The human side of management
Educational institutions exist to serve the goals of the society and the nation. To attain its goals, an organization requires human resources in different roles and functions to help achieve its goals (Champoux, 2011; Greenberg, 2011; Tosi et al., 1986), and the educational institution is not an exception. The educational institutions face competitive environment (Richardson et al., 1995) in the form of shrinking students’ enrollments combined with rising maintenance costs, demographic changes, online competition, burdens of accreditation (Hughes and White, 2006) that calls upon the critical role played by leadership in making things happen successfully (Al Matrooshi et al., 2016; Al Mehrzi and Singh, 2016; Chaturvedi and Gaur, 2009; Gaur, 2006). The twenty-first century is an era of knowledge economy characterized by the continuous renewal of knowledge and skills of human resources (Bozionelos and Singh, 2017; Gaur et al., 2014; Singh and Gaur, 2013) to stay relevant and competitive. It is argued that the role of managers in education institution’s innovation processes become critical (Lee and Gaur, 2013; Nuruzzaman et al., 2018) as the educational institutions face competition for resources (Lorange, 2002) like any other organizations across the industry. At the same time, the extant literature asks organizations to find ways and means to leverage the potential of their human resources toward the successful achievement of organizational goals (Al Hosani et al., 2017; Budhwar et al., 2018). Therefore, it is pertinent for organizations to manage change for growth (Al Ali et al., 2017) so as to stay organic through a strong emphasis on their processes, systems and most importantly through acquiring and retaining talented human resources. It is in this backdrop that the special issue (SI) on “The human side of organization” in the International Journal of Educational Management was conceptualized and that was well received as I received 56 paper submissions and 11 best papers after reviews and revisions were found suitable for this SI.
The first paper titled “Internal marketing in a higher education context – towards an enriched framework” provides an agenda on how to design and implement internal marketing tools, techniques, and, above all, the strategy to successfully run the educational institutions.
The second paper titled “Workplace spirituality, employee well-being and intention to stay: a multi-group analysis of teachers’ career choice” is contextualized in the Indian context. This paper discusses in detail about the linkages amongst workplace spirituality, employee well-being and intention to stay in the organization.
The next paper titling “Student–university identification and loyalty through social responsibility: a cross-cultural analysis” is contextualized in the Middle Eastern context. This paper discusses implications for theory and practice.
The fourth paper entitled “Role of virtues in the relationship between shame and tendency to plagiarize: study in the context of higher education” is very much contemporary and relevant. The paper presents and discusses key issues related to virtue, shame and tendency to plagiarize in the context of higher education.
The following paper is titled “Building a culture of business analytics: a marketing analytics exercise” that discusses and presents how to develop and sustain a culture of the analytics. The paper discusses on the key processes and systems necessary to develop and sustain a culture of business analytics.
The sixth paper titled “Continuing professional development: policies, practices and future directions” much more relevant in today’s context wherein institutions leverage on how to maximize the benefits of the professional development of their human resources. This paper presents key implications for designing and implementing professional development policies and practices.
The seventh paper is titled “Investigating the barriers to change management in public sector educational institutions.” This paper is very much timely and contemporary on what educational institutions do to effectively identify and manage the key barriers of change management.
The eighth paper titled “Influences of working condition and faculty retention on quality education in private universities in Bangladesh: an analysis using SEM” is contextualized in the Bangladeshi context. It discusses about how to leverage working conditions and retention of faculty members if educational institutions focus on providing quality education to the students, the future of Bangladesh.
The ninth paper entitled “The linkage between knowledge management practices and organization based projects for better learning outcome: a conceptual framework” is a review-based paper. It presents a framework for key learning outcomes for educational institutions and the critical role of knowledge management practices for education providers to fall back on.
The penultimate paper titled “The practices of quality management in Norwegian higher education – collaboration and control in study programme design and delivery” in the Scandinavian context. This paper deals with what constitute to quality management and the role of collaboration and control mechanisms in the design and delivery of education programme.
The last paper is titled “The effect of highly emotionally intelligent teachers on their students’ satisfaction.” The paper discusses on what constitute of an emotionally intelligent teacher and how an emotionally intelligent teacher enhances their students’ satisfaction level vis-à-vis the program and overall education.
I hope that these 11 papers in the SI on “the human side of management” will be liked by the readers – the researcher, the educationist, the policy makers and the likes.
