Measuring the learning of university teachers following online staff development courses: a Spanish case study

Online education is used for a variety of purposes in higher education. Two such purposes are improving staff performance over time and allowing staff to obtain feedback about their professional skill development. Relying on data from online staff skill development courses delivered in five universities, this article explores online faculty learning through the lens of a model of professional development. This theoretical perspective offers an examination of how professional skills are understood and practiced in online staff development courses. At the core of this analysis is the contention that faculty participants understand and respond to the need for high‐quality teaching. Finally, this study highlights the points deemed important when designing, implementing and evaluating Internet training courses.     

Whose business is it anyway? Closing the gender gap in entrepreneurship in Sub-Saharan Africa

This article examines how gender may account for productivity gaps across enterprises. First, using data from six countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, the article demonstrates that the extent and significance of any productivity gap by gender depends critically on the criteria used to classify an enterprise. Using a definition of ‘female participation in ownership,’ there are few differences in average performance measures. However, a 12% productivity gap emerges when a tighter definition, based on decision-making control, is used. Second, the article examines which entrepreneurial characteristics (education, management skills, experience and the motivation for being an entrepreneur) are most associated with higher productivity. The findings reveal that there are some gender gaps in the prevalence of these characteristics, but that these do not account for the overall gender productivity gap. Rather, while women benefit as much as men from education and management skills, there are non-linear impacts by gender in the benefits of having a family background in entrepreneurship; sons rather than daughters benefit from having a father that was an entrepreneur or from joining a family enterprise.     

Introducing management models in service organisations in developed and developing countries

The aim of this paper is to examine the application of the European Foundation for Quality Management model for self-assessment as a means to introduce changes in management in services in higher education institutions (HEIs) in Spain and in Jordan. This paper uses the case study methodology on eight administrative services in a public university in Spain and seven university services in two Jordanian universities, a public and a private institution. The findings show the steps that an administrative service may follow in order to apply the questionnaire approach successfully in a reform process, the difficulties, the benefits and the success factors in both countries and the consequences of the changes introduced. The study provides lessons for decision makers and managers from other universities in developed and developing countries, who wish to introduce the practice of quality management by creative means. This paper extends knowledge on self-assessment (steps, difficulties, benefits, success factors and changes in management) to services in HEIs.     

Data Cleansing Decisions: Insights from Discrete-Event Simulations of Firm Resources and Data Quality

The cost of poor data quality has been measured in the billions of dollars annually. However, deriving coherent data cleansing strategies to improve data quality is challenging because it is often difficult to justify the financial and human capital cost involved in cleaning data. But those who have planned and designed an effective approach to cleaning data report significant benefits. Although extant literature has extensively focused on data quality issues, little attention has been directed toward providing decision-making techniques that help practitioners determine the cost and benefits of adopting data-cleansing approaches. This study advances an approach that illustrates how discrete-event simulation can be used as a decision tool for making data-cleansing decisions, by understanding the interactions among the firms' resources and performance outcomes. To our knowledge, this is one of the first studies to apply discrete-event simulation for evaluating data-cleansing approaches. The article contributes to an understanding of how various organizational resources interact within, and between, two data-cleansing approaches to drive performance outcomes. Simulation approaches such as the one examined here reveal how the complexity of interactions among such factors can produce results that are difficult to anticipate using other approaches.     

Green productivity and bilateral trade flows in an augmented gravity model – A panel data analysis

Motivated by the debate in the trade liberalization and the environment literature, this article examines the effect of enhancing green productivity (GP) on bilateral trade flows. The uptake of per capita ISO14001 certification counts is used to measure GP. The existing literature provides other key determinants of bilateral trade flows. This article employs an augmented gravity model and presents panel data analysis on 26 countries from 1995–2004. Since GP is closely related to quality management, this article also examines the joint effect of the measure of quality management systems (QMS) and the measure of GP. Several fixed effects regression equations are estimated. The results support the hypothesis that enhancing green productivity is a positive and statistically significant determinant of real bilateral exports. The joint significance of the measures of GP and QMS is also supported. This article lends empirical support for the new trade theory and Linder's hypothesis and is consistent with those obtained in the existing literature.     

试对营销策略在物流教育机构应用的研究

对于面临迅速发展、激烈竞争和严峻挑战的物流教育机构来说,营销策略将为物流教育机构的改革发展提供大量的沟通观念和方法。对提高教学质量和社会效益,强化学校与学生、学校与社会的关系有着重要的意义。本文结合中国国情,对营销观念和策略在中国物流教育机构实践中的启示进行了探讨。     

Trade openness,tax reform and tax revenue in developing countries

This article investigates empirically whether the effect of tax reform (involving the progressive replacement of trade tax revenue with domestic tax revenue) in developing countries' tax revenue performance (measured by tax revenue‐to‐GDP ratio) depends on the degree of trade openness of these countries. The analysis has used an unbalanced panel data set of 95 developing countries over the period 1981–2015 and the two‐system GMM approach. Results suggest that tax reform is positively and significantly associated with tax revenue performance in developing countries, with the magnitude of this positive effect increasing as countries experience a higher development level. Additionally, and more importantly, countries that further open up their economies to international trade enjoy a higher positive effect of tax reform on tax revenue than countries that experience a lower degree of trade openness. Therefore, these findings should help dissipate the concerns of policymakers in developing countries that greater openness to international trade would further erode their tax revenue, including by lowering their international trade tax revenue. In fact, the implementation of an appropriate tax reform in the context of greater trade openness would generate higher tax revenue, while concurrently allowing countries to reap the well‐known benefits of international trade.     

Trends in international business thought and literature: The Arabian gulf countries

The Arabian Gulf countries represent an important economic segment of the Arab world and a vital market for foreign investors and exporters. Yet, most observers agree that the past successful economic growth derived from oil revenues cannot continue unless the economies in the Arabian Gulf are diversified and privatized. This structural adjustment process poses many challenges but also opportunities for local and foreign managers. This article reviews selected business trends in the region. These trends concern government economic policies, environmental concerns, services marketing, and management education.     

How to Make Higher Education Institutions Innovative: An Application of Market Orientation Practices

In the present era, higher education is considered a booming and significantly contributing sector to the economy of many countries. Due to the intense competition prevailing in the higher education sector, higher education institutions need to become market oriented and innovate in courses, delivery methods and student support services. Consequently, they could meet increasing expectations placed on them for quality of education and support services. The main aim of this study is to investigate the influence of both market orientation and its dimensions, on innovation in higher education institutions. This study also considered the age of the faculty a moderator to these influences. The sample comprised 270 managers and course cordinators attached to faculties, schools or units in Sri Lankan higher education institutions. The surveys were administered for data collection. The study has several contributions to the literature- all the three dimensions of market orientation, significantly and positively influenced innovation in higher education institutions. The age of the faculty significantly moderated the influence of both market orientation and its dimensions (Intelligence Generation and Responsiveness), on innovation. This study also expand the focus of theory of six sigma by applying it from market orientation and customer orientation perspectives. Finally, this study has modified items measuring several constructs to suit the higher education context which can be used by future researchers. From the findings, several practical implications are given to officials in higher education institutions for innovating in courses, delivery methods and support services. The article concludes with many useful directions for future researchers.     

Home country uncertainty and the internationalization-performance relationship: Building an uncertainty management capability

We analyze the impact of home country uncertainty on the internationalization-performance relationship of emerging market firms. Building on organizational learning theory and the institutional approach, we argue that internationalization has a positive impact on the performance of emerging market firms, and that this relationship is strengthened for firms based in emerging countries with higher corruption and political risk. The reason is that by being exposed to high levels of home country uncertainty in the form of political risk and corruption, firms develop an uncertainty management capability at home that helps them face the challenges of internationalization better. We also propose that this uncertainty management capability helps emerging market firms perform better outside of their home region. We test our arguments on a sample of 536 firms from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Peru.     

高职院校开展音乐教育的思考

音乐教育是马克思关于人的全面发展教育的必要组成部分,更是提高高职学生综合素质的重要手段.了解国外对音乐教育重视的程度,可以看到我国高职音乐教育的不足,因此,有必要探讨我国高职院校开展音乐教育的途径.     

The value of an educated population for an individual's entrepreneurship success

Human capital obtained through education has been shown to be one of the strongest drivers of entrepreneurship performance. The entrepreneur's human capital, though, is only one of the input factors into the production process of her venture. In this paper we will analyze to what extent the education levels of other (potential) stakeholders affect the entrepreneur's performance. The education level of consumers may shape the demand function for an entrepreneur's output, whereas the education level of employees may affect the entrepreneur's productivity and thereby shape her supply function. Based on this, we hypothesize that the performance of an entrepreneur is not only affected positively by her own education level but also by the education level of the population. We find empirical support for this hypothesis using an eight year (1994–2001) panel of labor market participants in the EU-15 countries. An implication of our finding is that entrepreneurship and higher education policies should be considered in tandem with each other.     

Comparing the Administrative and Financial Autonomy of Higher Education Institutions in 7 EU Countries

The challenge of providing qualitatively competitive higher education to an ever increasing percentage of the population, despite the limited availability of public funds, has led many countries to grant broader administrative and financial autonomy to higher education institutions in an attempt to improve results by means of better incentives. Can a correlation be shown between this autonomy and scientific output? The preliminary evidence presented here (using OECD data for 7 Western European countries) provides some support for a positive answer to this question.     

Research into Quality Management and Social Responsibility

This article presents a systematic literature review on quality management and social responsibility (focusing on ethical and social issues). It uses the literature review to identify the parallels between quality management and social responsibility, the extent to which qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods are used, the countries that have contributed most to this area, and how the most common quality management practices facilitate social responsibility. The literature review covers articles about quality management and social responsibility (focusing on ethical and social categories) based on a computer search in three databases, namely ABI Inform, Emerald and Science Direct, and includes articles dealing with the subject that were found in the lists of references of the articles found in the primary search, as well as a search in six top management journals. The results show (1) the journals most likely to publish this type of article; (2) the range of qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods used; (3) the most productive countries in this field; (4) the parallels between quality management and social responsibility; and (5) how the most common quality management practices facilitate ethical behaviour and social aspects.     

Managing for competency with innovation change in higher education: Examining the pitfalls and pivots of digital transformation

Digital transformation recently converged on organizations as a new paradigm—a must-have exemplar—to enable competitive advantage. While the effects of digital transformation and their analytics, along with platform technologies, are becoming pronounced in companies, there is still a need to examine their implications on higher education. In light of the dynamics of digital transformation, how can higher education better manage the shift toward newer competencies and the need for innovation presented by the emergence of digital technologies? In this article, I examine the issues around the need for this balance—often defined in strategy as ambidexterity, or the need to address both competency with innovation—by outlining the historical trajectories that led to this problem in higher education, identifying three common pitfalls that higher education programs and administrators face, and tying these issues to higher education’s absorptive capacity. To resolve these pitfalls, this article builds upon absorptive capacity frameworks for education practitioners and strategies as a prospective change management tool.     

Regional Business Networks and the Diffusion of American Management and Organisational Models to Norway, 1945–65

The effort to diffuse American principles of management, organisation and production after the Second World War was a strong movement involving most West European countries, including small countries dominated by small companies. This article focuses on the outcome of this process by taking a regional perspective in a recipient country. The study is based on an examination of business networks in one small Norwegian region, M?re and Romsdal, between 1945 and 1965. The dominant form of industrial organisation in the region was characterised by flexible specialisation. Since many researchers have claimed that the diffusion of the mass production model was the core of Americanisation, it might be assumed that differences in industrial organisation would have acted as a counterforce within this diffusion process. This article, however, shows that in the case of the M?re and Romsdal region, the Americans showed a remarkable skill in adjusting to local circumstances. Instead of counteracting the dominant local industrial organisation, the diffusion process strengthened local traditions in developing networks between independent small companies.     

Considering Market-Based Instruments for Consumer Protection in Higher Education

Based on the economics of consumer protection and contributions from the economics of education, this article presents an analytical framework to deal with the problem of consumer protection in the higher education sector. It is demonstrated that there are not only governmental mechanisms (information provision, quality regulation) but also market-based mechanisms (seller signalling, private certification, private information intermediaries, student screening) to mitigate the informational asymmetry between buyers and sellers of educational services. This informational asymmetry, called students’ ex ante quality uncertainty, provides the central economic rationale for thinking about student protection, quality assurance and consumer information in the higher education marketplace. The basic argument of this paper is that governmental quality assurance is unnecessary in higher education if the market participants themselves, with the help of private third parties (i.e., certifiers and information intermediaries), are able to cope with market failure due to asymmetric information.     

我国成人高等教育教学评估体系构建中引入ISO9000标准的必要性和可行性分析

ISO9000标准体系科学地总结了世界各国对质量管理的基本规律．已成为国际上通用的质量管理标准体系。该标准体系在我国企业质量管理中发展迅速、研究甚多,但在我国教育质量管理中发展很慢,研究甚少。为了促进我国成人高等教育教学质量的快速提高,对我国成人高等教育教学评估体系构建中引入ISO9000标准的必要性和可行性进行了分析。     

The impact of the Belt and Road Initiative on the expansion of China's higher education in overseas markets along the route

Due to the differences in economic and social conditions among the Belt‐and‐Road (B&R) countries, resources exchange might bring significant effect on companies and organizations in these countries. In recent years, vigorously developing university education and attracting more outstanding international students have become important means for “B&R” countries to expand education market and enhance international influence. However, there is limited research discussing the impact of “B&R” on the internationalization of higher education. Taking the sponsoring country (China) of the “B&R” strategy as an example, this article explores the impact of this strategy on Chinese universities' expansion in the education market, and further analyzes the important relevant factors from the perspectives of international competitiveness. The findings show that the B&R Initiative has a significant impact on the expansion of Chinese universities in overseas markets along the route. Furthermore, we have found “push” factors related to China's macro and micro environments, and “pull” factors associated with countries along the B&R route.