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Core entrepreneurial competence (CEC) is an important prerequisite for the success of college student entrepreneurs. Although there are plenty of studies on student entrepreneurs' competences, most of these have been conducted in Western developed countries. Thus, their findings may not be generalisable to other cultural contexts, such as Asian emerging economies such as China. The present study fills this gap by investigating the CECs of Chinese college students using a mix of the Delphi method and case studies. Two research questions are addressed: How do key stakeholder groups in China understand the CECs of college students? And what are the discrepancies between conceptualised CECs and the actual practices of Chinese student entrepreneurs? The findings suggest that the CECs of college students extracted from Chinese experts' opinions overlapped but were not completely consistent with the competence frameworks found in the literature. Such an inconsistency might be attributed to China's distinct sociocultural context and developmental stage. These conceptualised competences were also at odds with the real-life practices of student entrepreneurs. Three conflicts were identified: (1) innovation vs. transformation of ideas, (2) winning entrepreneurial competitions vs. starting/running an actual business and (3) establishing vs. sustaining teams. The findings suggest that the understanding of CECs should be enriched and sharpened to help entrepreneurs address real-life challenges.

The experiences of participants in disrupted study abroad (SA) programs have been largely overlooked in the literature, especially when it comes to experiences outside the norm. To fill this gap, this research explores the experience of an Australian university student taking part in an exchange program in Hong Kong (HK) during a turbulent period when HK was under sociopolitical tension, which was followed by the COVID-19 pandemic. We tracked the student's experiences over six months through five monthly reflective journals and a postprogram interview. The qualitative data were analysed using a narrative approach, and Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory (EST) framework was adopted to interpret the results. The student's narrative demonstrated a progressive story structure: although it was a special historical time when mobility to HK was undesirable, the participant counterintuitively perceived HK as an ideal location for his future career because of his SA experience. Framed by EST, the study discusses the individual's development in relation to a multilevel SA ecology (micro-, meso-, exo-, macro- and chronosystems) and the student's agentic responses at the individual level. The study offers policy and practical implications for multicultural education, particularly in the post-COVID era, when cross-border mobility has been facing unprecedented challenges.

Teacher perspectives have been lacking in the mobile-assisted language learning (MALL) literature. To fill this gap, this study investigates how Chinese teachers implemented WeChat-supported language tasks and the challenges they encountered in the process. Based on technology-mediated task-based language teaching and authentic assessment frameworks, we designed tasks that aimed to achieve both pedagogical goals (focusing on linguistic forms and achieving authenticity) and technological goals. Teachers' reflective journals revealed that implementing WeChat-supported tasks was a holistic and dynamic process, entailing four interrelated phases and requiring continuous management of unexpected events. This indicates that teachers should develop new skills and play complex, well-rounded roles to meet both the pedagogical and technological goals of technology-mediated tasks in MALL in the digital era.

In this study, the use of a popular mobile social networking platform (WeChat) is investigated for learning Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) in a beginners' course at an Australian university. Driven by practical considerations and major issues with previous literature, student engagement and authentic language used in a WeChat class group are investigated. Data was collected through weekly conversation episodes over a semester and from a student survey. Conversation episodes were analysed both quantitatively (by frequencies) and qualitatively (using a discourse approach). The study found that student engagement increased in frequency and complexity towards the end of the semester, and students used Chinese for various authentic purposes in the semi-formal context of class group chats. A microanalysis of transcripts illustrated how the use of Chinese in multilingual and multimodal practices achieved authentic social functions. However, individual differences were observed, and English was frequently used in chats. Recommendations are provided for scaffolding and for utilising different semiotic resources in dynamic group interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under pressure to establish world-class universities, higher education institutions are competing for high-level talent and developing increasingly strict performance assessment mechanisms, which may cause academic staff turnover and potential talent loss. This study focuses on academic staff turnover in the context of reforms to the Chinese academic personnel system, featured by the adoption of a tenure track system. By adopting an ecological perspective, this study discerned a systematic influence of personnel system reforms on academic staff turnover across multiple levels of the academic ecosystem, including the social/institutional, organisational, interpersonal, and individual dimensions. The findings unravel possible discourse misalignment at different levels of the academic ecosystem, deepening understanding of the controversies around university personnel reforms. The study contributes to the global literature on academic staff turnover in the context of competition among world-class universities and offer lessons for other countries undergoing similar transformations in their higher education systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Professional learning communities (PLCs) have long been regarded as effective for professional development; their operational processes, however, are largely unexplored in the literature. This paper examines the dynamic process of an online PLC by using an action research approach to explore the role of different collaborative learning methods. Data were collected using observations, field notes, interviews, video records, and various artefacts. Surveys were also used to examine the teachers’ competencies. The findings confirm the positive effects of online PLCs on teachers’ competencies and the formation of a learning culture. Moreover, each of the three collaborative learning approaches has distinct advantages for teachers at different stages of development. This result highlights that the forms of collaboration in online PLCs are subject to negotiation and change as the community develops; the potential of online PLCs should be continuously explored using process-oriented, context-sensitive methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]