Change is endemic in modern society, and the educational systems that operate in it. In Higher Education societal trends such as globalization and economic rationalism are impacting on teachers. Changes in the student population, new educational methods derived from shifting perspectives on the role of knowledge and re-structuring of the organizations within which teachers work have also led to transformation of the professional context. At European level policy initiatives such as the Bologna Declaration (1999) have necessitated an overhaul of educational provision. This research project attempts to focus on these wideranging changes through the lens of teacher autonomy in order to establish what is changing in the working lives of teachers in a Dutch university, how they are responding to these changes and how they can be helped to respond to change effectively and discriminatingly. This is an insider research project, using case study and semi-structured interviewing to yield data that is subjected to thematic linguistic analysis. It was piloted in 2006, and interviewing was resumed in February 2007. Findings indicate the contested nature of teacher autonomy, and suggest that professional autonomy can impede as well as facilitate teachers in processes of engaging with change. The team - operating as a community of practice - is identified as the location where change agency can operate most effectively. Distributed leadership - specifically perceived in the activities of team leaders and teacher change agents - is seen as crucial to processes of embedding change in educational practice.
Change is endemic in modern society, and the educational systems that operate in it. In Higher Education societal trends such as globalization and economic rationalism are impacting on teachers. Changes in the student population, new educational methods derived from shifting perspectives on the role of knowledge and re-structuring of the organizations within which teachers work have also led to transformation of the professional context. At European level policy initiatives such as the Bologna Declaration (1999) have necessitated an overhaul of educational provision. This research project attempts to focus on these wideranging changes through the lens of teacher autonomy in order to establish what is changing in the working lives of teachers in a Dutch university, how they are responding to these changes and how they can be helped to respond to change effectively and discriminatingly. This is an insider research project, using case study and semi-structured interviewing to yield data that is subjected to thematic linguistic analysis. It was piloted in 2006, and interviewing was resumed in February 2007. Findings indicate the contested nature of teacher autonomy, and suggest that professional autonomy can impede as well as facilitate teachers in processes of engaging with change. The team - operating as a community of practice - is identified as the location where change agency can operate most effectively. Distributed leadership - specifically perceived in the activities of team leaders and teacher change agents - is seen as crucial to processes of embedding change in educational practice.
Purpose: Facing the COVID-19 pandemic, police officers are confronted with various novel challenges, which might place additional strain on officers. This mixed-method study investigated officers' strain over a three-month-period after the lockdown. Methods: In an online survey, 2567 police officers (77% male) from Austria, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Spain participated at three measurement points per country in spring, 2020. Three-level growth curve models assessed changes in strain and its relation to stressor appraisal, emotion regulation, and preparedness through training. To add context to the findings, free response answers about officers' main tasks, stressors, and crisis measures were coded inductively. Results: On average, officers seemed to tolerate the pandemic with slight decreases in strain over time. Despite substantial variance between countries, 66% of the variance occurred between individuals. Sex, work experience, stressor appraisal, emotion regulation, and preparedness significantly predicted strain. Risk of infection and deficient communication emerged as main stressors. Officers' reports allowed to derive implications for governmental, organizational, and individual coping strategies during pandemics. Conclusion: Preparing for a pandemic requires three primary paths: 1) enacting unambiguous laws and increasing public compliance through media communication, 2) being logistically prepared, and 3) improving stress regulation skills in police training.
The COVID19 pandemic highlighted the vulnerability in supply chain networks in the healthcare sector and the tremendous waste problem of disposable healthcare products, such as isolation gowns. Single-use disposable isolation gowns cause great ecological impact. Reusable gowns can potentially reduce climate impacts and improve the resilience of healthcare systems by ensuring a steady supply in times of high demand. However, scaling reusable, circular isolation gowns in healthcare organizations is not straightforward. It is impeded by economic barriers – such as servicing costs for each use – and logistic and hygiene barriers, as processes for transport, storage and safety need to be (re)designed. Healthcare professionals (e.g. purchasing managers) lack complete information about social, economic and ecological costs, the true cost of products, to make informed circular purchasing decisions. Additionally, the residual value of materials recovered from circular products is overlooked and should be factored into purchasing decisions. To facilitate the transition to circular procurement in healthcare, purchasing managers need more fine-grained, dynamic information on true costs. Our RAAK Publiek proposal (MODLI) addresses a problem that purchasing managers face – making purchasing decisions that factor in social, economic and ecological costs and future benefits from recovered materials. Building on an existing consortium that developed a reusable and recyclable isolation gown, we design and develop an open-source decision-support tool to inform circular procurement in healthcare organizations and simulate various purchasing options of non-circular and circular products, including products from circular cascades. Circular procurement is considered a key driver in the transition to a circular economy as it contributes to closing energy and material loops and minimizes negative impacts and waste throughout entire product lifecycles. MODLI aims to support circular procurement policies in healthcare organizations by providing dynamic information for circular procurement decision making.
