Search results

This chapter discusses the main challenges in higher education comparative research, focusing on cross-national forms of comparison and presenting examples from European research. The first part stresses the importance of constructing concepts which can travel across countries. This part identifies the different vertical levels of comparison involved in higher education cross-national research, discussing how the need for exploring general patterns in higher education (e.g. globalisation and Europeanisation) is confronted with the importance of taking into account the diversity within the particular cases (e.g. institutional and individual experiences). The second part focuses on the equivalence of meaning in large-N (in particular, the Eurostudent and REFLEX datasets) and small-N studies, identifying the respective limits of the two forms of comparison. The chapter contends that comparative research in higher education could benefit from more collaboration between small-N qualitative comparativists and experts of large-N studies used in European policy-making.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the case where – by design – one needs to impute cross-country cross-survey (CCCS) data (situation typical for example among multinational firms who are confronted with the need to carry out comparative marketing surveys with respondents located in several countries). Importantly, while some work demonstrates approaches for single-item direct measures, no prior research has examined the common situation in international marketing where the researcher needs to use multi-item scales of latent constructs. The paper presents problem areas related to the choices international marketers have to make when doing cross-country/cross-survey research and provides guidance for future research.

Multi-country sample of real data is used as an example of cross-sample imputation (292 New Zealand exporters and 302 Finnish ones) the international entrepreneurial orientation (IEO) data. Three variations of the input data are tested: first, imputation based on all the data available for the measurement model; second, imputation based on the set of items based on the invariance structure of the joint items shared across the two groups; and third, imputation based both on examination of the invariance structures of the joint items and the performance of the measurement model in the group where the full data was originally available.

Based on distribution comparisons imputation for New Zealand after completing the measurement model with Finnish data (Model C) gave the most promising results. Consequently, using knowledge on between country measurement qualities may improve the imputation results, but this benefit comes with a downside since it simultaneously reduces the amount of data used for imputation. None of the imputation models leads to the same statistical inferences about covariances between latent constructs than as the original full data, however.

Considering multiple imputation, the present exploratory study suggests that there are several concerns and issues that should be taken into account when planning CCCSs (or split questionnaire or sub-sampling designs). Even if there are several advantages available for well-implemented CCCS designs such as shorter questionnaires and improved response rates, these concerns lead us to question the appropriateness of the CCCS approach in general, due to the need to impute across the samples.

The combination of cross-country and cross-survey approaches is novel to international marketing, and it is not known how the different procedures utilized in imputation affect the results and their validity and reliability. The authors demonstrate the consequences of the various imputation strategy choices taken by using a real example of a two-country sample. The exploration may have significant implications to international marketing researchers and the paper offers stimulus for further research in the area.

Intangibility plays a critical role in the field of services and brings great managerial problems to services firms, particularly for cross‐national firms that operate in unfamiliar host markets. This study attempts to explore how to raise the tangibility of services in foreign markets by marketing‐based activities, rather than the conventional perspective based on operational activities.

Based on the literature, this study builds a six‐element model to circumscribe and define the managerial problems caused by intangibility. Moreover, this study proposes six strategies to raise consumers’ sense of tangibility toward services, namely: quantitation, ranking, factualization, substantialization, word‐of‐mouth effect, and information frequency. Following that, this study samples US‐, Japan‐, and Europe‐owned firms operating in China and Taiwan to examine the proposed model.

The results indicate that the six strategies can improve the tangibility of services sufficiently, especially quantitation, ranking, and substantialization. This study also builds a three‐construct, nine‐item services tangibility scale to measure consumers’ perceptions of tangibility toward a particular service. Statistical evidence confirms the reliability, discriminant, and convergent validity of the scale.

This study not only conducts an academic model construction on the service tangibility issue, but also provides a new insight on the services practices cross‐nationally. This study constructs the model by reviewing the literature primarily, while seeming to neglect opinions from the practical world. Future studies could solidify the model by involving more practical viewpoints with deep expert interviews and observations.

Whereas group work has been much discussed throughout the 1980s and 1990s, there are few statistical studies about its incidence. The available surveys have adopted a variety of methodological approaches. This paper discusses these studies to investigate two questions: Are there differences in the incidence of group work in different countries? Is its popularity indeed increasing?

The main aim of this chapter is to argue that a sound conceptualization and methodology for measuring the quality of education is a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for establishing a link between research and policy to improve the quality of education. The following elements have been provided to support this argument: (1) a literature review of the different concepts and methods of measuring the quality of education that are in place internationally, as well as their importance; (2) a UNESCO desk review of 35 developing countries to compare the way educational quality is featured and monitored in National Education Sector Plans (NESPs); and (3) case studies of two developing countries focusing on the implementation of research to measure the quality of education, its impact, and the link between research and policy. It was found that the quality of education is recognized as an important factor in most NESPs, but it has not been defined, measured, or interpreted in a consistent way. Furthermore, while sophisticated and innovative methodologies have already been developed to measure the quality of education, the processes of linking research results with policy still seem to be at a developmental stage. This is a challenge not only for researchers and policy makers, but also for development partners to ensure that (i) policy and planning become more firmly grounded in objectively verifiable scientific evidence and (ii) through its impact on policy and planning, research leads to improvements in the quality of education.

The International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) is a tool for harmonising education-related information. It covers almost all countries in the world and is centrally maintained and documented by UNESCO Institute for Statistics. ISCED is commonly used in official statistics and surveys (e.g. by OECD and Eurostat), but it is also increasingly used for the measurement of educational attainment in academic cross-national surveys. ISCED has been revised between 2008 and 2011, and the new version was adopted by the UNESCO General Conference in November 2011. This research note describes ISCED 2011 and the most important changes as compared to the previous version, ISCED 1997, with a special focus on educational attainment. A brief discussion of strengths and weaknesses of the classification as well as future challenges conclude the note.

Does civic participation, especially in the arts, increase democracy? This chapter extends this neo-Tocquevillian question in three ways. First, to capture broader political and economic transformations, we consider different types of participation; results change by separate participation arenas. Some are declining, but a dramatic finding is the rise of arts and culture. Second, to assess impacts of participation, we include multiple dimensions of democratic politics, including distinct norms of citizenship and their associated political repertoires. Third, by analyzing global International Social Survey Program and World Values Survey data, we identify dramatic subcultural differences: the Tocquevillian model is positive, negative, or zero in seven different subcultures and contexts that we explicate, from class politics and clientelism to Protestant and Orthodox Christian civilizational traditions.

The Russian Energy Service Company (ESCO) market emerges rapidly due to the new energy efficiency legislation that has been implemented since 2009. However, a clear identification of the Russian ESCOs, comparable to those operating on the basis of Energy Performance Contracting (EPC) in the Western markets, remains rather difficult. Hence, aside from the independent ESCOs identified, further energy service‐providing companies (ESPCs) are within the scope of this survey. This paper aims to address these issues.

Building on comprehensive qualitative research of the international and Russian academic and non‐academic literature on the ESCO concept and an expert interview, an explorative, questionnaire‐based survey among 161 Russian energy companies and organizations was conducted. A total of 28 usable responses were returned, corresponding to a response rate of 17 per cent. Non‐parametric exact tests are used for the statistical analysis.

The authors' findings show that only nine of the surveyed ESCOs have acquired energy performance‐based projects. In line with the new energy efficiency legislation, such projects are strongly supported in the state sector but much less so in the commercial sector. Most of the projects are financed either through ESCOs' own funds, direct loans to customers, or by the customers themselves. Russian banks, however, rarely provide direct loans for energy performance‐based projects of ESCOs, but rather prefer to offer financial leasing contracts. The contractual form “guaranteed savings”, which is generally more applicable in mature ESCO markets, is gaining in importance, while “shared savings” is barely used.

This paper delivers, to the best of the authors' knowledge, the first systematic empirical investigation of the Russian ESCO industry, taking into account experiences from the international ESCO markets.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the nature of the strategic planning‐performance relationship by drawing on data from a sample of Turkish firms.

The sample frame for the study was derived from the database of the Istanbul Chamber of Industry's 500 largest Turkish manufacturing companies and the database of companies quoted on the Istanbul Stock Exchange. Based on a postal survey, 135 usable questionnaires were returned. Using LISREL causal modeling the moderating effects of a set of contingency factors on the relationship between formal strategic planning and firm performance were investigated.

The findings show that there is a good deal of support for the study's hypotheses. A strong and positive relationship was formed between formal strategic planning and firm performance, which tends to confirm the arguments of the prescriptive strategic management literature. The test results also verify the moderating roles of environmental turbulence, organization structure and firm size on the strategic planning‐performance link.

Strategic planning and its key dimensions represent a subtle and complex activity, and that to obtain rich data on such phenomena may be best accomplished through research methods that employ qualitative data gathering techniques. Incorporation of qualitative performance measures, in addition to financial measures would enrich our understanding of the planning‐performance relationship.

After almost a decade of relative neglect perhaps this research issue will again begin to attract the kind of attention that it deserves. Although strategy is often considered to be a universal practice, it is better thought of as many different crafts, varying according to its different contexts. So, the impact of various contexts on the planning‐performance relationship should be taken into account.

Prior studies that have examined strategic planning‐performance relationship have tended to focus on firms from industrialized countries. This is one of the first studies that has explicitly modeled and empirically tested the relationship in an emerging country context.