Suchergebnisse

Between 29 April and 1 May, 2008 we attended an international conference that discussed Central Asian security issues. Political scientists and politicians from 17 countries and several international structures gathered in Tashkent for this highly representative forum to assess the already obvious threats to Central Asian security; discuss the new and less obvious threats and challenges; and outline potential cooperation trends aimed at ensuring regional security in the 21st century. The authors, who by citizenship belong to the member states of "organizations and alliances that follow different vectors," have taken the trouble of showing the road toward their countries' potential partnership in the key regional stability spheres. They deliberately avoided agitation and propaganda either of the "pro-Russian" or "pro-Western" security vectors in Central Asia to insist that cooperation rather than rivalry among the main actors present in the region can finally produce a security system that will meet the national interests of the regional states and of the world community as a whole. This is an economically justified and civilized pattern of international relations.

PurposeInterest in creating high performance organizations (HPOs) has been growing in the Middle East and Middle Eastern managers have been looking into practices that will help them elevate organizational performance. Unfortunately there is a shortage of HPO studies conducted in the Middle East which could help these managers. The purpose of this paper is to examine the applicability of the recently developed HPO Framework in a Middle Eastern context, namely at Palestine Polytechnic University (PPU). The goal of the study was to evaluate whether this framework could be applied in the Middle Eastern context and thus help improve performance of Middle Eastern organizations.Design/methodology/approachA workshop was conducted with management and staff of the university at PPU's premises in Hebron. During the workshop, management, staff and teachers filled in the HPO questionnaire, which gauges the current HPO status of an organization. The resulting HPO score of PPU, and the comparison with the scores of other Middle‐Eastern organizations in the database of the researchers, were discussed during a workshop with representatives of PPU and initial improvements were established and put down in an action plan.FindingsWith an average HPO score of 6.8, PPU was an average scoring organization that performed more or less the same as the other Middle‐East organizations. However, two main issues for PPU emerged that had to be addressed in order to transform the university in an HPO. The first issue was that PPU's performance management process had to be improved, as not everything that mattered to PPU's performance was communicated to everybody adequately enough. The second issue was that the performance‐driven behavior of PPU's people had to be strengthened, as the decision‐making and action‐taking processes took too long and people were nor resilient and flexible enough to deal quickly with changing conditions.Practical implicationsPractically, the research findings could help managers of Middle Eastern organizations to achieve sustainable high performance in their organizations.Originality/valueThe research described in this paper constitutes one of the first studies into the determining factors of sustainable high performance in the Middle East and as such, it adds to the strategic management literature by showing that the HPO concept can be applied in the Middle East to evaluate the high performance status of Middle Eastern organizations.

This study aimed to determine: Student management planning and implementation in improving cadets' discipline at the Malahayati Aceh Shipping Polytechnic and the Obstacles faced in managing students in improving cadets' discipline. Data collection techniques through observation, interviews, and documentation studies. The subjects of this study were directors, heads of academic administration and cadets, instructors/lecturers/teachers, and cadets and cadets. The results of the study are: 1) Planning for cadet and cadet management at the Malahayati Aceh Shipping Polytechnic is carried out based on vision and mission and consists of a) planning for the acceptance of cadets and cadets; b) planning for character development for cadets and cadets; c) planning the implementation of cadets and cadets' learning; and d) planning for the implementation of cadet and cadet learning evaluations. 2) The implementation of cadet and cadet management is by carrying out all regulations such as the cadet and cadet regulations as well as procedures that have been previously arranged and the implementation of all planned programs, namely the implementation of cadet and cadet admissions new, implementation of character training, implementation of learning, and implementation of learning evaluation; 3) The obstacles faced in carrying out student management to improve the discipline of cadets and cadets are not too heavy. The obstacles encountered are only internal, namely between caregivers, instructors and cadets and cadets.

This paper is intended to review the goals, progress and problems of both village polytechnic and family lifetraining programmes as instruments of rural development in Kenya