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The history of Nepal gives some insight into its current status as a diverse and multilingual nation with more than 123 languages. Multilingualism is part of the founding philosophy of the country but since it was unified in 1768, government attitudes to language and language education have fluctuated. Though historically education in Nepal has been delivered exclusively in the Nepali language and, more recently, in English, the Government of Nepal is now committed to introducing mother tongue-based, multilingual education (MLE).

Nepal has among the lowest literacy rates in the world (UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2015) and the government seeks to turn this trend around, particularly for students who do not speak Nepali as a mother tongue. The commitment to strengthening mother tongue-based MLE features prominently in the Constitution of Nepal (2015), the Act Relating to Compulsory and Free Education (2018) and the School Sector Development Plan (MOEST, 2018). This new constitution declares that “all the mother tongues spoken in Nepal shall be the national language” (2015 article 6).

Implementing these policy commitments in over 120 languages across seven provinces and 753 municipalities is the next challenge for the fledgling democracy. As a “wicked hard” policy area, doing so will require a solid understanding of local attitudes, beliefs, resources, and capacities. This chapter gives a unified review of the history, languages, ideologies, beliefs, and trends that currently influence MLE in Nepal and are likely to play a role into the future.

The purpose of this paper is to scrutinize university students’ affective experiences in academic contexts as well as the ways to integrate affection into existing models of motivation and learning. In particular, it probed 235 English as foreign language (EFL) students’ emotional exhaustion by investigating its role in their intrinsic motivation, effort regulation, and academic achievement. It also sought to examine the impact of intrinsic motivation on effort regulation and academic achievement as well as the effect of effort regulation on academic achievement among Iranian university students.

To do so, two distinctive questionnaires, namely; the “student version of Maslach Burnout Inventory” (Schaufeli et al., 2002) and the “Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire” (Pintrich and DeGroot, 1990) were administered to the participants. The data were analyzed via structural equation modeling (SEM).

The findings of the study yielded via SEM revealed that students’ emotional exhaustion negatively predicted students’ intrinsic motivation, effort regulation, and academic achievement. It was also found that intrinsic motivation significantly and positively predicted effort regulation and academic achievement. Finally, effort regulation was found to be a positive and significant predicator of university students’ academic achievement.

While a plethora of studies, thus far, strived to investigate the concept of burnout in different contexts, there is still a scant body of research attempting to delve into the most significant dimension of the syndrome (i.e. emotional exhaustion), and, to the best knowledge of the present researchers, no documented study to date has studied Iranian university EFL students’ emotional exhaustion, intrinsic motivation, and effort regulation within a single framework.

In Saudi Arabia, quality management receives a significant amount of attention in higher education. In medical education, specifically, Saudi colleges have been fully engaged with quality assurance and accreditation since 1992, under the supervision of the Saudi Council for Health Specialties. Along with the quality standards determined by accreditation agencies, the perspective of employers on the quality of learning and teaching needs to be acknowledged. The needs of medical employers can be translated into quality standards for medical education to help overcome the perceived deficiencies which lead to poorly equipped graduates. This chapter explores how employers conceptualize quality in medical education with an emphasis on learning and teaching and employers’ perspectives on the quality attributes of medical graduates. This chapter is based on interviews with 14 medical employers in Saudi Arabia. From the employers’ perspective, a high-quality medical education is marked by high quality educational systems, curricula, faculty members, and medical training. Additionally, medical graduates must attain a balance of soft skills, practical and clinical skills, and theoretical medical knowledge. Understanding employers’ perspectives on quality in medical education will complement our existing understanding of quality in medical education.

This paper aims to find out what characterises salespeople in the most effective salesforce in Spain.

An empirical analysis has been done with 108 field sales managers from different sectors of activity to determine the conditions of the salesperson's control, professionalism and behaviour that affect his/her performance and the effectiveness of companies. A structural equations model or second generation multivariate model was used – PLS.

The results show that more effective salesforces are controlled through behaviour control systems, salespersons in this team identify with the company's strategic objectives and an important part of their remuneration is based on a fixed salary.

First, the information has been gathered on a unique hierarchical level – team managers. Second, the company's activity sector and the type of salesperson can modify the results. Finally, the size of the sample has limited the potential application of specific statistical techniques and even the generalisation of the results.

Field sales managers must help to define the salespeople's tasks to reach the company's objectives in the most effective way. This situation implies, logically, that control is exerted over behaviour and to a lesser extent over the results achieved by the salesperson.

The paper determines those variables which allow companies, and especially those persons holding responsibility in the salesforce, to increase their effectiveness. The objective enriches the knowledge on sales effectiveness and also applies, in the Spanish case, a study methodology that has been applied in other countries.

The purpose of this article is to reassert the status of language as a topic of major interest to researchers in the light of the rise of the transnational corporation.

This article reviews recent literature and case study evidence in order to track an important shift taking place in the status of language management.

The emergence of the transnational corporation transforms the nature and significance of language from a minor issue into one that impacts on a company's core competencies.

The literature remains sparse and case studies limited in number. In depth investigation into the language management practices of transnational corporations is called for in order to test the hypotheses of this paper.

Language will generate greater interest as a research topic as the transnational model is implemented, and more sophisticated language management practices will emerge as a result, with the promise of delivering a competitive advantage.

The inter‐relationship between language management and the transnational model of global corporations has not been asserted in the literature up to this point.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the dimensions of preparedness for hospital practice among newly graduated medical officers in Malaysian hospitals who are undergoing their housemanship training; and to compare the level of preparedness among the different curricula and predict the dimensions of preparedness for hospital practice.

A national study was carried out and data collection was by means of self-administered questionnaire. Data obtained (n=1,213) were subjected to exploratory factor analysis using Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 18 in extracting the dimensions of preparedness for hospital practice.

Nine dimensions of hospital practice were identified which were access to information and IT skills, interpersonal skills, basic skills, and continuing professional development, holistic skills, coping skills, ethic and legal skills, patient management skills, scientific knowledge, and clinical skills. Overall, the respondents felt their medical schools prepared them for hospital practice. The strongest predictor for preparedness for hospital practice is coping skills. Holistic skill and preparedness for hospital practice was found to be negatively associated. Those who graduated from twining programmes between Malaysian and overseas universities were found to be better prepared for hospital practice.

An understanding on preparedness for hospital practice among newly graduated medical officers is a step forward in assuring patient safety and quality of care.

Although of significant importance, however, a study of this nature is rarely researched and the first for Malaysian houseman.

This study explores the nexus between institutions and managerialist employment relations and subsequent work-life balance (WLB) challenges for Nigerian employees. Through an exploratory approach, the paper investigates how institutions shape employment relations, which is characterised by systematic and normalised managerialist practices and lack of employee participation.

Relying on a qualitative, interpretive approach, this study explores the relationship between institutional pressures, managerialism and employment relations. 31 semi-structured interviews and nine focus group interviews data was used.

This paper found that institutions shape organisational practice, specifically employment relations and human resource management (HRM) practice generally through its normative tendency. The study also found that although managerialist employment relations leads to WLB challenges, Nigeria's unique context aggravates this situation constituting serious WLB challenges for workers.

Researches dealing with the relationship between managerialism, employment relations and WLB are largely underdeveloped and under-theorised. HRM phenomena such as unhappy workforce, stress, lack of flexibility, burnout, turnover and turnover intention, associated with management practice, have major implications for engagement procedures and HRM strategies. However, the sample size used potentially limits generalisation including its qualitative approach.

This study contributes to the dearth of researches focusing on employer–employee relationship quality as a precursor to WLB challenges and a mediator between managerialist employment relations and WLB challenges. Additionally, the study contributes to the burgeoning WLB discourse from developing countries perspective, which is understudied. It also sheds light on how Nigeria's unique context can bring new insights into the nascent WLB discourse and its associated HRM practices.

This paper sets out to disseminate new knowledge about workforce planning, a crucial health sector issue. The Health Select Committee criticised NHS England's failure to develop and apply effective workforce planning. The Workforce Review Team (WRT) commissioned the Institute for Employment Research, Warwick University, to undertake a “rapid review” of global literature to identify good practice. A workforce planning overview, its theoretical principles, good practice exemplars are provided before discussing their application to healthcare.

The literature review, undertaken September‐November 2007, determined the current workforce planning evidence within and outside health service provision and any consensus on successful workforce planning.

Much of the literature was descriptive and there was a lack of comparative or evaluative research‐based evidence to inform UK healthcare workforce planning. Workforce planning practices were similar in other countries.

There was no evidence to challenge current WRT approaches to NHS England workforce planning. There are a number of indications about how this might be extended and improved, given additional resources. The evidence‐base for workforce planning would be strengthened by robust and authoritative studies.

Systematic workforce planning is a key healthcare quality management element. This review highlights useful information that can be turned into knowledge by informed application to the NHS. Best practice in other sectors and other countries appears to warrant exploration.

This paper attempts to examine a number of issues regarding the returns on the Hang Seng Index Futures traded in Hong Kong. The daily returns are separated into close‐to‐close, close‐to‐open, and open‐to‐close periods and the three returns examined for autocorrelation, GARCH and seasonal effects. The study reveals that the CLCL returns are autocorrelated and that most of the returns exhibit GARCH effects. With regard to seasonal effects the results are mixed.

On 29 January 2001, Euronext LIFFE introduced single security futures contracts on a range of global companies. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact that the introduction of these futures contracts had on the behaviour of opening and closing UK equity returns.

The paper models the price discovery process using the Amihud and Mendelson partial adjustment model which can be estimated using a Kalman filter.

Empirical results show that during the pre‐futures period both opening and closing returns under‐react to new information. After the introduction of futures contracts opening returns over‐react. A rise in the partial adjustment coefficient also takes place for closing returns but this is not large enough to cause over‐reaction.

This is the first study to examine the impact of a single security futures contract on the speed of spot market price discovery.