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Nationwide reform efforts strive to improve schooling through a range of approaches including improving the quality of campus leadership, restructuring organizational design, and revamping instruction. National and state education policies reflect the reforms addressed in educational research literature and drive state, district, and campus based improvement initiatives. For example, the more recent influence of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) and the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) accountability system has led to a significant increase in the use of data to drive instructional decision-making. Campus leadership is key to both the successful implementation of data initiatives (Wayman and Stringfield, 2006) as well as comprehensive reform efforts (Leithwood & Jantzi, 2005). The literature provides a wide array of leadership theories that offer promise in understanding more effective approaches to leading school improvement efforts; however, much of this literature remains conceptual and vague (Leithwood, Harris, & Hopkins 2008). Data use has gained increasing attention in the literature as well, but the research lacks a strong conceptual framework for leadership. The purpose of this paper is to view data use through the lens of Leithwood’s model of Transformational Leadership in order to explore the linkages between the leadership theory and data use practices and to offer a framework that situates data use as a tool to increase all students’ academic performance and build a democratic and socially just learning organization. The linkages between Transformational Leadership and data use are presented as both bodies of literature are reviewed. The study was guided by the following questions: 1) What are the levels of Transformational Leadership Behaviors exhibited at each campus? 2) What are the data use practices being implemented on each campus? 3) What is the relationship between Transformational Leadership and data use? Two schools served as the sites for the research which drew on both quantitative and qualitative data sources to address the research questions. Results and findings show evidence of Transformational Leadership Behaviors that linked closely with the data use practices. The final discussion offers a preliminary conceptual framework delineating the intersection between the theory of Transformational Leadership and data use in schools. / text

Staten fører tilsyn med at kommunene i Norge oppfyller lovkrav som gjelder for kommunehelsetjenesten. Siden 1995 har tilsynsmetodikken i hovedsak vært systemrevisjon. I tillegg til at Fylkeslegen/Helsetilsynet i fylket kontrollerer at lovbestemmelser blir fulgt, er systemrevisjonene ment å bidra til systematisk forbedringsarbeid i kommunehelsetjenesten. Målsettingen med denne studien har vært å beskrive hvordan systemrevisjoner påvirker forbedringsarbeidet. Dette er en kvalitativ studie gjennomført som et case-study i to norske fylker. Datainnsamlingen ble gjort høsten 2001 gjennom dokumentgranskning og i fire fokusgrupper – to i hvert fylke. Det ble fokusert på hvilke forventninger 28 ansatte (14 ledere og 14 ”førstelinjepersonell”) i 19 ulike kommuner hadde til systemrevisjonene, hvordan resultatene var håndtert i kommunen og hvilken nytte de ansatte mente tilsynet hadde hatt. Resultatet viser at systemrevisjonene fikk fart på prosesser i kommunene. Tilsynet forarget noen og gledet andre. Hovedskillet går mellom et ønske om hjelp til faglig forbedring av helsetjenesten og ønsket om et friere kommunalt selvstyre. Det var tre forhold ved gjennomføringen av tilsynet som viste seg å være betydningsfulle med tanke på å bidra til systematisk forbedringsarbeid i kommunehelsetjenesten: språket/kommunikasjonen, individuell tilpasning og at kommunens øverste ledelse ble direkte involvert under tilsynsbesøket / Norwegian Board of Health controls that the municipal authorities in Norway fulfil their legal obligations as regards the municipal health service. Since 1995 system auditing has been the main method of supervision. In addition to Norwegian Board of Health in the Counties controlling that the legal obligations of the municipalities are upheld, system audits are meant to encourage systematic improvement efforts in the municipal health services. The aim of this essay has been to describe how the system audits affect improvement efforts. This is a qualitative study conducted as a case study in two Norwegian counties. Data collection was done during the autumn of 2001, by studying documents and in four focus groups – two in each county. The main focus was on what expectations 28 employees (14 leaders and 14 professionals) in 19 different municipalities had to the system audits, how the results were handled in the municipalities, and how useful the employees felt that the auditing had been. The results show that the system audits lead to greater activity in processes in the municipalities. The audits upset some and pleased others. The main differences were between a wish for more aid regarding professional improvements of the health service and a desire for greater municipal autonomy. Three areas of the audits were shown to be important for encouraging systematic improvement efforts in the municipal service: language/communication, individual adjustments, and that the municipality top management was directly involved during the audits.

En marknadsförändring innebär utmaningar för de företag som verkar på marknaden, eftersom de då måste anpassa sig till nya marknadsförhållanden, ny konkurrenssituation och liknande. Denna studie har haft som syfte att undersöka vilka utmaningar företag upplever när de utvecklar sina affärsmodeller. Detta har undersökts genom att läsa på om teori kring ämnet och intervjuer med representanter från elmarknaden i Sverige. Teorin visade att flera olika koncept kan kopplas samman till en övergripande bild där en förändring är katalysatorn. Fyra aspekter kring utmaningar kunde tas fram baserat på tidigare forskning, dessa är: (1) organisationen är inte van vid förändringsledning; (2) organisation är van vid förändringsledning; (3) ledningen vet inte hur de ska påbörja arbetet med BMI; och (4) ledningen vet hur de ska påbörja arbetet med BMI. Resultatet från intervjuerna visade att litteraturen återspeglas i verkligheten, då informanterna beskrev flera koncept från litteraturen. Informanternas organisationer kunde placeras i de aspekter som tagits fram, och baserat på tidigare forskning kunde hanteringsförslag på dessa utmaningar tas fram, några av dessa som informanterna redan applicerat (men ännu inte fullt ut). / A market change comes with challenges for the organisations which operate on that market, since they must adjust to the new market conditions, a new competitive situation and such. The purpose of this study was to examine which challenges organisations experience when they develop their business models. This was performed by doing a literature review as well as interviews with representatives from the electric market in Sweden. The result from the literature review showed that multiple concepts can be connected to form an encompassing view with the change as the catalyst. Four aspects regarding challenges could be developed based on previous research: (1) he organisation is not used to change management; (2) the organisation is used to change management; (3) management does not know how to start working with BMI; and (4) management knows how to start working with BMI. The result from the interviews showed that the literature was reflected in reality, since the informants described several concepts from the literature. The informants’ organisations could be placed in the aspects which had been developed and based on previous research suggestions of how to handle these challenges could be developed, some of which the informants had already applied (but not fully, yet).