Editorial

Citation

Roberts, B.E. (2010), "Editorial", International Journal of Educational Management, Vol. 24 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijem.2010.06024baa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: International Journal of Educational Management, Volume 24, Issue 2

Welcome to the second issue of 2010 with the usual variety of papers from various parts of the educational world – Nepal (a first), Israel, Canada, Australia, USA, Italy and Malaysia. In the first contribution Professor Dev Raj Adhikari, Professor of Management at Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu, Nepal, gives an insight into knowledge management in academic institutions. It has been primarily prepared to give Nepalese leaders a feel for the importance, tools and processes of knowledge management. The approach to the article is essentially conceptual and descriptive but there is useful information for educational managers coming through the presentation.

Joseph Klein works at the school of Education, Bar-Ilan University Israel and writes on the promotion of consistency in educational decisions. The principle of consistency (invariance) requires that two equivalent versions of choice problems will produce the same preference and this is violated in intuitive judgements. The paper examines the contribution of the Simple Decision Process to invariance in intuitive educational decisions. Using a number of teachers to effect the research project the authors found that an SDP formulated decision is not affected by the order of data presentation. The principle of invariance is maintained. The paper sheds light on the potential inherent in integration of intuition and common sense with analytical thought-patterns in educational decisions.

Colleagues based both in Canada and Australia i.e. Dr S. Dawson, Ms E. Heathcote and Associate Professor G. Poole have collaborated on a submission on the adoption and analysis of ICT systems for enhancing the student learning experience. The writers question that compared to the commercial sector, how effective have higher education institutions been in harnessing the data capture mechanisms from their student information systems, learning management systems and communications tools for improving the student learning experience and informing practitioners of the achievement of specific learning outcomes? This paper argues that the future of higher education information analysis lies in the development of more comprehensive and integrated systems to add value to the student learning experience.

John Garger, Michael Thomas and Paul Jacques of the Metronome Computer Services and Western Carolina University make contribution on early antecedents to students’ expected performance. The purpose is to confirm the predictive validity of several antecedents to students’ early perceptions of future performance in collegiate courses. There were research limitations in the study but found that the students’ internal locus of control was found to predict student perceptions of social integration, academic self concept and grade point average – social integration was a significant predictor of the concept of academic self. In addition, academic self concept significantly predicted early perceptions of expected of expected grade beyond the student’s current level of performance.

An Italian pair from the University of Bari, Luca Petruzzelis and Salvatore Romanazzi have studied how students choose a university from an Italian perspective. The paper aims to measure student perceptions of value that are influenced by differences in cost (both monetary and non-monetary), student attitudes and socio-demographic features. It investigates the components of the university value that affects student choice. The findings (although having limitations recognised by the authors), suggest that although universities could improve student retention by attempting to increase the level of satisfaction, their efforts will be more effective if focussed on demonstrating the way the service provided has helped their customers to achieve their objectives, highlighting the strategic importance of the social value.

The final paper is from Malaysia although it studies aspects of job satisfaction between Australia and Malaysia. The paper is a generic management paper not specific to educational management but contains useful pointers to managerial practice. Dr Nordin and Dr Jusoff’s study was to examine the levels of individualism and collectivism of managers in two different cultural environments which revealed differences between Australian and Malaysian managers on the level of vertical individualism, horizontal collectivism and vertical collectivism. In addition, Australian managers seemed to have a significantly higher job satisfaction than their Malaysian counterparts. The results of the study may be of interest and assistance to managers of multinational and international organisations who need to manage in a global context, and therefore need to understand cultural driven differences in personal and interpersonal work related conditions between and across nations.

Brian E. Roberts