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The document is a call for papers for a special issue of the Journal of Management Education focused on management education in Africa. The aim of the special issue is to nurture the development of management education in Africa by providing a forum for research and scholarship that is sensitive to the unique cultural, historical, and institutional context of African business schools and universities. The call invites submissions on various topics, including pedagogies in African contexts, curriculum puzzles, academic careers for African management educators, and entrepreneurship learning and education in Africa. The timeline for submissions and publication is also provided. [Extracted from the article]

This case study was undertaken in a London-based business school and explores the cross-cultural challenges faced by students who have relocated from India to the UK for one-year postgraduate (PG) business master's courses. Primary data were collected in two stages: semi-structured interviews, followed by a survey. The paper draws on the literature related to socio-cultural theory. It then reviews the findings of the research as to the cultural challenges the students have faced in the UK, whether in their studies, or their wider social lives. Finally, it integrates these findings into the extant literature and proposes a set of recommendations for consideration by the business school. Some of these may also have relevance for other Higher Education (HE) institutions working with Indian students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this essay, we argue that economic inequality is reproduced because business students uncritically accept the neoliberal myth of meritocracy. This myth advances values and beliefs suggesting that hard work and innate talent lead to equally accessible opportunities and corresponding rewards. These ideas are embedded in the narratives (e.g., stories, exercises, cases, or guest speakers) prevalent throughout the business school but remain “hidden” to students because they are implicit rather than surfaced. We explain that these narratives are attractive to students and, because they are implicit within the curriculum, they limit business students’ abilities to make the systemic changes needed to address economic inequality. In our call to action, we propose a set of tools—literary analysis, plural vocality, and historical learning—that can disrupt this attraction and enable students to critically engage with the myth of neoliberal meritocracy. It is our opinion that a more critical outlook will raise students’ awareness to economic inequality and encourage them to ameliorate this type of inequality as they move through their professional lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to provide information that can benefit Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), which operate in a highly competitive environment. Understanding students' perspectives regarding quality in higher education and areas of dissatisfaction can redirect an HEI's strategy to address these concerns. The present study seeks to clarify how students define quality. A business student survey was conducted to understand students' expectations, satisfaction, and dissatisfaction with their current educational environment. The analysis systematically explores students' dissatisfaction by categorizing qualitative data using a modified version of the seven dimensions of service quality introduced by Evans and Lindsay.The level of detail provided in this report will assist in developing effective processes to improve student satisfaction at the university. The results conclude that improvements in completeness of the educational experience, both classroom and administrative services along with improvements in accessibility and convenience for academics and services will have the most impact on student satisfaction. Completeness addresses the quality of learning materials and services and accessibility and convenience address the ease of access to these learning materials and services. This paper expands upon the definition of quality in higher education, focusing on student dissatisfaction. The classification of student feedback provides a unique perspective. The limitations of the study include the response rate, area of study, geographic area, and learning modality. Tests of validity were not applied to the seven dimensions of service quality due to the exploratory nature of this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Doctoral education in business schools is focused on a functional approach to research training. While this approach is necessary, it rarely encompasses reflexivity in qualitative research, despite its importance. This paper provides the groundwork for educators in business schools to reconsider the conventional approach to teaching qualitative methods. It draws on my personal and professional experience as a key resource to shape its examination of doctoral education in conducting qualitative research. The paper offers points of reflection on the struggle students may face in conducting rigorous qualitative research without appropriately understanding the influence of self with previous experience, preconceived ideas, feelings, and even appearance. By emphasizing reflexivity, this paper urges business schools to move away from functional training on research conventions to instead improve students' process of discovery by emphasizing interactive and transformational components of qualitative research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ongoing seismic events in global society have increased demands on organizations to change their focus on profit maximization alone to becoming a social enterprise that follows humanistic management (serving the common good) principles. Coincidentally, business schools are under pressure to teach humanistic management principles in their curriculum to enable the future work force to become agents of world benefit. Data analytics offers a means to introduce these principles to undergraduate business students. The analytics module described in this paper introduces undergraduates in an introductory Information Systems course to humanistic management. It discusses the use of humanistic management analytics (HMA), and describes an assignment to design, develop and use a HMA dashboard. Through video, lecture, case study and assignments, students learn the value of incorporating humanistic management principles to analytics and human resource functions that embody concepts of data analytics for social good. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to find an answer to the questions: To what extent is the implementation of responsible management education (RME) perceived to be adequate for developing responsible leadership skills among business school students? How should it be used effectively to guarantee such an outcome? Design/methodology/approach: The authors conducted semi-structured interviews with 24 management educators working at three public business schools. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the collected data. Findings: The findings show that the implementation of RME alone is not adequate to ensure the development of responsible leadership skills among students in business schools. However, management educators do perceive it as a considerable step towards that outcome if accompanied with internship and training opportunities to exercise and observe how social roles and activities are practiced in business, not-for-profit and civil society organisations. Originality/value: This study is a pioneering attempt to address the relationship between RME and developing responsible leadership skills among students in non-Western business schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effectiveness of a career management program embedded within a business module, with a specific focus on enhancing the employability of students. Design/methodology/approach: The study involved five one-hour workshops based on the DOTS model, covering aspects like resume writing and professional communication. Surveys, using a structured questionnaire and a Likert scale, measured participants' perceived employability. The pre-survey included demographic details, while the post-survey evaluated the effectiveness of the Career development learning workshop. Incentives and QR codes were employed to boost participation, and data were collected at the semester's start and end, with responses linked through students' phone numbers. Findings: The results confirmed a positive connection between the perceived effectiveness of skill programs and students' employability. Integration of career management into the curriculum cultivates a heightened professional mindset and boosts employability. Validation through a paired-samples t-test demonstrates a substantial increase in perceived employability after program participation, affirming the program's role in fostering psychosocial empowerment and elevating students' confidence in job seeking. Originality/value: This pioneering research integrates a career management program into a business module, addressing employability challenges in Industry 4.0. It provides empirical evidence of the program's positive impact on students' perceived employability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The roles and responsibilities of higher education in meeting the emerging skills and talent needs of the global workforce are changing rapidly. Employers are demanding highly skilled graduates who are continuous learners capable of meeting the shifting technological and business needs or organizations. Today academic diplomas and degrees are being substantiated, and in some cases, being replaced by micro credentials and digital badges. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of the scope, explosive growth, issues, and challenges of microlearning in business education. It discusses the eco-system of microcredentials and digital learning and offers an understanding of the impact of microlearning platforms on business schools. The American Association of Colleges and Schools of Business (AACSB) 2020 Guiding Principles and Standards for Business Accreditation is now encouraging schools and colleges to take a holistic view of student learning and to embrace micro-learning. This paper describes AACSBs embrace of micro-credentials as a valid pathway to educate and prepare business students to meet the demands of a global workforce. This paper makes an important contribution to business education as it integrates AACSB principles and priorities to digital badges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research paper experimentally examines the influence of corruption control (CC), lending interest rate (LIR), regulatory quality (RQ), government effectiveness (GE), and domestic credit to the private sector (DCPS) on the ease of doing business (EDB). To reach the expected objective, the investigation employs balanced data for all six countries of the Western Balkans, covering the period 2014-2020, employing regression analysis with fixed effects. The approach and parameter selection are guided by the insights from Nageri and Gunu (2020) as well as Belloumi and Alshehry (2021). The discoveries of the research provide evidence that CC, LIR, and RQ have a statistically significant negative influence, versus DCPS has resulted in a significant positive influence on the EDB. The originality and creativity of this investigation lay in the fact that it is a combination of economic and governing variables that are immediately reflected in the favorable environment for doing business. The discoveries of the investigation will be beneficial to the expansion of existing literature in the academic sphere and serve as avenues for proactive discussions among business managers, and students, as well as the policy-making structure concerning the possible implications that can be drawn based on the results of the research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to develop the "ethical student scale" to understand the underlying factors that lead to the decisions of cheating and plagiarism and where business students are developmentally from a moral perspective and to help academic institutions assess how best to develop ethical education throughout the curriculum. This three-dimensional nine-item scale based on Kohlberg's moral development model is proposed to serve as a valuable tool for educators who are struggling with identifying the best approach to help their students make ethical choices both within and outside of the walls of their educational institutions and once they join the workforce. Four survey design studies were conducted to determine what factors had previously been identified to both negatively and positively impact the propensity of a university student to engage in cheating and/or plagiarizing (Study 1, N = 179), to preliminarily validate the three dimension nine item scale that emerged from Study 1 (Study 2, N = 87); to test the construct validity of the three-dimensional nine-item scale (Study 3, N = 235); and to test the nine-item scale for convergent, divergent and predictive validity (Study 4, N = 201). The four surveys were administered to undergraduate students at two universities in the Northeast in the USA. To shed light on the underlying factors that lead to the decisions of cheating and plagiarism, the authors propose three factors that are engaged when students make these types of ethical decisions: rules and enforcement as an external control, personal morality as an internal control and social influences as a social control (Kohlberg, 1976). Through four studies, this paper presents a three-dimensional nine-item scale based on Kohlberg's moral development model to determine the factors that influence the propensity of a university student to engage in cheating and/or plagiarizing. The proposed scale showed strong reliability across the three dimensions. The limitations of the scale are that this research was restricted to an academic setting. The relationship between the academic environment, the resulting behaviors of students and the subsequent behavior of these students as managers also needs investigation to determine if business ethics education does have an impact on increasing ethical decision-making. The ethical student scale attempts to measure the development stage of students in a university setting and has the potential utility to help higher education institutions better understand the moral development of their students and what drives their decisions to engage in an ethical manner. Being a short yet reliable tool, ethical student scale may help business schools develop programs beyond a single business ethics course to instill ethical decision-making in students. One of the goals as business educators is to produce ethical managers. The ethical student scale can help us develop a more integrated approach to business ethics education. As the students become managers and leaders in organizations, the social implications for more ethical decision-makers and organizations are widespread and vital to the community and the economy. Ethical student scale is an attempt to quantify what types of controls (external, social, or personal) help develop ethical students and ethical managers. Based on Kohlberg's moral development model, this three-dimensional nine-item scale which shows strong reliability will serve as a valuable tool for educators who are struggling with identifying the best approach to the issue of unethical decisions and behaviors as they try to create strategies to help their students make ethical choices both within and outside of the walls of their educational institutions and once they join the workforce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on small businesses, significantly influencing entrepreneurial aspirations and presenting numerous challenges. This calls for additional research into perceptions, intentions, and the challenges faced in this context. This study aims to explore the comprehension of key entrepreneurial concepts among business students in the post-pandemic era. The paper presents an empirical study which employs qualitative in-depth interviews with 34 undergraduate business students from one public university in the Midwest of the United States. The findings reveal a complex view of entrepreneurship that extends beyond traditional business creation, encompassing elements of social innovation and personal fulfillment. Students displayed a generally positive attitude towards entrepreneurship, influenced strongly by their involvement in practical entrepreneurship-related activities and their familial backgrounds. However, they also identified significant barriers, including financial constraints, fear of failure, and a lack of practical experience, which hinder their intentions to pursue entrepreneurial ventures. The study underscores the importance of entrepreneurship education programs incorporating more comprehensive practical experiences, enhancing financial literacy, and providing psychological support to overcome these challenges. These insights contribute to the ongoing discussion on how to effectively support and prepare aspiring entrepreneurs in a changing educational landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the role of formative feedback in teaching academic writing for a large class of first-year business students. The paper contributes to our knowledge on how to design an effective formative feedback process for a class in excess of 300 students. Based on survey data from 2018 the paper addresses how the students respond to being taught academic writing in two different feedback modalities: face-to-face interaction and electronic annotations. Our findings indicate that there are no significant differences between the two modalities and that the students are relatively satisfied with the feedback they received. The majority of the students report that feedback has helped them accomplish their learning goals, they pay attention to feedback, and feedback motivates them in their studies. Even with these positive responses from the students, we question whether our approach is sustainable in the long run. Unless smarter and more efficient ways of providing personalised feedback are developed for large student groups, the transition to the new paradigm for feedback, where the emphasis is placed on dialogic interaction, will not be practicable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently, the analysis of rhetorical moves is extensively applied to business genre conventions. This paper adopts a corpus-assisted genre approach to compare three major rhetorical moves in corpora of students' and professionals' project proposal abstracts to elicit evidence-based recommendations for the pedagogy of business communication. The findings indicate that, while overall features in the proposal abstracts written by actual business professionals and those by students of business vary quantitatively but not qualitatively, students focus more on the aim of the project, and professionals tend to evenly highlight all sides of the project and position it within the context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much has been written about the benefits of mentoring for both the mentors and the mentees, as well as the organizations involved. There are a variety of mentoring relationships available to undergraduate business students – peer to peer, faculty to student, graduate student to undergraduate student, and alumni to student. This paper provides a synopsis of alumni to undergraduate student peer mentoring programs at the majority of the top-ranked business schools. Four key points of distinction among the programs are documented and discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Skills development for business students is increasingly becoming more important in business education and the workplace. In this paper, students' research skills are examined. The purpose of this paper is to identify some of the issues and challenges students face in developing research skills and how these can be addressed. Design/methodology/approach: The study combines external marker evaluation and content analysis to evaluate one hundred 2,000-word essays and identify issues and challenges associated with students' development of research skills. Findings: Results show that the essays rate well in collecting and using sources and summarising key topics but miss on integrating sources in writing and inconsistency in citations and referencing. Research limitations/implications: One of the paper's limitations is using a sample from a single course in a business school in Australia. Nonetheless, the sampled essays represent similar writing tasks elsewhere that require students to display research skills. Practical implications: Some implications for business and higher education are offered, including suggestions to address the issues and challenges raised in business education. For example, academics are encouraged to communicate clear expectations for writing tasks, provide support and show exemplars of business writing that incorporates practical research skills. Social implications: Business students who develop effective research skills contribute to society by developing skills in effectively searching and evaluating information. This ensures business graduates in industry workplaces reach considered conclusions before making recommendations that could impact people's lives. Originality/value: The study is original in its approach to investigating the nuances of research skills deficiencies by using external expert examination combined with content analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Students often choose to pursue a business major during their postsecondary education to increase their chances of securing employment after graduation. However, evidence suggests that many recent business degree graduates struggle with underemployment, highlighting the importance of examining how postsecondary institutions can better prepare students for the transition to work. In the current study, we investigated how including a personal strengths-driven intervention, the Reflected Best Self Exercise, in management curricula may help better prepare students for securing employment by increasing students' confidence in their ability to succeed in an employment interview (i.e., by enhancing interview self-efficacy). Using a pretest–posttest quasi-experimental design with a control group (N = 190 undergraduate students), we found that the Reflected Best Self Exercise increased students' interview self-efficacy and that this effect was moderated by pretest levels of general self-efficacy and career choice confidence. Moreover, we found that students with lower levels of general self-efficacy and career choice confidence experienced greater benefits from the Reflected Best Self Exercise. Our results contribute to the management education literature by demonstrating how strengths-based interventions with a reflection component can be leveraged to develop interview self-efficacy in business students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New business graduates often have difficulty finding suitable employment in a competitive job market. Students need direct instruction for communicating their self-competence to employers. This paper highlights a practical application of mock group interviewing (MGI) and instruction over five semesters exploring multiple practice rounds of behavior-based interviewing with 521 undergraduate business students at one 4-year public university. A culminating MGI event afforded students opportunities to practice their communication and soft skills with area business professionals (N = 126) as interviewers. Results show promise that MGI training may improve employers' perceived competence of students' hireability and be beneficial for students with diminished self-competence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to identify predictors that affect business student perceptions on ethical decision-making. This paper also investigates how those predictors impact the decision-making related to ethical matters among Vietnamese business students. Design/methodology/approach: A survey was conducted to collect data for testing the hypotheses. Questionnaires were administered to 500 Vietnamese business students from four public and private universities. The independent t-test was applied to the usable sample to analyze and derive relationships. Findings: The empirical results showed that idealism and relativism significantly predict the perception of ethical decision-making. Idealism and relativism were found to influence high ethical decision-making significantly. Originality/value: The study contributes to the literature on ethical decision-making in a transitional economy. New findings and insights from the research serve as a foundation for future research with ethics and decision-making topics. The results offer some insights to business schools in improving their ethical teaching courses and to businesses in their recruitment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature review is a key part of a dissertation, academic or journal paper, yet it is also one that often proves challenging. The multidisciplinary nature of business and management studies adds to the demands of writing a critical review by deciding which theories, subject areas and texts to interrogate. There are a number of approaches that students and academics might take in writing a literature review that require differing emphasis, resources and timeframe. The purpose of this paper is to review the literature and develop an understanding of the complexities and challenges faced by students and new researchers in preparing journal papers. We share our experience as faculty with teaching and writing at undergraduate and postgraduate level, and identify a number of the problems typically faced. Recent trends with regard to the proliferation of open access journals are outlined, and the perspective of a journal Editor addresses common mistakes that lead to poor submissions and reviews. A popular business school text is amongst the views considered. Several examples of different types of literature review are included to illustrate the breadth of choice. Specialist types of software for analysis associated with the complexities of systematic literature reviews are outlined. We close with guidelines for success and conclusions for each of four objectives. More research is encouraged as students now have fewer opportunities to develop the skills required for critical writing; yet these are the very skills in demand for consultancy and similar professions following graduation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Innovative digital technologies, together with new sustainable practices, push for new business models and skillsets, pressuring companies to adapt to external change in order to gain competitive advantage. Higher education institutions could offer support. More than 20% of university graduates in the European Union study "business, administration or law", with some of them being future top-level managers and entrepreneurs. This paper aims to provide an understanding of the factors shaping business students' perspectives and decisions in the modern business landscape. It reunites their career preferences, personality characteristics and knowledge regarding technology's utility for business and compares them between two cohorts (i.e., first year bachelor students and second year master students). The results of an online survey with a sample of 154 respondents show that business students' entrepreneurial intention is influenced by their entrepreneurial confidence, their boldness when considering risks, as well as by being further along their educational journey. While almost 80% of business students are daring, oriented toward results and confident in their entrepreneurial abilities, and around 50% would feel most comfortable having their own business, approximately half of first year bachelor students and 14% of second year master students tend to be "not sure" regarding how eight out of ten modern technologies mentioned in this paper (i.e., robotic process automation, big data, artificial intelligence, computer vision, industrial robots, internet of things, virtual reality, enterprise resource planning) could improve a company's innovation and performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to investigate the effects of four types of cyber entrepreneurship courses on entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE) and intention. It is based on Social Cognitive Theory and Regulatory Focus Theory, which takes Chinese college students as the research objects. Design/methodology/approach: Approximately 101 senior business school students who had participated in all cyber entrepreneurship courses were selected to complete the horizontal analysis. Approximately 317 students from different grades who had participated in different cyber entrepreneurship courses were selected for the multi-group analysis (MGA) for the longitudinal comparison. Findings: The results show that different cyber entrepreneurship courses may trigger Chinese students' positive or defensive mechanisms for cyber entrepreneurship and affect their ESE and intentions. The impact of cyber entrepreneurship theoretical courses on Chinese students' entrepreneurial intentions is not significant, and self-efficacy has no mediating effect between cyber entrepreneurial theory courses and intentions. Originality/value: This study helps teachers and policymakers to better understand the impacts of cyber entrepreneurship courses and to adopt proper teaching contents and methods for diversity goals. It also has reference value in theoretical and practical perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The study aimed to capture student experience during virtual internships by identifying the facilitators and barriers during their experiential learning journey. The students were pursuing their Master's in Business Administration (MBA) program at a business school in India. The authors shed light on the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the current education system, specifically experiential learning through virtual internships. Design/methodology/approach: About 38 Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted from July to September 2022 with the students of a business school located in Pune, India. Interviews were transcribed and analyzed to generate new themes for ascertaining the facilitators and barriers to virtual internships. Interpretative Phenomenology Analysis was undertaken to analyze the lived experiences of the respondents. Findings: Students viewed virtual internships positively in terms of mentor support, active learning, flexibility, and an easy onboarding process. Poor work-life balance, lack of peer learning and infrastructure issues were some of the barriers/challenges faced by the students. Practical implications: The study discusses various managerial and administrative implications. The findings help educationists design effective pedagogy by drawing insights from constructivist learning theory, where students' active role during virtual internships must be given primary attention. Corrective measures in the pedagogy can be taken while designing a virtual internship, considering the barriers found in this study. Originality/value: The themes identified in the study are a novel contribution to the growing body of knowledge on virtual experiential learning. The study empirically captures student experience regarding a relatively new phenomenon of virtual internships, which is the uniqueness of this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper will focus on test design and development with a particular emphasis on how to devise comprehensive tests for students who attend a course on English for business (BE) purposes, a course which is aimed at enhancing students' grammar, reading, vocabulary, and writing skills at B1 Level. In the introductory section, we are discussing the basic typology of tests as well as their purposes, with particular attention to assessing the skills of BE students. Special consideration will be given to the five phases used when devising a new BE test. Moreover, we will attempt to clarify several aspects concerning test-takers, i.e. BE students. The issues of grading and establishing optimal facility values of test items are also tackled. Some final recommendations on test design conclude our analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attracting prospective students could be difficult and expensive. Candidates, when choosing a future school for their studies, consider a great number of factors. Information from official university websites does not suffice to persuade. Word of mouth plays a significant role, among others. The aim of this paper is to present findings about important factors influencing the overall satisfaction of current students with university life as well as their willingness to share positive references. The study took place in the Czech Republic with students attending business schools at universities. Primary data was collected via an online questionnaire with students with bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate degrees (n = 274) and in-depth interviews (n = 10). Data was processed with regression analysis and Spearman’s correlation coefficient. The main findings suggest that there is a close positive correlation between students’ satisfaction and the willingness to recommend the university. The quality of student life and the reputation of the school were identified as the most important factors influencing this satisfaction and willingness to recommend. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research contributes to helping educational establishments across the world develop self-efficacy techniques to improve communication skills within an accounting course design and other disciplines. This paper asks the research question: Does self-efficacy enhances accounting students' communication ability? Previous research has identified the business community requiring accountants to display high levels of communication ability. However, despite many deliberate pedagogical interventions over the years, communication skills are lacking in graduating accounting students. This paper describes a new approach of deliberate self-efficacy interventions in one UK university's undergraduate accounting curriculum to improve accounting students' communication ability. In addition, a self-efficacy framework of Stone and Bailey [(2007). Team conflict self-efficacy and outcome expectancy of business students. Journal of Education for Business, 82(5), 258–266. https://doi.org/10.3200/JOEB.82.5.258-266.] is developed to model communication self-efficacy, outcome expectancy and behavioral intentions of the students. The data consists of the results of 131 first-year accounting students, and this paper contributes by helping to pinpoint two self-efficacy techniques to improving students' communication skills: 'personal mastery' and 'mentor support'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global business literacy is generally considered one of the key competencies important for functioning in today's interconnected global business world. Despite some studies investigating its determinants carried out worldwide, findings related to Central Europe are rather scarce. The aim of this paper is to identify the effects especially of stay abroad experiences, but also other related factors on cultivation of global business literacy of university students. For this purpose, a total of 255 business students from the Czech Republic and Slovakia filled out the online questionnaire. The results of correlation and regression analysis showed that the most important factor for cultivating global business literacy is the completion of a course related to international business, followed by the intensity of interactions with foreigners. The stay abroad experiences significantly positively affect only the self-efficacy dimension of global business literacy. Overall, it appears that global business literacy can be well developed also through internalization activities at home. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introductory undergraduate statistics courses widely focus on statistical concepts or software-based data analysis. Despite the fact that the analysis of real data has shown to enhance students' engagement, the step of data collection is often neglected. Once students know the challenges of data collection, they are more aware of potential imperfections, such as a lack of representativeness, during data analysis. In this paper, we present a course that closes the gap allowing Business and Economics students to conduct a full survey under realistic conditions including questionnaire design, sampling, and data analysis. It entangles theory and application by combining course-based research experiences with cooperative learning and a flipped classroom approach. Students do not only obtain competences in the field of statistics, they also gain experiences and self-confidence for future research projects because the lecturer acts as a mentor guiding the students throughout the project. Although statistics is usually an unpopular field for Business and Economics students, their motivation was high throughout the semester as they acted as researchers who analysed a specific research question. This is in agreement with student feedback, which highlights the promotion of research-related competences and self-efficacy within the course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although internships are increasingly important to business students as part of their education, Christian professors can often find it difficult to integrate a Christian perspective throughout the teaching and academic supervision of interns. This article presents a model that focuses the internship experience through a process of reflection on the concepts of vocation and calling. The article also includes descriptions of assignments used in an internship course taught at a Christian college, including practices for journal writing and a list of books and films that are used in the course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While research exists on what constitutes meaningful learning, our study reveals the term meaningful is an ill-defined concept that is interpreted in multiple ways, often from a teacher-centric perspective. Less is known about what constitutes meaningfulness in the context of higher education, particularly in business education. This qualitative study seeks to identify postgraduate student perspectives on what is meaningful in higher education to inform the design of authentic and transformative learning experiences. Focus groups were conducted to gain insights into students' most meaningful learning experiences across four postgraduate business subjects. We conducted a thematic analysis of the student data by inductively coding the transcripts and comments. Students derived the most value from learning experiences that incorporated real-world connections, social encounters, or productive challenges. We also found that students' discussions of meaningfulness were relatively superficial, suggesting that postgraduate students may not be primed to consider meaningfulness in relation to their learning. We thus problematise the term meaningful and conclude by proposing 'learning highs' as a new tentative conceptual frame for future research identifying learning situations in which meaningful experiences occur. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Living in an era based around business and the economy as the center-point for making a living, developing entrepreneurial aptitude (DEA) is necessary for the younger generations of entrepreneurs. This study aims to determine the DEA of the Accountancy, Business, and Management (ABM) students at Talisay City National High School. A descriptive research design was utilized in this study with a sample size of one hundred (100) respondents out of one hundred thirty-five (135) total population taken from four (4) sections of the ABM strand using a random sampling technique. The data collected were analyzed using a weighted mean and percentage. The research findings revealed an average weighted mean of three-point zero seven (3.07), which is interpreted as "Agree," implying that the students have learned and enhanced their entrepreneurial aptitude through business enterprise simulation (BES). The researchers concluded that the DEA of the students through BES has been learned through theoretical knowledge and hands-on learning modalities that simulate starting, running, and managing a business. The researchers concluded that students should partake in junior business managing events as much as possible. In contrast, the business simulation is closer to an expert level or real-life business managing program on a larger scale compared to the basic standard to enhance real-life-based experience being closer to founding an actual business. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this article is to examine and develop problem-posing case study teaching methods to promote business students' reflections on their premises around sustainability practices. Literature on transformative learning in sustainability informed our hypothesis that problem-posing instead of problem-solving case study teaching would yield greater incidences of students' premise reflections at the deepest level. For our quasi-experimental design, undergraduate students at a business school were presented with a teaching case of corporate sustainability then half were given problem-solving prompts for critical reflection while the other half were given problem-posing prompts. Resultant responses were classified to expose differences in the nature and levels of reflection between these two groups. This pedagogical research indicated that the problem-posing group reached deeper levels of reflections, though further research is needed to better understand this phenomenon. We advocate for the utility of a problem-posing approach in sustainability education. This study contributes a problem-posing protocol for business schools, curricula, and professors, as well as suggestions for further research for theoretical understanding of problem posing for transformative learning in sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aims to develop and test a conceptual model of business students' intention to establish a start-up business that involves attitude, perceived behavioral control (PBC), entrepreneurial competence, financial access, lecture service quality, curriculum program, extracurricular activity and institutional support simultaneously. Design/methodology/approach: An online survey was performed. The respondents were 196 business students in a private university in Indonesia. The data were analyzed using partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). Findings: Business students' intention to establish a start-up business was positively and significantly influenced by attitude and PBC. PBC was positively and significantly influenced by entrepreneurial competence and financial access. Attitude and entrepreneurial competence were positively and significantly influenced by curriculum program and extracurricular activity, but not influenced by lecture service quality and institutional support. Financial access was positively and significantly influenced by extracurricular activity and institutional support. Research limitations/implications: This research was conducted in a private university in Indonesia. Therefore, to test the stability of the research findings and the proposed conceptual model, it is necessary to conduct research in different contexts. Originality/value: Research on the intention to establish a start-up business that simultaneously considers attitude, PBC, entrepreneurial competence, financial access, lecture service quality, curriculum program, extracurricular activity and institutional support is still scarce in the literature. This study addressed the gap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through the guidance of social presence theory, this study sought to understand how instructors' affirming messages and social presence behaviors affect students' writing apprehension in online business communication courses. The data were consistent with two models, both of which indicate that instructor affirming messages indirectly affect students' writing apprehension in the business communication classroom. Both models also indicate that students' burnout mediates that indirect effect. The results show how important it is for instructors to take the time to leave affirming message feedback when teaching business communication online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Microsoft Excel skills are imperative in today's competitive market and the skill is highly demanded by businesses. The MOS Excel Expert Certification (MO-201) validates the competency that one should build to meet employers' expectations. The paper addresses the statistical mean rank difference in four skill groups of the certification test. Results of the four groups of the test were compared, using the Kruskal-Wallis's test. The null hypothesis of the equality of the means for different groups was rejected at the 5% level of significance. Because the null hypothesis was rejected, the Conover post hoc test was applied for multiple pairwise comparisons, to discern which of the sample pair combinations were significantly different. The paper examines some of the concepts of groups 2 and 3 questions where students struggled the most and rendered insights to overcome those hurdles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to theoretically answer the question: why might business schools in Egypt fail to develop responsible leaders? Design/methodology/approach: The author starts by discussing modernization theory (Lipset, 1959) – which highlights the idea that the more educated people there are in a given society/nation, the more calls for democracy, social citizenship and social justice will be launched – to address the strong association between the quality of business learning and the development of responsible leadership norms. Moving forward by focusing on the theory of education (Dewey, 1916) and institutional theory (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983), the author finds the main conditions needed to develop responsible leadership norms among business school students. Findings: The author identified the following three necessary conditions: implementing responsible management education, sustaining management learning and ensuring that a purposive hidden curriculum is well-planned in business schools. The author sees these as the main priorities for developing responsible leadership skills among business school students in Egypt and similar post revolution countries. Originality/value: This paper contributes by filling a gap in responsible leadership, public administration and higher education literature, in which conceptual studies on the role of business schools in post-revolution periods and conflict zones has been limited until now. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The objective of the paper is to assess the role of influencer marketing in effectively building and increasing brand competitiveness. Design/methodology/approach: The paper was written on the basis of an analysis of the literature of the subject and it presents the case of Baltic Natur Park based in Niechorze, which employed the tools of influencer marketing to build the company’s image and develop its brand on the market of tourist services in the coastal region, and which simultaneously managed to increase the competitiveness of its operations. Findings: The implementation of influencer marketing in Baltic Natur Park has significantly affected brand development by increasing the quality and quantity of the orders the brand fulfilled. The results achieved by Baltic Natur Park demonstrate explicitly a positive assessment of influencer marketing in brand promotion. Research limitations/implications: The analysis conducted further provides evidence that influencer marketing may constitute promotion not only of a brand itself, but also, when used in a broader scope, it may improve a region’s competitiveness. Practical implications: The study results are also a signal for all institutions and individuals, including managers, individuals managing a brand and a region, that the use of contemporary marketing tools for brand promotion, such as, inter alia influencer marketing, is an option worth considering. Originality/value: The article presents a case study and can be an example and inspiration for other companies when taking innovative actions to build a competitive brand on the market. In addition, it can be used by scientists, business practitioners and students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unethical behavior is a challenge for educators and the business community, especially given the availability of electronic technology. As a result, this longitudinal study was undertaken to extend previous research that empirically examined the cheating practices of undergraduate business students, our future business leaders, and in particular, if the COVID-19 pandemic has affected behavior. Findings suggest that several unethical behaviors increased at the onset of the pandemic. Fortunately, relative to the five-year trend, results suggest that behavior is improving with respect to the volume of unethical behavioral incidences. Finally, results demonstrate gender differences with respect to participation. Overall, findings imply that although progress has been made, continued student education in ethics should be promoted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does personal identity multiplicity—a self-perception with more elements—help an individual connect with others? I argue that identity multiplicity increases the likelihood of establishing professional network ties through two mechanisms: individuation, or the tendency of a potential network partner to view one as an individual as opposed to a representative of a category; and identity homophily, or the attraction and interaction opportunities that emerge as a function of shared identity elements with a potential partner. The benefits of identity multiplicity are particularly strong for promoting interracial ties as individuation reduces racial stereotyping. I find support for these ideas in an analysis of the creation of network ties of mid-career professionals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with the comparison of conceptual images of function among secondary school students. The main purpose is to compare the understanding of the concept of function between students of the business academy and secondary grammar schools with different specializations. The article defines the terms "concept image" and "concept definition", describes the methodology based on the evaluation of the questionnaire and the most important results of the analysis of the obtained data. As part of the analysis, the "concept image" of function of mathematics teachers and their students is also compared. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While previous studies on social entrepreneurial intention have evolved more from emotional and cognitive features, far less attention has been devoted to sociocultural factors, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Relying on planned behavior theory and entrepreneurial event model, this study investigates how the university's environment and support system affect the social entrepreneurial intention of university students, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data were collected from 530 business students from Bahrain, the Maldives, and Morocco via an online questionnaire and analyzed using partial least square (PLS-SEM) methodology. The findings show that empathy and self-efficacity, which are most responsive to the university's environment and support system, significantly impact social entrepreneurial intention. However, no evidence has been found on how gender diversity impacts the university's environment and support system to raise social entrepreneurial intention. Finally, this paper highlights the relevance of considering sociocultural factors, namely the university's environment and support system, for policymakers, especially those involved in higher education, to boost students' social entrepreneurial intention, particularly in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Businesses face a challenge recruiting and maintaining a high-quality salesforce. Increasingly, recruiting focus for entry-level sales positions has turned to university business students and sales centers. Unfortunately, research shows that most students have persistent negative misconceptions about professional sales careers and there is little research examining comprehensive and structured decision-making frameworks used by students when evaluating a sales career. This paper develops and tests an integrative framework that maps students' decision-making process to their intention to pursue a sales career. Specifically, we examine how perceived sales knowledge, perceptions of selling ethics, perceptions of salespeople, and perceptions of the selling profession impact their intent to pursue a sales career both pre- and post-exposure to sales professionals in the classroom. Utilizing structural equation modeling, we investigate the interactive relationships of these four areas (sales knowledge, selling ethics, salespeople, and the selling profession) on intent to pursue. Results show empirical evidence of how sales professionals affect the structural orientation of students' intent to pursue a sales career and constructs hypothesized to impact this intent after only one interaction. The findings offer an opportunity for how businesses may increase student interest in both sales and their organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some researchers interested in assessing moral reasoning among business practitioners or students have developed their own vignettes or scenarios set in business contexts, based on assumptions that the situations presented in the often-used Defining Issues Test (DIT) will somehow be inappropriate for these specific types of respondents. This paper is the first to examine in depth both the actual details contained in these business-oriented scenarios and empirical findings emerging from them. Among this paper's conclusions are: (1) assumptions underpinning the presumed superiority of business-oriented vignettes have yet to be tested; (2) the DIT possesses considerable advantages unavailable in alternative measures; (3) many business-oriented scenarios have underlying Dilemma themes that seem inherently ambiguous and thus of questionable relevance for assessing moral reasoning; (4) these scenarios have no obvious equivalent in the DIT and thus cannot definitively be placed under the umbrella of the latter's demonstrated construct validity; and (5) meaningful empirical findings have not clearly emerged from investigations using business-oriented vignettes. In light of these conclusions, we recommend that investigators interested in moral reasoning advance knowledge in a coherent and unified way by using the DIT that seems entirely appropriate for use among respondents with business experience or training. Although alternative measures may have value for assessing ethical judgments, evidence of their validity as a measure of moral reasoning is lacking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the perceived hardships of undergraduate students during severe snowstorms based on ethnicity and first-generation students. Using approximately 380 observations, we find that there is a difference between ethnicity and generation of student during the interruption of student classes related to snowstorms in the spring of 2018. The paper uses survey data at an AACSB accredited business school. The authors find that using a univariate and a multivariate there is a difference in the results. The empirical results were robust under all the models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many business schools began offering a data analytics course or infusing data analytics topics into their existing courses. Python programming language is an essential skill pertaining to data analytics. Python can process real-time, large, unstructured data as efficiently as traditional data. However, instructors must overcome the most significant hurdle business students often have: a lack of programming background. This paper documents the use of a short MOOC course to introduce students to Python for data analytics. A survey after course completion shows that students were more ready and motivated to learn more about Python language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many undergraduate business students in the United Kingdom (UK) find themselves during the initial stages of their degree programmes required to study numerical subjects which, for many, have not been encountered since completing compulsory education. This paper considers the utilisation of a technology-based approach in order to support first-year undergraduate students engage with and achieve in the business numeracy subject area. The purpose of this paper is providing background introduction to new pedagogy through the use of technology. Through a longitudinal study conducted within a modern university in the UK over a 11-year period (2006–2017), this paper qualifies the impact of a video-based learning (VBL) approach on the achievement profiles of first-year undergraduate students within a modern business school. Results indicate that the use of a VBL approach such as that adopted within this study supports not only improvement in the number of students gaining an overall pass, but also an overall improvement amongst higher achieving students within business numeracy. Findings also demonstrate those characteristics of a VBL approach that support continuation of student engagement with the subject matter throughout their studies. Whilst such findings offer a range of benefits to both students and educators in enhancing student achievement, these also serve to introduce a new learning model which will be explored in subsequent research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Entrepreneurial ventures are established in large numbers in China. The success rate of these entrepreneurial ventures is lower than that of new startups. Mismanagement and a lack of creative skills among entrepreneurs are cited as reasons for entrepreneurial failure in China. The current study investigates the impact of entrepreneurial networking and new venture intention on entrepreneurial success in China, with psychological capital and entrepreneurial optimism serving as moderators. 483 responses were collected from business students in China for data analysis. The findings of the study reveal that the impact of entrepreneurial networking and new venture intention on entrepreneurial success in China, with the moderating role of psychological capital and entrepreneurial optimism, is significant. The theoretical framework of this research has novelty as it introduces new moderating relationships of psychological capital and entrepreneurial optimism in the model of entrepreneurial success. Practically, this study has revealed that entrepreneurial success can be achieved with entrepreneurial networking, entrepreneurial optimism, psychological capital, and new venture intention. The directions of this research point out additional gaps in the literature that scholars should discuss in subsequent studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: As a kind of knowledge-intensive team coordinated across physical distance, it is necessary to construct a meta-knowledge driven transactive memory system (TMS) for the knowledge management of distributed agile team (DAT). This study aims to explore the comprehensive antecedents of TMS establishment in DATs and considers how TMS establishment is affected by herding behavior under the artificial intelligence (AI)-related knowledge work environment that emerges with technology penetration. Design/methodology/approach: The data derived from 177 students of 52 DATs in a well-known Chinese business school, which were divided into 26 traditional knowledge work groups and 26 AI-related task groups to conduct a random comparative experiment. The ordinary least squares method was used to analyze the conceptual model and ANOVA was used to examine the differences in herding behavior between the control groups (traditional knowledge work DATs) and treatment groups (DATs engaged in AI-related knowledge work). Findings: The results showed that knowledge diversity, professional knowledge, self-efficacy and social system use had significantly positive effects on the establishment of TMS. Interestingly, the authors also find that herding behavior may promote the process of establishing TMS of the new team, and this effect will be more significant when AI tasks are involved in team knowledge work. Originality/value: By exploring the comprehensive antecedents of the establishment of TMS, this study provided a theoretical basis for knowledge management of DATs, especially in AI knowledge work teams. From a practical perspective, when the DAT is involved in AI-related knowledge works, managers should appropriately guide the convergence of employees' behaviors and use the herding effects to accelerate the establishment of TMS, which will improve team knowledge sharing and innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]