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During the past decade, fast-paced changes created a new environment organisations need to adapt to in an agile way. To support their transformation, organisations are rethinking their approach to learning. They are moving away from traditional instructor-centred, standardised classroom-based learning settings. Instead, learning needs to be tailored to the individuals’ needs, available anywhere at any time and needs to enable learners to build their network. The development of digital tools, specifically network technology and social collaboration platforms, has enabled these new learning concepts.

The use of these new learning concepts in organisations also has implications for higher education. The present case study, therefore, investigates how universities can best prepare future employees and leaders for these new working environments, both on a content level and a methodological level. It also investigates if these new learning concepts can support universities in dealing with a changing environment.

The investigated case is a traditional face-to-face leadership lecture for a heterogeneous group of students. It was reconceptualised as a personalised and social collaborative learning setting, delivered through a social collaboration platform as the primary learning environment. Initial evaluation results indicate positive motivational effects, experience sharing and changes in perception of the student − lecturer relationship. The findings also supported previous challenges of computer-supported collaborative learning settings, such as the perception of a higher cognitive load. The implications of these results for the future teaching and business models of higher education are discussed. In addition, the potential of these computer-supported social collaborative learning settings is outlined.

This chapter explores the circumstances in the global south that have been reshaping teaching and learning practices, with particular focus on the African context. Anchored on a literature review strategy, the chapter explores some of the key pressure points in the higher education context that have been the trigger of reforms in the core practice of teaching and learning in recent years. In particular, the chapter discusses the neoliberalism crisis associated with the coronavirus pandemic in higher education, drawing attention to the inequalities that it ignited: not all students were affected in the same way; not all universities or colleges were affected in the same way; and not all students had the learning technologies required to carry on their education in the same way. Alongside the COVID-19 concerns, the chapter reflects on other pressure points for change including developments in digital technologies and the internet and changing students and changing higher education markets in sub-Saharan Africa. It argues that these forces are among a wave of influences that higher education institutions across the African continent cannot ignore. They form a blend of neoliberal reforms that are pressurising academics to change pedagogical models and threatening certain core values of a university: academic freedom, autonomy, and truth. The chapter develops the argument that although multiple pressures – arising from the pervasive influences of technology and the COVID-19 pandemic – are mounting on the higher education sector to reform its pedagogical practices, it should not be at the expense of perpetuating injustices, particularly among students.

Iraqi universities in the aftermath of invasion in 2003 experienced extremely high levels of “post”-war violence and insecurity. The most widely known dimension of this violence is the shocking assassination campaign that killed hundreds of Iraqi academics. This paper provides an analysis of violence and insecurity in post-2003 that takes a broader optic and considers multiple forms of vulnerability to attack including insurgencies, sectarian conflict, and criminal violence. It also considers the various responses to the security dilemma taken by Coalition forces – principally counter-terrorism and stabilization efforts – and by Iraqi policy-makers and higher education communities, including security measures, politicization, ethno-sectarianization, and displacement.

This study, using a contingent valuation approach, aims to shed light on the economic evaluation of online learning during the first wave of the pandemic.

A sample of 959 higher education students was asked about their willingness-to-accept (WTA) a monetary compensation for the loss of well-being resulting from the unexpected and mandatory transition to the online space. In explaining WTA determinants, the authors test the appropriateness of the double-hurdle model against the alternative of a Tobit model and find that the factors affecting the participation decision are not the same as those that affect the quantity decision.

Results show that a vast majority of the respondents think that the abrupt transition to online learning is detrimental to them, while those willing to accept a monetary compensation account for 77% of the sample, being the mean WTA between €448 and €595. As expected, WTA decreases with income and age, and it increases if some member of the family unit is unemployed. By aggregating the mean WTA by the population affected, total loss of well-being is obtained.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, to date, this method has not been used to value online learning in a WTA framework, much less in the particular context of the pandemic. Thus, based on the understanding that the economic evaluation of online learning could be very useful in providing guidance for decision-making, this paper contributes to the literature on the economic evaluation of higher education.

In the 1980s, the Chinese government undertook a major structural reform in education by which upper secondary education was converted from predominantly general education to an equal mix of general education and vocational/technical education. A critical examination is provided of the rationale for and implementation strategies of the reform, framed in a broader context of the development of secondary education in the past four decades. It points out that, although the reform was justified in largely economic terms, there is actually little empirical support for the economic assumptions; the development of vocational/technical education is prompted more by a desire to reduce the social demand for higher education and to use education as a social stratification device. The reform reflects changing perspectives of the Chinese leadership on the role of education in national development; and it can be seen as the outcome of the most recent episode of continuing social and political conflicts in the Chinese state that began in the 1950s.

The purpose of this paper is to see if economic regionalization in Asia is a trend for the future, and if it heralds educational regionalization, thus uniting economic internationalization and education.

This has been shown to be the case in the European Union where it is still a work in progress and may well be sliding backward, and it is certainly the case in Asia where despite or perhaps because of the plethora of regional organizations (well over 100), policies and programs, to say nothing of the continuing historical tensions between nations and sub‐regions, the process of harmonization has lurched along and questions remain as to its long‐term substance.

It is suggested that the proposition of these goals is much easier than the implementation for a variety of political, economic, and cultural reasons.

In this study a conceptual framework utilizing the concepts of centripetal and centrifugal forces is introduced to facilitate a focus on the forces and factors affecting regionalization and harmonization of higher education in the Asian region.

Business models are a key to success. This paper aims to identify the characteristics of the Now Economy, discuss the components of an effective business model, examine numerous e-commerce business models and provide an application of online learning.

The literature on business models is reviewed. E-commerce models are explored as a means for building competitive advantage in the Now Economy. An in-depth case study of remote learning in universities illustrates the development of a sound digital business model.

Business models explain where and how an organization competes and the financial feasibility of its strategy. Digital business models create market differentiation or disruption. This paper explains 20 e-commerce business models and offers an in-depth view of the opportunities and challenges in the online learning sector.

Building on the literature, this work is conceptual and presents a case study. It is not an empirical study. A three-point agenda for scholars includes research on speed and service in business models, assessing the impact of customer value and examining the market power of Big Tech.

The digital component of the economy is growing annually. Business practitioners must respond by developing winning business models. The remote learning application is particularly relevant given today’s changing educational market.

While there has been considerable research on business models, there has been limited work on digital business models, which is the focus of this article.

Business schools are increasingly positioning themselves as entrepreneurial risk‐takers. In doing so, they are front‐runners of a marketization trend affecting the entire higher education sector. In response, governments have begun to subject higher education sectors to systems of risk‐based regulation. The purpose of this paper is to study the likely impact of regulatory change on business school behaviour.

The article focuses on the financial dimension of institutional performance and draws on the corporate risk management literature to derive general design principles for managing risk‐taking in business schools. These are matched with a review of the regulation literature to evaluate regulatory effectiveness.

Business schools are facing a double‐hurdle test when managing their risk position. They need to protect their financial solvency with the maintenance of properly functioning risk management systems. At the same time, they will increasingly be subjected to regulatory scrutiny with regulatory shortcomings likely to be mapped into binding but sub‐optimal behavioural constraints. The article offers initial reflections as to how business schools can cope with this double‐hurdle.

Risk management in higher education, here with a specific reference to business schools, has so far been under‐theorized from a financial perspective and, as a consequence, the debate on risk‐based regulation lacks a proper foundation. The article addresses this shortcoming.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the extent to which academics are engaged with online communities for research purposes, and the research activities, platforms and tools associated with these communities. In addition, the paper aims to discover the benefits, disadvantages and barriers involved in the use of online communities, and especially in regard to the trust and authority issues, so important in scholarly communications.

A layered, mixed-methods approach was used for this complex research topic. Interviews were undertaken with social science and humanities researchers, followed up with focus groups in both the USA and UK. This qualitative work was then followed up with an online questionnaire that generated over 1,000 responses.

Over half the sample had experience of an online research community and a majority of researchers are making at least occasional use of one or more Web 2.0 services for communicating their research activity; for developing and sustaining networks and collaboration; or for finding out what others are doing. Big differences exist in membership rates according to subject, but not really by age or other demographic factors. The biggest benefit to joining an online community is the ability to seek information in one’s own specialism. Younger researchers are more engaged with online communities.

The qualitative research was limited to the UK and USA. While use of online communities is now accepted by both established and younger researchers, the main ways of communicating research remain scholarly journals and books.

The implications for learned societies and publishers are not clear. Journals are confirmed as the primary way of disseminating research. However, it would be easy for these stakeholders to miss how younger researchers expect to connect in digital communities.

With researchers of all ages accepting the existing and importance of online communities and connections, there are few technical or social barriers to using mainstream digital tools to connect professionally.

There is little published research considering the role of online research communities, so the study is highly original. It is valuable to discover that researchers still prefer to share research findings primarily through journals, rather than through social technologies.