This study draws on theories of punishment (Cavadino and Dignan 2007), leadership (West-Burnham 2013), social rules, (Burns and Machado 2014) and resilience (Fredrikson and Branigan 2005) to develop an understanding of Pupil Referral Units (PRUs). PRUs came into being through statute in 1993. They were set up to provide formal educational settings for young people who had been excluded from school. LEAs have responsibility for the education and welfare of all children in their catchment areas, irrespective of which school they attend. If an exclusion occurs, the LEA is obliged to assume responsibility, under section 19(1) of the 1996 Education Act, for the child's education by whatever means seems appropriate to its designated officers. Placement in a Pupil Referral Unit is a course of action they may pursue. This study sets out to discover through a series of narrative interviews conducted within a Key Stage 4 PRU, whether the multiple purposes of the PRU can be achieved, given the issues that present themselves in the isolated setting of the Unit, the resources available and the complex needs of the young people concerned. Fifteen interviews were conducted within a PRU in the academic year 2011-2012. Four were held with the Head; 11 further interviews involved 12 people; 8 members of staff and 4 pupils. A study of the evidence they provided led to a qualified positive response to the research question; i.e. that PRUs can' work' given a number of factors that are listed in the conclusion.

Background and context: Given the constant evolving developments in information technology (IT) in healthcare in Canada and Ontario, and the relatively nonexistent body of literature on IT management issues from the perspectives of top IT managers (i.e. Chief Information Officers, IT directors, IT top managers) in hospitals, a follow up study of IT management issues to the study done by Jaana et al. is conducted. Purpose: To develop an authoritative list of IT management issues in Ontario hospitals and compare the results to the earlier study and the literature. Methods: Using the Ranking Type Delphi technique, the responses from IT top managers in three main panels of Ontario hospitals were solicited through a controlled iterative feedback process. The hospitals were divided into the academic panel (n = 6), community panel (n = 12), and the rural panel (n = 8) for a total of 26 out of 33 participants who completed the study. Results: 26 issues were raised and a total of 24 issues were ranked in the study. Among the 14 common issues between the three panels, the top five issues were limited funding, keeping infrastructure current, external security threats, increasing cost, and managing demands for IT projects. Comparing with the study by Jaana et al. (2011), a total of 7 new issues emerged which are concerned with technology, regulatory challenges, and human issues. A total of 10 issues were dropped from the earlier study spanning areas of strategic, technological, organizational, and human issues. The participants in the study did not significantly differ individually based on their background characteristics, where the only significant difference observed between the hospital panels was due to hospital characteristics. During the brainstorming phase a total of 195 issues were provided which were consolidated by two researchers to form a list of 26 IT management issues, with an inter coder reliability of 88%. The issues with a 4.5 out of 7 rating and higher on a Likert scale were retained to narrow down the list. This resulted in 19 issues for the rural and community panels, and 21 issues for the academic panel, with 14 of the 26 issues being common to all three panels. The ranking phase was conducted with two rounds of ranking due to the low consensus levels during the first round. The consensus level after two rounds was; W academic = 0.235, W community = 0.254, and W rural = 0.381. Contributions: This study presents a significant contribution to the management of medical informatics field by providing an approach to categorize IT management issues to observe trends overtime as well as present the application of a seminal framework to explain the changes in these issues as organizations change and grow overtime. At the management and practical levels, the list of prioritized issues provides an evidence base for top IT managers to make IT related decisions at the organizational level. The list also acts as a second benchmarking tool to evaluate hospital performance overtime with the various issues. At the policy development level, provincial governments can use the list to devise comprehensive IT management strategies to address the various regulatory issues reported. Future research can focus on exploring the resonating behind the rankings provided and replicating this study over time and across various geographies so that a large survey can be developed to follow the evolutions of IT management issues in healthcare over time.

This study focuses on the diverse leadership issues a Swedish primary school faces when responsibilities are not clearly defined between the management/operative organisation and the development organisation. To illustrate this, research results are analysed using Liljenberg’s model ‘Tensions in relation to the development aspects of school organisation’. The five aspects of the model are; Organisational Structure, Goals, Vision and Values, Responsibility and Decision-making, Reflection and Evaluation and Attitudes. They are used to identify to which extent the management team’s focus is operationally or developmentally oriented and how decisions are made. The information is derived from observations, document analysis and semi-structured interviews. The survey shows that the management team deals mostly with operational issues though what issues belong to the running of a school as compared to pedagogical development becomes difficult to distinguish as they can overlap. When it comes to which direction or solutions the school takes, other groups are influential without regard to the designated development group. This division shows that the school has a distributed leadership. The results indicated that without clearly defined division of labour, area of responsibility and leadership, the different groups within a school are less effective and would benefit from an overhaul. / Den här undersökningen fokuserar på en låg- och mellanstadieskolas ledningsgrupps frågor, för att se på fördelningen mellan driftsorganisationens och utvecklingsorganisationens frågor. För att belysa detta har undersökningens resultat analyserats utifrån en modell av Liljenberg över spänningsfälten mellan drifts- och utvecklingsorganisationen. Modellens fem aspekter är; organisationsstruktur, mål, vision och värden, ansvarstagande och beslutsfattande, reflektion och utvärdering samt attityder. Dessa har använts för att identifiera i vilken utsträckning ledningsgruppens fokus är drifts- eller utvecklingsorienterat. Ledningsgruppens arbete har undersökts i en fallstudie bestående av observation, dokumentanalys och semistrukturerade intervjuer. Undersökningen visar att den undersökta ledningsgruppen mest hanterar driftsfrågor, trots att det är svårt att utskilja vilka frågor som handlar om att driva skolan eller att utveckla den. När det handlar om utvecklingsfrågor visar det sig att det också finns andra grupperingar än ledningsgruppen där dessa frågor diskuteras. Det kan handla om förstelärarnas uppdrag eller vad resursteamet planerar i utbildningsväg. Denna uppdelning visar på att skolan har ett distribuerat ledarskap. Den här undersökningen visar att utan en tydlig fördelning av arbetsuppgifter, ansvarsområden och ledarskap blir skolan inte så effektiv som den skulle kunna vara, och att strukturen skulle gynnas av en översyn.