Purpose: The aim of this paper is to understand from the teaching life world of quality assurance and education actors in the higher education institutions, their construction of teaching excellence. Design: Charmazian constructivist Grounded Theory Method was employed. Hermeneutic constructivist philosophy guided this study and 29 participants were interviewed using criterion i sampling. Findings: Eleven categories of teaching excellence emerged from the data and the constructions of teaching excellence were multifaceted. Based on the participants' voices, there is no universally accepted definition of teaching excellence. There is no consensus of opinion on what constitutes teaching excellence in all higher education environments. However, research suggests that Teaching Excellence practices were beginning to be applied on an institutional level as a management tool though not recognised by the term teaching excellence. Nevertheless, it was not being practiced extensively, and was implemented in pockets, with emphasis on quality teaching more than teaching excellence, and not generally implemented in a systemic way. Practical implications: The teaching excellence categories that we have generated in this study could be one source of elements our policy makers could consider when developing teaching excellence policy instruments such as Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF). Such Instruments could support the enhancement of educational provision across our higher education system. Therefore, rather than focusing on developing metrics of teaching excellence, it is could be more effective to focus also on how these institutions could enhance their educational provision. Originality: The study provides empirical contextual individualised constructed constructs of teaching excellence.
Purpose: Corporate governance concerns many problems of contemporary corporations and is a dynamically developing discipline of organisation and management science of significant practical importance. The purpose of this study was to explore the current state of corporate governance in these state owned enterprises with a view to develop an ideal corporate governance model for State Owned Enterprises in Zambia. Design/Methodology/Approach: This paper was part of a larger, mixed-method study which employed qualitative measures (cognitive interviews with key informants and reviewing literature on corporate governance models and theories used in other countries). We employed Martin Heidegger's existential phenomenology as the underpinning philosophy and methods for this study. Findings: The findings indicate that state owned enterprises do not have good corporate governance structures and this is compounded by a complicated legal framework in the country. Major shareholders have more powers in determining board composition and even how the enterprise ought to operate. There are impositions on state owned enterprises where owners hardly finance state owned enterprises and impose public service obligations. In many ways, owners impose restrictions. Research Limitations/Implications: Understanding of the ways in which shareholders are determining the current corporate governance practices could help to advance standard practices and a context specific framework. Methods to ensure the application of cooperate governance should also be explored further. Originality/Value: This is one of the first studies to provide a corporate governance framework for state owned enterprises in Zambia.
Background: Universities face challenges in the current dynamic higher education sector. As a result, university managers have to contend with finding ways that will help increase revenue to enable adequate provision of the core services covering teaching and learning, research and publishing, community engagement and promotion of beneficial partnerships. This calls for developing strategic plans by employing strategic thinking skills. The University of Zambia has not been meeting the targets in all its previous strategic plans in the period 2008-2022 as expected. The aim of this paper is to characterise strategic thinking with a view of rendering an explanatory understanding of strategic planning actors in the University of Zambia from their point of view. Methods: This paper is part of a larger qualitative case study which examined the applicability of strategic thinking at the University of Zambia from a sample of 175 participants. However, 26 strategic planning actors were enlisted as participants for this qualitative paper using criterion i type of sampling.
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