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.
the most important purposes and uses of the test results in the educational sector. This is because the quality of tests is related to their ability to predict the learner's behavior in the future, and the accuracy of the educational and administrative decisions that are taken in light of their results. The study aimed accordingly to reveal the predictive ability of the university Grade Point Average (GPA) in the Score of the specialized test for the position of teacher in the Ministry of Education in the Sultanate of Oman. It further aimed to investigate the differences in the predictive ability according to the specialization and academic year using the descriptive approach. The sample of the study consisted of (349) s/he students enro
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The process of transporting waste from urban areas to sanitary landfill sites requires large amounts of money due to the length and distance. To address this problem, temporary transfer stations were established by the Municipality of Baghdad to reduce the cost of transportation, and for the purpose of preserving the environment in a sustainable manner, standards were set for the establishment of these stations. The two stations of Al-Karrada Municipality and Al-Shula Municipality were chosen as a case study to measure the extent of adopting and applying the standards for establishing substations locally, regionally and internationally, and the most important results were reached Which is that the transforming (regular) stations of the t
... Show MoreThis paper aims to identify the approaches used in assessment the credit applications by Iraqi banks, as well as which approach is most used. It also attempted to link these approaches with reduction of credit default and banks’ efficiency particularly for the Gulf Commercial Bank. The paper found that the Gulf Bank widely relies on the method of Judgment Approach for assessment the credit applications in order to select the best of them with low risk of default. In addition, the paper found that the method of Judgment Approach was very important for the Gulf Bank and it driven in reduction the ratio of credit default as percentage of total credit. However, it is important to say that the adoption of statistical approaches for
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The study aimed to investigate the relationship between the multiple intelligence and the numerical sense. The chosen population of the study was the 4th secondary stage students. The sample consisted of 400 female and male student. The researcher utilized two test; multiple intelligence test which include three categories of intelligence (logical-mathematical, spatial, and linguistics) consisted of (36) item, and the numerical sense test that consisted of (44) item. The two tests were constructed by the researcher himself. The psychometric properties of the test were also verified. The results showed that there was a correlation between the multiple intelligence and the numerical sense as well as the students’ means scores
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summary of the research
The heart is the pine-shaped flesh on the left side of the chest. The moral gentleness in this flesh is called the home of perception, reason and understanding, as well as the place of desires and passions, so it turns between one desire and another between good and evil. As for its parts, it consists of four main parts called chambers, two rooms on the right As for the two chambers below, it is called the ventricle, the heart works regularly and accurately to pump blood and distribute it to all parts of the body and vital organs. And the Holy Quran divided the types of heart into two main types of healthy hearts, which are types (healthy, hidden, living....)
And the second type is sick hea
... Show MoreBackground: To evaluate the ISO depth of cure of bulkfill composites and depth of cure which determined by Vickers microhardness test. Materials and Methods: Bulkfill resin composite specimens (n=150) were prepared of three bulkfill composite materials (TetricEvo Ceram, Quixfil and SDR) and light cured by Flash max p3 for 3, 10, 20 seconds and by wood pecker for 10, 20 seconds respectively, a mold was filled with one of the three bulkfill composites and light cured. The specimens removed from the mold and scraped by plastic spatula and the remaining length (absolute length) was measured which represent the ISO depth of cure. After that the specimens were returned into the mold and a microhardness indentation device applied on the specimen
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This study was aimed to extract the effective material from the dry nests of termites and detect its antibacterial activity against some pathogenic bacterial isolates and inhibit synthesis of its biofilm. Termites dry nests were collected and the effective material was extracted then the antibacterial activity was detected using the disc diffusion assay. Results were showed that the extract have antibacterial material from the Termites dry nests, this extract showed antibacterial activity against Gram positive bacteria (Staphylococcus aureus) at (21.5mm) and Gram negative bacteria ( Enterobacter sp. and Pseudomonas aeruginosa) at (26 mm and 20 mm) respectively by inhibiting their growth, as well as its effect on biofilm production o
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The study aimed at identifying the role of the Faculty of Education in the community service in light of vision of the Kingdom 2030 from the faculty members’ point of view at the University of Jeddah. The study used a descriptive method through a questionnaire administered to a sample of the faculty members.It concluded that the role of the College in serving the community is the development of the right habits in the family and the importance of establishing bridges of cooperation between the Faculty of Education and the surrounding environment and teaching special education teachers how to apply some methods of measurement to determine the needs of students with disabilities. The results also pointed out that there are no statistical
... Show MoreVideo copyright protection is the most generally acknowledged method of preventing data piracy. This paper proposes a blind video copyright protection technique based on the Fast Walsh Hadamard Transform (FWHT), Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT), and Arnold Map. The proposed method chooses only frames with maximum and minimum energy features to host the watermark. It also exploits the advantages of both the fast Walsh Hadamard transform (FWHT) and discrete wavelet transforms (DWT) for watermark embedding. The Arnold map encrypts watermarks before the embedding process and decrypts watermarks after extraction. The results show that the proposed method can achieve a fast embedding time, good transparency, and robustness against various
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