Contextual leadership : leadership practices of successful school principals in Malaysia

Recent studies of the practices of successful school principals in more than twenty countries have revealed that leadership practices are more complex in nature, are heavily dependent upon the context and that there is no ‘one size fits all’ model for leadership. In the absence of similar studies conducted in Malaysia, this qualitative case study of one urban and one rural school attempts to identify the school contexts under which the two successful principals operate and how they enact their core leadership practices in response to their own contexts. The study utilizes interviews, observation notes and scanning of school documents for data collection. The principals of the two schools, three teachers, three students, three parents and one senior administrator from each of the two schools were interviewed using a semi-structured interview protocol. Both the schools were visited several times for observations, data scanning and collection of additional data from the respondents. Individual case analysis of the two schools revealed a set of seven core practices for the principal of the first school while a set of five core practices were identified for the principal of the second school. The findings also revealed specific context-based enactment of these core practices by the two principals. A subsequent in-depth cross-case analysis revealed that the core practices of the two principals fell within five distinct dimensions which are well supported by educational leadership literature. These five dimensions are (a) Strategic; (b) Pedagogic; (c) Administrative; ( d) Humanistic; (e) Collaborative. While first three dimensions are well supported by the literature on the practices of successful school principals, the humanistic and collaborative dimensions have little reference and thus are new findings. The findings are discussed in the light of current school leadership literature and have significance for the principals, policymakers and school leadership training institutes. The limitations of the study and recommendations for further research are also included

Exploring Classroom Practices in Collectivist Cultures Through the Lens of Hofstede’s Model

This study explores beliefs and classroom practices of teachers from collectivist nations through the lens of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions. In this grounded theory study, an in-depth investigation of the ways in which six teachers from five different collectivist countries described their beliefs and classroom practices was carried out. Through the constant comparative method, the two authors grouped the findings into categories of beliefs and practices which were then examined through the lens of the six dimensions of Hofstede’s model of cultural difference. Six categories of classroom practices, Pedagogy, Interaction, Student Role, Teacher Support, Differential Assessment, and Behavioral Management and three major beliefs, Importance of Teacher-Student Relatedness, Teaching: a Social Responsibility, and Learning for Life Skills emerged from the findings. The comparison revealed a multi-dimensional structure of teachers’ practices with strong evidence of both traditional and constructivist practices. Our findings indicate that collectivist teachers will embrace individualistic practices of teaching which are congruent with their own cultural beliefs. Thus, the findings will add to the literature on cultural beliefs that affect teaching and learning. The findings will have implications for teachers, researchers, and policy makers in refining their perception of collectivist teachers

Responsive regulation and application of grading systems in the food safety regulatory regimes of developing countries

The traditional tit-for-tat philosophy in the food safety regulatory regime in most developing countries has been proven ineffective in most cases. Rather, starting with persuasion, advice, and then escalating to more severe punishments for the continuing non-compliance as suggested in the responsive regulation by Ayres and Braithwaite has been proved more effective in the food safety regulatory regime of some jurisdictions. Responsive regulation aims to increase responsibility among corporations. So, if a corporation shows responsibility, it should be rewarded, and if a corporation shows irresponsibility, it should be reprimanded (if necessary). There is no logic in seeing and treating every manufacturer the same, considering their regular compliance or regular non-compliance with regulation. Furthermore, in a free market economy, food manufacturers have to compete everyday with their counterparts in regard to safety and standards. Considering these situations, current research suggests that the grading system can be introduced into the food safety regulatory regime of developing countries. Once the food manufacturers are rewarded for their compliance by upgrading their current grade, they can use this reward for advertising, which will help their business flourish. Conversely, if any manufacturer shows irresponsibility and continuously produces unsafe and low quality food, it can be degraded from an upper to lower grade. However, even the lowest graded manufacturer will have to maintain the minimum standard of safety required by the state regulations. This concept can be called responsibility ensures upgrading, irresponsibility risks downgrading . In short, this article suggests that the responsive regulation can be applied by moderating with grading system in the food safety regulatory regime of the developing countries. A qualitative research method has been used in this research, and extensive literature has been analysed

Food safety and public health issues in Bangladesh: a regulatory

In Bangladesh, most of the foodstuffs, be they manufactured or processed, are unsafe for consumption or adulterated to varying degrees. This problem persists at every level of the food chain from preparation to consumption. Food manufacturers, processors, restaurants, fast food outlets and so forth are all involved in one way or another in this corrupt practice of adulteration. Foods are adulterated by using various harmful chemicals and toxic artificial colours, on the one hand, and rotten perishables turned to poisonous foods are stored, sold and served to consumers in an unhygienic atmosphere, on the other. The unhygienic and unsafe treatment of food is seriously impacting public health by causing numerous chronic and non-chronic diseases. Despite different reasons for the unsafe treatment and adulteration of foodstuffs in Bangladesh, this study will concentrate on the regulatory failures to combat the current food safety problems persisting in Bangladesh

Foreign Direct Investment, Financial Development, and Economic Growth Nexus in Bangladesh

This article aims to explore the short- and long-run impact of foreign direct investment (FDI), financial development (FD), capital formation, and the labor forces on the economic growth of Bangladesh. We applied the Granger causality test and Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) for this study. The World Bank data for the period of 1990–2018 are taken into account for the analysis. Our findings suggest, in the long run, capital formation has a positive impact, and in the short run, it has a negative impact on gross domestic product (GDP) implying a lack of higher efficiency is persisting in capital management. Similarly, labor forces have an insignificant impact in the short run and a negative impact in the long run on GDP, which confirms the presence of a huge number of unskilled laborers in the economy with inefficient allocation. The impact of FD is found tiny positive in the short run but large negative in the long run on GDP indicating vulnerability of banking sector. These also confirm fraudulence and inefficient use of the domestic credit supplied to the private sector. The impact of FDI is approximately null both in the short and long run, indicating Bangladesh fails to achieve the long-term benefits of FDI. Finally, this study suggests using FDI more in the capital intensive project of the public–private partnership venture than infrastructural development only and also improving the credit management policy of the banking sector

The Impact of Inflation on Unemployment to the Extent of Pakistan

This work studies the association between Unemployment Rate (UR) and Inflation Rate (IR) for Pakistan for the span of 1973 to 2014. OLS and ECM is employed to investigative the empirical association between the UR and rate of inflation. Outcomes of this study disclose that there is strong, indirect and significant association found between UR and IR. As this is important finding for Pakistani perspective since both have strong trade-off. Keywords: Inflation, Error correction model, Inflation, Long Run, Philips Curve, Short run, Unemployment. JEL Code: E31, P24, E24, J64

Principal’s Coalition Building and Personal Traits Brings Success to a Struggling School in Malaysia

This paper presents findings from a single site case study of a school in a rural part of Malaysia. Based on data collected through semi-structured interviews of the principal, teachers, students and parents, and observations, document scanning and field notes, the study attempts to identify the context under which the school operates, the core practices of the school principal and the enactment of these core practices. The data analysis was carried out through data reduction resulting in initial themes which were further refined several times until consensus was achieved. The themes were then discussed under the light of theories resulting in the final categories. The findings reveal that personal traits of the principal and her strength of building strong coalitions enabled her to successfully meet her contextual challenges. In conclusion, we argue that leadership practices are multidimensional and although successful principals draw from the similar repertoire of core practices, they enact these core practices in response to their own unique contexts to bring success. The findings would provide important insights for principals and future researchers who might be interested in conducting similar studies to enrich the successful school leadership literature from Malaysian context

Rampant food adulteration in Bangladesh: Gross violations of fundamental human rights with impunity

Food adulteration in Bangladesh is rampant and an increasingly serious concern for its residents. Several studies including those of the Directorate General of Health Services reveal that hundreds of people are getting killed every year eating adulterated foodstuffs and no one seems to have any real concern about such a life-threatening wrongful act. Food adulteration is criminally prohibited, but the wrongdoers care little about this proscription simply because of the continued apathy of the governmental agencies concerned and implicit acceptance or insensible ignorance of consumers. However, the current fragmented legal and regulatory regime for food safety in Bangladesh falls short of international standards. This article demonstrates that the Government of Bangladesh is obliged to prevent food adulteration and to punish perpetrators under its international as well as constitutional obligations. It is also submitted that effective regulation of such an endemic malfeasance entails weakening the offenders by adopting international standards and educating the consumers at the same time

A secure mechanism design-based and game theoretical model for MANETs

International audienceTo avoid the single point of failure for the certificate authority (CA) in MANET, a decentralized solution is proposed where nodes are grouped into different clusters. Each cluster should contain at least two confident nodes. One is known as CA and the another as register authority RA. The Dynamic Demilitarized Zone (DDMZ) is proposed as a solution for protecting the CA node against potential attacks. It is formed from one or more RA node. The problems of such a model are: (1) Clusters with one confident node, CA, cannot be created and thus clusters' sizes are increased which negatively affect clusters' services and stability. (2) Clusters with high density of RA can cause channel collision at the CA. (3) Clusters' lifetime are reduced since RA monitors are always launched (i.e., resource consumption). In this paper, we propose a model based on mechanism design that will allow clusters with single trusted node (CA) to be created. Our mechanism will motivate nodes that do not belong to the confident community to participate by giving them incentives in the form of trust, which can be used for cluster's services. To achieve this goal, a RA selection algorithm is proposed that selects nodes based on a predefined selection criteria function and location (i.e., using directional antenna). Such a model is known as moderate. Based on the security risk, more RA nodes must be added to formalize a robust DDMZ. Here, we consider the tradeoff between security and resource consumption by formulating the problem as a nonzero-sum noncooperative game between the CA and attacker. Finally, empirical results are provided to support our solutions