Mounting the New Guard: The Golden Rule as a Basis for Organizational Culture Change in Response to Challenges in Academia

The Problem The landscape of higher education is undergoing rapid evolution. Changes in demographics, scope of faculty responsibilities, expectations of productivity, and technology lead this evolution. Intentional strategies are required for navigating this new landscape. The Solution We advocate for contextually and historically sensitive organizational culture changes in response to the changing nature and experiences in higher education. The organizational culture changes are predicated on valuing, embracing, and encouraging unique and forward-thinking perspectives in academia. The Stakeholders The primary audience includes faculty and organizational leaders in higher education who are urged to actively participate in the organizational culture changes that are deemed necessary for continued vitality and relevance of academic institutions.

Value-intentional strategies of psychological adaptation to the professional environment

The paper analyses the value-intentional mechanisms and strategies of psychological adaptation to the conditions of the professional environment of a military higher education institution. The results allowed the authors to identify two strategies, including non-specific (universal) and specific (unique) mechanisms. Nonspecific mechanisms are inherent in both strategies, arise in all respondents and have manifestations by neutralisation of fears, actualisation of social success and value-intentional destabilisation. Specific mechanisms are different in individuals with low and high efficiency of adaptation: the first there is a weakening of group-centric intentions and enhanced hedonistic-egocentric distancing; the second noted group-centric cohesion and activation of cognitive activity.

Unintended Water Allocation

This chapter argues that two types of process affect the allocation of water between users. The first of these are a set of intentional strategies, which dominate the literature on water allocation. These include institutional allocating mechanisms and the purposeful appropriation of water. The second type of process is unintended and occurs through indirect action or inaction. Through this second type of process, people, sectors, and places nevertheless gain water share. Unintended allocation arises from within the ungoverned spaces and “wicked problems” of land and water transformations in two interrelated ways: (1) via external changes in non-water sectors and (2) via internal changes within the water management sector. This unintended or hidden type of water allocation process is largely overlooked. Yet, it is potentially important because volumes of water moved through unintentional allocation can be large, and it can undermine well-intentioned policy interventions in the water and land management sectors.

As assistant principals enter their careers: a case for providing support

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to offer a viewpoint on the challenges that assistant principals (APs) face and to make the case for intentional mentoring, coaching, and sponsorship of individuals in these roles. Design/methodology/approach – The authors provide a professional viewpoint based on scholarly literature and their practitioner observation. Findings – The authors propose that by focussing on APs, being systematic about supporting APs, and expanding and deepening understandings of the hurdles and dilemmas they face, the schools will have a more robust leadership pipeline and more satisfied and effective APs. They recommend that school districts, whether in the USA or internationally, consider adopting specific and intentional strategies to mentor, coach, and sponsor new APs, with what they call Mentor-Sponsor Models. Originality/value – The author recommendation for school districts to create Mentor Banks of qualified, exemplary senior principals who can sponsor and mentor new APs as an “in house” model for developing district talent is an original idea that could be easily implemented in larger school districts.

Intentional strategies that make co-actors more predictable: The case of signaling

Pickering & Garrod (P&G) explain dialogue dynamics in terms of forward modeling and prediction-by-simulation mechanisms. Their theory dissolves a strict segregation between production and comprehension processes, and it links dialogue to action-based theories of joint action. We propose that the theory can also incorporate intentional strategies that increase communicative success: for example, signaling strategies that help remaining predictable and forming common ground.

A Negative Priority Effect

On multiple tests of free recall increased study time for selected items near the middle of a presentation list resulted in both a significantly higher level of recall and a later reproduction of these items during recall (negative priority effect). A reliable tendency for “old” items to be emitted relatively late during recall also was found, the effect increasing with increased study time. Although a delay between the end of the list and recall significantly reduced serial position artifacts, the other priorities were still reliably evident. These results are diametrically opposed to the assumption that the stronger or better learned an item the earlier it will be recalled. Instead, they were interpreted in terms of a dual storage system, with the possibility of intentional strategies employed by subjects to maximize total items recalled.