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.
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. &
... Show MoreThe study included selection six species of the fungi related to Pleurotus genus were evaluated for their ability to production of Pleurotin, one of them, Pleurotus ostreatus (P.11) was isolated and identified in the present study. Pleurotin was extracted with screening by Thin Layer Chromatography (TLC) and quantification High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC). Cytotoxicity of Pleurotin extracted from P. ostreatus (P.11) grown in different sugar sources (galactose, mannitol, sucrose, dextrose and lactose) liquid media was test against three selected cancer cell lines, CaSki, MCF-7 and A549 addition to Human Non Cancer Fibroblast Cell Line (MRC-5). Pleurotin of P. ostreatus (P.11) grown in galactose induced the significant highest
... Show MoreThe Logic of Freezers and Animals in the Holy Quran
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The fiscal position of governments in rentier economies depends heavily on oil revenues. The relationship between oil prices and the budget surplus or deficit is often nonlinear and characterized by complex temporal dependencies, which may limit the predictive capability of conventional econometric models. Accordingly, this study aims to forecast the Iraqi budget surplus and deficit and compare the predictive performance of the ARDL, NARDL, LSTM, 1D-CNN, and hybrid 1D-CNN-LSTM models using oil prices as the primary predictive variable. The hybrid model integrates the feature-extraction capability of One-Dimensional Convolutional Neural Networks (1D-CNN) with the ability of Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks to capture long-term
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Introduction: This study aimed to assess the color change of human teeth with artificial enamel white spot lesions (WSLs) after sandblasting with bioactive glass, resin infiltration, and microabrasion and to test color stability after pH cycling. Methods: Fifty extracted human mandibular first molars were randomly assigned into five groups: Sound, WSLs (untreated), and WSLs sandblasted with bioactive glass (Sylc), WSLs treated by resin infiltration (ICON), and WSLs treated by microabrasion (Opalustre), respectively. All specimens underwent a pH cycling procedure. The color parameters for each specimen were assessed using an Easyshade dental spectrophotometer at different time stages then the color changes (ΔE) were calculated. Results: The
... Show MoreAfter this systematic presentation of the phenomenon of rotation of formulas, ie the construction of the verb and the verb, and the narrated narratives therein differed among the readers, it became clear to us how the difference was clear between reading and the other, and how readers have varied in their readings of the verb, As we have noted through our modest research that the phenomenon of building the verb for the actor and the effect have included the act of both past and present tense, and not limited to a specific time, and this difference in reading was not limited to a particular environment, but beyond To more than one environment This is evidenced by the readings of various readers from the environment of Kufa, Basra, Mecca,
... Show MoreThe research aims to analysis the future profits of companies listed on the Iraq Stock Exchange through analyzing the relationship between Actual Growth and Sustainable Growth, The study was applied to the sample of companies included in the Iraq Stock Exchange for the period (2010- 2014), The Internal Growth Rate has been used as a measure for the Actual Return Rate but the Sustainable Growth Rate has been measured under the Rose model, The research showed group of conclusions, the most important are:1. From the analysis of sustainable growth for the banks sample and the variables involved in its measure shows that investment in the investors amounts have achieved a significant return, which demonstrates the company's efficiency at gene
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The genic variation analysis of Pseudomonas aeruginosa after filtering the spurious variation appeared that 222 variable loci out of 5572 loci were detected. The type of variation analysis revealed that single nucleotide polymorphism was highly significant compared with other types of variation due the fact that the genome variation was achieved on the level of microevolution. Moreover, the proportional effect of functional scheme showed that genes responsible for environmental information were the highest comparable to another scheme. The genes of environmental information processing locate on outer membrane and face the defense strategy of the host therefore change in proteins coded by these genes lead to escape the immune system defense
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