Many students graduating in higher education will achieve a managerial or professional position, with leadership qualities being highly important. The need to reflect on leadership as an important developmental goal in higher education is highlighted by pointing out that many curricula, especially in the managerial, organisational and economic domain, include specific courses on leadership. It seems that some of our thinking on leadership needs revision. According to Kellerman, leaders’ ability to connect to followers is paramount to gain and remain in power. Dutch management scholar Manfred Kets de Vries (2004) underlines that the main responsibility of a leader is to envision and inspire. In this chapter we will examine the role of personality and personal values in the ability of informal leaders to inspire other team members. In the first section we will elaborate on transformational leadership and shared leadership. In the next, we will link these forms of leadership to personality and personal values. In the third section the findings of our empirical study will be discussed. We conclude with the implications of our study for leadership practice and the scholarly field of leadership. From an educational point of view our findings are important. The results shed additional light on the importance of personality traits on leadership, and informal leadership in particular. As leadership is an important phenomenon in society and working life, (under)graduates can be assisted in understanding and developing it. But in the context of this book it should be highlighted that transformational leadership is highly relevant in knowledge innovation (García-Morales et al., 2012), which is a core issue in higher education. Consequently, inspiring others is relevant, because group work is commonly used in higher education. Understanding group dynamics within student teams, informal leadership specifically, can help lecturers to explain and discuss effective and ineffective group work. In our opinion, the results of this study offer interesting evidence-based insights to reflect on and develop those personal characteristics that can be important for informal leadership effectiveness.
This explanatory sequential mixed methods study explores the perceptions of academic and administrative managers responsible for teacher training at a public university in Colombia, as well as their views on improving such training after learning about the performance of teachers student teachers in the 2019 Saber Pro test, the differences in their test scores, and the relationships and statistical correlations between these outcomes and the students’ personal, family, socioeconomic and academic characteristics. Our findings show significant differences in the student teachers’ mean scores and performance when data are grouped according to personal, socioeconomic and academic conditions; a significant relationship between performance and student teacher characteristics; and correlations between critical reading scores and the other competencies assessed. Our data also highlight the lack of knowledge among academic and administrative managers about students’ life circumstances and the diversity of factors that may impact their performance; the importance of correlational data; the difference between expected and true outcomes; the inequity under which students seem to pursue their education; the limitations in access to resources; the training required for teachers to be able to analyze quantitative data and use specific software; the impact of teachers’ critical reading skills on student outcomes; the importance of data-driven decision-making; and the need for teachers to engage in quantitative research practices.
In this paper we present data on 407 homeless adults who have just entered theDutch social relief system. We examined their personal goals of homeless adults and the association between their perceived goal related self-efficacy and their quality of life. Based on a hierarchical regression analysis we analyzed the association between quality of life and goal related self-efficacy, relative to factors contributing to quality of life, such as demographic characteristics, socio-economic resources, health and service use. We found that the majority of homeless adults entering the social relief system have personal goals regarding socio-economic resources and their goal related self-efficacy is positively related to quality of life. Based on these findings we argue that it is important to take the personal goals of homeless people as the starting point of integrated service programs and to promote their goal related self-efficacy by strengths-based interventions.
In our increasingly global society, organizations face many opportunities in innovation, improved productivity and easy access to talent. At the same time, one of the greatest challenges, businesses experience nowadays, is the importance of social and/or human capital for their effectiveness and success (Backhaus and Tikoo, 2004; Mosley, 2007; Theurer et al., 2018; Tumasjan et al., 2020). High-quality employees are crucial to the competitive strength of an organization in the global economy, as these employees have a major influence on organizational reputation (Dowling at al., 2012). An important question is how, under these global circumstances, organizations and companies in the Netherlands can best be stimulated to attract and preserve social capital.Several studies have suggested the scarcity of talent and the crucial importance of gaining competitive advantage with recruitment communication to find the fit between personal and fundamental organizational characteristics and values for employees (Cable and Edwards, 2004; Bhatnagar and Srivastava, 2008; ManPower Group, 2014; European Communication Monitor (ECM), 2018). In order to become an employer of choice, organizations have to not only stand out from the crowd during the recruitment process but work on developing loyalty and a culture of trust in their relationship with employees (ECM, 2018). Employer Branding focuses on the process of promoting an organization, as the “employer of choice” to a desired target group, which an organization aims to attract and retain. This process encompasses building an identifiable and unique employer identity or, more specifically, “the promotion of a unique and attractive image” as an employer (Backhaus 2004, p. 117; Backhaus and Tikoo 2004, p. 502).One of the biggest challenges in the North of the Netherlands at the moment is the urgent need for qualified labor in the IT, energy and healthcare sectors and the excess supply of international graduates who are able to find a job in the North of the Netherlands (AWVN, 2019). Talent development, as part of the regional labor market and education policy, has been an important part of government programs and strategies in the region (VNO-NCW Noord, 2018). For instance, North Netherlands Alliance (SNN) signed a Northern Innovation Agenda for the 2014-2020 period. SNN encourages, facilitates and connects ambitions focused on the development of the Northern Netherlands. Also, the Social Economic council North Netherlands issued an advice on the labour market in the North Netherlands (SER Noord Nederland, 2017). Knowledge institutions also contribute through employability programs. Another example is the Regional Talent Agreement (Talent Akkoord) framework issued by the Groningen educational institutions, employers and employees’ organizations and regional authorities in which they jointly commit to recruiting, training, retaining and developing talent for the Northern labor market. Most of the hires with a maximum of five year of experience at companies are represented by millennials. To learn what values make an attractive brand for employees in the of the North of the Netherlands, we conducted a first study. When ranking the most important values of corporate culture which matter to young employees, they mention creative freedom, purposeful work, flexibility, work-life balance as well as personal development. Whereas attractive workplace and job security do not matter to such a degree. A positive work environment and a good relationship with colleagues are valued highly (Hein, 2019).To date, as far as we know, no other employer branding studies have been carried out for the North of the Netherlands. Further insight is needed into the role of employer branding as a powerful tool to retain talent in Northern industry in particular.The goal of this study is to provide a detailed analysis of the regional industry in the Northern Netherlands and contribute to: 1) the scientific body of knowledge about whether and how employer branding can strengthen the attractiveness of a regional industry in the labor market; 2) the application of this knowledge and insights by companies and governments in local policy development in the North of the Netherlands.
The focal point of the research will be to find an answer to the following research question:Is it possible to optimise the selection and tuning of the machine learning algorithm on the basis of the characteristics of a dataset, and in particular human datasets?
Lack of physical activity in urban contexts is an increasing health risk in The Netherlands and Brazil. Exercise applications (apps) are seen as potential ways of increasing physical activity. However, physical activity apps in app stores commonly lack a scientific base. Consequently, it remains unknown what specific content messages should contain and how messages can be personalized to the individual. Moreover, it is unknown how their effects depend on the physical urban environment in which people live and on personal characteristics and attitudes. The current project aims to get insight in how mobile personalized technology can motivate urban residents to become physically active. More specifically, we aim to gain insight into the effectiveness of elements within an exercise app (motivational feedback, goal setting, individualized messages, gaming elements (gamification) for making people more physically active, and how the effectiveness depends on characteristics of the individual and the urban setting. This results in a flexible exercise app for inactive citizens based on theories in data mining, machine learning, exercise psychology, behavioral change and gamification. The sensors on the mobile phone, together with sensors (beacons) in public spaces, combined with sociodemographic and land use information will generate a massive amount of data. The project involves analysis in two ways. First, a unique feature of our project is that we apply machine learning/data mining techniques to optimize the app specification for each individual in a dynamic and iterative research design (Sequential Multiple Assignment Randomised Trial (SMART)), by testing the effectiveness of specific messages given personal and urban characteristics. Second, the implementation of the app in Sao Paolo and Amsterdam will provide us with (big) data on use of functionalities, physical activity, motivation etc. allowing us to investigate in detail the effects of personalized technology on lifestyle in different geographical and cultural contexts.
