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 present work considers an alternative solution for a complex configuration of rotor discs by applying Galerkin Method. The theoretical model consists of elastic shaft carrying number of discs and supported on number of journal bearings. The equation of motion was discretized to finite degree of freedom in terms of the system generalized coordinates. The various effects of the dynamical forces and moments arising from the bearing, discs and shaft were included. Rayleigh beam model is used for analyzing the shaft while the discs are considered rigid . The validity and convergence of the present analysis was carefully checked by comparing with the Finite Element solution. An example of rotor consists of three different size discs and su
... Show MoreThis research aims to analyze the intellectual and civilizational regression that afflicted Iraqi and Arab society due to political and religious tyranny and internal conflicts, which was reflected in the deterioration of human rights values and the absence of equality and justice in dealing with the other religiously, which affected the reluctance of members of religious groups to interact with their national societies and then migrate to Outside, which contributed to a double loss, in terms of the loss of these societies by productive and effective national competencies, and in terms of distorting the image of Islam. The research stressed that the first treatments of this phenomenon are the consolidation of the values of citize
... Show MoreElectronic banking services appeared as a result of laying the foundations for the application of electronic automation in the banking field, and despite the clear expansion in its adoption and implementation as an inevitable necessity imposed by international and national developments, its application was not ideal according to the level that was expected to occur after the abandonment of traditional banking services, which produced some risks Which is evident in the absence of a legal system, whether at the level of proving and authoritative electronic banking services such as electronic signature, Or at the level of protecting the confidentiality of these services and ensuring that they are not exp
... Show MoreThe objective that the researcher seeks to achieve through this research is to clarify the relationship between strategic management accounting techniques and the reliability of financial statements, and to measure the impact of these techniques as an independent variable with its three dimensions, which are: activities-based cost, target cost, and benchmarking on the reliability of financial statements as a dependent variable. To achieve this objective, the researcher did the following: First: Determine the research problem through the following question: Do strategic management accounting techniques affect the reliability of financial statements in industrial companies listed on the Palestine Exchange? Second: Making the analytical des
... Show MoreBackground: Bone augmentation techniques are commonly employed in medical fields. This biomaterial system must be readily available, easily applicable by minimally-invasive technique and able to release an osteoinductive growth factor. Such a system will be able to engineer new bone formation locally at the site of injection. Hyaluronic acid has osteogenic potential that can be exploited not only for repairing bone defects but also for providing transplantable bone for the reconstruction of a variety of bone defects. The aims of this study were to evaluate the effects of Hyaluronic acid gel on bone healing by immunohistochemical estimation of transforming growth factor -beta 3 in experimental and control groups. Materials and methods: Thirt
... Show MoreThis research include design and implementation of an Iraqi cities database using spatial data structure for storing data in two or more dimension called k-d tree .The proposed system should allow records to be inserted, deleted and searched by name or coordinate. All the programming of the proposed system written using Delphi ver. 7 and performed on personal computer (Intel core i3).
Today, the science of artificial intelligence has become one of the most important sciences in creating intelligent computer programs that simulate the human mind. The goal of artificial intelligence in the medical field is to assist doctors and health care workers in diagnosing diseases and clinical treatment, reducing the rate of medical error, and saving lives of citizens. The main and widely used technologies are expert systems, machine learning and big data. In the article, a brief overview of the three mentioned techniques will be provided to make it easier for readers to understand these techniques and their importance.
In this paper, a new method of selection variables is presented to select some essential variables from large datasets. The new model is a modified version of the Elastic Net model. The modified Elastic Net variable selection model has been summarized in an algorithm. It is applied for Leukemia dataset that has 3051 variables (genes) and 72 samples. In reality, working with this kind of dataset is not accessible due to its large size. The modified model is compared to some standard variable selection methods. Perfect classification is achieved by applying the modified Elastic Net model because it has the best performance. All the calculations that have been done for this paper are in
In the recent decade, injection of nanoparticles (NPs) into underground formation as liquid nanodispersions has been suggested as a smart alternative for conventional methods in tertiary oil recovery projects from mature oil reservoirs. Such reservoirs, however, are strong candidates for carbon geo-sequestration (CGS) projects, and the presence of nanoparticles (NPs) after nanofluid-flooding can add more complexity to carbon geo-storage projects. Despite studies investigating CO2 injection and nanofluid-flooding for EOR projects, no information was reported about the potential synergistic effects of CO2 and NPs on enhanced oil recovery (EOR) and CGS concerning the interfacial tension (γ) of CO2-oil system. This study thus extensively inves
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