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 deficit budget, one of the results of increased public spending for their revenues due to the economic pressures imposed by the interest of the economies of those countries from the need to increase government spending in order to revitalize the national economy and accelerate economic growth rates and provide employment to the growing levels of unemployment in those countries opportunities and what is required to address the current debt crisis (borrowing), which has become a big burden on the governments and the need to move towards the application of austerity spending and tax increases, which inevitably forced those countries will be reflected reduced spending on basic aspects of life and their peoples, particularly earners
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Results showed high efficiency of the predator Chrysoperla carnea (Stephens) to attack and consume nymphal instars and adults of cabbage aphid, Brevicoryne brassicae (L.).The total average of the nymphal instars consumed by the larval stage of predator were 308.67, 285.9, 198.77, 154.7 for 1st ,2nd ,3rd ,4th nymphal instars respectively .While it was 110,107.9 for apterae and alatae respectively . Also, predation efficiency increases with the progress of the larval instars up to the third (last) which was the most voracious .The 1st instar nymph consumed by the larvae of the predator were 47,80,181.67 nymphs ,with predation rate of 14.71% , 23.75% and 50.13% for 1st ,2nd and 3rd larval instars
The research work was conducted to investigate the effect of oral administration of water extract of black pepper at doses of (1, 5) mg/kg body weight for two weeks daily by determining the genotoxic effect (mitotic index), evaluation of immunological effect (IgG, IgM, IgA, C3, C4) and measuring fertility hormones (follicles stimulation hormone/FSH, lutenising hormone/LH) levels with histopathological examinations of female albino swiss mice ovaries in comparison with control (normal saline). A clear effect in increasing mitotic activity was reveled for both doses in comparison with control. Results also showed a significant increase in the value of the all immunological parameters at both doses in comparison with control. Also obvious rais
... Show MoreThis study focused on determining the markers of Macrophage migration inhibitor (MIF), as well as the N-telopeptides of type I bone collagen (NTX), and some other parameters (alkaline phosphatase (ALP), vitamin D (Vit D), calcium (Ca), phosphorus (P), and magnesium (Mg), and their correlation with other parameters in osteoporosis. One hundred ten subjects were involved in the current study. There were two groups of patients: group I (30) women with severe osteoporosis and group II (30) women with mild osteoporosis. For comparison, 50 apparently healthy individuals were included as a control. Serum levels of MIF, and NTX were significantly higher in groups I and II as compared to the control group, which indicate that these two parameters
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Background: Decalcification of surface enamel adjacent to fixed orthodontic appliances, in the form of white spot lesions, is a wide spread and familiar well-known side effect of orthodontic treatment. The present study was carried out to evaluate the effect of enamel protective agent (Clinpro white varnish) on shear and tensile bond strength of Dentaurum orthodontic stainless steel brackets by using 3M Unitek and Ormco as orthodontic adhesive agents. Materials and methods: Sixty-four extracted human upper first premolar teeth were selected and randomly divided into two groups with 32 teeth each, representing the shear and tensile bond strength testing groups. Then according to the type of bonding adhesive and the addition of Clinpro before
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Huge number of medical images are generated and needs for more storage capacity and bandwidth for transferring over the networks. Hybrid DWT-DCT compression algorithm is applied to compress the medical images by exploiting the features of both techniques. Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) coding is applied to image YCbCr color model which decompose image bands into four subbands (LL, HL, LH and HH). The LL subband is transformed into low and high frequency components using Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) to be quantize by scalar quantization that was applied on all image bands, the quantization parameters where reduced by half for the luminance band while it is the same for the chrominance bands to preserve the image quality, the zig
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In this study, two types of local plants were chosen, the first is the plant golden pothos Epipremnum aureum and the second is the Iraqi Sheikh's chin plant Tribulus terrestris L, for the purpose of making a comparison between them in terms of their possession of chemical groups with antioxidant activity in order to use them as a natural alternative to using antioxidants Industrial that cause negative effects on human health, the samples were prepared using the method of water and alcohol extraction (ethanol 70%) for both plants. It revealed the presence of a number of chemical groups (tannins, carbohydrates, phenols, flavonoids, alkaloids) for both plants, the aqueous and alcoholic extracts. Coumarins are only found in the sheikh's chin pl
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One of the most important phenomena facing the athlete is the anxiety of sports competition, as he faces many psychological problems during training and in competitions of psychological tension, fear and anxiety that accompany him sometimes, which leads to affecting his level, and sports competition anxiety is a special type of anxiety that occurs in the athlete It is related to the attitudes of sports competitions and that participation in sports competitions and the associated emotional experiences are among the important factors that motivate the practice of sports activity and try to advance and develop his sports level. It is assumed that when the individual begins to practice any activity, he aims to reach a level or degree of achie
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