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This study aims to validate a data collection tool's psychometric properties to explore whether business management research's relevance is a high-order construct made up of its perceived interest and perceived relevance. The authors conducted a confirmatory factor analysis to validate a two-factor scale. The sample was composed of 148 MBA students from a Peruvian business school. Results showed the appropriate levels of validity and reliability and confirmed the usefulness of this data set for exploring the relationship between perceived interest and relevance. Businesses and schools can replicate the validated tool for reviewing their curricula and teaching practices, exploring the gap between business and management research results and advancing managers' research literacy and evidence-based practice in business education and training.

Transnational routes such as direct-entry have become a more attractive option for Chinese students, due to the pandemic-imposed travel restrictions in China. The rise of Chinese direct-entry students can potentially lead to a significant increase in demand for academic and non-academic support not only after their arrival, but also before their departure from China. By applying Schlossberg's transition theory, this paper seeks to develop a good understanding of the academic and social belonging of Chinese direct-entry students in the UK through re-analysing the portraits (written narratives) of a previous research project. The findings indicate that these students were feeling disconnected from the academic and social communities. The factors affecting their sense of belonging are described using the 4S framework, namely self, strategies, situation and support. The paper ends with recommendations to key university stakeholders on how the partner institutions in China and the UK can help enhance a sense of academic and social belongingness of Chinese direct-entry students.

Businesses and other organizations across the globe are becoming more and more data-driven, using a combination of descriptive, diagnostic, predictive and prescriptive analytics to gain a strategic advantage through understanding the past, what we hope to happen in the future, and the ability to accurately predict future outcomes. These forms of analytics span from basic statistical summaries and data visualization to artificial intelligence models. Many organizations are now requiring new job applicants, new hires, and existing employees to be data literate. As such, it is becoming incumbent on teachers, students, and practitioners to possess some basic knowledge or experience in business analytics, at least within their educational and functional domains. Current best-practice in business school curriculum embeds some form of analytics across the curriculum. Unfortunately, many business colleges do not have the experience or resources to do so, hence teachers are unprepared to teach, and students are not prepared to enter the business world being data literate. While higher levels of analytics can be statistically intimidating, there are numerous applications of analytics that do not require statistics or higher-level models. This paper introduces one such technique practiced within marketing education and industry since 1995 and is called RFM. RFM has long been known in marketing curriculum and practice but has seen virtually no exposure in business schools outside of marketing major courses. This reflects an unintended consequence of teaching and learning within "functional" silos. It is hoped that teachers and students across the business curriculum, as well as workforce participants, can use this case to gain an appreciation of data literacy and analytics toward application within any functional area of business. The purpose of this paper is to avail those outside of marketing education and practice with an effective, easy to understand, easy to apply model, with no statistics involved. The goal is to facilitate increased data literacy and interest in understanding and/or applying analytics to other functional arear of business. RFM is not unique to this paper but is aimed at broadening teacher, student and workforce participant experience and knowledge of business analytics.

Over the past two decades, there has been an increased focus on designing STEM learning experiences for primary and second-level students. We posit that for teachers to design rich learning experiences for their students, they must first have the opportunity to develop their own STEM knowledge and competences, either during their pre-service teacher education or as part of their professional learning as in-service teachers. This systematic review of literature examines programmes which offer either pre-service or in-service teachers immersive learning experiences through placements in STEM roles in business or industry. A total of nine papers were identified in this review, featuring three unique programmes--one in the UK for pre-service teachers, and two in the USA involving in-service teachers. The findings indicate a variation in motivation and structures across the three programmes. The influence on teachers' personal and professional development, and their intentions to change their classroom practices or behaviours to incorporate more 'real-world' contexts into their STEM learning activities, inspired by their experiences in industry, is discussed. This study presents recommendations for the design and implementation of immersive learning placements in industry to support STEM teacher professional learning, as well as suggestions for further studies to examine the influence on their classroom practice.

Purpose: The negative cultural bias vis-à-vis international business and cross-cultural management has been duly acknowledged, necessitating recommendations towards investigating its positive effects. Methodologically, quantitative research clearly predominates, and there have been calls for alternative approaches. Thus, this conceptual paper addresses the research gap (methodological and thematic) by investigating if multicultural teams can be an essential part of the global workforce and whether positive effects exist regarding dynamic capabilities, learning and knowledge transfer. Design/methodology/approach: The underlying ethnographic research design enabled exploring within the embedded single case study from an emic perspective, including qualitative observation and semi-structured expert interviews, and provided detailed insights into the company's multicultural work environment. Findings: The results reveal that applying a qualitative design allowed the needed exploration and show that multicultural, geographically dispersed teams are positively experienced and considered necessary in today's globalised world. They are likely to increase in the future. Moreover, dynamic capabilities (multicultural competencies) are indispensable for multicultural teamwork. Regarding learning opportunities, different viewpoints for discussion and the ability to reflect on these offer valuable insights. In line with theory, multiculturality is considered a "two-edged sword", providing simultaneous benefits and challenges. Contrary to the theory, even highly important information transfers can occur virtually, although occasional physical contact is essential for trust building. Originality/value: The multinational family business offers a unique example of a positive relationship between multiculturalism and organisational excellence and demonstrates how the application of a qualitative methodology can support theory building by delivering a revised model of dynamic capabilities in multicultural environments with geographical dispersion.

Purpose: The emergence of internet-based business models has given rise to online higher education institutions (OHEIs) that offer their undergraduate and graduate degree programs exclusively online with minimal physical presence. Research on OHEIs discusses the need for external legitimacy and resource acquisition, often ignoring the role of quality among these institutions. Hence, this study aims to investigate the role of digital quality of education on OHEIs' survival. Design/methodology/approach: Guided by four different inter-disciplinary theories, a conceptual framework is offered based on a comprehensive literature review. Findings: The role of digital quality of education in improving the survival and strategic competitiveness of institutions in the US online higher education industry is highlighted. Research limitations/implications: This conceptual paper highlights how the digital quality of education becomes increasingly important over the life cycle of OHEIs. Practical implications: The proposed framework suggests that despite the competition provided by traditional and well-entrenched players, OHEIs can improve their survival and competitiveness if they invest strategically in the digital quality of education. Originality/value: This study offers an overarching conceptual framework developed through an integration of multiple theoretical perspectives and grounded in the US online higher education industry.

As the demand for business intelligence (BI) professionals continues to grow, educators need to calibrate their instruction to accommodate the demand of practitioners for specific technical skills while also providing college students with a broader foundation that includes a general understanding of BI concepts and problem-solving skills that are applicable across disciplines. This paper describes a pedagogical method called report-oriented learning which seeks to combine the established methods of problem-based learning and case-based learning. Report-oriented learning requires students to reflect on the knowledge gained during the conceptual parts of the course and use critical thinking and storytelling skills as they prepare and present several comprehensive reports in class. We applied the report-oriented method in a business intelligence course that consists of four instructional approaches: (1) section preview, (2) lectures and quizzes on basic concepts, (3) application of concepts and development of practical skills with hands-on projects, and (4) comprehensive reflection and inquiry in the form of reports. We surveyed students with anonymous questionnaires in the report-oriented BI courses from 2021-2023. The results indicate that the method was effective and perceived by students as having improved their critical thinking and practical skills related to the application of BI techniques and the professional presentation of their findings.

The adoption of enterprise-wide systems like Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems continues to grow globally. Due to the prevalence of CRM software in businesses and CRM's expected growth, Information Systems (IS) graduates will likely interact with a CRM system in their careers. However, learning enterprise systems like CRM is challenging for students due to the complexities surrounding integrating people and processes around a technology platform. This paper illustrates how an information systems course employs a CRM project using an experiential learning approach to help IS students develop functional and technical knowledge of CRM and discover creative ways to solve business problems using Salesforce. Project details, exercises, and lessons learned from previous project implementations are provided. Results of students' assessments indicate the hands-on Salesforce CRM project can lead to improved functional and technical learning outcomes.

Despite their growing importance, differential, process-oriented research on Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) for professional learning is scarce. This paper explores learner behavior in Enterprise MOOCs using lag sequential analysis. Data from 13 MOOCs on business and technology-related topics with a total of N = 72,668 active learners were examined. Starting from consistent high-level behavioral patterns, a deeper analysis reveals variations in interaction sequences according to the underlying course design approach. Lecture-oriented, system interaction-oriented, and discussion-oriented courses share a set of common patterns but also differ in various interaction sequences. Results point towards an isolated role of video playbacks across all course clusters, consumerist patterns in lecture-oriented courses, and a positive influence of metacognitively oriented interactions on learning outcomes. Accordingly, initial design recommendations include integrating interactive instructional elements in videos, promoting learner engagement in lecture-oriented courses, and fostering metacognition. Connecting interaction and achievement data may uncover promising behavior patterns that can be further supported by course design. Based on the initial findings, implications for future research and development are discussed.

Campus-community partnerships are integral to community-engaged learning, service-learning and similar pedagogies that extend project-based learning beyond the classroom into "real world" communities. Community-engaged courses have increased in prevalence in engineering education. Evidence suggests that they are effective at connecting engineering theory to practice, engaging students motivated to "make an impact," and preparing students for global and multicultural collaboration. In community-engaged courses, campus partners (students, faculty, staff) and community partners (individuals or organizations from non-academic communities) collaborate on an engineering project that, if successful, benefits community members and contributes to student learning. However, partner relations are not always a primary focus, and partnerships can flounder and fail resulting in limited or imbalanced outcomes, dissatisfaction among partners, or even harm. Building upon documented principles for community engagement and frameworks such as critical service-learning, this paper directs attention to the relationships between campus and community partners as a crucial yet under-studied aspect of engineering community-engaged learning. We interviewed 22 campus and community partners involved in engineering projects spanning seven engineering colleges and five continents. The findings are presented in the form of a Partnerships Compass with guiding questions for nurturing partnerships that are both impactful (in achieving partners' collective goals) and equitable (in attenuating power imbalances, unequal risks of harm, and outcome disparities between partners). Ultimately, the paper aims to provide a timely perspective and actionable tool for engineering instructors, students, and community partners who aim to jointly build enduringly equitable and impactful partnerships.

In higher education institutions, critical race theory (CRT) is known to be associated with fields that study racial disparities or systemic oppression such as law, education, and ethnic studies. The impression that CRT is unrelated to fields like business or computer science may have led scholars and practitioners from these disciplines to put their focus on elsewhere than on racial inequality and its implication in their research and practice, despite apparent need. To counter such fallacy, this review article--focusing primarily on the US context--discusses CRT literature in fields where its presence is less known which are nevertheless among the major domains of higher education institutions: health sciences, computer science and information technology, sports, business, and religion. By discussing example research of how scholars have utilized CRT in different fields to challenge the race-neutral thinking that often obscures structural racism, this paper exposes racism's ability to alter manifestations and to appear through various shapes and forms within the higher education context. Initial recommendations on how educators may engage in further discussions or actions will also be considered. This paper concludes that racist ideologies are often hidden behind discipline-specific vocabulary or technical language, and it is by tackling the ideologies at work underneath the technicalities can we address the chameleon-like nature of racism more effectively.

The Information Systems discipline has long suffered an identity crisis. It has also been prone to program sustainability issues as a technology focus has waxed and waned over the last 50 years. This paper suggests a new approach to teaching Information Systems, utilizing the notion of "fundamental and powerful concepts." Using digital disruption as a fundamental and powerful concept, the authors argue for the core IS course and the courses that make up the major to be developed and centered around the transformation of business models, products, and services caused by emerging digital technologies. The paper includes an outline for the core IS course and the other courses in the major and concludes with a suggestion that the fundamental and powerful concept of digital disruption be used as an approach to teaching Information Systems.

Current academic and industry discussions regarding systems development project approaches increasingly focus on agile development and/or DevOps, as these approaches are seen as more modern, streamlined, flexible, and, therefore, effective as compared to traditional plan-driven approaches. This extends to the current pedagogy for teaching systems analysis and design (SA&D). However, overemphasizing agile and DevOps neglects broader dimensions that are essential for planning and executing enterprise-level systems projects. Thus, a dilemma may arise: do we teach agile and DevOps techniques that may be inadequate for enterprise-level projects or do we teach the wider range of plan-driven skills and techniques that may conflict with the tenets and benefits of agile and DevOps? In this paper, we advocate for resolving this dilemma by adopting a generalized process framework that both fully supports enterprise-level projects but can also be selectively scaled back toward increased agility for smaller, less complex projects. In its full realization, this framework combines extensive project planning and up-front requirements with iterative delivery -- an increasingly popular approach today for enterprise projects. In scaling back toward agile, the framework carefully accounts for system, environment, and team characteristics. Further, the model emphasizes issues frequently underemphasized by agile approaches, including the use of external software such as commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS), Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), and open source products and components; the need for business-oriented project planning and justification; and support for change management to ensure successful system adoption. The framework thereby flexibly accommodates the full range of activities that software projects must support to be successful.

Although research on European education policy has aptly focused on the role of supranational and intergovernmental actors, less attention has been devoted to its analysis as a policy arena in which legitimacy can be created and power can be exerted in sophisticated ways. Specifically, the role of non-state actors as agenda-setters for European education and employment policies is still unexplored. By combining a neo-Gramscian approach of political economy with Jochim and May's boundary spanning policy regimes' perspective, which captures activity across policy subsystems that seek to manage 'wicked' policy problems, this paper looks at the role of private and business actors, and specifically the European Round Table of Industrialists (ERT), in European education during the 1980s and 1990s. The findings show how this period can be considered a foundational period for the emergence of a BSPR in education and employment, and in which specific goals and directions were set out in the European education agenda more fine-tuned with employment goals and industry's needs. Moreover, the paper illustrates why private and non-state actors shape boundary policy spanning regimes at the nexus of education and employment, which in this case reflected the economic interests and preferences of European transnational companies.

This paper focuses on a two-year program with a Norwegian public sector project-based construction company, where action learning groups and critical incident technique were combined to enhance organizational learning. Project-based organizations typically face difficulties of 'project amnesia', as they fail to integrate learning from experience into organizational memory. In drawing lessons from experience, employees often focus on solving short-term problems with individual projects rather than contributing to medium- and longer-term organizational learning. The program that is the focus of this paper engaged newly-appointed engineers in action learning groups and trained them to use critical incident technique to gather and analyze information about recent projects undertaken by the company. The groups reported back their findings to colleagues in the program and to managers and senior executives in the company. Originally designed as an alternative to the traditional induction training for new employees, the program generated useful practical learning across the whole organization about project success factors. This paper explains how action learning and critical incident technique combined in this program to enhance individual, team and organizational learning, and argues that the synergies between these three processes should be explored in other contexts.

The rapid development of technology in today's times make business' survival a rather complex task. It is therefore necessary for the specialized organization and administration of each company to differentiate and strengthen its competitive advantages. Gamification is an established practice in many business domains and can enforce employees to engage in business processes and change aspects of their behavior. Even though numerous gamification patterns that are described in literature have been used so far by businesses to various working environments, the outcomes were not the best possible that we would expect in terms of their right utilization to business non-game contexts. Thus, there is need for concise gamification patterns that can offer right guidance to game designers in business. Gamification design patterns can provide a distilled knowledge of techniques of how to design object-oriented software. This paper aims to address this gap in existing literature by describing new gamification design patterns, classifying them according to specific criteria and providing new information to this research domain. Our study is a descriptive literature review and is based on review of previous works. This descriptive literature review tries to give a better understanding by proposing new gamification design patterns in the continuously evolving research domain of gamification design patterns.

In the chemical industry, a new generation of decision-makers is emerging in the next 5 to 10 years with a higher affinity for the use of videos to find information and to connect with other individuals. Through the digital transformation, an "on-demand" culture has become usual. As individuals want to access information at any time, B2B companies need to transform to video-based infrastructures enabling them to build effective relationships through connecting their employees with the new decision-makers of the industry. The specialty chemicals business is characterized by a high level of innovations which is seen as an excellent source to create video content aiming to connect individuals and to change social communication patterns. The current academic literature indicates the advantages of using YouTube in B2B, but a specific framework describing how to embed YouTube in the customer journey to improve B2B social communication and to achieve better social connections between B2B individuals is missing. Using an adopted content analysis, this paper developed a framework for YouTube-based activities combining the four major elements, Content, Touchpoint, Usage and Stimulus, in an interrelated setup.

In today's economy of knowledge, knowledge is considered as the most important element in the processes related to products and services in most organizations including software development organizations (SDOs). It is essential for SDOs to create a work environment that supports continuous learning in order to deal with the challenges of the new economy and remain competitive in the market. This study aims to perceive how the work environment in SDOs supports continuous learning in multiple ways. The specific objectives are to understand and describe the characteristics of the SDOs' work environment which demonstrate the occurrence of continuous learning and to understand how developers apply the resources and structures available in this environment for their learning. Semi-structured interviews were used to collect data from the subjects involved in the software development process. Seven common characteristics were identified in all the participants' organizations, which are also typical in a work environment conducive to continuous learning: continuous learning as a responsibility and a competitive advantage; emphasis on innovation and competition; an open and error tolerant environment; supporting structures and resources; reward and recognition systems; leader support and peer support. Based on the result, this paper proposes a continuous learning model in software development environments. [This paper was translated by Maria-Clara M. Rego.]