Globalisation and rapid environmental change have created many challenges for public and private organisations across Iraq as a developing country, particularly in the higher education sector. This includes, for example, decreases in government funding; increased demand for higher education; a need for economic transformation, and related competitiveness of organizations. Such challenges require exceptional leaders and strategic planning in order to take action to improve. In Iraq, the higher education sector is still one of the main foundations in progressing the knowledge economy. Studies into leadership style, strategic planning processes, and the importance of leadership and organisational culture to an organisation’s success have been used to assist both public and private Iraqi colleges in responding to the challenges they face. Although, some studies have examined the interaction between leadership and strategic planning, and leadership and organisational success, there has been no empirical study that has investigated how these three variables interact together. Thus, this study aimed, firstly, to identify the current leadership styles and strategic planning processes in the colleges and the challenges they faced, and to gain an understanding from the perspective of the senior leaders themselves as to how they might best respond to the current situation. Secondly, based on the participants’ experiences, knowledge and perceptions, the study aimed to identify implications for both practice and policy to help improve the colleges’ outcomes. The study involved a mixed-methods approach and was conducted in two stages. During the first stage, the researcher gathered quantitative data by administering a survey package to 129 leaders (deans, associate deans, and heads of departments) across both public and private colleges in the capital city of Baghdad. During the second stage, the researcher gathered qualitative data to more deeply explore the survey results by conducting individual interviews with a sub-sample of 21 leaders from both college types (ten public and 11 private). In the data analyses stages, both descriptive statistics and inferential statistics were applied to compiling tables and charts, and to test hypotheses, by employing the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS), Microsoft Excel, and NVivo. The results of study showed that both transformational and transactional leadership styles played a varied and vital role in the colleges’ strategic planning processes, and in turn their success. The fact that private colleges were ‘for profit’ and public colleges were ‘not for profit’, as well as their contrasting funding models, highlighted key differences between the two college types’ leadership and general modus operandi. While it was found that both transformative leadership and transactional leadership styles were necessary to address the challenges colleges faced in the Iraqi educational context, the impetus for change extended far beyond the need for professional development of leaders. The embracing of information communication technologies, and reliable Internet was seen as necessary in all aspects of the colleges’ work and provision for teaching and learning, and students’ success. This applied to both college types along with the need for closer adherence to government regulations and more focused government coordination of colleges’ administrative functions. Furthermore, implications for making successful improvements to practice also identified the need to manage the challenge of sociocultural influences on the appointments and promotions of leaders. It was concluded that a greater emphasis on teamwork and provision of incentives for staff, along with a ‘boost’ to pedagogy and practice, which could be provided through the adoption of information communication technologies and appropriate professional development strategies, would enhance the colleges’ ranks and the status of their qualifications. Also, theoretically, the study offers a value-add to leadership, strategic planning process, and organisational success literature in the form of a conceptual model that links these variables in the context of Iraqi higher education sector.
With the advancement of technology ,the study of cross-cultural communication via on line has become an important and researchable topic in linguistic theory and its applications.The aims of this study are two- fold (a) exploring the influence of cultural diversity on on-line interaction between American native speakers (NSs) and Iraqi non-native speakers (NNSs) of English which, together with other factors might potentially lead to what Thomas(1983) calls "pragmatic failure" (PF), a main cause of communication breakdowns and (b) specifying which type of PF occurs more frequently between the two groups along with the reasons behind such failures. To achie
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Doppler broadening technique is suggested to monitor the development of tumours. It depends on the sensitivity of positronium (Ps) annihilation parameters to the sub- microstructural changes in biological tissues. This technique uses high resolution HpGe detector to measure the lineshape parameters (S and W) in normal mice's mammary tissues and adenocarcinoma mammary tissues as a function of tumour growth. The results demonstrate that the central parameter (S) decreases and the wing parameter (W) increases as the tumour grow. It is found that the S parameter changes considerably with the distribution of voids which are affected by the tumour development. Therefore the present technique can successfully be employed to monitor the developm
... Show MoreA simple, sensitive and accurate spectrophotometric method has been developed for the determination of salbutamol sulphate (SAB) and isoxsuprine hydrochloride (ISX) in pure and pharmaceutical dosage. The method involved oxidation of (SAB) and (ISX) with a known excess of N-bromosuccinamid in acidic medium, and subsequent occupation of unreacted oxidant in decolorization of Evans blue dye (EB). This, in the presence of SAB or ISX was rectilinear over the ranges 1.0-12.0, 1.0-11.0 µg/mL, with molar absorptivity 4.21×104 and 2.58×104 l.mol-1.cm-1 respectively. The developed method had been successfully applied for the determination of the studied drugs in their pharmaceutical dosage resulting i
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Darifenacin hydrobromide (DH) is the more recent uroselective M3 receptor antagonist for treating uncomplicated overactive bladder (OAB). This study was aimed to formulate DH as fast dissolving buccal films (FDBFs) using a solvent casting method to enhance patient’s compliance.
Films were prepared by using polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) as a film forming polymer. Different types and concentrations of superdisintegrants (croscarmellose sodium, sodium starch glycolate, indion 414) were used to select the best formula by studying the physicochemical properties of the films, disintegration time (DT) and percent drug release.
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The risk of breast cancer development is believed to be attributed to the alterations of a number of key biological components. Within this context, elevated levels of some chemokines that act as growth factors and can promote cancer development. The current study was designed to evaluate CXCL3 (a chemokine C-X-C Motif Ligand 3) and leptin (a peptide hormone synthesized by adipose tissue with cytokine activity) serum of Iraqi breast cancer patients in comparison to healthy controls. A total of 90 participants consisted of 60 patients diagnosed with breast cancer and 30 healthy women as control group were enrolled into this case-control study. Venous blood samples were collected from all participants to evaluate CXCL3 and leptin serum levels
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Baghdad governorate has many areas of distinctive architectural and architectural character, which are heritage and valuable areas that we must preserve and take care of. But we see many manifestations of it, which have a negative impact on buildings, areas and roads, so that they distort the view and thus lead to visual pollution in general. The research examined the visual pollution from random advertising, which stretched buildings, walls, electricity poles and sidewalks. The study covered different areas of al-Karkh and al-Rassafa (Jadreya Bridge, Nation Square, Jordan Square, alkindy Street)Most of the distortions were the result of non-removable posters, Handwriting, election candidate adve
... Show MoreThe objective of present study was to investigate the effect of using mixture volaticle oil of rosmarinus and nigella sativa to improve some of the meat quality characteristics, physical and limited storage time of minced cold poultry meat. Duplex volaticle oil was added at 0.025, 0.050 and 0.075 g/kg to minced poultry meat, these treatments were stored individually for 0 , 4 and 7 days at 4-7C0. After making several chemical, physical and oxidation indicators, the following results were obtained:
The process of adding volaticle oil to minced poultry meat led to significant increase (P<0.01)in moisture, prot
... Show MoreCore decompression is one of the commonest used techniques in the handling of osteonecrosis of the pre-collapsed head of the femur. Core decompression had succeeded in preserving the hip joint and delaying the requisite for total hip replacement, but it had failed in the induction of osteogenesis in the necrotic area, thus augmenting core decompression with biological agents to induce osteogenic activity. To assess the effects of platelet-rich plasma in non-traumatic avascular necrosis of the hip joint (early stage) after core decompression. Interventional comparative study for twenty-four patients (32 hip joints) with AVN of the head of the femur was involved in this prospective study, and they were separated into two groups of 16
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This study develops a systematic density functional theory alongside on-site Coulomb interaction correction (DFT + U) and ab initio atomistic thermodynamics approachs for ternary (or mixed transitional metal oxides), expressed in three reservoirs. As a case study, among notable multiple metal oxides, synthesized CoCu2O3 exhibits favourable properties towards applications in solar, thermal and catalytic processes. This progressive contribution applies DFT + U and atomistic thermodynamic approaches to examine the structure and relative stability of CoCu2O3 surfaces. Twenty-five surfaces along the [001], [010], [100], [011], [101], [110] and [111] low-Miller-indices, with varying surface-termination configurations were selected in this study.
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