The scaling-up of Neighbourhood Care: From experiment towards a transformative movement in healthcare

To meet present and future challenges in healthcare, radically new approaches are needed that contribute to transforming the healthcare system. In the Netherlands this transition was envisioned by the Transition Programme Long-term Care (2007–2010) as “a fundamental change towards a more human centred, affordable and socially embedded healthcare system”. One of the experiments in this programme was Neighbourhood Care (in Dutch “Buurtzorg”): small-scale, self-managed teams of nurses who provide high-quality homecare in neighbourhoods. This article looks at Buurtzorg from the perspective of transition studies, building on the framework of ‘deepening, broadening and scaling-up’ transition experiments. We analyse how Buurtzorg could rapidly develop from a local experiment to a network of more than 800 teams and also spread to different care domains and abroad. The rapid development of Buurtzorg is explained by identifying their strategic activities, the alignment of contextual factors and their strategic position as outsider towards the regime. We conclude that Buurtzorg has become a ‘symbol’ in a transformative movement that can contribute to a future transition in healthcare. This case study contributes to theoretical and practice-oriented knowledge on how a transition experiment in a social domain can surpass the experimental phase, identifying key strategic activities for niche-mainstreaming.     

Accounting education: a cooperative learning strategy

This paper reveiews the experiential learning and learning-styles literature and applies it to accounting instruction. The authors show that the majority of Sophomore accounting students display a learning style which is inconsistent with traditional teaching methods. An experiential teaching approach is presented which utilizes a cooperative learning environment. This method resulted in improved student performance.     

From collective learning to Silicon Valley replication: The limits to synergistic entrepreneurship in Sophia Antipolis

Taking Silicon Valley as a “Weberian ideal type” of high-tech development, one can derive 10 key characteristics which together can be used to measure to what extent other regions of the world have been able to duplicate this “hot spot” of economic transformation. Comparisons of such synergistic entrepreneurship are illustrated by the case of Sophia Antipolis in France, characterized by initial large company involvement, a utopian environmental design by Pierre Laffitte and the process of high-tech innovation among small and medium-sized companies, particularly in the telecommunication sector.     

Evolution of education: From weak signals to rich imaginaries of educational futures

This paper proposes that all aspects of educational futures are affected by the new thinking patterns and ways of knowing that have been emerging over the last hundred years as part of the parallel processes of evolution of human consciousness and major global societal change.Throughout the 20th century, significant developments can be mapped in most, if not all, of the major academic disciplines. Secondly, the move to transcend disciplinary specialisation, via inter-, multi-, and trans-disciplinary approaches is strengthening. Thirdly, at a higher order theoretical level, these developments are explicitly theorized in the discourses associated with postformal reasoning, integral theory and planetary consciousness. In spite of all these developments in other disciplines and knowledge fields, the institution of mass public education, with its underpinning industrial worldview, has been pretty static since its inception two hundred years ago. Finally, the paper identifies three minor, but significant, waves of evolutionary emergence in education over the last hundred years that if articulated and nurtured could strengthen the development of evolutionary pedagogies for the 21st century.     

The role of cognitive learning styles in accounting education: developing learning competencies

The potential for cognitive learning style (CLS) to develop students' learning competencies is limited by the variety of conceptualizations, constructs and instruments. This paper contrasts two models for operationalizing CLS: Furnham's [Furnham, A. (1995). The relationship between personality and intelligence to cognitive style and achievement. In D. H. Saklofske, M. Zeidner (Eds.), International handbook of personality and intelligence (pp. 397–413). New York: Plenum Press.] conceptualization of the roles of CLS, and Ramsden's [Ramsden, P. (1992). Learning to teach in higher education. London: Routledge.] contextual model of student learning. The origins of CLS, its fundamental dimensions, and methods of assessment are also reviewed. Five propositions suggesting ways accounting educators can make use of CLS and associated measures to help students ‘learn how to learn' are developed and recommendations for future research are offered.     

Digital game-based learning in accounting and business education

This article presents a review of the accounting and business literature on digital game-based learning (DGBL). The article classifies what is already settled in the literature about the theoretical foundations of DGBL’s effectiveness and its practical use into three categories. The first comprises what is known about the evaluation of digital games in the preparatory stage preceding its use in an educational setting. The second comprises what research has concluded to be appropriate for DGBL deployment. Finally, the review explores what types of learning outcomes can be attained through digital games and how their achievement has been evaluated. Furthermore, this article provides researchers interested in DGBL with a set of interesting questions that promise fruitful investigation. Answering these questions will help accounting educators to move forward in understanding digital games’ effectiveness and advance in the use of digital games in the classroom.     

Experiential learning in accounting education: A prison visit

Traditional pedagogic methods in accounting education have been the subject of some criticism with potential solutions referring to out of classroom experiences. This paper relies on the concepts of situated and experiential learning to assess the effects of a learning opportunity involving visits to prison by students enrolled in the final year of an accounting degree program. Data collected from a self-designed survey suggest that the students were intellectually and emotionally engaged in the experience emanating from the novelty and anticipation of entering closed walls and meeting inmates who were former professional accountants. Students appeared to learn a number of lessons including the nature of conflicts faced by professional accountants, factors contributing to fraudulent conduct, and strategies on how they might deal with such conflicts in their professional careers.     

Institutional changes in university accounting education in post-revolutionary China: From political orientation to internationalization

Since the formation of the Peoples’ Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, the broad field of accounting education in China has undergone many changes in the context of a dramatically changing sociopolitical environment. The institutional mechanisms in Chinese university accounting education are examined in this paper, principally through a re-reading of the historical experience since 1949. We utilize an institutional theory frame to examine how action in the regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive pillars have shaped accounting education from its heavily political orientation in the early years of the PRC to a more internationalized university accounting education system that has begun to take shape in contemporary China. We seek to contribute a contextualized understanding of contemporary China's accounting education, while adapting and extending the role of institutional theory in explaining education changes more broadly.     

Bridging knowing and learning: a suggestion for accounting education

This teaching note describes an exercise which appears to prompt students to reflect on their learning. The exercise is based on five pairs of words concerned with knowing and learning: (1) learn/study, (2) educate/train, (3) know/understand, (4) teach/tutor, and (5) student/pupil. The exercise may appear trivial, even frivolous, but when successful, it can compel students to reflect, often for the first time, on the meaning and purpose of their educational experience. Frequently, students make explicit previously unarticulated views and feelings about the process and content of their educational programmes.     

Accounting ethics education: Integrating reflective learning and virtue ethics

This paper explains the use of reflective learning techniques to create and deliver a new ethics course. Students apply virtue-based reasoning with reflective thinking to resolve conflicts faced by accounting professionals. Teaching techniques include class discussion, minute papers, reflection journals, role playing, and case analysis. Students express their thoughts orally and in written form, interact with other students, receive feedback during and after assignments, and demonstrate what they have learned. Reflective learning helps to transform existing ideas and understandings to come to a new understanding of a situation. As a tool for ethics education in accounting, reflective learning provides the link that may enhance ethical understanding and enable students to apply virtue and reflective thinking to a variety of situations discussed in accounting courses. For students, reflective learning slows down classroom activity giving them more time to process the material, linking it to prior ideas. Instructors benefit from frequent student feedback and greater involvement in the learning process.     

Student satisfaction and commitment towards a blended learning finance course: A new evidence from using the investment model

The present study uses an amended version of a well-known investment model to investigate the levels of satisfaction and commitment of finance students enrolled on a blended e-learning programme. First, it presents new empirical evidence for the validity of each construct and validates the proposed investment model. Second, it examines whether students’ grade point average (GPA) scores influence their levels of satisfaction and commitment the course. A random sample of 100 undergraduate students enrolled at King Khalid University in Saudi Arabia was surveyed using both qualitative and quantitative approaches. The proposed investment model was suitable for predicting the levels of student satisfaction and commitment in a blended learning environment, especially finance courses. However, the levels of satisfaction and commitment among students did not reach the proposed cut-off point for high commitment/satisfaction, which implied that levels of student satisfaction and commitment were only in the middle of the range. Specifically, the results showed a significant negative correlation between the level of satisfaction and GPA score, but a significant positive correlation between student commitment and GPA score. The study also highlights areas in which further research and analysis is recommended.     

Reducing the distance: financial services education in web-extended learning environments

It is estimated that financial services comprise around 15% of the global economy. From the supply side, one key to meeting this demand is being able to educate and certify the people who provide these services. With the advent of the internet and related technologies, the ability to deliver financial services education synchronously to both online and on-campus attendees has become a viable alternative to pure face-to-face or pure online asynchronous education. Nonetheless, one question remains: can virtual technology deliver comparable quality of financial services educational experience as face-to-face teaching? It is this question our paper addresses using the theory of transactional distance. The theory of transactional distance postulates that for optimal learning, the cognitive gap between instructor(s) and learner(s) needs to be minimized. We explore how transactional distance in financial services education varies by attendance modality (in-class, online and mixed) in a synchronous, web-extended classroom. The implications for managers and researchers are explored.     

Exploring the role of learning style research in accounting education policy

The purpose of this paper is to introduce and describe the Experiential Learning Model and the Learning Style instrument developed by Kolb [1976]. Further, it is postulated that learning style may be a useful concept in making the accounting education process more effective and efficient.As a preliminary test of the concept, the Learning Style Inventory (LSI) was administered to accounting student samples of N = 172 and N = 187, respectively. Six hypotheses were tested using data obtained from the instrument. It is concluded that the LSI shows promise for generation of information useful in helping students and instructors understand the differing cognitive processes in accounting learning.     

Measuring moral judgement and the implications of cooperative education and rule-based learning

The Defining Issues Test (DIT), developed by Rest (1986) , measures a person's level of moral development using hypothetical social dilemmas. Although the DIT is useful for measuring moral development in social settings, it might not adequately capture an individual's moral judgement abilities in solving work‐related problems ( Weber, 1990 ; Trevino, 1992 ; Welton et al., 1994 ). In the present study, the moral judgement levels of 97 accounting students were measured over a 1 year period using two separate test instruments, the DIT and a context‐specific instrument developed by Welton et al. (1994) . The test scores are significantly higher on the DIT than the Welton instrument (between the instruments and over time), suggesting that accounting students use higher levels of moral reasoning in resolving hypothetical social dilemmas and lower levels of moral reasoning in resolving context‐specific dilemmas. The difference in test scores was highest during cooperative education (work placement programme), implying that the environment is a significant determinant on students’ test scores.     

从CD到ATM

此CD非彼CD如果要问CD是什么,估计最多的答案是:光盘(ComputerDisk)。不过,本文的CD,指的却是我们很少提及的事物:CashDispenser———一台银行在早期为客户提供现金出纳服务的设备、ATM的雏形———中文名字叫“现金取款机”。     

从学习中来到工作中去——赴杭院参加小企业信贷业务培训体会

关于信贷,我是门外汉。从事县支行管理工作之后,耳闻目睹亲身经历了针对不同客户的信贷产品销售工作,全部的体会用一个字概括：“累”。累在大客户的不屑,累在上级行的严审,累在小企业无押品的无奈,累在信贷产品与地方经济无法对接的忧虑。我一直在思考,信贷的目的是什么？风险的关键点在哪里？县支行发展的路径如何走？面对大量千差万别的基层,高层在做怎样的考量？终于有了一次机会,省分行派县支行行长赴杭州金融研修学院参加小企业信贷业务培训。4月22日,带着问题,带着疑惑,带着渴求和希望,我登上了南下的列车。