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.
The fluctuations in oil prices in world markets affect the general budget and the trade balance of the rent countries, because oil is a strategic commodity affected by economic and political factors. The fluctuations in oil prices affect the public budgets of the rent countries through the public revenue side of oil revenues. On the other hand, these fluctuations affect the balance of trade through the volume of oil exports, which lead to imbalance of trade surplus or deficit . &nbs
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This study aimed at identifying the trend to applying the Joint Audit as an approach to improve the financial reports quality with all their characteristics (Relevance, Reliability, Comparability, Consistency), as well as enclose the difficulties that faced the auditors in the Gaza Strip in implementing the Joint Audit. In order to achieve the study aims, a measure was used to identify the trend to apply the Joint Audit and it was distributed to the study sample which is consisting of (119) individuals and retrieved thereof (99) valid for analysis, approximately (83.2%), (69) of them are Auditors, (30) financial managers and accountants. The researcher used the analytical descriptive method, and after analyzing the results, the s
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Objectives: This Paper is an attempt to evaluate the services provided by the private hospitals
and to identify the strength and weakness in
their performance The results can be utilized in stating conclusion and recommendations to improve
and activate the role of private medical sector in society .
Methodology: A questionnaire has be designed for this purpose and distributed to ( 132 ) beneficiaries
mostly from Baghdad private hospitals .
Results: The paper has come out with many important results . Among These are the following :
* these who benefit from services provided by private hospitals believe that the good performance of
such hospital is not due to the medical services alone but also to scientific aspect
The study focuses on the problem that Iraq is approaching an increasing rate of literacy;the available data refers to a rate of (18% -19%). In addition to the fact that the generalcurrent role of the programs directed to literacy is not actually effective enough to limit the expansion of this rate.
The importance of this study highlights the fact that the Iraqi universities are an important tributary among the tributaries of human development, especially in spreading the education of the voluntary work in literacy field and confirming the connection between the students and their society and their role in solving one of the prominent challenges that face the development, i.e., literacy.
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... Show MoreErbil city is located in the northern Iraq with a population of over one million people. Due to water crises farmers usually use wastewater and well water for the agricultural production. In this study six stations were designed to sample waste water and three from well water to define waste water and ground water characteristics. In this study, Residual Na+ Carbonate, Mg++ hazard, salinity hazard, Kelley index, %sodium, total hardness, permeability index, potential salinity, sodium adsorption ratio, and Irrigation Water Quality Index (IWQI) were determined. The order of average cation concentrations in water was Mg2+> Ca2+ > Na+ > K+. While the proportion of main
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Constitute a planning problem on the basis of personal experience and self-governance in the service organizations away from quantitative scientific method in planning an anchor and a platform, who made a recent research study, analysis and interpretation through scientific methodology adopted which formed its contents, The research aims to identify the true reality of production planning in service organizations, specifically in the Baghdad Hotel as a society to look, in order to assess the best strategy through the standard cost of the strategies of tracking and settlement to cope with developments on services demand changes, Search results confirmed that the settlement rates of production strategy is the best strategy in accordance wi
... Show MoreBackground: The aim of this study was to measure the radiopacity (RO) of modified microhybrid composite resins by adding 2 types of nanofillers (Zinc Oxide and Calcium Carbonate) in two concentrations 3% and 5% and comparing them to unmodified microhybrid composite resins and to nanofilled composite resin. Materials and Methods: Two types of composite resin were used (Microhybrid composite MH Quadrent anterior shine and Nanofilled composite resin Filtek Z350 XT), for each tested group five disk-shaped specimens (1-mm-thick and 15 mm diameter) were fabricated. The material samples were radiographed together with the aluminum step wedge. The density of the specimens was determined with a transmission densitometer and was expressed in term of
... Show MoreBackground: Coated aesthetic archwires are currently the existing solutions for the esthetic problem, but the color of these archwires tends to change overtime. This study was aimed to evaluate the color stability of different types of esthetic archwires from four different companies at different time periods after immersion of two different staining drinks which are tea and Pepsi cola. Materials and methods: 48 specimens were prepared, each specimen contains 10 aesthetic archwires; and were divided according to type of solution into two groups: A (tea) &B (Pepsi cola); each group contained 24 specimens (12 specimens were immersed in the staining solution as 4 specimens for each time intervals and 12 specimens were immersed in distilled wa
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Drilling with casing (DWC) can be considered as a modern drilling technique in which both of drilling and casing operations done in the same time by using the casing to transfer the hydraulic and mechanical power to the bit instead of traditional drilling string. To overcome oil well control, minimizing the total cost through enhancing drilling efficiency, drilling with casing was proposed as an enabling technology.
Two surface sections (17 1/2 - and 12 1/4- inch) were drilled successfully in Rumaila oil field with casing strings which reached 655m and 1524m measured depths respectively.
By using DWC technique, the total drill/case phase time was reduced up to 20% comparing to conventional
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