In Secondary Education, students need innovative skills and competences that the current education system does not sufficiently offer. Also, educators need pedagogical support to develop teaching to respond to 21st century skills requirements. In order to achieve these goals, an experimental culture of learning needs to be implemented in practice. The aim of this paper is to introduce and pilot a pedagogy for teaching innovation, collaboration, and co-creation in secondary education. The proposed pedagogy is based on a designerly way of thinking, digital competences, and entrepreneurial spirit, together with an experimental culture of creating, making, and collaborating in order to improve students’ innovative, co-creative and collaborative way of thinking and making. The main finding is that the proposed pedagogy enhanced innovative, collaborative and co-creative student competences. Moreover, digital and entrepreneurial skills gave the ability to the students to create new valuable products and services.

The development of emotional intelligence skills offers sufficient leadership qualities for advancing the organization and for achieving its objectives. In particular, the emotionally intelligent leader–principal is able to inspire and facilitate a self-conscious and organizational culture by adopting the values of understanding, trust, prospect, achievement and effectiveness and combining emotions, beliefs, vision and values in a flexible manner. In order to inquire on the above, a data-gathering process was employed in the spring of 2011, with the use of anonymous questionnaires administered to 301 educators/teachers and 36 principals who work in primary schools in Athens. The data-gathering process included the application of a questionnaire that derived key insight into the identification of key emotional intelligent and leadership factors. The data analysis process has set off 14 significant statistical factors. Ten of them were related to the principal’s emotional intelligence and four referred to leadership. The research findings have offered key insights into profiling the school principal from a leadership and emotional intelligence standpoint. Hence, such information could be rather useful in the training and development of principals, as well as for further research that could investigate the correlation between emotional intelligence and effectiveness of primary school principals.

Purpose This research presents the characteristics of leadership (style adopted, sources of power exercised and factors affecting leadership) of high school principals in Greece. Design/methodology/approach 235 school principals were surveyed using questionnaires. These questionnaires assessed how often they adopted specific practices while managing their school, in relevance to their educational, managerial and administrative duties. Thus, the researchers were able to assess the leadership style of the principals (transactional or transformational) and the sources of power exercised (reward, punishment, expertise, example and information). Findings The majority of school principals in Greece prefer the transformational leadership style instead of the transactional one and they frequently exercise the power of information. There is a strong positive link between the transformational leadership style and the tendency to exercise the power of information. Furthermore, it is shown that the leadership skills grow with the educational/managerial work experience of a school principal. Research limitations/implications The researchers explored the notion of leadership within the context of a centralized educational system, where most critical decisions are taken by central educational administration (e.g. the Greek Ministry of Education). The findings reveal that being a transformational leader in this educational context is not due to the personal characteristics of the school manager (e.g. age, sex, studies). This fact provides insight on issues related to the recruitment/selection and training/development of school managers. Originality/value Taking into consideration the fact that there is currently a strong debate in Greece on whether school staff should be evaluated or not (and under what kind of criteria), these findings could be very useful to central education authorities as well as the whole educational community. Furthermore, they contribute towards a better understanding on school principals; what their personal characteristics are (education, work experience), what their leadership style is, how they manage their schools and what obstacles they face. Therefore, it is hoped that in the future, better processes could be followed on recruiting, evaluating and promoting managerial staff within school units.

Purpose -This paper aims to present research undertaken in the biggest factory in Greece (Aluminium of Greece SA), pertaining to the transfer of training on safety in the workplace.Design/methodology/approach -Several factors (thought to affect training transfer) were measured, in order to assess whether there were favourable conditions for training transfer to happen within the specific workplace. In total, 134 questionnaires were distributed to ''first line'' workers of the factory, of which 88 were returned completed and processed. Subsequently, five interviews were held with their supervisors; in that respect, triangulation of data was achieved.Findings -All factors examined here (e.g. trainee motivation, career goals, commitment, training design, working climate) were sufficiently developed within the specific workplace.Research limitations/implications -This research is a case study. It has some limitations, which include its time and cost constraints and the research was also based on a specific factory.Originality/value -There has been little research in Greece on training transfer. The present research is based on an industrial setting (factory) where health and safety issues are of paramount importance.

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/ authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -The purpose of the paper is to investigate the views of the employees of GM Hellas (the subsidiary of Opel car manufacturer in Greece), with regards to the training they receive from their employer. More specifically, the research seeks to examine two types of training aspects: those related to the principles of adult education and those related to the business goals of the company, such as the improvement on trainees' qualifications and skills, the need to upgrade trainees' job prospects, the provision of knowledge on recent technological developments.Design/methodology/approach -The research took place in 2012, the 4th consecutive year of recession in Greece (since the beginning of the 2008 debt crisis); it investigates a business sector which has been hit very hard due to falling consumer demand for cars. Therefore, the time and context of this research makes it almost unique in its field. The research followed a quantitative approach (questionnaires administered to a sample of 114 employees/trainees).Findings -The researchers concluded that the training provided by GM Hellas is viewed in a very positive light by its employees. Several training aspects considered important in adult education, as well as some business goals achieved through training, were all very favorably evaluated.Originality/value -In-company training is a key factor for business growth and competitiveness. This is the first research of business education in the automotive sector in Greece, which is very important in the Greek economy.