JOURNAL OF RESEARCH AND PLANNING IN HIGHER EDUCATION
Year:2008 | Volume:14 | Issue:1 (47)|Papers Count:7

Entrepreneurship is often described as the ability to create new ventures from new or existing concepts, ideas and visions.In order to increase the entrepreneurial capacity of students, it is necessary to initialize entrepreneurship centers in medical sciences universities. These centers are responsible to design and implement the various programs such as educational, research and outreach in university.This comparative and cross-sectional study was carried out to develop the model of entrepreneurship centers establishment in Medical Sciences Universities. The study population included 12 university entrepreneurship centers affiliated to Ministry of Science, Research and Technology in Iran.Interview and observation methods were used to collect data, and the study tool was a questionnaire.The study identified mission statement, goals, organizational structure, duties, communication, strengths and weaknesses of selected entrepreneurship centers and at last, considering design Variables, a model was developed to initialize an entrepreneurship center in medical sciences universities.The study demonstrated poor condition of entrepreneurship activities in Iranian universities. Based on these facts an ideal model for health and medical education system in Iran was developed, which was validated by a number of selected Iranian experts using the Delphi technique.

Educational evaluation aims at understanding and examining educational performance to govern the educational activities for the improvement of productivity and quality. Due to the complex structure of educational activities accompanied with the diversity of higher education beneficiaries' expectations, however, the methodology of educational evaluation has been the main concern of educational researchers and stimulated intellectual controversies and challenges. This article critically evaluates the capabilities of the conventional and comparative-efficient educational evaluation approaches and claims that in a complex context like education which is also dominated by a resource scarcity and growing competition environment, it is the comparative-efficient approach that can provide the appropriate evaluation of educational groups. In that regard we analyze data on the characteristics of 10 educational groups; After incorporating the comparativeness and efficiency aspects of educational evaluation, we achieve completely different but promising results and findings. In addition, we are able to determine the factors dominating educational performance and to prescribe the most economical ways and policies to improve education quality. For the educational groups, we found that books and instructional materials, teaching on-the-job training and class size reduction are respectively the most important and cost- effective factors for the improvement of education quality. That is, spending one money-unit on such factors increases education quality by 0.215, 0.1 and 0.01 points, respectively. Such findings that are very crucial in policy making for the improvement of higher education quality, are merely achievable through conducting the comparative-efficient evaluation of educational performance.

Cohen and Levinthal (1990) defined absorptive capacity (AC) as "the ability of a firm to recognize the value of new external information, assimilate it, and apply it to commercial ends". They argued that AC is an organizational learning concept and is the cumulative effect of continuous learning. However, this definition deals primarily with external knowledge and information. Implicit in the definition is the notion that firms are aware of internal information and have access to it. In some cases, organizations may not be aware or have access to its existing knowledge, especially tacit knowledge that can only be communicated by direct social interaction. Thus, a network of formal and informal communication linkages are necessary for the internal diffusion of new knowledge and technology. This study develops valid and reliable instruments to measure the sub-dimensions of AC.

Coordinative functioning of similar organizations in universities around the country is an important factor of their effectiveness. To have a sensible judgment and supervisory on their activities, there should be a systematic evaluation and comparison on the outputs. In fact, supervisory and conduction of such subsystems is a necessity that can be practical by means of measurements on particular variables. In higher education systems also, especially regarding size reduction for the government and its direct executive activities, the supervision roles should be considered in order to increase coordination between the subsystems, while avoiding interference and loss of independence of the universities.In this paper, a scientific-experimental approach for analysis of university subsystems functioning and comparison of their indexed outputs with each other is represented. As a result, a set of reference points is obtained by processing outputs of the subsystems that can be used in designing proper control signals to coordinate function of these subsystems. In this goal-free self-evaluation approach, each unit (subsystem) can assess its function with the aids of Possibility Distribution Functions (PDF) estimated for various output variables. The reference points obtained by the PDFs will be used to compare the units, outputs and this enables each unit to design direction of its own feedback control signal, which modifies its outputs to a better position.The special case study in this paper is disciplinary committees of the state universities in the country. The simple proposed approach, which should be conducted by the central supervisory system, helps managers of the universities to modify function of their committees by information obtained as the output of this study. Moreover, continuation of such studies can represent a useful image of variations and trends in view points of the administrative staff of universities. The supervisory system then can apply necessary control signals based on the trends whenever needed.

The purpose of this research was to study the relationship between the organizational culture and the person- organization fit at state universities of the western region of Iran. The research tried to reveal the organizational culture characteristics (involvement, adaptability, mission and consistency) prevailing in the universities, to present the quantity of the correlation between the two main variables of the research, and to introduce the cultural factors that can help to predict the degree of person-organization fit. A descriptive-correlational research method was utilized. The statistical population consisted of full time faculty members, of six state medical and non-medical universities of the region in 2006- 007(educational year) statistical sample volume of 369 was chosen randomly. The research tools were used from two questionnaires based on Denison's organizational culture and Kristofs person- organization fit models. The questionnaire's validity was determined based on the viewpoints of management and behavioral sciences experts, and their reliability was estimated through Cronbach's alpha coefficient 0/96 and 0/9635 respectively. The descriptive statistics such as percentages, mean and variance and also inferential statistical indices such as Pearson's coefficient correlation, one- group Manova analysis and T-test and multi variable regression were used for analyzing the statistical data.The results showed that four different characteristics of organizational cultures (involvement, adaptability, mission and consistency) are prevailing in the universities of the western part of the country and the average has been 44.36, for adaptability culture, 43.38, for involvement culture, 43.78, for mission culture and 41.99, for consistency culture. This suggests that the quality of culture is less than 50 percent of Denison's model scale. The regression (MANOVA) analysis showed that the whole organizational culture with the whole person-organization fit are in direct relationship (P<0.0001). The common points of the coefficient determination for the organizational culture with the unity component has been 44 percent and with the organizational unity component 48 percent. Finally there was not a significant difference between the organizational cultures of medical and nonmedical universities.

The present study aims to analyze the relationship between organizational culture and leadership styles among the deans of nine Iranian universities.Overall, 562 faculty members filled in the questionnaires on the organizational culture and the leadership style of 49 deans. Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument (OCAI), Management Skills Assessment Instrument (MSAI), and Organizational Leadership Assessment (OLA) were used as tools for data gathering. The statistical population of the study was chosen from seven similar faculties of nine universities, comprising 3839 faculty members. To avoid the risk of participation, the questionnaire was distributed among all faculty members.The results of the study suggest that there is a lack of congruence between the current and desired professional culture of the faculty members. The faculty members believe that they operate in a profession characterized by an overarching desire for stability, control, formal rules and policies, coordination and efficiency, and goal and results oriented. However, the respondents of this study indicated that their desired culture should be one that emphasizes flexibility, discretion, participation, human resource development, innovation, creativity, risk-taking, and a long-term emphasis on professional growth and the acquisition of new professional knowledge and skills. The statistical analyses indicated that the faculty members consider a manager as competent who enjoys leadership style and management skills based on adhocracy.

The purpose of this research was to study desired characteristics of faculty members and students in E-Learning in higher education of Iran from virtual students' viewpoint. A descriptive-correlation survey approach was used in this study. Respondents filled in a web-based closed questions questionnaire. Based on the results, five most highly ranked items on requirements for students into e-learning in higher education were identified as:responsibility, participation and creativity, IT skills, motivation and virtual ability. Most important attributes on requirements for faculty members was learning management, virtual interactions, student's support, electronic commitment, providing interaction environment and positive attitude to e-learning. By factor analysis, factors of e-learning success in higher education were reduced to two main factors, namely as Interactions and supporting factors and Contents and educational tools.