Towards a coachee-centred approach to coaching academic leaders

This thesis unifies the five elements of the research portfolio into a coherent whole. These elements comprise a small scale research project, an applied research project followed by a report on professional practice. In addition to these three distinct projects, a comprehensive literature review and reflective account are also part of the various elements of the portfolio. The above elements of the portfolio are organized into five chapters. The entire research is carried out in an organization that is a leading institution of higher education in the Middle East. The first element of the portfolio is the literature review which is guided by the purpose of this qualitative research that aims to explore a learning-informed coaching framework for academic Deans. Guided by the objective and gap in the existing research, a comprehensive literature review on learning theories and coaching models is undertaken. Later, it was extended to include coaching competency frameworks. The small scale research project explores the lived experiences of two executive leadership coaches who coached 11 professional managers at the university to improve their leadership potential. It examines the literature on organizational leadership coaching in a university context. While using the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) methodology, the data analysis resulted in five themes: commitment to evolve and grow, role of goal-setting in coaching, impact of self-efficacy on goal attainment, 3-way meetings for accountability and support, and coaching for organizational leadership development. The research offers learning for practitioners such as coaches and managers of coaching engagements. The results of this study cannot be generalized, however, it advances the research conversations on the coaching for leadership development in universities. The small scale research project proved to be an excellent opportunity to practice methodology, data collection and analysis, and most significantly writing a research report. These learnings proved extremely beneficial during the main applied research project. In the applied research project, I explored the lived experiences of academic Deans in the university using the same IPA methodology. The analysis of the interview transcripts resulted in five themes: attract and retain faculty, disciplinary background, learning by observation, reflection, and thinking clearly while relaxed. By understanding the role, context and experiences of Deans, through the lens of classic learning theories, it informs a heuristic framework that is particularly relevant to coaching academic Deans. While this study is exhaustive, it is simply a tentative framework; additional research is required to develop a more complete framework. The key finding of the applied research project is that coaching academic Deans is a complex and context driven process. This finding, combined with some supporting evidence in the literature, led to the possibility that the current coach competency frameworks recommended by professional bodies may not be sufficient for coaching academic Deans. Therefore, the research was extended to explore that with the question: do existing coaching competency frameworks adequately address the complex task of coaching academic deans? The unit of analysis of this interpretative and evaluative case study is the coaching practice that is based on the core competencies as prescribed by International Coach Federation (ICF) and European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC). It uses five different sources of evidence that converge to address the research question. The report concludes that an evidence-based approach to coaching that integrates scientific knowledge with the expertise of practitioners can be more effective, especially at the executive level such as Deans. Therefore, a competent coach is not enough to generate inspired insights for complex coaching of Deans. A deeper understanding of the purpose, relevant learning theories and context are other additional conditions for the coaching engagements. These are certain limitations to the study. It has been conducted in a single university with a single coach and five Deans. Therefore, the findings may not be generalized to other leaders and industries

Learning leadership for academic deans: Implications for leadership coaching

This paper is the result of a unique combination of PhD research and an intensive leadership coaching among Academic Deans and equivalent leadership roles within a university in the Middle East. Academic Deans have a complex ‘in between’ role. This level of complexity can create significant leadership and personal challenges. Coaching can offer an opportunity to enable these middle leaders to develop insights and strategies to cope with these challenges. However, a competent coach is not enough to work with the complexities of this group of people. A more flexible and adaptive coach is needed with a repertoire of skills and processes to draw upon to serve the needs of the coachees. Employing an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), the study identified some key themes in the findings about the ways in which the Deans learned. These include developing a mindful, reflective and calm environment, learning preferences are associated with the subject disciplines of the Deans and learning by observation. Drawing on adult learning theory and the research data this paper explores the development of such a process framework and concludes that a competence based approach to coach develop is inadequate for the complexities of the task

Quantification of residual crystallinity in ball milled commercially sourced lactose monohydrate by thermo-analytical techniques and terahertz spectroscopy

The quantification of crystallinity is necessary in order to be able to control the milling process. The use of thermal analysis for this assessment presents certain challenges, particularly in the case of crystal hydrates. In this study, the residual crystallinity on ball milling of lactose monohydrate (LMH), for periods up to 90 min, was evaluated by thermo-analytical techniques (TGA, DSC) and terahertz spectroscopy (THz). In general, the results from one of the DSC analysis and the THz measurements agree showing a monotonous decrease in relative residual crystallinity with milling time (∼80% reduction after 60 min milling) and a slight increase at the 90 min time point. However, the estimates from TGA and two other methods of analyzing DSC curve do not agree with the former techniques and show variability with significantly higher estimates for crystallinity. It was concluded that, the thermal techniques require more complex treatment of the data in the evaluation of changes in crystallinity of a milled material (in particular to account for the de-vitrification and mutarotation of the material that inevitably occurs during the measurement cycle) while the analysis of THz data is more straightforward, with the measurement having no impact on the native state of the material

Spin-glass freezing of maghemite nanoparticles prepared by microwave plasma synthesis

Magnetic properties of 6nm maghemite nanoparticles (prepared by microwave plasma synthesis) have been studied by ac and dc magnetic measurements. Structural characterization includes x-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy. The temperature scans of zero field cooled/field cooled (ZFC/FC) magnetization measurements show a maximum at 75 K. The ZFC/FC data are fitted to the Brown-Ne´el relaxation model using uniaxial anisotropy and a log-normal size-distribution function to figure out the effective anisotropy constant K$_{eff}$. K$_{eff}$ turns out to be larger than the anisotropy constant of bulk maghemite. Fitting of the ac susceptibility to an activated relaxation process according to the Arrhenius law provides unphysical values of the spin-flip time and activation energy. A power-law scaling shows a satisfactory fit to the ac susceptibility data and the dynamic critical exponent (zv$\thickapprox$10) takes value between 4 and 12 which is typical for the spin-glass systems. The temperature dependence of coercivity and exchange bias shows a sharp increase toward low temperatures which is due to enhanced surface anisotropy. The source of this enhanced magnetic anisotropy comes from the disordered surface spins which get frozen at low temperatures. Memory effects and thermoremanent magnetization experiments also support the existence of spin-glass behaviour. All these magnetic measurements signify either magnetic blocking or surface spin-glass freezing at high and low temperatures, respectivel

Evaluating skills and issues of quantile-based bias adjustment for climate change scenarios

Daily meteorological data such as temperature or precipitation from climate models are needed for many climate impact studies, e.g., in hydrology or agriculture, but direct model output can contain large systematic errors. A large variety of methods exist to adjust the bias of climate model outputs. Here we review existing statistical bias-adjustment methods and their shortcomings, and compare quantile mapping (QM), scaled distribution mapping (SDM), quantile delta mapping (QDM) and an empiric version of PresRAT (PresRATe). We then test these methods using real and artificially created daily temperature and precipitation data for Austria. We compare the performance in terms of the following demands: (1) the model data should match the climatological means of the observational data in the historical period; (2) the long-term climatological trends of means (climate change signal), either defined as difference or as ratio, should not be altered during bias adjustment; and (3) even models with too few wet days (precipitation above 0.1 mm) should be corrected accurately, so that the wet day frequency is conserved. QDM and PresRATe combined fulfill all three demands. For (2) for precipitation, PresRATe already includes an additional correction that assures that the climate change signal is conserved.</p

Durability Assessment of Sustainable Mortar by Incorporating the Combination of Solid Wastes: An Experimental Study

The excessive mining of high-quality river sand for cement sand mortar resulted in environmental impacts and ecological imbalances. The present study aims to produce sustainable mortar by combining solid waste such as desert sand, stone dust, and crumb rubber to fully replace river sand. In addition, replacing cement with silica fume helps reduce the environmental carbon footprint. The present research prepared three types of mortar mixes: natural dune sand mortar (M1), natural dune sand stone dust crumb rubber mortar (M2), and natural dune sand stone dust crumb rubber silica fume mortar (M3). The developed mortar samples were examined at ambient and elevated temperatures of 100°C, 200°C, and 300°C for 120 minutes. Furthermore, 3 cycles of 12 hours each at freezing temperature (-10° ± 2°C) and crushed ice cooling (0° to -5°C) were also tested. Results of the study showed an increment in compressive strength values in M1, M2, and M3 mortar mixes (up to 200°C). Later, an abrupt drop in the compressive strength was noticed at 300°C in all mixes M1, M2, and M3, respectively. The mix M3 combinations resist heating impacts and perform significantly better than other mixes M1 and M2. Also, M3 combinations resist the cooling effect better than M1 and M2. It can be concluded that the mortar mix M3 with desert sand, stone dust, crumb rubber, and silica fume combination is considered the best mix for both heating and cooling resistance. Hence, the developed sustainable mortar M3 combination can be utilized in all adverse weather conditions. Doi: 10.28991/CEJ-2023-09-11-09 Full Text: PD

Occupational health and safety disclosures in sustainability reports: An overview of trends among corporate leaders

The purpose of this study is to assess the comprehensiveness of voluntary occupational health and safety (OHS) disclosures of large business entities. We devise a composite disclosure index, relying on well‐established performance indicators, and focus on the information found in the sustainability reports of corporations pertaining to the oil and gas, chemical, airline, and construction industries, in an attempt to shed light on the current status and emerging trends in OHS reporting from a diverse group of business entities. The findings indicate that companies tend to place emphasis on their overall management approach to OHS, but fall short in reporting quantitative and qualitative information beyond the ‘conventional’ metrics of occupational injury rates. OHS issues within the supply chain and relevant monitoring systems/mechanisms in place are topics that are underreported, while OHS training programmes are an aspect that is inadequately analyzed in quantitative terms, being the least reported indicator in the sample reports. In contrast, companies from all four industries seek assurance for the OHS information that they report and place emphasis on the externally developed management standards/initiatives that they subscribe to, support, or have adopted