Reframing the university as an emergent organization: implications for strategic management and leadership in higher education

For the most part, the organisational forms that are currently being adopted by higher education institutions are grounded in the traditional corporate models of organisation that take a rational approach to organisational design and change management. Underlying this account is an assumption of organisational autonomy and the capacity of designated leaders to direct change processes to better align their institutions with societal demands or goals. However, a case is now being made for the consideration of alternative organisational theories or models that offer a different perception on the sources and patterns of organisational change in higher education. These theories perceive organisations more as emergent entities in which change is continuous, often unpredictable and arising mainly from local interactions. The paper surveys the implications that acceptance of the alternative paradigm might have for strategising and change leadership in higher education institutions. It suggests that the accommodation of these alterative paradigms of institutional development in higher education may itself be an emergent process and considers how future research and policy formulation relating to strategic management and leadership might facilitate positive outcomes in that process

Untangling creativity and art for policy purposes : ethnographic insights on Manchester International Festival and Manchester Day Parade

This paper draws on anthropological fieldwork of a civic parade in Manchester from 2010 to 2012 to argue for engaging with creativity as a process rather than an attribute of a particular sector or individual. It shows how the focus on funding and supporting ‘creative industries’ defined as ‘cinema, television, music, literature, performing arts, heritage and related areas’ actually excludes and diminishes the potential for others to engage with ideas and creative processes. Two major events in Manchester’s cultural calendar – Procession by artist Jeremy Deller, produced by Manchester International Festival and Manchester Day Parade, a council-led civic celebration – both combined community groups with artist input to put large-scale structures and people on the city’s streets. In this ethnographic analysis, I argue that the ‘creativity’ sought from these artists is their adaptive and productive approach to making ideas tangible. By focusing on creativity as a process rather than a character trait, there is even greater potential for stimulating a ‘creative’ city

Microscopic return point memory in Co/Pd multilayer films

We report soft x-ray speckle metrology measurements of microscopic return point and complementary point memory in Co/Pd magnetic films having perpendicular anisotropy. We observe that the domains assemble into a common labyrinth phase with a period that varies by nearly a factor of two between initial reversal and fields near saturation. Unlike previous studies of similar systems, the ability of the film to reproduce its domain structure after magnetic cycling through saturation varies from loop to loop, from position to position on the sample, and with the part of the speckle pattern used in the metrology measurements. We report the distribution of memory as a function of field and discuss these results in terms of the reversal process

Ground-water and surface-water interactions along Rapid Creek near Rapid City, South Dakota /

Includes bibliographical references (p. 60-62).Mode of access: Internet