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.
Background: Maxillary first premolar with wide MOD cavity more susceptible to fracture. The aim of this study was to assess the influence of cavity design for cusp coverage on the fracture resistance of weakened maxillary first premolar restored with CAD/CAM hybrid ceramic versus nanohybide composite. Materials and Methods: Fifty six intact maxillary first premolars of approximately comparable sizes were divided into seven groups eight for each: Group A: Intact teeth (control group); Group B: teeth prepared for MOD inlay; Group C: teeth prepared for MOD onlay covering the lingual cusp; Group D: teeth prepared for MOD covering buccal and lingual cusps ,the previous three groups indirectly restored with nanohybrid composite (3M ESPE Z 250 X
... Show MoreOrganizations nowadays, whether public or private organizations, productive or service (such as banks), face major challenges as a result of rapid and continuous changes, and in front of these challenges traditional management operations and tools become unable to make the organization able to work, which makes it imperative for these organizations to follow the methods and management practices, including the proposed knowledge risk management and strategic direction so that it can elevate its actions at the level of developments in reality, in the sense that these organizations and in the light of environmental developments to characterize their strategic direction as an intellectual approach characterized by mo
... Show MoreThe media, especially the satellite channels in our time, are one of the most important pillars of daily life, public and private, for society and people, and are considered by sociologists and sociologists as one of the most important factors of social upbringing and the most important, as a result of the technological and technological development of the media as well as increasing their numbers and vertical and horizontal expansion locally, As well as entering into the lives of individuals and people and leading them to important sites within their interests and preferences, not to mention the long time spent exposure to those media and benefit from the programs offered or broadcast. , The problem of this research is that there is a l
... Show MoreThis research aims to introduce the general tax on sales in gordan and the most important concepts related to this type of taxes and identify the most on characteristics and stand on its role in supplying the general budget of the necessary fundig to cover the over head of the state and the factorsinfluencing it and whether such a tax has been able to chieve the desired goals.including in contribute to an important and growing role in puplic revenues or not to be able to achieve these goals through the use of descriptive and analytical technique based on the data and information relevant.wasreached some conclusion and recommendations was most important is that the general sales tax comes in
... Show MoreA method was developed that offers a rapid, simple and accurate technique for the determination of chlorophenols at trace levels in aqueous samples with very limited volumes of organic solvents. These compounds were acetylated, then preliminarily extracted with n-hexane. The enriched chlorophenols were directly analyzed using gas chromatography with an electron-capture detector. The detection limits were in the range of 0.001–0.005 mg/L, except for 2-chlorophenol, which was always above 0.013 mg/L. Relative standard deviation for the spiked water samples ranged from 2.2 to 6.1%, while relative recoveries were in the range of 67.1 to 101.3%.
In this work, mesoporous silica SBA-15 was prepared and functionalized with amine groups (i.e., NH2) to form NH2/SBA-15. The curcumin (CUR) was encapsulated into the surface and pore of NH2/SBA-15 to create CUR@NH2/SBA-15 as an efficient carrier in drug delivery systems (DDSs). The three samples (i.e., SBA-15, NH2/SBA-15, and CUR@NH2/SBA-15) were characterized. The study investigated the effect of the carrier dose, initial CUR concentration, pH, and contact time on the CUR loading efficiency (DLE%) via adsorption. The best DLE% for the SBA-15 and NH2/SBA-15 were found to be 45% and 89.7%, respectively. The Langmuir isotherm had a greater correlation coefficient (R2) of 0.998 for SBA-15. A pseudo-secondorder kinetic model seemed to fit well
... Show MoreBanks was one of the institutions that are highly concerned with the issue of performance evaluation, in order to achieve optimal use of resources that enable them to achieve operational and strategic objectives both in light of the global competition fierce for the start of the research problem of banks to adopt in assessing the performance of the realization of just the traditional financial indicators which has become insufficient to keep pace with the constant evolution in the business environment, which requires work on the use of the necessary information needed to evaluate the performance of all the Bank's activities through
the use of the Balanced Scorecard method. The research aims to shed light on the dimensions of perf
... Show MoreThe rapid and enormous growth of the Internet of Things, as well as its widespread adoption, has resulted in the production of massive quantities of data that must be processed and sent to the cloud, but the delay in processing the data and the time it takes to send it to the cloud has resulted in the emergence of fog, a new generation of cloud in which the fog serves as an extension of cloud services at the edge of the network, reducing latency and traffic. The distribution of computational resources to minimize makespan and running costs is one of the disadvantages of fog computing. This paper provides a new approach for improving the task scheduling problem in a Cloud-Fog environme
ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Arthroscopic knee surgeries are performed in very large numbers worldwide, and in spite of relatively low complication rate, but the total number is significant. Some of these complications are due to tourniquet use and can be serious. OBJECTIVE: Is to asses if automated pump (with or without) dilute epinephrine saline irrigation can replace the tourniquet use in soft tissue arthroscopic knee surgeries. PATIENTS AND METHODS: 36 patients (9 females 25 % and 27 males 75 %) were included in this prospective experimental nonrandomized study, and were necessitated soft tissue arthroscopic knee surgeries. Patients were divided into two groups, in group A (patients) tourniquet and automated pump were used. In group B (18 pati
... Show More