Nowadays, the dynamic, global economic environment is presenting the sector for higher education within developing countries with numerous challenges. Increasing demand and rapid technological changes mean that knowledge and knowledge sharing (KS) are now recognised as key resources for organisations to gain competitive advantage. The management of knowledge and promotion of KS amongst organisational members have been shown to be key elements of the process of learning since they assist in the conversion of tacit knowledge of individuals by way of interaction into knowledge that is explicit. Previous literature noted that KS is a key factor for knowledge management and it also enhances organisational knowledge sharing behaviour (KSB). Within developing countries, especially Iraq, however, institutions for higher education tend to lack KSB. This study has aimed at assessing the attitudes, perceptions and behaviours of academics and the identification of factors that support or hinder KSB of academics within developing countries, with a particular focus upon Baghdad University as a prime example for the Middle East and Northern Africa (MENA) region. An approach with mono-methods was used, i.e. a survey; a total of 326 responses were gathered that were valid so that testing could be done of the relationship between the dependent variable KSB and the independent variables; attitude towards knowledge sharing (ATT), subjective norm (SN), and perceived behavioural control (PBC). Through the use of AMOS Version 23 software and the structural equation modelling (SEM) software of IBM (Version 23), the research project discovered that the aforementioned predictors played a key role for KSB relationships in the Iraqi setting. Cultural differences and similarities were shown by the multi-group SEM in relation to the effects upon the university, and the results make a significant contribution to KSB theory in relation to, and in support of, the ATT, SN and PBC predictors. A deeper understanding is also provided of those relationships for educational environments in developing countries, particularly Iraq – a setting that previous research has overlooked. A more lucid picture is provided, then, of the position for Baghdad University and, with regard to the practical implications of the study, the survey results have shown that educational institutions seeking to embed knowledge sharing strategies would find it beneficial to spend time and energy upon communication, training and the exchange of knowledge skills and upon the development of relationships amongst their employees.

This research investigates the experiences and expectations of working-class law students at a ‘new’ university. It critically examines the influence of cultural, social, linguistic and academic capital on working-class law students and their chances of success in the legal labour market. Statistics show that the number of working-class students beginning a legal education continues to grow despite the rising cost of qualification; continuing class prejudice and decline in number of training contracts and pupillages. With supply consistently exceeding demand in a middle-class dominated legal labour market, working-class students face ongoing and increasing difficulties in negotiating the barriers to entry, often with very little chance of success. This thesis presents the findings from a case study employing semi – structured interviews and focus groups used to collect qualitative data. Bourdieu’s theories on class, field and habitus are used to illuminate the findings and the data. Students describe their thoughts and experiences about their legal education and their attempts to enter the legal labour market; about why they chose to study law and why Middlebridge was their preferred university. The data suggests that the difficulties they face become apparent and their expectations begin to change as they progress through their legal education. However, instead of attempting to overcome the barriers they face, in the main, participants adjusted their sights downwards and were prepared to settle for employment at the lower-end of the legal labour market. This study suggests that universities like Middlebridge may, perhaps inadvertently, encourage inequality in law because those who enter with the lowest stock of capital benefit the least. Higher education masks how power within the legal profession is distributed, instead allowing students to believe it is based upon merit and ability.

Universities are under pressure to justify the time and expense expended by students in obtaining a degree which has stimulated interest in measuring more formally how learning outcomes have been met by students. The 1997 NCHE (Dearing) Report called for improvements in higher education (HE) assessment practice and while assessment is widely regarded as the critical catalyst for student learning it is often in practice relegated to an afterthought. The potential for information and communications technology (ICT) to automate aspects of learning and teaching is widely acknowledged although promised productivity benefits have been slow to appear. Computer-assisted assessment (CAA) is seen by many as one way of meeting these conflicting demands. CAA has considerable potential both to ease the assessment load and to provide innovative and powerful modes of assessment. Moreover, as the use of ICT increases there may be ‘inherent difficulties in teaching and learning online and assessing on paper’. Given the importance of assessment activities in higher education, the level of current interest in CAA and widespread disagreement about how it should be implemented, there is a clear need for rigorous, grounded models of good practice. A national survey of CAA practice was conducted using online tools and interviews with enthusiast and early adopting CAA experts and practitioners throughout the UK which explored the critical factors associated with the uptake and embedding of CAA. A grounded theory analysis of the interview and survey data was carried out and a theory of dual path CAA uptake in universities emerged from which three models of uptake were derived. These were validated against qualitative data obtained from a final set of interviews and by triangulation with survey data from the 2003/4 UK CAA survey. Tutors’ motivations and perceptions of risk influence the way they use CAA and this is significant in credit-bearing applications where non-optimal outcomes have long lasting effects on uptake. Institutions can benefit from using project risk management techniques to manage these risks.

Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in general, and universities in the UK in particular, are complex organisations, each characterised by a distinctive ethos, particular history, mission, size, and shape, being highly autonomous, yet bound together by the identical challenges of massification, the emergence of greater accountability imposed by the government, sharp financial cuts, a greater emphasis on student satisfaction, globalisation, the knowledge economy, marketisation and advances in information and communications technologies. Some scholars contend that strategic management of Knowledge and the knowledge asse ts of a university can provide the competitive advantage that universities need, as well as provide a solution to address some of these challenges, providing many potential benefits to each area of Higher Education. However, have HEIs adopted Knowledge Management on an institutional level to enhance its competitive advantage? What are the perceptions and practices of Knowledge Management within the HEI context; what are the contributing factors that hinder or promote the use of Knowledge Management within the Higher Education context? A cursory literature review could not answer these questions and hence , this sequential, quantitative-qualitative, mixed-methodology, multi-site case study,investigated these questions within the context of the United Kingdom Higher Education universities. The research, presented in two phases, with the first phase providing an overview of the state of Knowledge Management within the UK universities, and the second phase presenting the findings of an in-depth multi-site case study, conducted using Grounded Theory as a methodology, suggests that Knowledge Management tools and techniques were beginning to be used on an institutional level as a management tool within the Higher Education context in the UK; however, it was not being used extensively, and was implemented in pockets, with emphasis on Information Management more than Knowledge Management, and not generally in a systemic way. The research further suggests that the contributing factors that had an influence on Knowledge Management not being used extensively within this context were varying, and included: the characteristics of universities and the nature of academic work, and the perceptions of Knowledge and Knowledge Management within this context. Despite this, a number were beginning to implement Knowledge Management systemically across the university. The research, and this thesis, presents a substantive theory for Knowledge Management in Higher Education, and has contributed to the field of Knowledge Management and Higher Education by identifying the current practices and perceptions of Knowledge Management within the context of Higher Education in the UK, and the factors that hinder its use within this context

Over the previous few decades there has been an increased emphasis on the cultural aspects of English language teaching. However, in settings where English is used as a global lingua franca the cultural associations of the language are complex and the role culture plays in successful communication has yet to be extensively investigated. To conduct such a study it is necessary to explicate the role and nature of English in global contexts and particularly how English functions as a lingua franca (ELF). Furthermore, a theoretical understanding of the relationships between languages and cultures in intercultural communication is needed, which emphasises the fluid and dynamic nature of any connections. The thesis focuses on cultural awareness (CA) as an approach to equipping learners and users of English for the diversity of intercultural communication. However, it is suggested that CA has still not incorporated an understanding of the multifarious uses of English in global contexts where no clear cultural associations can be established. Thus, intercultural awareness (ICA) is offered as an alternative which addresses these needs. This results in the formulation of research questions which aim to explore how ICA can best be characterised in an expanding circle setting and the role it plays in intercultural communication. Furthermore, this research also aims to explicate the relationships between the English language and cultures in such an environment and how this reflects on language use and attitudes. The study was predominantly qualitative utilising approaches associated with ethnography with the aim of producing a rich description of the research participants and their environment. The fieldwork took place over a six month period in a Thai university and seven participants formed the core of this study. The main data sources were recordings of the participants engaged in intercultural communication and interviews with the participants. These were supplemented with a survey, diaries, observations and documents from the research site. The findings of the study suggest that in successful intercultural communication culturally based forms, practices and frames of reference are employed as emergent, dynamic and liminal resources in a manner that moves between individual, local, national and global references. Furthermore, the results also indicated that ICA was a valid construct in the context investigated for explaining the types of cultural knowledge and related skills needed by participants to take part in successful intercultural communication through English.

Many external factors have affected Governmental Universities of Iran in the past six years. Decentralization in terms of delegation of authority, budget constraint and competitive position for better quality and higher performance in teaching and research are the main factors. According to Contingency Theory in accounting, there is no identical management accounting system or control system to fulfil the needs of all organizations in every situation (Chenhall, 2003, Otley, 1980).This study investigates the effects of the aforementioned variables on the accounting systems and performance management of Iran’s state Higher Education Institutions. Based on the Contingency Theory literature a theoretical model has been developed and empirically tested. Data were collected from the Governmental Universities in Iran during the latter part of 2009 through a postal questionnaire. All 126 Governmental Universities in Iran were sent the questionnaire and responses were obtained from Financial, Education, and Research Departments in each university. Fully completed questionnaires were collected from 246 Departments (65.1 per cent response rate) and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was used as the main data analysing technique to provide an understanding of the proposed model used in Iranian universities for Accounting Systems and Performance Management Systems. The results confirm most of the related propositions of Contingency Theory, however the priority of budgeting practices, particularly participative budgeting, over other accounting aspects is supported. In addition, importance of employing comprehensive performance measures as well as use of accounting information in PM was revealed, although amendment and improvement in their reward system is not at expected level.

Occupational therapy (OT) pre-registration education in the United Kingdom (UK) stands at the intersection of the fields of higher education (HE) and professional practice. It is subject to various government agendas including an ongoing commitment to widening participation in HE and to diversifying the health and social care workforce to reflect modern cultural diversity. Both have contributed to a changing profile in the OT student population and in 2005, 67 percent of the intake was mature (College of Occupational Therapists, 2007b), and increasing numbers are entering with ‘non-traditional’ academic backgrounds, an umbrella term which subsumes a variety of entry qualifications. The early weeks of study in HE can prove challenging to students as they settle into the new learning environment and begin to comprehend the expectations held of them (Yorke, 2005). It has been suggested that those from non-traditional academic backgrounds may find this transition, particularly the need to take a high level of responsibility for their own learning, difficult as a result of the skills, experiences and expectations accumulated throughout their pre-entry education (Sambell and Hubbard, 2004). While small-scale studies suggest that OT students from such backgrounds are as academically successful as traditional school-leavers at graduation (Howard and Jerosch-Herold, 2000), there is little evidence offering insight into how they actually experience and negotiate the demands of their programme. Recognising that learning and teaching are embedded within the milieu in which they occur, this longitudinal research adopted a case study methodology to capture complexity and understand the issue within its natural context (Yin, 2003). In an instrumental single-case design (Stake, 1995), a neither unique nor extreme undergraduate OT programme became a vehicle for exploring the educational experiences of students with non-traditional academic backgrounds. Thirteen volunteer participants were drawn from a single cohort in one of the UK’s research intensive universities. Data were collected via initial focus groups exploring pre-entry educational experiences and expectations of studying in HE, reflective diaries recording educational experiences that participants considered significant or meaningful, and one-to-one semi-structured interviews conducted towards the end of participants’ first and third years of study which focused on exploring their learning experiences. Supplementary and contextual data were provided by analysis of institutional, school and departmental documents to provide insight into the culture and practices of the learning context and a progression routes study which considered the entry qualifications, progression and exit awards of four cohorts of OT students from a range of educational backgrounds. The nature of students’ entry qualifications or academic background were found to have no statistically significant impact on whether they passed at Level 4, 5 or 6, or achieved a ‘good’ (upper second or first class) honours degree, although male students and those from amongst the lower socio-economic groups had significantly poorer academic outcomes at all levels of analysis. Theoretical thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006) of qualitative data underpinned by Bourdieu’s (1990b) theory of practice highlighted that students’ educational experiences were much less influenced by the nature of their academic backgrounds than by the congruence of individual dispositions or habitus, born out of social provenance, with the dominant culture of the particular field of HE they had entered. Emerging codes converged to represent themes suggesting clusters of shared experience amongst some participants, while examination of each individual dataset revealed varying positional tendencies and trajectories within the field. This research highlights the important roles played by academic, linguistic, social and practice-oriented capital in the way that students developed a feel for and learned to play ‘the game’ and present knowledge and understanding in the form ‘legitimated’ by the field. Juxtaposing the nature and expectations of the new field in relation to those previously occupied by individual participants and the established habitus each brought with them helped to illuminate the situation and adds a new dimension to understanding individual experiences of learning in HE.

The rapid economic and social development in the Sultanate of Oman has led to an increasing demand for higher education since 1970. The Government is now involved, and is encouraging the private sector to provide higher education services through colleges and universities in order to prepare Omanis with the qualifications and skills required to support the country`s future political economic development. Higher education in the Sultanate of Oman has a range of different challenges, such as educational policies and regulations, the management of universities and colleges, funding, and maintaining quality standards in higher education institutions. One of the major challenges facing the decision makers in higher education in Oman is the effectiveness of the leadership of colleges and universities. Strong academic leadership is paramount to the effective running of educational institutions, and a professional measurement is needed to analyse the current management of these institutions. There is the need for a proper policy to ensure the recruitment of suitable leaders to run these establishments in order to respond to the dynamic changes within the society. The public and the government want to maintain a balanced situation where the private higher education institutions are enjoying a good income while providing quality education. The research aims to analyse the type of leadership required in higher education in Oman by examining government policies and strategies related to higher education. More specifically, it will evaluate the performance of leadership at the level of presidents and deans and their roles in selected private higher education institutions. By doing so, different leadership theories, perceptions of leadership and possible measures for assessing the effectiveness of leadership will be interpreted and analysed. This research is inductive based on a qualitative and exploratory approach. The findings have contributed to the development of an academic leadership model applicable to the Oman higher education institutions, and have generated some recommendations to develop the performance of presidents and deans of higher education institutions to attain the level which is acceptable to the Government and Omani society.

Research on sustainability in higher education has tended to focus on environmental management of university estates and operations, and case studies and examples of good practice, without presenting the coherent theoretical or methodological approaches required to look at the change processes of universities seeking to embed sustainability. Although the value and contribution of university initiatives has been articulated, little holistic and structural transformation of universities has been achieved so far. This doctoral research aimed to examine organisational learning and change processes to build education for sustainability into the university curriculum by developing its theoretical basis, and by developing qualitative methodology. The original contributions to knowledge of this doctoral thesis are the exploration of organisational learning processes towards sustainability in higher education, the exploration of action research as a research method to foster organisational learning towards sustainability, and the development of an evidence-based model on how to embed education for sustainability in the undergraduate curriculum at the University of Southampton. The integration of different theoretical approaches to organisational learning such as organisational learning theory, the idea of expansive learning at work, the learning organisation ideal and transformative learning theory provide the theoretical foundations for this study. Therefore contributing to the understanding of how individuals in organisations can transform their mental models in order to change current practice leading to organisational learning towards sustainability in higher education. At a methodological level, an action research approach guided by participatory and emancipatory approaches was used. The researcher aimed to learn from real practice through acting as a facilitator for curriculum development in education for sustainability within an interdisciplinary group of academic staff members. A critical friend position was acquired within a community of practice to implement a programme which attempted to embed sustainability within the student experience. An evidence-based model (the I3E Model) has been developed with four overarching components that can support the University of Southampton in its aim to embed education for sustainability within the undergraduate curriculum. These integrated components are: Inform the university community about sustainability; Engage the different university stakeholders in the change process towards sustainability; Empower individuals and groups to make change happen within their sphere of influence and action; and Embed sustainability within existing university structures.

One of the by-products of the establishment of the Higher Education Commission in Pakistan is the introduction of an incentive regime for the faculty. The existence of explicit incentives is a usual feature of the corporate sector, as it sits well with the commercial enterprise model. Simply pulling out features of the commercial enterprise model and trying to fit it into the formal education system, without any sound bedding and preparatory grounds, could not be accepted by sanity to get suitable outcomes. The purpose of the study is to introduce the concept of moral hazard in a moderated-mediation framework of incentives, organizational justice perception, and reward expectancy to answer the research questions. To achieve the intended purpose, qualitative data were collected through semi-structured, face-to-face interviews from 19 top level management personnel of the chosen higher education institutions; using purposive sampling. NVivo 9 was used for analysis of the qualitative data. A detailed set of descriptive and inferential codes were generated, which were later braided into sub-themes and themes. Using the analytic strategies of pattern matching and cross-case analysis, a wide range of perceived moral hazards present in the faculty were revealed, along with the main determinants of this problem. The qualitative analysis also helped in the proper positioning of the constructs in the theoretical framework, as well as the operationalisation of the latent constructs used in the survey. Quantitative data collection followed the qualitative phase - using a survey. The proposed relationships in the theoretical framework were tested with a sample of 311 academics; using simple random sampling, via causal models and Structural Equation Modelling, and found that incentives might boost the apparent performance, but not necessarily the intended performance. The effect of incentives on the moral hazard tendency of employees has been confirmed by the results of both qualitative and quantitative data. The incentive problem surfaced up as one of the sub-themes in the perceived determinants of moral hazard. Moreover, the quantitative results confirm that disposition towards incentives has a direct, an indirect, and a conditional indirect effect on the employee tendency towards moral hazard. Examining the conditional indirect effect of incentives on moral hazard tendency serves the purpose of "critical realism", which looks beyond the occurrence of events by analysing the underlying causal mechanism of the problem of moral hazard in multitasking professionals. The results have important implications for managers, academicians, and policy makers for mitigating adverse behaviour in the employees, through proper use of incentives.