Leading a long-established LLC as an Interim Director poses particular challenges and rewards. Uncertainties abound for the program and for the individual. Professionally speaking, taking on the hybrid role of faculty/ administrator can be both difficult and exciting. Ultimately, the solutions are in the details. Listening carefully to students,…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to discuss the role of principals in light of public management reforms taking place in the German educational system and in reference to the empirical patterns uncovered by the papers contained in the Special Issue. Policy makers have created new expectations and new technologies that seem to suggest to…

How can managers prepare for extreme but exceptional events and for the challenge of managing complexity and uncertainty in their daily business? Confronted with the challenge of achieving high and reliable performance in risk-prone, fast-paced, and unpredictable environments, managers and management scholars can learn a lot from the organizing…

In her teaching, research, and community activities in Canada, the author has repeatedly confronted questions regarding equality, diversity, and power. In this article, the author discusses diversity and equal opportunity to achieve excellence in education. Reflecting on these issues should help everyone to understand the complexities involved in…

What are the major priorities for preparing educational leaders for their work in school communities? Clues to this question are nestled within higher education curricula. Prevalent 21st-century priorities that governing standards specify, such as innovation, assessment, distributed leadership, and technology, must be vigorously shaped into social…

Educational leaders in the United States are faced with a society seeking instantaneous perfection, immediate and perfect solutions. In education, this leads to a demand for push-button administration and an abandonment of trust in educators' judgment. As exemplified by the No Child Left Behind Act (2002), the search for quick fixes results in…

Universities operate in both a market and in an institutional setting defined by government. For many universities, the latter is the dominant source of support. The discourse on the entrepreneurial university emphasizes the universities position in a market and does not adequately reflect the dominance of the institutional setting. This paper…

Discusses three guidelines that can help managers through the maze of communication planning and execution: (1) be honest, open and accessible; (2) be prepared; and (3) be flexible. Outlines three communication "challenges" involving BFGoodrich that illustrate these guidelines. (RS)

Compares and contrasts the role of the school principal in American and British schools, focusing on the author's personal experiences in observing and dealing with principals. Also considers administrator-teacher relationships and organizational patterns within school systems, suggesting that students (not principals/superintendents) be at the…

Discusses Total Quality Management (TQM), benefits to libraries, and possible barriers to its adoption. An overview is provided of 13 articles included in this issue on (1) library approaches to TQM; (2) implementing a TQM program; (3) supporting TQM efforts; and (4) learning from the experience of others. (EAM)

Discusses quality management principles as taught by W. Edwards Deming and describes their applications to educational technology services. Traditional organizational charts are explained; and benefits of using flow charts in Deming's systems are described, including better communications between departments, building teamwork, and opportunities…

Discusses factors that contribute to Santa Monica Public Library's excellence, including supportive city government and citizenry, city council, library board, lean top management, and the basic management team. Specific management principles and techniques, public relations, and measures of service at Beverly Hills Public Library are also…

Takeover artists are a rare breed. Persons hired to put bankrupt school systems back on the road to academic solvency need stamina, clout, and plenty of experience. For all their state-given powers, takeover superintendents must identify key constituencies, build bridges, and promote belief in change from within. (MLH)

The convergence of United States federal science and economic policy that began in earnest under the Reagan administration formed the First Stage in an emerging post-Cold War drive toward technological innovation. A frenzy of new state-based initiatives now forms the Second Stage, further promoting universities as decisive tools for economic…

The governing structure of Harvard University is reviewed, and the findings include the following: (1) Harvard's present administrative and governance structure utilize corporate techniques of management that allow the president to diffuse administrative tasks without diffusing power--the difficulty of locating responsibility in the decentralized…