Richard Bolden | University of the West of England (original) (raw)

Papers by Richard Bolden

We would like to thank those who spent time speaking with us during interviews, meetings and work... more We would like to thank those who spent time speaking with us during interviews, meetings and workshops to explain their perspectives and experiences of Golden Key. We are also grateful for the support of the Golden Key Programme Team, Partnership Board and Evaluation Advisory Group who helped us gain access to relevant information and evidence and have provided feedback on draft findings. We hope that you will find this report an accurate account of progress and learning so far, and a valuable opportunity to reflect on your own experience to support the next phase of Golden Key.

Additional file 1. System Leadership Case Study Interview Schedule, Prompts used to guide intervi... more Additional file 1. System Leadership Case Study Interview Schedule, Prompts used to guide interviews.

BMC Public Health, 2020

Background ‘Systems leadership’ has emerged as a key concept in global public health alongside su... more Background ‘Systems leadership’ has emerged as a key concept in global public health alongside such related concepts as ‘systems thinking’ and ‘whole systems approaches.’ It is an approach that is well suited to issues that require collective action, where no single organisation can control the outcomes. While there is a growing literature on the theory of systems leadership in a number of fields, there remains a lack of published empirical studies of public health systems leadership for professionals to learn from. The aim of the current project was to conduct cases studies in UK public health to provide empirical evidence on the nature of effective systems leadership practice. Methods Three system leadership case studies were identified in the key domains of public health: health protection, healthcare public health and health improvement. A total of 27 semi-structured interviews were conducted. Data were thematically analysed to identify the components of effective systems leader...

Leading the Project Revolution, 2019

In the past decade successive UK governments have placed a strong emphasis on and renewed interes... more In the past decade successive UK governments have placed a strong emphasis on and renewed interest in the role of higher education in skills development. In the light of recent skills policy developments in England and drawing upon the findings of an empirical qualitative study of specific workforce development initiatives and previous research, this paper identifies and analyses key factors that facilitate and/or hinder effective higher education-employer engagement activities. The lessons learned and suggested recommendations will be of interest and value to both higher education institutions and employers in establishing and, more importantly, sustaining, effective workforce development partnerships.

Higher Education Review, 2016

In the past decade successive UK governments have placed a strong emphasis on, and renewed intere... more In the past decade successive UK governments have placed a strong emphasis on, and renewed interest in, the role of higher education in skills development. In the light of recent skills policy developments in England and drawing upon the findings of an empirical qualitative study of specific workforce development initiatives and previous research, this paper identifies and analyses key factors that facilitate and/or hinder effective higher education-employer engagement activities. The lessons learned and suggested recommendations will be of interest and value to both higher education institutions and employers in establishing and, more importantly, sustaining, effective workforce development partnerships.

Journal of Management Inquiry, 2020

In this interview, Ruth Hunt, former CEO of the lesbian, gay, bi, and trans equality charity Ston... more In this interview, Ruth Hunt, former CEO of the lesbian, gay, bi, and trans equality charity Stonewall and now crossbench peer at the House of Lords, discusses her approach to leadership for social change. She considers the changing context of LGBT rights, her motives for joining the organization, experiences and learning from leading change on this agenda, and the challenges of addressing power, privilege, and embedded cultural norms in order to create a truly inclusive workplace. Key themes include managing the tensions between an assimilation and liberation approach to social change, promoting intersectionality and positive action to enhance inclusion, the challenges and opportunities of sharing power and the skills of facilitation, boundary-spanning and working relationally that constitute the everyday practice of leadership in complex and contested landscapes. A commentary is provided that highlights links to and implications for leadership, management and organization scholars...

Journal of Management Inquiry, 2017

This interview with Lord Michael Bichard, one of the most distinguished public sector leaders in ... more This interview with Lord Michael Bichard, one of the most distinguished public sector leaders in the United Kingdom, explores his ideas around the relationship between leadership, creativity, and innovation. A champion of place-based approaches to public services, where citizens are actively involved in service design, delivery, and appraisal, Bichard advocates the need for inclusive and supportive leadership that enables the emergence of the kinds of creativity required to respond to the financial challenges facing the public sector. Bichard’s ideas resonate with recent research on creative leadership and provide a practical illustration of place-based and systems leadership in the public sector and beyond.

International Journal of Cross Cultural Management, 2009

This article provides an account of meanings and connotations of `African leadership' emergin... more This article provides an account of meanings and connotations of `African leadership' emerging from research with a cohort of participants on a Pan-African leadership development programme. We begin by reviewing current approaches to leadership, and how they have been applied to the study of leadership and management across cultures, before introducing the notion of the `African renaissance', which calls for a re-engagement with indigenous knowledge and practices. The findings from our study indicate a tension between accounts and representations of leadership and the potential for leadership development to act as a forum in which participants can work through these issues. In developing an Afro-centric perspective on leadership, we propose that development activities that promote relational, critical and constructionist perspectives on leadership, with an emphasis on dialogue and sharing experience, could be an important means for surfacing new insights and understandings. ...

This paper explores perceptions and experiences of employer engagement (EE) within 10 UK higher e... more This paper explores perceptions and experiences of employer engagement (EE) within 10 UK higher education institutions. Findings indicate that: EE is core to the purpose of HE and always has been; the ‘student experience’ is a key driver for EE; the success of EE is dependent on putting appropriate support systems in place; workforce development is just one aspect of EE and not a priority for all HEIs; the involvement of academics is key to successful EE; EE requires culture change, but not of the kind often assumed; and achieving successful EE is a major leadership challenge for HE.

Journal of Management Inquiry, 2016

Unprecedented changes in the nature and prevalence of digital technology have significant implica... more Unprecedented changes in the nature and prevalence of digital technology have significant implications for leadership theory, practice, and development that, as yet, remain largely unexplored in mainstream academic literature. This article features an interview with Rick Haythornthwaite, Chairman of global businesses including Centrica and MasterCard, where he reflects on the ways in which digital disruption is impacting upon the nature of leadership and strategic practice. It is accompanied by a commentary that highlights the importance of factors such as context, trust, ethics, and purpose in a fast moving corporate world.

Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 2014

Recent literature has emphasised the distributed nature of leadership in higher education and the... more Recent literature has emphasised the distributed nature of leadership in higher education and the multitude of actors and factors that contribute towards organisational outcomes. Gronn (2009, 2011) suggests, however, that rather than using such evidence to provide broad, normative accounts of leadership practice, greater attention should be directed to mapping the 'hybrid configurations' through which leadership practice emerges. This paper responds to this call through an analysis of employer engagement activities in UK higher education. Using a qualitative case study approach it illustrates the complex, interdependent, and contested, nature of leadership practice in cross-boundary environments. The paper concludes by suggesting how a hybrid perspective may enhance leadership theory and practice in tertiary education.

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 1998

This paper argues that the traditional approach to datamining is dominated by quantitative tools ... more This paper argues that the traditional approach to datamining is dominated by quantitative tools which assume knowledge to be inherent in the data: the data miners task simply being to find it. We propose, however, that true knowledge arises from an interaction between the information and the user.

The SAGE Encyclopedia of Action Research

The bailout of Greece and the rescue packages many industrialized countries have implemented foll... more The bailout of Greece and the rescue packages many industrialized countries have implemented following the current economic crisis bring to the fore many questions that constitute the bread-and-butter of the regional scientist: Why does a country/a region persistently lag behind? Should national/supranational governments come to the rescue of the most distressed areas? If so, what criteria are used to define those worthy of being rescued from the others? How are the recipient areas going to use the money? Will it promote local development only or will it spillover to other areas, etc. While the goal of this special issue of Région et Développement is not to provide specific answers to the current economic crisis nor the bailout of Greece, it proposes a unique view of the current state of what urban and regional scientists can do when uncovering the origin of territorial imbalances of development, accounting for spatial dependences across places and drawing recommendations for dissemination in the policy arena. As such, most of the articles you will find here rely on stateof-the-art techniques that have flourished over the years in the field of regional science.

Worldly Leadership

In this paper we draw on our experiences of researching a pan-African leadership development init... more In this paper we draw on our experiences of researching a pan-African leadership development initiative to explore the manner in which individuals are encouraged to use their learning to facilitate wider social change within their communities. We identify a number of levels at which the programme has an impact (self, family, work, community and society) and argue that it differs from more traditional interventions by the manner in which it encourages participants to reconsider and debate their sense of identity, to engage in collaborative action with those around them, and to facilitate a process of social construction that helps redefine community values and purpose. We conclude by proposing a theoretical model of how initiatives such as this can act as a catalyst for social change by offering a means by which participants and members of their communities can communicate and engage more effectively with one another in pursuit of a common purpose.

This paper reports the outcomes of a two-phase investigation into leadership development in SMEs ... more This paper reports the outcomes of a two-phase investigation into leadership development in SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) in the South West of England that aimed to devise an educational programme matched specifically to their needs.

6. Defi ned as learning broadly equivalent to the fi rst year of an undergraduate degree programm... more 6. Defi ned as learning broadly equivalent to the fi rst year of an undergraduate degree programme or above (National Qualifi cations Framework (NQF) Level 4 onwards) and covering a range of provision from non-accredited CPD through foundation degrees to postgraduate and professional qualifi cations (see King, 2007). 7. See BIS (2009) Higher Ambitions: the future of universities in a knowledge economy. London: Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. 8. Initially set at 40% of the workforce with a minimum Level 4 qualifi cation by 2020 (Leitch, 2006) but now revised to 50% of young people (aged 18 to 30) entering HE (DBIS, 2009).

Education + Training, 2009

In this paper the authors present their experiences and insights from an HE-led initiative to bui... more In this paper the authors present their experiences and insights from an HE-led initiative to build leadership capacity within the South West of England in order to the shed light onto the processes and mechanisms of regional capacity building. Methodology/approach The approach was one of participative action research, whereby the authors were actively involved in the shaping and delivery of the initiative, responding to ongoing feedback and reflection. The account given within this paper is an autoethnographic case study that identifies the main phases and lessons learnt from the initiative. Findings The paper identifies a number of discrete phases within the initiative, some of the challenges and how they were confronted and concludes with a set of ten principles that may help support regional capacity building initiatives for management and leadership. Originality/value Despite increasing emphasis on capacity building and a tendency to promote leadership as a lever for change, limited academic research has been conducted into either of these processes at a regional level. This paper seeks to contribute to both theory and practice in these areas by combining the insights of an academic and a practitioner involved in one such initiative and highlighting the underlying and emergent processes therewith.

Post-Pandemic Leadership, Mar 8, 2022

Systems leadership is heralded as a means for improving collaboration and alignment between those... more Systems leadership is heralded as a means for improving collaboration and alignment between those commissioning, providing and using public services. Despite the clamour, however, little attention has been paid to the challenges