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.
After the year 2003, Iraq went through multiple waves of violence and at different levels on the security, intellectual, political and social levels. Behind that stood several motives and incentives to enable violence that represented the first axis of research, the most important of which was the political motives that circulated an atmosphere that politics against society and transformed power into a field of political brutality against the individual and the group at once. There are also cultural, intellectual, media and economic motives such as weak cultural independence, poverty, marginalization, unemployment and want, and the absence of a media discourse that rejects violence but incites it, on the other ha
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Current design codes and specifications allow for part of the bonded flexure tension reinforcement to be distributed over an effective flange width when the T-beams' flanges are in tension. This study presents an experimental and numerical investigation on the reinforced concrete flanged section's flexural behavior when reinforcement in the tension flange is laterally distributed. To achieve the goals of the study, numerical analysis using the finite element method was conducted on discretized flanged beam models validated via experimentally tested T-beam specimen. Parametric study was performed to investigate the effect of different parameters on the T-beams flexural behavior. The study revealed that a significant reduction in the
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Background: Atherosclerosis is well known related to age and certain cardiovascular diseases. Aging is one reason of arteries function deterioration which can cause loss of compliance and plaque accumulation, this effect increases by the presence of certain diseases such as hypertension and diabetes disease. Aim: To investigate the reduction of blood supply to the brain in patients with diabetes and hypertension with age and the role of resistive index in the diagnosis of reduced blood flow. Method: Patients with both diseases diabetic and hypertension were classified according to their age to identify the progression of the disease and factors influencing the carotid artery blood flow. By using ultrasound and standard Doppler techniq
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An integrated lithofacies and mineralogical assemblage was used to describe a depositional model and sequence stratigraphic framework of the Maastrichtian–Danian succession in the Western Desert of Iraq and eastern Jordan. Fifteen lithofacies types were grouped into three associations recognized in a distally steepened ramp characterized by an apparent, distinct increase in a gradient paleobathymetric deepening westward. The clay and nonclay minerals are dominated by smectite and palygorskite, with trace amounts of kaolinite, sepiolite, illite and chlorite. Meanwhile, quartz, calcite, dolomite, opal CT (Cristobalite - Tridymite), and apatite are the main nonclay minerals. The widely dominated smectite in the Western Phosphatic Basin of Ir
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Ten species of whiteflies (Hemiptera, Aleyrodidae) representing six genera were studied from a collection from different localities in the middle of Iraq. These species are Acaudaleyrodes rachipora (Singh, 1931); Bemisia afer (Priesner and Hosny,1934); Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius, 1889); Dialeurodes citri (Ashmead,1885); Dialeurodes kirkaldy (Kotinsky, 1907); Neomaskellia andropogonis Corbett, 1926; Siphoninus phillyreae (Haliday, 1835); Trialeurodes ricini (Misra, 1924); Trialeurodes vapovariorum (Westwood,1856) and Trialeurodes irakeensis (Al-Malo and Abdul-Rassoul, 2000). Notes are given on their localities, date of c
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The current investigation included study of leaf surface epidermis beside indumentum for the species Galium aparine L., G. ceratopodum Boiss, G. setaceum Lam., G. spurium L., and G. tricornatum Dandy, the study showed that paracytic type of stomatal complex is the only type occur in leaf. The indumentum compose of eglandular hairs vary in their apices, length and occurrence of different part of plant body
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this research seeks to shed light on the study of the impact of Putinism on the Russian-Ukrainian war that broke out in early 2022, by studying the contents of the speeches of Russian President Vladimir Putin before the start of the war. This research uses the structural approach in analyzing the components of the Russian political regime. The research tools used in this research include case studies, content analysis of Russian speeches, and personal meetings of researchers and specialists in Russian affairs. It sums up a number of important conclusions, most notably are : 1) Putinism is a totalitarian regime that includes the political doctrine during the era of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 2) Duginism represents the totality of t
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Objectives: The study aims to identify the effects of an educational program on patients’ knowledge about vascular access care and to find out the relationship between patients knowledge scores and their selected demographic variable. &
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