ABSTRACT PASTORAL LEADERSHIP PRACTICES IN EVANGELICAL MULTIETHNIC CONGREGATIONS: A MULTI-CASE STUDY Raúl Martin Latoni Ramírez, Ed.D. The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2012 Chair: Dr. Hal K. Pettegrew The purpose of this study was to identify and describe the best leadership practices of pastors of selected evangelical multiethnic congregations in the United States. The study was qualitative in nature and can best be described as a multiple or collective case study with purposeful sampling. The sample consisted of 30 pastors, including 6 women and 24 men, from 6 multiethnic congregations. The churches were located in 6 different regions of the country: Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, Pacific Northwest, West, and Southwest. The denominations represented in these churches included Independent Charismatic, Vineyard, Assemblies of God, Baptist, and Independent. The researcher used a revised version of the Personal Best Questionnaire as the primary means for collecting data (Kouzes and Posner 1987). This was completed by all participants who, in addition, completed a demographic data form created by the researcher. In order to triangulate the data, the researcher also incorporated data from personal observations during visits to each of these churches and from interviews with the senior pastor at the 6 churches. The gatekeeper or designated person at each church was also asked to fill out a questionnaire to provide demographic data pertaining to the church. The responses provided by the participants in this study confirmed and correlated well with the five practices of exemplary leadership proposed by Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner. The impetus for the participants' best practices came from personal conviction, perceived need, personal passion, leadership directive, and challenging the status quo. Over a third of the pastors responded to a perceived need, demonstrating that leaders do not always seek challenges; challenges seek leaders. Others initiated change in response to a perceived dissonance between personal or corporate values and current ministerial practices. Senior pastors were more likely than associate/assistant pastors to initiate change based on personal convictions. Other responses closely related to implementing change focused on pastors' behavior of developing and implementing a specific vision for their ministries. Senior pastors relied primarily on preaching and teaching to communicate their vision. Overall, respondents reported that the primary means to communicate vision and the need for change was by developing slogans and through the use of testimonies in various settings of the church. In order to build cohesiveness and promote trust in leadership, a majority of the participants reported the importance of building personal relationships with their church members. While senior pastors relied mostly on vision casting to foster collaboration in their respective ministries, associate pastors were more likely to foster collaboration through personal relationship development. Also, female pastors were twice as likely as their male counterparts to use personal words of affirmation to enhance the confidence of individuals in their abilities, thereby furthering their relationships with congregational members. One of the ways in which the participants fostered accountability was by modeling transparency, vulnerability, and honesty in communication. The researcher identified three primary spheres for modeling behavior among the participants: personal, organizational, and public. While associate pastors reported modeling behavior in one or two of these spheres, senior pastors demonstrated modeling behavior in all three spheres. KEYWORDS: Pastoral, leadership, multiethnic churches, evangelical, best leadership practices.

Educational policy researchers have concluded that if U.S. schools transition from the traditional model of grading and reporting to a uniform standards-based grading and reporting model, students would benefit academically. However, very few middle and high schools in the United States have made the transition to standards-based grading. This qualitative research study was designed address the role of leadership in change by identifying a set of best leadership practices to guide school principals in leading such a transition. The conceptual framework was Kotter's change model. A national sample of 7 middle and 5 high school principals from 8 states who had previously led their schools in the transition to standards-based grading elected to serve as study participants. This panel completed an open-ended questionnaire designed to identify perceived best leadership practices school leaders should consider as they plan to lead such a change. Using the Delphi technique to determine consensus, a set of 78 best leadership actions were identified. Then, these actions were rated by the same panel, resulting in a set of 8 best leadership change practices consistent with Kotter's framework. Practices included establishing and communicating a sense of urgency, developing a change vision and stakeholder buy-in, building coalitions and broad-based actions, generating short term wins and continuing processes, and incorporating change into school culture. This consensus set of leadership practices might affect positive social change by assisting school principals in planning and leading grading change initiatives in schools to enhance students' learning and improve systems of communicating student academic progress using uniform and consistent standards.

<p>Transitioning to cloud computing is a complex and major effort for large multinational corporations (MNCs). Automated cloud migration tools (ACMTs) have been developed and are evolving to streamline this process. The potential benefits of their use are reported to be significant in terms of cost, time, and business innovation. Academic research on ACMTs and the best leadership practices for their use has been limited. </p><p> </p><p>The purpose of the research was to identify the best leadership practices of MNCs in the use of automated migration tools for the adoption of commercial cloud computing platforms. Adoption of cloud computing is a major technological shift occurring globally, and is still in early stages of growth. Major providers of commercial cloud computing platforms include technological giants such as Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, Google, Oracle and IBM.</p><p> </p><p>A meta-analysis designed research approach focusing on the triangulation of case studies, cloud computing industry data and trends from cloud service providers (CSP) revealed that best practices of leaders within MNCs fall under three main categories: awareness, impact and actions. Further, it was determined that the ACMTs with the most advanced capabilities do not necessarily equate to faster realization of cloud value for the MNC. </p><p> </p>With the continued development of ACMTs and their growing adoption, further study on the role of automation in cloud migration solution deployment will be critical, as ACMT capabilities will continue to mature. No longer the sole domain of becoming a market leader alone, organizations that utilize ACMTs are increasingly doing so just to maintain competitive parity, as the true differentiator in organizational excellence is now in cloud optimization and not simply just getting to the cloud.