the extent of the leadership capacities of elementary school head teachers’ they possessed and differences in their views when grouped by their gender and administrative experience. To achieve the objective, a questionnaire comprising 24-items with six subscales developed by Ng (2010) was adapted with minor changes. The questionnaire was distributed to a sample of 363 head teachers randomly selected from 1014 elementary schools of Multan division and finally 336 (92.6%) responded. Results of descriptive statistical analyses suggest that the participants believed with high consensus that they were not well equipped with needed leadership skills in four areas specifically in the area of ‘quality assurance and accountability’. Inferential statistical tests revealed no significant differences in participants’ perceptions based on their gender. Significant differences, however, were found in their views based on their administrative experience. The conclusions of this study point to the relevant strategies for planning continuous professional development of elementary school head teachers in Pakistan.

University-Based Consulting Centers as Part of an Industrial-Organizational Master’s Program

This chapter details key considerations for starting and maintaining a consulting center. University-based consulting centers provide unique out-of-classroom training opportunities for students in industrial-organizational psychology master’s programs to develop professional skills. Students work in groups with faculty and peers to provide services to organizational clients. Through the centers, students gain applied experience in project management, proposal writing, and business communications. Key considerations for establishing and maintaining a university-based consulting center include evaluating the needs and readiness of the stakeholders, aligning the centers with the objectives of the program and university, creating the center’s infrastructure to meet the administrative responsibilities, and networking with existing and potential clients.