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.
Two isolates of Staphylococcus xylosus (urease producer and non urease producer) were injected in mice at a dose of 2 × 108 colony-forming units (CFU) intraurethrally. Results showed that both isolates were able to colonize kidney and bladder of the injected mice, regardless of their urease production. Moreover, there were insignificant differences between the two groups. These results emphasized the pathogenicity of this bacteria in UTI.
The paper is concerned with a linguistic analysis of the blurbs, used in advertising English and Arabic novels. A blurb is an advertising persuasive text, written on the back cover of a book. Blurbs of selected novels are chosen as representative examples. The selected blurbs belong to two languages, Arabic and English. The paper aims at studying the linguistic features that are characteristic of blurbs as advertising texts and making a sort of comparison between English blurbs and Arabic ones. A linguistic analysis on four levels is presented. Blurbs are tackled from the point of view of four linguistic disciplines that are phonology, syntax, semantics and discourse analysis. A reference is made to the linguistic featu
... Show MoreThis research deals with the aesthetics of describing nature and the joys of urban life in the environment of Fatimid Egypt, among a group of poets, who were deceived by its enchanting beauty and breathtaking scenery, through it they depicted the reality of the life they live, and the things that involved them, as well as showing their personal culture, and the joys of life that experience, articulating this with a descriptive and analytical study, focusing on how the poet portrayed the visual scene, in an important stage of Arabic literature in Egypt.
The educational service industry is one of the most negatively affected industries by the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. Government agencies have taken many measures to slow its spread, and then restrict movement and gatherings and stop recreational activities. Furthermore, the repercussions of the curfew had a significant impact due to the interruption in actual attendance for students and employees, and the severity of the Covid-19 crisis and its (economic, social, security, humanitarian and behavioral) effects on all societies and work sectors is no secret to anyone. Iraq, like other countries, was also affected by the negative impact of Covid-19 pandemic in all fields of institutional work, especially public fields, and specifically t
... Show MoreMost companies use social media data for business. Sentiment analysis automatically gathers analyses and summarizes this type of data. Managing unstructured social media data is difficult. Noisy data is a challenge to sentiment analysis. Since over 50% of the sentiment analysis process is data pre-processing, processing big social media data is challenging too. If pre-processing is carried out correctly, data accuracy may improve. Also, sentiment analysis workflow is highly dependent. Because no pre-processing technique works well in all situations or with all data sources, choosing the most important ones is crucial. Prioritization is an excellent technique for choosing the most important ones. As one of many Multi-Criteria Decision Mak
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The research addresses the role of the digital economy in the growth of the Iraqi economy during the period from 2010 to 2022. The research is based on the hypothesis that the digital economy has become one of the primary growth drivers worldwide and has a close relationship with economic development. Therefore, the digital transformation in Iraq can accelerate bridging developmental gaps with other countries.
It has become evident that the Iraqi economy suffers from structural imbalances for various reasons, hindering economic growth. These reasons include political and economic factors, as well as the absence of a well-thought-out policy to promote the agricultural sector, which is considered one of the fundamental sectors capa
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The current research is summarized by studying and understanding the imagination and what resulted from it in postmodern arts, specifically Pop Art. The research was focused spatially (America) between the year 1950-1975 AD and it defined the research problem by asking about what factors and variables that established the social imagination in culture Al-Gharbia, which in turn crystallized the Western cultural product to appear in its form, which is historically called "pop art". Two studies were adopted in the second chapter. The first one was the cultural structure of the social imagination. The second topic was concerned with the stylistic diversity of pop art, and the third chapter included research and accreditation procedures. Ther
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Introduction: Articaine was developed in 1969, with reported advantages which are increased potency, increased duration of its anesthetic effect and superior diffusion through bony tissue. The effectiveness of using 4% articaine infiltration for extraction of mandibular molar teeth in comparison to 2% lidocaine inferior alveolar nerve block is not settled yet. Aim: The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of using 4% articaine infiltration for extraction of mandibular molars by comparing it to the use of 2% lidocaine inferior alveolar nerve block in terms of success, the volume of local anesthetic agents and the pain experienced during the procedure. Materials and methods: A prospective randomized controlled study included
... Show MoreThis research aims at identifying the commitment of satellite news channels in Arabic to the set of important standards that reflect their credibility in dealing with the media material, and considering that these channels give special importance to events in Iraq, as well as the Arab region and the world, decide to choose them and study them with a problem The research was a question about the level of credibility of Iraqi media. This research is descriptive research, which used the survey method on an objective sample of 245 items, while the questionnaire was used as a data collection tool. Seven channels were selected in Arabic for the study. The three most watched channels were chosen. These channels included the channels of Russia t
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Background: In young adults, multiple sclerosis is a prevalent chronic inflammatory demyelinating condition. It is characterized by white matter affection, but many individuals also have significant gray matter involvement. A double-inversion recovery pulse (DIR) pattern was recently proposed to improve the visibility of multiple sclerosis lesions. Objective: To find out how well a DIR sequence, FLAIR, and T2-weighted pulse sequences can find MS lesions in the supratentorial and infratentorial regions. Methods: A total of 37 patients with established diagnoses of multiple sclerosis were included in this cross-sectional study. Brain MRI was done using double inversion recovery, T2, and FLAIR sequences. The number of lesions was count
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