Editorial October 2023

Abstract

A warm welcome to readers of this final instalment of MiE for 2023. I write this editorial in the wake of the annual conference for the British Educational Leadership, Administration and Management Society (BELMAS) that was held in Belfast this year. It was a lively conference with the usual mix of presentations, keynote speakers and panel discussions centred, this year, around the theme of ‘Troubling Leadership’. In amongst this wonderful array of content there was an opportunity to recognise some of the best work from contributors to both BELMAS journals (MiE and EMAL) over the past 12 months. This year, the ‘MiE Editorial Board Choice’ award went to Adele Moodly for her article ‘Exercising positional power to advance and support women in leadership – conversations with men in higher education’. Huge congratulations to Adele for her important work and brilliant publication in this area of the field. In keeping with this theme, we have four articles within this issue each with a focus on higher education (HE) albeit from different contexts reflecting the usual diversity in our authorship. In the first article we head to Australia where Dawn Marie Gilmore and Chinh Nguyen explore the concept of ‘unbundling’ or the ‘differentiation of tasks and services offered by a single provider’ (in this case the university) within the context of online teaching in HE. They draw on three case studies to develop an unbundled teaching hierarchy to consider how online teachers are managed in the Australian HE sector and the potential consequences for student experience, teacher experience and cost effectiveness associated with unbundled teaching. Our second article is situated in North America where Heidi Batiste, Wendi Benson and Cynthia Garcia investigate interpersonal relationships between college administration and faculty members. Specifically, they looked at teamwork experiences and interpersonal constraints as potential predictors of attitudes amongst their participating faculty members. Their findings indicate that teamwork is a consistent predictor of a higher sense of belonging, perceived organisational worth, and lower cynicism whilst the presence of negative co-worker relationships was a significant predictor of lower sense of belonging and perceived organisational worth. Their data suggest the need for the systematic fostering of teamwork and positive relationships amongst faculty members within institutions of higher education The next article takes us to Hungary where Norbert Sipos, Gabriella Kuráth, Edit Bányai and Ákos Jarjabka report on their research into institutional selection criteria for applicants to HE in this context. To achieve this they employed factor and content analysis with data from 1396 Hungarian HE applications over two consecutive years. Their findings reveal vivacity, career and costs, image, and low commitment as the five most influential factors in respect of applications to HE. The practical implications for the management of HE in Hungary are then discussed including potential strategies to attract more students and develop the level of services being offered. For our final article we remain in Europe with Maria Garcia-Feijoo, Leire Alcaniz and Almudena Eizaguirre share their work on the development of a shared strategic planning model within the HE sector. Drawing on a case study research at a ‘centuries old’ business school the authors employ the thinking and theory of Otto Scharmer to work with colleagues within the case study site and facilitate shared definitions of vision, values, lines of progress and strategic projects. Their analysis suggests that this approach promoted shared strategic reflection amongst participants, an asset within the uncertain and unpredictable environment in which business schools operate. We hope you enjoy these articles and the many others that are available as online first within the MiE website.