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.
This study addresses the issue of academic writing in English by comparing pragmatic argumentation in the writing of 40 graduate students studying at Iraqi universities (SSIU) with the writing of 40 graduate students studying at American universities (SSAU). In these 80 theses, six selected aspects of academic writing were analyzed: (a) paragraph structure, (b) length and construction of sentences, (c) organization of information in sentences, (d) vocabulary, (e) topic sentences, and (f) discourse markers. This study seeks to go beyond the traditional and often onedimensional analysis of pragmatics of argumentation in English academic writing to distinguish and describe different aspects of academic writing and their results when used by EF
... Show MoreThe problem of rebellion is considered one of the features of rapid changes that a society undergoes in all spheres and directions of life, especially in the realm of social relations, customs, traditions, values, and principles. Rebellion may manifest itself in rebellion against oneself, against values or traditions, or against social or governmental authority. One may find that submission plays a vital role in all of these interactions. This study deals with the problem of rebellion in the works of two renowned authors: The French Gustave Flaubert and the Israeli Amos Oz, through two main characters who share similar qualities and traits. Emma Bovary and Henna Konin demonstrate this through their rebellion against themselves, their relati
... Show MoreThe aim of the research is to reveal the reality of teacher performance evaluation in the Sultanate of Oman in light of some global models. The study followed a qualitative descriptive research design. Seven forms of teacher formative and summative assessments were analyzed. Besides, an analytical template was developed, consisting of six areas related to the teaching performance of teachers. These included: lesson planning and preparation, learning environment, education, professional development, student academic, and community and parental partnership. The study reached a number of results; the most notable is the lack of change of forms for more than a decade despite the rapid development of the educational system in the sultanate in
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The study hypothesize that the majority of Arab countries show a poor agricultural economic efficiency which resulted in a weak productive capacity of wheat in the face of the demand, which in turn led to the fluctuation of the rate of self-sufficiency and thus increase the size of the food gap. The study aims at estimating and analyzing the food security indicators for their importance in shaping the Arabic agricultural policy, which aims to achieve food security through domestic production and reduce the import of food to less possible extent. Some of the most important results reached by the study were that the increase in the amount of consumption of wheat in the countries of t
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The Iraqi construction industry suffers from many issues that lead to many design errors, clashes, delays and cost overruns. Therefore, applying constructability will prevent these issues from happening, as it has proven its positive effect in different projects around the world. The goal of this paper is to use building information modelling (BIM) to assess the constructability, provide the opportunities for the project stakeholders to choose the best constructable design alternative and find the affection of applying constructability on project cost. The practical side of this research consists of two parts: in the first part, 37 factors are collected from the literature review as factors that effect on constructability. After tha
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Background: The adverse effects of drugs can damage various organs, especially the liver, leading to a hepatic injury known as hepatotoxicity. Drug-induced liver injury (DILI) is challenging nowadays because of the large number of different drugs used, one of the offending medications that cause DILI is carbamazepine (CBZ), since the liver has an array of functions including detoxification, it will deal with several damages caused by exposure to the drugs. Objective: investigate the effect of (CBZ) 20mg/kg/day on female mice liver after 14 and 30 days of treatment on morphological and histopathological levels. Materials and Methods: 20mg/kg/day of CBZ was administered orally for (14) days to (10) female mice, another (10) mice were taking t
... Show MoreThe aim of the study is to investigate the extent to which the teachers of Islamic education and their teachers taught the technological innovations in the universities and to test the significance of the differences between the averages of the degree of practice according to the variables: gender, experience, scientific qualification, and educational stage. To achieve these objectives, a questionnaire consisting of (20) (20) teacher and school, teachers of Islamic education in Iraqi universities.
The results indicated that the degree of the practice of Islamic education teachers and their teachers of technological innovations was moderate, and there were statistically significant differences in the variable of
... Show MoreBackground: Worldwide gastric cancer is the fifth most common cancer with poor prognosis. In early stages, it is hard to distinguish gastric cancer from benign gastric diseases, resulting in delayed diagnosis. There is a need to develop a biomarker for differentiating between gastric cancer and benign gastric diseases. Serum cholinesterase is synthesized in liver and released into plasma, and it has an important role in oncogenesis.
Objectives: To determine the correlation between serum cholinesterase activity and gastric cancer, in comparison to benign gastric diseases.
Subjects and Methods: A case control study carried out at Medical City Direct
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This study aims to measure the basic foundations of organizational health in the General Company for Food Products and to indicate the extent of its presence or not within the company under investigation.
This research was completed using a descriptive and analytical approach using a sample of 97 employees from the General Company for Petroleum Products. Calculating the arithmetic mean, standard deviation, coefficient of variation, and confirmatory factor analysis are all part of the data processing process.
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