Factors contributing to organizational change success or failure: a qualitative meta-analysis of 200 reflective case studies

Change, and changing, exercise the minds of most managers most of the time. In consequence, leadership development and change management tend to be top priorities for many human resource development (HRD) professionals today. Despite this, much academic and practitioner literature suggests that 70% of all change programs fail. Through analyzing 200 organizational change case studies, this chapter examines this high failure rate, investigates leadership styles and their relationship to change, and explores the key factors that either enable or hinder successful change. The key findings of this examination were that the majority of the 200 studied change initiatives were considered successful and that using Kotter’s change model, which has been long established, does not necessarily mean success; nor does the use of a democratic/participative leadership style. The most significant hindering factors and the key critical success factors are also acknowledged

Language teaching in 3D virtual worlds with machinima: Reflecting on an online machinima teacher training course

This article is based on findings arising from a large, two-year EU project entitled “Creating Machinima to Enhance Online Language Learning and Teaching” (CAMELOT), which was the first to investigate the potential of machinima, a form of virtual filmmaking that uses screen captures to record activity in immersive 3D environments, for language teaching. The article examines interaction in two particular phases of the project: facilitator-novice teacher interaction in an online teacher training course which took place in Second Life and teachers' field-testing of machinima which arose from it. Examining qualitative data from interviews and screen recordings following two iterations of a 6-week online teacher training course which was designed to train novice teachers how to produce machinima and the evaluation of the field-testing, the article highlights the pitfalls teachers encountered and reinforces the argument that creating opportunities for pedagogical purposes in virtual worlds implies that teachers need to change their perspectives to take advantage of the affordances offered

Effective change in educational institutions: Does the construct of power influence management and leadership models in everyday professional practice?

This chapter discusses the theoretical framework of management and leadership of change, focusing on the construct of power in educational institutions. Managers and leaders in educational institutions can adopt different models to apply change in the existing organisational procedures. According to the model they follow, they use their power differently. This chapter argues that the manner managers and leaders utilise their power strongly influences effective organisational change and their role in the organisation. Relevant managerial and leadership models of change are analysed in relation to different forms of power, with regard to the theoretical and research literature. The argument is further illuminated with a change event in a school in Greece in order to create a link between theory and everyday practice

Wise Humanising Creativity: changing how we create in a virtual learning environment

This is the final version of the article. Available from IGI Global via the DOI in this record.This article interrogates how a particular conception of creativity: ‘wise humanising creativity' (WHC) is manifest within a virtual learning environment (VLE) with children and young people. It reports on the outcomes of C2Learn, a three-year European Commission funded project which introduced innovative digital gaming activities to foster co-creativity in the VLE between players. Theoretically the paper builds on previous work, which has conceptualised the potential for WHC within VLEs, as well as other educational contexts. Within C2Learn, arguments have been made for WHC as an antidote to overly-marketised, competitive notions of creativity, as well as for WHC supporting a view of childhood and youth as empowered—rather than ‘at risk'—within digital environments. In particular, this paper focuses on outcomes of the project's final piloting in England, Greece and Austria across the primary and secondary age ranges. This research employed a bespoke co-creativity assessment methodology developed for the project. In order to document WHC, this methodology opted to evidence developments in lived experience via qualitative methods including teacher and student interviews, fieldnotes, video capture, observation and student self-assessment tools. The paper articulates how WHC manifests in C2Learn's unique VLE or C2Space, and its potential to develop more nuanced understandings of creativity across digital environments. It then goes on to consider WHC as a useful concept for changing how we create within VLEs, and the implications for educational futures debates and wider understanding of creativity in education as a less marketised and more ethically driven concept.TheC2Learn project has been supported by the EuropeanCommission through the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7), under grant agreement no. 318480 (November 2012 – October 2015)