Independent Evaluation of the Jim Joseph Foundation's Education Initiative Year 4 Report

Research indicates that well-prepared educators help produce strong learning outcomes for students. For the continued health of Jewish education, higher education institutions should have the capacity to prepare sufficient numbers of highly qualified educators and education leaders for careers in Jewish education. Teachers, division heads, and school heads represent a substantial segment of the educator population in Jewish day schools. More than 5,000 educators enter new positions in Jewish day schools every year and are in need of adequate preparation. The most frequent obstacle to instructional quality in Jewish day schools is the difficulty in recruiting qualified teachers (Ben-Avie & Kress, 2006; Jewish Education Service of North America, 2008; Kidron et al., in press; Krakowski, 2011; Sales, 2007).A similar problem has been observed in supplementary schools in congregational or communal settings. These schools enroll the majority of Jewish children and adolescents receiving a Jewish education in the United States (Wertheimer, 2008). In recent years, congregations have begun to replace traditional educational programs with new approaches that aim to raise the quality of instruction and the level of parent and student satisfaction relative to their programs. These new approaches may include greater integration of experiential Jewish education and community service, family learning, and the integration of all aspects of congregational learning under the leadership of one director (Rechtschaffen, 2011; Sales, Samuel, Koren, & Shain, 2010). High-quality programs that are updated or reconstructed across time to meet the needs of the Jewish community require well-prepared directors and educators. However, many directors and educators in congregational schools have not participated in teacher preparation programs, and the depth of Jewish content knowledge among these teachers is highly variable (Stodolsky, Dorph, & Rosov, 2008)

Disruptive innovation and the higher education ‘eco-system’ post-2012

Disruptive innovations in business sectors are arguably triggered by the arrival of new competitors who disturb, or punctuate, an existing equilibrium. They can be aided by changes to a wider context. The eco-system of professional services has seen major disruptions over the last 10 or 15 years. We extend our review of managerial lessons from a previous essay to present speculative scenarios of pending disruptions in higher education. We present a strategic map of the sector which hints at disruption and differentiation as an ongoing process, albeit with a large, undifferentiated middle. We write not to predict but to, hopefully, provoke thought. The challenges posed by the potential disruptors will, we argue, require many institutions to respond in new and innovative ways. Innovation in higher education which spread well beyond traditional research, knowledge transfer and the curriculum interpretations will be required to a much greater extent than in the past

SPATIAL DISPARITIES IN THE CHINESE ICT SECTOR: A REGIONAL ANALYSIS

The information and communication technology (ICT) sector is currently one of the most dynamic sectors in China’s economy. Based on the number of cell phone users, internet users and workers in telecommunication, we indicate that the ICT sector is not equally distributed across the 31 Chinese provinces. This is also true for the distribution of per capita income growth. Various tools of exploratory spatial data analysis are then used to uncover that this sector displays signs of spatial autocorrelation as the selected variables appear to be more spatially concentrated in a few provinces. However, while cell phones and internet are mostly clustered in the East, workers in telecommunication are relatively more abundant in the Northern part of the country. On the other hand, the provincial growth rate is more randomly distributed. The existence of a positive relation between the number of ICT users in one province and growth in the neighbouring provinces suggests that ICT ought to be considered as one of the potential levers of a policy aiming to reduce regional inequalities.INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES,

The determinants of regional specialisation in business services: agglomeration economies, vertical linkages and innovation

The article accounts for the determinants of sectoral specialisation in business services (BS) across the EU-27 regions as determined by: (i) agglomeration economies (ii) the region-specific structure of intermediate linkages (iii) technological innovation and knowledge intensity and (iv) the presence of these factors in neighbouring regions. The empirical analysis draws upon the REGIO panel database over the period 1999–2003. By estimating a Spatial Durbin Model, we find significant spatial effects in explaining regional specialisation in BS. Our findings show that, besides urbanisation economies, the spatial structure of intermediate sectoral linkages and innovation, in particular Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), are important determinants of specialisation in BS. The article contributes to the debate on the global versus local determinants of regional specialisation in BS by restating the importance of the regional sectoral structure besides that of urbanisation. We draw policy implications by rejecting the ‘footloose hypothesis’ for BS

How do high performance work systems influence organizational innovation in professional service firms?

Purpose - The aim of this paper is examine how a system of human resource management (HRM) practices, labelled high performance work systems (HPWS), influences organizational innovation in professional service firms (PSFs). In this study, innovation in PSFs is seen as an indicator of firm performance and is calculated as the revenue per person generated from new clients and new services respectively. Design/methodology/approach– Quantitative data was collected from 195 Managing Partners, HR Managers or experienced Partners in 120 Irish accounting firms. Hierarchical regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses. Findings - The analysis results indicate strong support for the mediating role of employees’ innovative work behaviours in the relationship between HPWS and two types of PSFs’ innovation performance. Practical implications - Managers need to effectively adopt and implement innovation-based HRM practices to encourage and support employees’ creative thinking and innovation. Through the adoption and utilization of these practices managers can enhance the firm’s innovation and its performance. Originality/value - This study contributes to our understanding of the link between HRM and firm innovation by explicating a pathway between these variables. This study also generalizes consistent findings on the HRM-firm innovation relationship to a different context, i.e. professional service firms

Locating distributed leadership

This special issue addresses a number of the key themes that have been surfacing from the literature on distributed leadership (DL) for some time. Together with those papers selected to be included in this special issue, the authors set out both to explore and contribute to a number of the current academic debates in relation to DL, while at the same time examining the extent to which research on DL has permeated the management field. The paper examines a number of key concepts, ideas and themes in relation to DL and, in so doing, highlights the insights offered through new contributions and interpretations. The paper offers a means by which forms of DL might be conceptualized to be better incorporated into researchers' scholarship and research, and a framework is presented which considers a number of different dimensions of DL, how it may be planned, and how it may emerge, together with how it may or may not align with other organizational activities and aspects. © 2011 The Authors. International Journal of Management Reviews © 2011 British Academy of Management and Blackwell Publishing Ltd