Holistic Leadership: A Model for Leader-Member Engagement and Development

Dr. Candis Best explores the theory of holistic leadership and further provides the model and framework for it to be empirically tested. At present, Best opines that holistic leadership produces leadership which supports the development of self-leadership capacity while preparing participating members for the exercise of increasing levels of self-determination and participatory decision-making

Switzerland goes Europe? Swiss Education Policy Making under the Impact of the Bologna Process

In the last decade, comprehensive reforms were introduced in Swiss higher education that modified both the policy making procedures and the structure of the education system. The reforms were promoted by an international initiative – the Bologna Process. It is sup-ported by the EU Commission and gave central impulses for domestic reforms in the non-EU country by applying diverse instruments of soft governance whose impact outstripped domestic obstacles. Despite the high number of veto-players in Switzerland and cultural guiding principles of education that did not completely match the Bologna ideals, this pa-per finds a high approximation of Swiss education policy making towards the propositions and aims of the Bologna Process

Further Education Funding Council : circular : 98/16

"Provides guidance on strategic planning and financial forecast information requested by 31 July 1998" -- front cover

Collaborative design : managing task interdependencies and multiple perspectives

This paper focuses on two characteristics of collaborative design with respect to cooperative work: the importance of work interdependencies linked to the nature of design problems; and the fundamental function of design cooperative work arrangement which is the confrontation and combination of perspectives. These two intrinsic characteristics of the design work stress specific cooperative processes: coordination processes in order to manage task interdependencies, establishment of common ground and negotiation mechanisms in order to manage the integration of multiple perspectives in design

Soft governance in education: The PISA study and the Bologna Process in Switzerland

This paper analyzes the importance of governance of international organizations (IOs) to Swiss policy making in the field of education. The focus is on the Bologna Process driven by the European Commission, and the 'Programme for International Student Assessment' (PISA) of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The theoretical framework draws on sociological institutionalism and rationalism. The results demonstrate that IOs gave impulses for domestic reforms by applying diverse governance instruments. National transformation capacities of veto-players and cultural guiding principles on education in Switzerland were not able to hinder these impulses as supposed. Instead, the empirical findings show a surprisingly high impact of IO governance instruments, particularly of standard setting, coordinative activities and discursive dissemination on reforms in Swiss education policy-making. This is because IO governance modified domestic guiding principles on education so that they matched those of the IOs. Another reason is that the domestic level strategically used the international initiatives of PISA and Bologna to overcome long-standing backlog of reform. -- Dieses Arbeitspapier untersucht die Bedeutung von Governance internationaler Organisationen (IOs) für die Schweizer Politikgestaltung im Bildungsbereich. Der Fokus liegt dabei auf dem Bologna Prozess, der von der Europäischen Kommission vorangetrieben wird, und der PISA-Studie (Programme for International Student Assessment) der OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development). Der theoretische Rahmen beruht auf dem soziologischen Institutionalismus und Rationalismus. Die Resultate zeigen, dass IOs durch Anwendung diverser Governance-Instrumente wichtige Impulse für innerstaatliche Reformen gaben. Nationale Transformationskapazitäten - Vetospieler und kulturelle Leitideen der Bildung - der Schweiz verhinderten dies nicht. Statt dessen demonstrieren die empirischen Befunde einen unerwartet hohen Einfluss von IO Governance-Instrumenten - insbesondere von Standard Setting, koordinativen Aktivitäten und diskursiver Verbreitung - auf die Schweizer Gestaltung von Bildungspolitik. Dies lag daran, dass IO Governance innerstaatliche Leitideen der Bildung so modifizierte, dass sie denen der IOs entsprachen. Zudem nutzten nationale Akteure die internationalen Initiativen von PISA und Bologna strategisch, um lange anhaltenden Reformstau zu überwinden.Bologna Process,Direct Democracy,Education Policy-Making,EU,Federalism,International Initiative,International Organization,OECD,PISA Study,Switzerland,Veto-Player