394 research outputs found
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Skilful Coping with Unorder: Educating 21st Century Arts Leadership
This paper firstly addresses why innovative learning approaches are needed for 21st century leadership education in the arts and cultural sector, then moves on to a case study of how such approaches are being implemented in practice, in the Boosting Resilience project. The approaches taken here are characterised as involving a multi-disciplinary consortium of delivery partners; the use of constructivist pedagogy that draws on arts-based methods of delivery; a participatory and agile learning design process; and the incorporation of on-going evaluation activities, that are woven in to the process of design. The paper concludes with some discussion regarding the potential generalisability of approaches such as those employed on the Boosting Resilience project to arts and cultural leadership education more broadly
What accounts for the success of regions? Examining the factors associated with economic development
The Executive Learning Ladder: A Knowledge Creation Process Grounded in the Strategic Information Systems Domain
This paper reports on an approach developed since 1995 to promote and accelerate knowledge creation and sharing behaviours for business benefit within and between organisations. The approach, which is grounded in the information systems domain, has involved close collaboration between a business school and a consortium of organisations of various sizes
ENHANCED SOIL STRUCTURING BENEATH WHITE CLOVER AND ITS IMPACT ON NUTRIENT TRANSPORT
Previous work at IGER has revealed that soil structural differentiation under white clover is
phenomenally rapid and enhanced when compared with ryegrass. White clover is one of the most
nutritious and widely distributed forage legumes. Its use is advocated in sustainable systems of livestock
production because of its ability to acquire atmospheric N through biological fixation in the root
nodules. It thus provides an economically viable alternative to the N-demanding conventional system,
and a possible solution to reduce the environmental impacts of nitrate leaching from agricultural land.
There are, however, potentially negative impacts associated with improving soil aggregation through
the use of clover that need further investigation. It appears that legume-based systems are not
environmentally benign: similar amounts of N and P are leached from beneath grass-clover swards as
those leached from beneath fertilised grass operating at the same level of production. In some
circumstances, clover rich swards can give rise to very high levels of nitrate leaching. Thus, this
observation of clover induced soil aggregation has important implications for the pollutant transport
qualities of soils and for the organic/conventional agriculture debate.
Re-packed soil columns of four soil series and 0.5 m intact monoliths of the Crediton series were
planted with white clover, perennial ryegrass and a mixture of the two species, and managed according
to an organic and conventional farming regime.
Visual observations revealed a rapid enhancement in soil structure beneath white clover compared to
ryegrass and unplanted soil. A novel technique to determine oxygen diffusion as an indicator of soil
porosity, gave a diffusion rate that was nearly nine times greater than that of the grass treatments and
fifteen times greater than the unplanted control soil, with intermediate values for the mixed treatment
Thus enhanced structural differentiation beneath white clover was supported by greater permeability to
air and freer drainage to water. Structural stability tests suggested that white clover improved the ability
of the soil to maintain its structure under the action of water, and was estimated to be three times more
stable than ryegrass. There was also evidence which implied improved shear strength and resistance to
mechanical forces.
Differences in soil structure were verified with water retention measurements, which showed a
greater proportion of macropores. The void structure was simulated with the 30 Pore-Cor network
model, which also suggested a number of larger pores and a saturated hydraulic conductivity which was
four times greater than ryegrass. This also highlighted inadequacies in the current standard ISO protocol
for water retention.
The solute transport studies showed elevated levels of nitrate and phosphate leaching. Concomitant
transport of bromide inferred structural differentiation and changes in leaching dynamics. In addition,
white clover allowed the passage of greater volumes of water. Most importantly, this was manifested at
the soil profile scale and therefore likely to be of consequence in the field.
The implications of the research are that enhanced soil structure beneath white clover alters the
transport of gases, water, nutrients and other dissolved substances. Further understanding of these soil
processes are needed before advocating the use of forage rich legumes in sustainable systems, and for
the development of management strategies
Five Dimensions for Exploiting Technology Intelligently
The successful extraction of business benefits from the use of information and communications technologies (ICT) has been a persistent problem. This study introduces the “Intelligent Exploiter” framework as a mechanism for improving the effective application of these technologies. This paper reports on evaluation of this framework within a large organization in health care – a sector with a history of resisting the adoption of integrated ICT systems. However, Western Healthcare (WHC) in the USA has received high praise for its ability to use ICT to help it provide better healthcare at lower costs. With this experience, senior executives of WHC have supported the efficacy of the Intelligent Exploiter framework
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Taking the MICL: An Interdisciplinary Masters Programme in Innovation, Creativity and Leadership
The Masters in Innovation, Creativity and Leadership (the MICL) is an innovative, radically interdisciplinary and highly successful programme that is offered as part of the portfolio of Management Masters courses at Cass Business School in the UK. In this paper, we argue that while the world is increasingly Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous (VUCA), educational responses to this have been surprisingly limited. We note the parallel development of interest in interdisciplinary activity, particularly in relation to higher education, and then describe the MICL as an interdisciplinary management education programme developed against the background of an increasingly VUCA world. We describe the aims and structure of the MICL programme, as well as some of the methods employed to assist staff and students with adopting our interdisciplinary approach. Finally, we present some quantitative data on outcomes for students after completing the programme, as well as some qualitative data relating to the first cohort of students, that lead us to believe that the MICL programme provides a strong foundation on the basis of which students can survive and thrive in a world of increasingly dramatic change and complexity
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