Legally astute managers as a source of value in organizations

The legal and compliance departments in organizations have more influence than ever before. Why then are companies so vulnerable to legal liability? The problem may not be with talented legal professionals, but with the lack of legal knowledge held by MBAs and other business school graduates that make day-to-day decisions in modern organizations. Firms can close this knowledge gap and minimize legal liability by training their managers in legal astuteness—the ability of a manager to address legal issues successfully—by instilling four essential traits: respecting the rule of law, recognizing legal issues, resolving problems proactively, and reporting complex legal issues to experts. Job candidates should also be screened for traits of legal astuteness. A legally astute candidate, especially a graduate of a business school that requires legal education for all its students, can be a cultural ambassador for legal astuteness and a valuable liaison between legal and compliance departments and the candidate’s functional area. A legally ignorant candidate will require significant training and a frank assessment of the legal risk they bring to the organization. Modern firms in today’s legal environment face two choices: hire a legally astute manager now or deal with a compliance headache later.     

高等职业教育校企合作的现代学徒制人才培养模式

我国的高等职业教育是为社会培养人才重要的场所,应该坚持校企合作和工学结合的教育方针。但是在实际的实施中合作层次比较浅,缺乏一定的管理机制,合作方在各个方面表现得不够积极。因此,我们应该针对这些问题作出一些新的尝试和改变。要吸取校企合作中现代学徒制的成功经验,结合高等职业教育实际情况,找到校企合作的现代学徒制人才培养模式。     

Perceptions of the benefits of the A3 planner in facilitating project-based learning in accounting education

This paper evaluates ways of instilling project management skills into accounting-based learning by the use of an iterative A3 planner to plan, monitor and review assignment progress. The application of an A3 planner to facilitate a project-based learning (PBL) group assignment in undergraduate accounting education has been critically evaluated in terms of both the student and tutor experience. The study uses a mix of qualitative and quantitative data. Quantitative data assisting exploration of perceptions were collected through 100 undergraduate students. A series of focus group discussions were carried out to investigate students’ engagement and tutors’ teaching experiences regarding the adoption of the A3 planner. The results suggest that the A3 planner promotes active planning and effective management of a PBL group assignment. It makes students’ thought processes more visible thereby facilitating and enhancing the tutoring/mentoring process. Moreover a more interactive and transparent approach by doing assignment via the use of an iterative A3 planner has ensured more feedback points and action based efficiency in the doing approach for learners.     

Gender and Promotions: Evidence from Academic Economists in France*

The promotion system for French academic economists provides an interesting environment to examine the promotion gap between men and women. Promotions occur through national competitions for which we have information both on candidates and on those eligible to be candidates. Thus, we can examine the two stages of the process: application and success. Women are less likely to seek promotion, and this accounts for up to 76 percent of the promotion gap. Being a woman also reduces the probability of promotion conditional on applying, although the gender difference is not statistically significant. Our results highlight the importance of the decision to apply.     

Mobile learning adoption for tourism education in a developing country

Since developing countries are gradually introducing mobile-based tourism education, it is a growing demand to understand the students’ intention to adopt mobile learning. The study used partial least squares-based structural equation modelling to analyse survey data from 176 questionnaires at three tourism education institutes in Bangladesh. The study contributes to the theory of planned behaviour by examining the antecedent impact of innovativeness and moderating effect of self-efficacy. Results confirmed innovativeness as a significant antecedent on the attitude–intention relationship; however, the moderating effect of self-efficacy has not been supported. The study has marketing implications for tourism education institutes and government bodies.     

Gaps in tourism education and workforce needs: attracting and educating the right people

The intense development of the tourism industry requires a skilled and qualified workforce. It is important to attract the right candidates to the tourism education, and subsequently provide relevant education to prepare students for the industry after graduation. While work placements may be useful and important to some extent, they are not the ideal solution. Hence, alternative approaches such as simulations and flipped classrooms may be applied. To provide realistic expectations, a closer collaboration between industry operators and education providers is needed. Education providers should assume a more proactive role by inviting tourism operators and integrated them in the tourism education programmes as guest lecturers.     

What do professional forecasters actually predict?

This paper studies what professional forecasters predict. We use spectral analysis and state space modeling to decompose economic time series into trend, business cycle, and irregular components. We examine which components are captured by professional forecasters by regressing their forecasts on the estimated components extracted from both the spectral analysis and the state space model. For both decomposition methods, we find that, in the short run, the Survey of Professional Forecasters can predict almost all of the variation in the time series due to the trend and the business cycle, but that the forecasts contain little or no significant information about the variation in the irregular component.     

Income inequality and education revisited: persistence,endogeneity and heterogeneity

This article presents new results on the relationship between income inequality and education expansion – that is, increasing average years of schooling and reducing inequality of schooling. When dynamic panel estimation techniques are used to address issues of persistence and endogeneity, we find a large, positive, statistically significant and stable relationship between inequality of schooling and income inequality, especially in emerging and developing economies and among older-age cohorts. The relationship between income inequality and average years of schooling is positive, consistent with constant or increasing returns to additional years of schooling. While this positive relationship is small and not always statistically significant, we find a statistically significant negative relationship with years of schooling of younger cohorts. Statistical tests indicate that our dynamic estimators are consistent and that our identifying instruments are valid. Policy simulations suggest that education expansion will continue to be inequality reducing. This role will diminish as countries develop, but it could be enhanced through a stronger focus on reducing inequality in the quality of education.     

Higher education and stakeholders’ donations: successful civic crowdfunding in an Italian university

Can civic crowdfunding be used to improve the structures and services offered by public universities? Are stakeholders willing to make donations to such projects? This paper answers these questions by analysing a successful civic crowdfunding project in an Italian university. Stakeholders were found to be willing to engage in crowdfunding and make donations. The key to success is to ensure effective communication and to draw on feelings of belonging to the institution.