Ethical decision making by school leaders in a period of neoliberal reform

School leaders and their leadership teams are involved in the process of decision making on a daily basis. Their work is often complex and arduous as they deal with a range of competing demands from stakeholders who include parents, staff, students, community groups, employing authorities and often other principals. Researchers in the field of ethical decision making have included metaphors such as ‘minefield’ and ‘battlegrounds’ in their writing to describe the complexity and dangerous nature of the work in which principals involve themselves when making decisions. The work is ‘dangerous’ because stakeholders are often upset with the outcomes of the decision-making processes, which they may not support. Their disquiet can lead to further and continuous conflict. The difficult situations and ethical dilemmas faced by school leaders are becoming more complex as both state and federal levels of government in Australia seek to exert more direct and indirect influence on schools, their leadership, management and accountability. Australia is not immune from recent major educational trends evident elsewhere in the Western world. The impact of market ideologies and neoliberal reform agendas are explored in the context of moves towards greater localised decision-making and governance in the Australian school sector. I have undertaken field work throughout this doctoral program to explore the ways in which schools can incorporate professional learning in decision making into their professional practice, the role that ethical decision making can play in nurturing leadership capacity at all levels of the school organisation, and the role that effective ethical decision-making practices can play in building dynamic and transparent school cultures. To support and nurture ethical decision-making practices in schools, I have provided conference presentations, created an Ethical Decision Making Toolkit of scenarios, designed and implemented an Ethical Decision Making Course for School Leaders, delivered workshops, created vodcasts, and facilitated Aspiring Leaders Network Meetings. These workshops and presentations have utilised frameworks of ethical practice drawn from the writings which the New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) have produced to guide public sector understanding and best practice in transparent and ethical decision making. For this Professional Practice Doctorate, I have created a portfolio which is in seven parts. The portfolio is introduced by an Overarching Narrative that is followed by three scholarly papers and three professional practice initiatives. The scholarly papers provide an understanding of key issues and research. They address ethical decision making, appropriate professional learning for school leaders and the challenges of leadership in an era of significant generational change. The professional practice initiatives address educational policy making in the context of local decision making and highlight the practical initiatives I have created and implemented to support leaders in their daily leadership practices. The seven parts of this portfolio reflect my professional journey as a senior departmental officer working with schools in an era which has seen many experienced school leaders retire and younger generations of leaders assume the challenging role of educational leader with its myriad responsibilities. The portfolio raises significant questions which relate to the decision making and problem solving of leaders, the nature of succession planning and the nature of professional learning that best prepares and supports educational leaders for the challenges and dilemmas they face. My research confirms the value of school leaders and their leadership teams acquiring an understanding of ethical decision-making skills to enhance their decision making and problem solving in an era of greater localised decision making in schools

Formalising, Integrating and Assessing Portfolio Management Processes in Technology-Intensive Firms

Technology-intensive firms strive to introduce new products and services effectively and efficiently, having to tackle challenging issues of technology and market uncertainties in their dynamic business environments. This implies that organizing for portfolio management (i.e. taking appropriate decisions regarding projects for new product & service development) is a critical capability for a firm’s survival and growth. However, both academic and practical studies reveal that firms often report a challenge of low levels of portfolio management effectiveness, which increases the likelihood of poor portfolio management performance. After a comprehensive literature review of multi-domain scholarly contributions central to portfolio management, a process design framework for portfolio management provides a basis to tackle this challenge, by addressing three main knowledge gaps: I. Lack of guidance on how and what to formalise in portfolio management processes II. Limited understanding of inter-relationships between portfolio management processes III. Lack of a comprehensive assessment approach for portfolio management processes With the objective to fill these knowledge gaps, this research analysed portfolio management in more than 40 multinational firms operating in different industries including industrial automation, medical devices, manufacturing and semiconductors. This involved use of multiple rounds of various empirical methods such as case studies, focus groups, workshops and participatory observations. As a result, this research bridges these respective knowledge gaps by developing: • Portfolio Management Formalisation Framework reveals five key portfolio management processes that could be formalised and that have implications for portfolio management performance: a) Ecosystem Surveillance, b) Portfolio Strategy Development, c) Business Case Management, d) Portfolio Decision-Making, and e) New Product Management. The three portfolio management stakeholder functions driving these processes are: a) Corporate Functions, b) Top Management Functions, and c) Project Management Functions. • Portfolio Management Integration Framework: develops the inter-relationships between these portfolio management processes as well as stakeholder functions in the form of exploratory relationships. Better integration of these processes and functions could enable better portfolio management performance. • Portfolio Management Diagnostic Tool: a template-based tool for assessing the management practices underpinning the portfolio management processes and stakeholder functions. It involves scoring of these practices against the criteria of relevance, importance, consistency and execution quality. The scores can reveal areas of strengths and weakness in overall portfolio management and can be used for process improvement purposes. This research contributes to theory by conceptualising five key portfolio management processes and three portfolio management stakeholder functions as components of portfolio management formalisation. It also conceptualises the inter-relationships between these processes and function as components of portfolio management integration. The practical utility of the proposed diagnostic tool lies in using it to diagnose and benchmark portfolio management processes and stakeholder functions.Research and Development Management Association; Centre for Technology Management, Institute for Manufacturing; St. Edmunds College, Cambridge; Cambridge University Engineering Departmen

Asset Acquisition Criteria: A Process Tracing Investigation into Real Estate Investment Decision Making

Choosing the right investment option by a fund manager or analyst is the first step that contributes to the overall performance of any portfolio of assets. The decision making process is complicated. Markowitz portfolio theory (1952, 1959) laid the theoretical foundations for asset selection and management. However the decision maker is influenced by parameters outside the realm of financial theory and mathematical models (French and French 1997; French 2001). The actual behavior of decision makers can deviate from this normative model. This can be due to the problem solving behavior of the human brain. Human problem solving theory began with the work of Newell and Simon (1972) and Simon (1978). They argue that the human memory is characterized by limitations in terms of processing capacities (Newell and Simon 1972). Given the amount of data the decision maker has to analyze, the process of asset selection is complicated and difficult. Besides the volume of data, the information items may provide information relating to the same aspect of the asset making some of the data set redundant. Besides that, some of information contained in the data set might provide contradictory signals about the performance or characteristics of the asset. Thus the information set available to a decision maker is large, multi-channeled (different data providing different information) and multi-dimensional (for example real estate assets have information pertaining to legal aspects, financial aspects, physical aspects etc.). The limitations in the decision maker’s processing capabilities and the characteristics of the information cues make the asset selection process exceedingly difficult. French (2001) in a study of fund managers from U.K finds that asset allocation uses two sets of hard information during the process, namely historic data and current market perceptions. The study also finds differences between exposure levels of the funds dictated by theory (as per portfolio theory) and actual decisions made by companies (true asset allocations of funds). Gallimore, Gray and Hansz (2000) find medium-sized and small companies’ investment decision making does not follow any normative model due to the diverse nature of property markets in the United Kingdom. Past literature in the field of decision making finds that an expert’s decision making behavior differs from that of a novice. (Bedard and Mock (1992), Bouwman (1984) and Jacoby et al. (1984, 1985, 1986, 1987)). The primary purpose of this study is to understand the impact of experience on the decision making behavior of investors and see if their behavior differs from that of inexperienced individuals. In a controlled experiment design, two groups of subjects are tested. One group is composed of experienced subjects (experts) represented by real estate professionals such as acquisition analysts, fund/portfolio managers or real estate investors (experienced individuals investing either their own money or a client’s money in real estate). The other group tested is composed of students, who are inexperienced subjects (novices). Both groups are asked to choose between two investment cases in two different cities. The two options offered are both class A office properties, institutional grade. Fifteen sets of data are given for each investment option. Data for the cases is sourced from investment management companies, involved in managing funds on behalf of institutional clients. Using a process tracing technique, each subject’s behavior is observed and recorded while making the investment choice. These observations will give us insight into the actual (descriptive) behavior of experienced real estate professionals and inexperienced novices. It will help in isolating the impact of experience on the decision making behavior of real estate investors. This study finds mixed evidence relating to the difference in the behavior of novices and experts. On the five aspects that the two groups are tested, evidence that their behavior differs in three has been uncovered. They are search pattern, number of steps and time on task. However, for the other two aspects, sequencing and cue utilization, no difference was found

Supplier Portfolio Selection and Optimum Volume Allocation: A Knowledge Based Method

Selection of suppliers and allocation of optimum volumes to suppliers is a strategic business decision. This paper presents a decision support method for supplier selection and the optimal allocation of volumes in a supplier portfolio. The requirements for the method were gathered during a case study that was conducted within the logistics unit of Shell Chemicals Europe. The proposed method is based on the classical view by Sprague and Carlson of sequence and interaction of the different phases of decision making in a decision support system and supports Kraljic’s portfolio approach for supplier management. This method aims to help the managers in making decisions on the allocation of volumes to suppliers while simultaneously trying to satisfy conflicting objectives of improvement in benefit and reduction in risk. A mathematical model to struc-ture the problem is presented, knowledge elicited from the managers is used to parameterize the mathemati-cal model and a multi-objective, hierarchical optimization procedure produces ‘trade-off’ outputs. The man-agers can also conduct interactive post optimization ‘what-if’ analysi

Updating, Upgrading, Refining, Calibration and Implementation of Trade-Off Analysis Methodology Developed for INDOT

As part of the ongoing evolution towards integrated highway asset management, the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT), through SPR studies in 2004 and 2010, sponsored research that developed an overall framework for asset management. This was intended to foster decision support for alternative investments across the program areas on the basis of a broad range of performance measures and against the background of the various alternative actions or spending amounts that could be applied to the several different asset types in the different program areas. The 2010 study also developed theoretical constructs for scaling and amalgamating the different performance measures, and for analyzing the different kinds of trade-offs. The research products from the present study include this technical report which shows how theoretical underpinnings of the methodology developed for INDOT in 2010 have been updated, upgraded, and refined. The report also includes a case study that shows how the trade-off analysis framework has been calibrated using available data. Supplemental to the report is Trade-IN Version 1.0, a set of flexible and easy-to-use spreadsheets that implement the tradeoff framework. With this framework and using data at the current time or in the future, INDOT’s asset managers are placed in a better position to quantify and comprehend the relationships between budget levels and system-wide performance, the relationships between different pairs of conflicting or non-conflicting performance measures under a given budget limit, and the consequences, in terms of system-wide performance, of funding shifts across the management systems or program areas

Asset liability management using stochastic programming

This chapter sets out to explain an important financial planning model called asset liability management (ALM); in particular, it discusses why in practice, optimum planning models are used. The ability to build an integrated approach that combines liability models with that of asset allocation decisions has proved to be desirable and more efficient in that it can lead to better ALM decisions. The role of uncertainty and quantification of risk in these planning models is considered

Real estate stock selection and attribute preferences

The majority of studies that explore property portfolio construction and management strategies utilise highly aggregated ex-post data, but stock selection is known to be a significant determinant of portfolio performance. Thus, here we look at stock selection, focusing on the choices faced by investors, necessitating the collection and analysis of primary data, carried out utilising conjoint analysis. This represents a new step in property research, with the data collection undertaken using a simulation exercise. This enables fund managers to make hypothetical purchase decisions, viewing properties comprising a realistic bundle of attributes and making complex contemporaneous trade-offs between attributes, subject to their stated market and economic forecasts and sector specialism. In total 51 fund managers were surveyed, producing 918 purchase decisions for analysis, with additional data collected regarding fund and personal characteristics. The results reveal that ‘fixed’ property characteristics (location and obsolescence) are dominant in the decision-making process, over and above ‘manageable’ tenant and lease characteristics which can be explicitly included within models of probabilities of income variation. This reveals investors are making ex-ante risk judgements and are considering post acquisition risk management strategies. The study also reveals that behavioural factors affect acquisition decisions

Building Capacity Through a Regranting Strategy: Promising Approaches and Emerging Outcomes

This is an evaluation report on the Community Leadership Project (CLP) in which 27 well-established intermediary organizations--community foundations, grantmaking public charities, and funder affinity groups--regrant to smaller organizations to provide financial support and tailored organizational assistance and coaching to small to mid-size organizations; technical assistance; and leadership development.The evaluation is interested in understanding not only the impact of CLP on leaders, organizations, intermediaries, and foundation partners, but also the key lessons on: (1) reaching and providing capacity-building supports to organizations and leaders serving low-income communities and communities of color; (2) characteristics of effective, culturally relevant, and community-responsive capacity building; and (3) which kinds of capacity-building supports are most effective for small and mid-sized organizations serving low-income communities and communitiesof color

Lower Mekong Portfolio: Interim Evaluation

This report summarizes a portfolio evaluation of the MacArthur Foundation's conservation investments in the Lower Mekong region since 2011. It is explicitly a portfolio-level evaluation, focusing on common themes rather than individual grants. The evaluation involved understanding the portfolio context through reviewing relevant documents and speaking with donor partners; gathering data from MacArthur grantees; calibrating initial evaluation findings through consultations with independent regional experts and donor partner grantees; improving future evaluation ability by cooperating with NatureServe to improve the Lower Mekong Dashboard; and presenting results in this evaluation report and to MacArthur directly