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There has been almost no scholarly work on the challenges of money laundering in sovereign states that use the US dollar as their currency of choice. This study aims to break the silence by highlighting how money laundering thrives in these situations mainly due to lack of or weak regulation of the US dollar by both the adopting states and the USA.

The research depended on various secondary data sources. It is an adapted academic version of a shorter piece for a professional magazine for professionals in the Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Field.

Preliminary findings show that due to the lack of regulation of the US dollar in dollarized economies, unscrupulous politicians, organized criminal gangs and multinational corporations among others can use a variation of the Black Market Peso Exchange (BMPE) to counteract money laundering controls and launder ill-gotten gains from crimes such as corruption, transnational crimes and tax evasion. Furthermore, ordinary citizens, migrant workers and small businesses avoiding stringent exchange rates are also using the black market, posing a further challenge to the law enforcement authorities.

The practical implications of this paper relate to how the mutations of money laundering techniques, as they are adopted by criminals, to operate in different conditions are making it difficult not only to dictate but also to address using traditional AML techniques.

BMPE has far reaching social consequences. Hence, this study is significant to instigate a search for solutions and for further detailed studies into the money laundering techniques in countries that do not have a sovereign currency.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper to discuss the unique challenges faced by countries that have adopted the US dollar for domestic use. The paper also shows how dollarization is a modest reminder that money laundering technique such as the BMPE can evolve to counter the legislative and regulatory environment of the various jurisdictions in which they are laundered.

This study investigates whether corporate executives, who are university alumni, influence each other's firm corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance.

Drawing on social network theory, the authors hypothesise that a firm's CSR performance is positively associated with its peer firms' average CSR performance when the executives of the firm and its peer firms are university alumni. The study employs data from 1,685 listed firms and 4,906 executives who graduated from 585 different universities in China and runs multivariate regressions.

The results reveal a sizeable university peer influence on CSR performance. Such influence is even stronger for executives who graduated from elite universities (e.g. 985 or 211 universities), and universities or programmes that provide more opportunities for alumni reunions or networking (e.g. MBAs/EMBAs). Executives who are more influential in making firm decisions (e.g. CEOs/CFOs), as well as firms that are more likely to mimic the behaviour of others, also show higher degrees of university peer influence.

The results highlight the role of education in ethical decision-making.

This study documents evidence on a new determinant of firm CSR performance. The study sheds light on the impact of non-institutionalised personal ties, for example, university alumni networks, on CSR performance.

The concept of diaspora philanthropy contains the following two components: diasporas, who are individuals who live outside of their homelands but maintain a sense of identity with their home countries, and charitable giving provided by these diasporas to causes related to their hometowns. Often diaspora philanthropy happens through intermediary organizations such as hometown associations, internet-based philanthropic platforms and faith-based groups. Little research explores immigrant-owned small businesses as intermediary organizations for diaspora philanthropy. In the literature of social entrepreneurship, the theory of opportunity recognition provides insights on how do businesses identify opportunities for fulfilling social missions. However, it is uncertain whether this major theory can be applied to a specific context such as immigrant-owned small businesses. In this research, I aim to understand immigrant-owned small businesses' participation in social entrepreneurship through diaspora philanthropy, especially in responding to natural disasters. Specifically, three research questions were proposed: What role do small businesses play? What mechanisms do they use to partake in diaspora philanthropy? Moreover, what motivates them to participate?

This research uses an in-depth case study that focuses on a specific diaspora philanthropy behavior in responding to a natural disaster in the diaspora's hometown. The subject of this work is a small business owned by an immigrant in New York City, the US. To collect data on this case, the author utilized a mixed-methods design, which involves two types of qualitative data: document analysis and interview. Giving the purpose of this study, the author used thematic coding for both newspaper article data and interview data following a deductive approach.

The result shows that small businesses have an inherent advantage in building close interpersonal relationships with their customers and serve as the connector between their customers and larger philanthropic organizations. Because of their limitations on resources, small businesses collaborate with larger nonprofit organizations to do complicated philanthropic work for improved capacity. When diaspora philanthropy happens due to natural disasters in homelands, diasporas experience some level of guilt since they are not there with the people of their homeland in solidarity facing the difficulties. This guilt, which is related to cultural influences, is one of the motivations that make diasporas give to their homelands. The findings also show that the opportunity recognition theory fits well into explaining the altruistic behaviors of small businesses owned by immigrants.

A lot remains unknown about immigrant-owned small businesses, including their altruistic behaviors and participation in social entrepreneurship. This research expands the current knowledge on diaspora philanthropy by identifying the roles of small businesses, the mechanisms used by small businesses and the motivations of giving during natural disasters. This research also validates the opportunity recognition theory of social entrepreneurship in a specific context.

This chapter examines the lifestyles of upper-middle- and upper-class return migrant parents and youth living in Bangalore, a city in southwest India. It does so by addressing the following questions: What benefits do return migrant parents see in raising their children within their country of ethnic origin? What are the experiences of youth who grow up within their country of ethnic origin? I answer these questions by analysing 95 conversations with return migrant parents and their children, as well as alumni of Bangalore-based high schools. Building upon literature related to parenting, social class and racial-ethnic socialisation, I discuss parents' efforts to produce children who have the skills needed to succeed within the twenty-first-century global economy, and how the youth experience these child-rearing practices.

The first objective of this study is to review the mechanism of conducting extra-curricular activities (ECAs) in the open and distance learning (ODL) setting. To achieve this objective, the procedure of ECAs at the Virtual University of Pakistan has been studied. The second objective of this study is to find the impact of ECAs on student engagement.

This is a cross-sectional quantitative study. The questionnaire has been used to collect the data. The purposive sampling technique has been used, while this study's sample size is 970. An independent sample t-test has been used to find the difference between the groups.

This study shows a significant difference between the engagement levels of students who have been part of any ECA at university compared to the students who never participated in any ECA.

The results have been derived from the data gathered from one university only that might hinder the generalizability of the findings. The same study can be conducted in other ODL institutions to authenticate the findings.

This study will help in realizing the policymakers of ODL about the importance of ECCAs. This study has also discussed an existing system of conducting ECCAs in an ODL setting that can be generalized and implemented across all the ODL universities to enhance student engagement.

This study has highlighted the importance of ECAs in ODL institutions that have been neglected since forever. This study is novel because it has highlighted the importance of social interaction of students in ODL and its relation with student engagement that has not been highlighted by any study so far.

The purpose of this paper is to integrate branding and higher education literature to conceptualize, develop, and empirically examine a model of university social augmenters’ brand equity.

Drawing on an empirical survey of 401 undergraduate students enrolled in private universities in Egypt, this study model was tested using structural equation modeling.

The findings reveal that university social augmenters’ reputation, coach-to-student interactions, and student-to-student interactions influence students’ satisfaction with social augmenters. The results also suggest that students satisfied with university social augmenters are more likely to exhibit outcomes of brand equity – namely, brand identification, willingness to recommend, and willingness to incur an additional premium cost.

The results offer managerial implications for university administrators in their quest to enrich students’ university experiences and build strong sub-brands within the university setting. University social augmenters are found to have strong brand equity manifestations and may hold the potential to differentiate university brands in an industry dominated by experience and credence.

This research contributes to the extant literature by filling two gaps in university branding literature. First, previous research has never unified separate streams of literature related to augmented services and brand equity. Second, limited conceptual and empirical research on university branding in general and university social augmentation in particular has been conducted in emerging markets, which has resulted in conceptual ambiguity for the key factors constructing students’ university social experiences.

This study surveyed users and librarians who have been transforming libraries into a complex cultural space by reflecting the trends of the times, investigated and analyzed various status of complex cultural spaces, including perceptional differences among different groups and made an attempt to present a direction for the diversification of library's role.

This study analyzes the difference between the level of importance and the level of satisfaction for the operational style and use of complex cultural spaces, current status and use of programs and services of libraries as well as the perceptual difference between librarians and users. In order to do so, opinions were collected from librarians who operate complex cultural spaces and users who use the spaces.

First, the study compared to see if there is a difference between the preferred complex cultural space of libraries and the type of complex cultural space actually provided by libraries. Libraries do not only have data spaces but also made education space, performance space, exhibition space, rest space, community space and experience space available for users. Users were found to more frequently use exhibition space, performance space, rest space and education space among other spaces whereas the utilization rate of community space and experience space was identified to be significantly low. Second, this study also compared to see if there is a difference between users' preference for the type of programs operated by library's complex cultural spaces and the actual programs offered. The comparison of perceived differences between librarians who are the operators of the programs and users who participate in the programs is to compare and improve the consistency of supply and demand. As a result, it was found that the supply and demand for educational programs were most consistent, which would lead to higher participation rate and enhanced operational performance and satisfaction with libraries. Lastly, investigations were carried out to see whether there is a difference in the levels of importance and satisfaction for the operation of complex cultural spaces and perceptional difference between libraries and users. Comprehensively analyzing the results, in the first quadrant of “Keep the Good Work,” librarians showed a higher level of perception compared to users. In particular, librarians were found to have a different perception towards programs (contents) compared to users. Based on such results, a systematic program must be considered when planning for library programs in order to increase uses' satisfaction. In addition, in the second quadrant of “Concentrate Here,” with a high importance and low satisfaction, users showed a high level of importance for programs (contents) whereas libraries identified accessibility as a more important factor, indicating a big perceptional difference between users and librarians.

This study examines the differences between the opinions of operators who create complex cultural spaces and operate programs in the spaces and the opinions of users who participate in the spaces and programs, and it was found that no other studies in Korea and overseas have done the same yet. In addition, it carries a significant meaning in that it does not only investigate the perceptions towards importance and satisfaction, but also suggests improvement directions based on the perceptional differences between users and librarians. In other words, librarians who implement policies at actual sites seem to be able to reflect the results of this study and decide the operation direction of the library.

Users also participate in various services and programs that library's complex cultural spaces offer and enjoy their cultural life. It carries a significant meaning in that the study evaluates the importance-satisfaction of factors affecting the use of complex cultural spaces of libraries by examining perceptions of those users who actually have the experience of using library's complex cultural spaces when the number of libraries attempting to transform into a multicultural space increases. The study made an attempt to enrich the knowledge and understanding of users' visit/use of libraries, suggest improvement directions and factors to focus. Continuous efforts and additional studies must be made in order to vitalize library's complex cultural spaces and secure the position of a cultural facility as well as a communication space located at the heart of regional society.

Focusing on the adoption of Total Quality Management (TQM) principles in universities, this research paper explores how the “soft” dimensions of TQM trigger its “hard” dimensions considering them at the individual (micro-) and the university (meso-), and eventually at cluster (system-), levels.

Adopting a qualitative approach, this study presents an in-depth, longitudinal case study of University of Siena, one of the oldest Italian universities, that has been at the core of the research-based cluster on vaccines, today converged in the Tuscan Life Science Cluster. In particular, data were collected between 2018 and February 2022 and consists of archival data (press articles, websites, books), nine interviews to key informants, multiyear experience of the Life Sciences sector by two of the authors and other material put at disposal by university offices, and emails. Data analysis relied on a timeline, a coding procedure that considered three levels of analysis (individual, organization and cluster). Finally, the authors looked at the “how” and “why” the emerged themes have contributed to academic excellence.

This paper unveils how “soft” and “hard” sides of TQM are blended across multiple levels for reaching academic excellence. The grounded model emerged enlightens the importance of an individual “soft” dimension, academic passion (composed by its three subdimensions of individual research, teaching and entrepreneurial passion) and also sheds light on the organizational “soft” and “hard” sides that the university has been able to design for encouraging research, teaching and third mission quality. Academic excellence has been possible thanks to the capitalization of the individual and organizational “soft” sides into real outcomes as represented by the organizational and individual “hard” sides.

The paper suggests the importance of TQM principles applied at universities' level, providing an in-depth description of “soft” and “hard” sides dimensions of TQM and their impact on all the three pillars of academic excellence. The study findings suggest implications for managers and professionals in the higher education domain as well as for policymakers emphasizing the importance of supporting the individual and organizational soft sides of TQM. The authors provide practical implications recommending universities to consider not only the organizational dimensions but also individual ones when pursuing higher education excellence. In particular, individual passion plays a crucial role and universities need to identify ways of nurturing it. The authors also recommend policymakers to think about new ways to sustain universities as crucial actors in boosting a cluster development, as well as to consider higher education institutions, especially in more rural areas, as a privileged player not only capable of nurturing academic excellence but also able of creating an internationally renowned cluster.

TQM principles have been intensively analysed from an industrial perspective focusing on manufacturing and services, while this paper focuses on TQM in universities, presenting a grounded model that blends the individual and organizational “soft” and “hard” sides.

This paper aims to highlight contrasts between the writing of young people in the UAE and Japan. For comparison, anthologies of 50-word short stories written in English, resulting from the Extremely Short Story Competition (ESSC) in each country are examined. These two ESSC anthologies were created under similar conditions in 2006. Analysis of the most frequently-appearing topics in each ESSC anthology provides insights into the daily life, general mindsets, behavior, preferences, values and culture of these two groups. These data help us to understand the everyday life and social context of young people in the UAE and Japan. Thematic analysis shows that youth in both countries are often preoccupied with seeking identity, and regard friends to be important. Both groups of young people also appear to appreciate the beauty of nature and feel affection towards living creatures. An identifying characteristic of Emirati youth is that they talk about death more often than do the Japanese writers; in addition, the ESSC anthologies indicate UAE society is remarkably family-oriented, with life being firmly connected to Islam and God. In contrast, Japanese youth show they are keen to engage in various hobbies and also like to express their romantic feelings and thankfulness for their environment. The ESSC was originally designed to develop students’ creative writing in English. This study explains that corpora generated by the ESSC may be used to illuminate the lives and societies of students living in disparate countries, with implications for planning and delivering locally appropriate education.

The paper discusses a partnership between Huston–Tillotson University (HT), a Historically Black College and University (HBCU) and the Austin Independent School District (AISD), a minority-serving school district, both in Austin, Texas, with a grant provided by Apple Inc. (Apple). The purpose of the partnerships is that valuable relationships can increase the number of African American male teachers in primary and secondary education in minority-serving public schools. The African American Male Teacher Initiative (AAMTI) at HT was created as an innovative approach to recruit and select 20 African American males each year of a four-year grant provided by Apple.

This paper reviewed the literature on the lack and need for African American male public school teachers. Once the data is established during a three-to-four-year period, a mixed-method approach will be utilized to examine data retrieved from interviews, surveys, demographics of student participants, numerical data and retention and graduation rates. This will establish whether strategic partnerships can successfully increase the number of qualified African American males in public education.

This paper proposes and provides research evidence that African American male teachers can positively impact all students in the classroom setting.

There is limited data to test a hypothesis on the effectiveness of a partnership between the university and public school to increase the number of African American male teachers through recruitment – selection and retention efforts. Therefore, follow-up research is needed for the first graduating class of 2024.

The broader impact of this paper is to show that partnerships between universities and public schools with corporate sponsorship can positively increase the number of African American male teachers prepared to teach in public schools through strategic recruitment and selection efforts.

This paper can serve as a model for universities and school districts to implement. High placement of prepared Black male teachers in public schools can reduce the school-to-prison pipeline and juvenile homicides and defeat generational poverty.

Much research highlights the problems associated with a lack of African American male teachers. This paper includes the challenges but offers a sound basis for practical solutions.