Fostering Innovation and Leadership in the African Academy: A pathway for personal transformation College students and new lecturers in most sub-Saharan African countries face a great deal of challenges. These range from poor financial support to inadequate technology and resources. Despite these and other challenges, however, Fostering Innovation and Leadership in the African Academy suggests that students and educators alike can succeed in their research and academic endeavours, continue to remain fulfilled, and maximize their potential. Through this book, Dr. Obidimma Ezezika provides solid, tried and tested advice and presents ways for one to become a fulfilled and high-achieving academic within a system that poses many challenges and in which the odds for success are relatively slim. Most of the ideas in the book emerged from Dr. Ezezika's ten years of experience providing workshops and consulting engagements to students and educators in various universities and secondary schools in Africa and North America. This book will teach you practical tools that you can easily apply to your life to enhance your personal and professional development. Dr. Ezezika lays out a set of guidelines that, if followed, will support the aspiring scholar in navigating through various challenges. And, for many, these guidelines could make the difference between success and failure. There is rapid economic growth occurring in many African countries today. His hope is that this boom will also be felt among the school corridors. There is no shortage of bright minds in Africa, Dr. Ezezika argues, but quality education is the missing link. African academies have much to offer in terms of fostering innovation and building the next generation of leaders. This book seeks to show that it is what we do with what we already have that can really set the trajectory of our lives and academies.

The rapidly evolving nature of emerging technologies, and the transformative and disruptive tendencies offered by these are reshaping professional activities, operations and functions as well as value creation.

Is accounting as a first course going extinct? What motivates students choice of accounting as a career? How true is it that if you are not chartered, you are not an accountant? These are few of the questions that this book responds to. It is an orientation tool for intending students, students, lecturers/tutors, researchers, practitioners, policy makers, parents and the general public on the neglected story of accounting profession. It is written with the sole aim of enlightening its reader on who accountants are; career paths of accountants and their role in society; providing information to assist students in deciding a choice of career in the field of accounting. It places emphasis on the role-relevance of tertiary institutions in the development of accountants with robust acumen. This book opens up on the unsung story of the accounting profession, bringing to the fore the fact that the profession has emerged with three wings, that is practice, policy and research. As we continue to face an increasingly competitive market, the need to produce graduates with requisite knowledge and skill competence to fill vacancies in industries, which are faced with apparent economic circumstances are overwhelming. Howbeit, while it may be acceptable to find a meantime solution, a long term sustainable solution is better, which is to focus on breeding efficient, effective and productive accountants, who can sustain the objectives and goals of the going concern. Tertiary institutions must not underestimate the need to concentrate energy on creating awareness, arming graduates with necessary knowledge and skills on elements of accounting profession, which is a better way out to solve the problem rather than the fire brigade approach to salvage the situation. As the industry look up to institutions to step up the game, we must wow them by producing graduate accountants who will not only be able to practice, but also can in their circumference engage with policy issues and research in the work place environment for increased and sustainable productivity.

This book thus explores the role of African epistemologies in addressing the myriad challenges posed by the inclusive education system in Africa and other contexts. In recent years, the shift from special education to inclusive education has had a significant impact on the provision of education and the education system as a whole in Africa. The impact has been felt in all institutions of learning from low to high, public and private, government, and across departments of education. Inclusive education, if shaped correctly by using African epistemologies, would empower learners to attain the relevant skills, knowledge, values, and attitudes for their own intellectual growth and personal development.

There is an ongoing transition in the research enterprise towards Open Science (OS), increasing transparency in researchers’ collaboration, knowledge exchange, and how science is organized. The Open Access (OA) movement can be seen as a case study of the challenges that this transition can present. For example, despite all the advantages of OA and the fact that the concept is exceptionally strong as a principle, it is yet to be implemented across all institutions, particularly in Africa. Even though research productivity from the African continent has increased over the last two decades, the global north still dominates the scholarly communication and publication sphere. High article processing charges (APCs) can make it difficult for some African researchers to publish in highly rated- and respected academic journals, which are critical to their career advancement. Fee waivers and discounts are available but eligibility and percentages vary by publisher and predatory publishing presents a challenge to African researchers. In addition, the exclusion of many African publication sources from the major bibliographic databases such as Scopus and the Web of Science skews and limits bibliometric analysis and influences the outcomes of world university rankings. This Research Topic aims to investigate the transition to OS in the African continent. This will include researchers' and other stakeholders’ (support services, policy makers) concerns regarding OS as well as the advantages it offers them. Moreover, the role of new technologies is also of interest in the implementation of OA as it is the knowledge divide between different countries and regions. It is also crucial to address what needs to change in the research enterprise to make OS a worthwhile venture/practice for most researchers and research role-players and how they can cope with the contradictory challenges.

Analysing the trends that are emerging in sport enterprises such as advancements in technology and social media, the authors of this illuminating book tackle the issue of how to create new opportunities in such a changing industry. Providing valuable reading for sports business scholars, this book draws on examples from inventive companies as well as inspirational sports leaders and illustrates the various drivers behind innovation. Addressing the need for a culture of innovation within sports enterprises, the authors reveal sustainable ways for companies to stay ahead of the game in an increasingly competitive global sport market.

The world needs great individual educational changemakers capable of identifying problems and creating bold, scalable solutions. But the world also needs Dream Teams —groups of talented administrators, teachers, staff, students, and community members who are passionate about making things better for kids, believe that school-based change is the means to this end, and are willing to roll up their sleeves and work together to achieve it. This book is for Dream Teams in the making. In it, rising global education leaders Aaron Tait and Dave Faulkner share the models and methods of 10 brilliant leadership teams at urban, suburban, and rural schools in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Informed by these successes, the authors provide specific, sometimes audacious advice for navigating what they call the Change Leader Journey: how to move from Dream Team assembly and problem analysis all the way through to solution generation, piloting, promotion, and evaluation. Innovative educators come in all forms, and they require lots of options. Here, you'll find a collection of practical ideas and tools designed to fuel transformational leadership without sacrificing instructional excellence or anyone's sanity. Whether your team is a group of fearless rebels, more cautious types, or somewhere in between, Tait and Faulkner's flexible approach can help you figure out where you want your school to go, build a more collaborative and creative culture, and generate the solutions that best serve your students.