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1 – 10 of 249Hyrine Mueni Matheka, Ellen P.W.A. Jansen, Cor J.M. Suhre and Adriaan W.H. Hofman
Given declining tuition funds and government grants, Kenyan universities need to develop strategies, including increased research grants and collaborations, to diversify their…
Abstract
Purpose
Given declining tuition funds and government grants, Kenyan universities need to develop strategies, including increased research grants and collaborations, to diversify their income sources. Well-managed doctoral students can boost a university’s teaching and research outputs. However, numbers of students enrolled in doctoral programmes at Kenyan universities are low, and graduation rates and time-to-graduate statistics are disturbing. Research undertaken elsewhere underline the important role played by supervisors and peers in facilitating students’ sense of belonging and their success. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the influence of supervisory and peer support on PhD students’ sense of belonging and their success at Kenyan universities.
Design/methodology/approach
In this cross-sectional study, data were gathered through an online questionnaire from 614 students admitted to doctoral programmes at Kenyan universities between 2010 and 2018. We used multi-item scales to collect data on PhD students’ self-efficacy, supervisory and peer support and a sense of belonging.
Findings
Structural equation modelling results revealed that PhD students’ modes of study and self-efficacy were significantly associated with the quality of supervision, peer support and a sense of belonging. However, only age, a sense of belonging and the quality of supervision were directly linked to their success.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the literature on doctoral-level education, responding to the need for research on the influence of relationships with supervisors and peers on PhD students’ sense of belonging and their success, especially in developing countries.
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Kelly C. Margot, Melissa Pierczynski and Kelly Lormand
The paper aims to address the increasing issue of teacher shortages and the lack of diversity in America’s educators. Highly diverse communities need ways to support community…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper aims to address the increasing issue of teacher shortages and the lack of diversity in America’s educators. Highly diverse communities need ways to support community members interested in careers as teachers. This article explores one promising approach to reach and inspire high school students considering the teaching profession. Camp ExCEL (Exploring Careers in Education and Leadership) provided a pathway allowing rising high school seniors an opportunity to explore the teaching profession. This pathway utilized the Grow Your Own framework, recruiting students from a diverse community and providing them resources and information that would further efforts to become an educator within their community.
Design/methodology/approach
The current study examined outcomes from an education summer camp, using qualitative thematic analysis to reflexively interpret participants’ (n = 29) feelings and beliefs about effective teaching, culturally responsive teaching (CRT), project-based learning (PBL) and their camp experience. Data were collected using Google documents and surveys. The four connected themes that emerged were obstacles and barriers to teaching, qualities of an effective teacher, the impact of culturally responsive teaching and project-based learning on classrooms, and the importance of mentorships within education.
Findings
The paper provides insight about how an education camp can support high school students as they explore a career in education. Results suggest that focus on high-quality pedagogy can support student understanding of the career. Students also suggested their perception of effective teaching that includes acknowledging the needs of the whole student, modeling high-quality teaching practices and displaying positive professional dispositions.
Research limitations/implications
Because of the chosen research approach, the research results may lack generalizability. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to conduct and examine education camps further.
Practical implications
The paper includes implications for the development of other education camps, especially in areas with highly diverse populations.
Originality/value
This paper fulfills an identified need to increase the number of persons pursuing a career in education. The focus on a highly diverse community is also an area of need in education. This article details the description of an education camp and the curriculum used, along with findings from data collected during the first year.
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This study aims to investigate the accounting role’s deficiencies in managers’ decision-making processes.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the accounting role’s deficiencies in managers’ decision-making processes.
Design/methodology/approach
The current research applies a critical review method, which along with a deductive approach – based on a library review of existing sources – examines the underlying causes for the deficiencies of accounting role in the decision-making process of managers; moreover, based on the results obtained, the current study proposes a structural model to explain the issue.
Findings
The results exhibit the inadequacies of the accounting role in the decision-making process of managers into three sections: “dilution of financial reporting information content,” “malpractice of accounting information providers” and “managers’ unwillingness to use accounting information.”
Practical implications
This research provides a new perspective on critical accounting studies for the accounting profession, policymakers and managers and invites them to examine the roles of accounting information in more depth and breadth.
Originality/value
This article is the first study that critically expounds upon the literature on the deficiencies of accounting role in the decision-making process of managers and presents these deficiencies in the form of a structural model from three different perspectives.
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Elsa Pedroso and Carlos F. Gomes
This paper aims to map the research on management accounting (MA), clarifying its current role and identifying gaps and opportunities for future research.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to map the research on management accounting (MA), clarifying its current role and identifying gaps and opportunities for future research.
Design/methodology/approach
In this paper, 784 papers were reviewed for the 1958–2019 period, published in 220 scientific journals indexed on Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science (Science Citation Index Expanded [SCI-EXPANDED] and Social Sciences Citation Index [SSCI]). In the process, content analysis, regression analysis and bibliometric analysis were used.
Findings
The most relevant journals, authors and topics in MA, along with trends and patterns in the literature, were identified. Seven clusters that represent the overall thematic research structure of the MA field were also identified. This study shows that MA is becoming a multidimensional management decision-support instrument covering all organizational dimensions. As such, the research on MA is following the recent concerns with the sustainable development and digitalization of business processes.
Research limitations/implications
Based on the findings of this research study, theoretical and practical implications for MA researchers were provided. These findings could also be useful to industry practitioners to improve their knowledge of emerging trends in MA practices, strategies and concepts.
Originality/value
Based on bibliometric and content analysis, a framework that shows an organizational, market and social context for the evolution of MA over the past 60 years was provided. It highlights the dynamics of MA alignment with organizational and external environment changes. Future research opportunities and implications for researchers and practitioners were also identified.
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Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine the underlying mechanisms of exploitative innovation and exploratory innovation between social media usage and organizational agility, and elucidate the moderating role of learning goal orientation (LGO) in the above relationships, based on adaptive structuration theory (AST).
Design/methodology/approach
Based on a multiple-respondent matched survey of 334 Chinese e-commerce firms, authors employed structural equation modeling to examine the correlations among social media usage, exploitative innovation, exploratory innovation and organizational agility. Hierarchical regression analysis was used to examine the moderating role of LGO.
Findings
This study's empirical findings demonstrate that exploitative innovation and exploratory innovation mediate the relationship between social media usage and organizational agility in different ways. Further, LGO positively moderates the relationship between social media usage for customer acquisition and exploratory innovation, as well as the relationship between social media usage for customer relationship and exploitative innovation.
Practical implications
Firms are advised to leverage different types of social media usage to facilitate exploitative innovation and exploratory innovation and promote organizational agility. In addition, LGO within a firm should be established to enhance the effects of social media usage on exploitative innovation and exploratory innovation.
Originality/value
This study adds to the literature on social media usage by proposing and examining exploitative innovation and exploratory innovation as explanatory mechanisms to facilitate organizational agility. This study further identifies LGO as a boundary condition of social media usage's effect on exploitative innovation and exploratory innovation. By contextualizing social media as advanced information technology, this study contributes to the contextualization of AST in the social media context.
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Paola Maria Anna Paniccia, Gianpaolo Abatecola and Silvia Baiocco
How does the interaction between time and knowledge affect the evolution of organizations? Past research in organizational evolution has mostly investigated time and knowledge as…
Abstract
Purpose
How does the interaction between time and knowledge affect the evolution of organizations? Past research in organizational evolution has mostly investigated time and knowledge as two separate variables. In contrast, theoretical perspectives integrating these variables are still seemingly scant. The authors believe that filling this literature gap needs attention. Thus, this study aims to contribute by developing a conceptual framework.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a conceptual study. The framework is centred on the concept of “co-evolutionary time”, which the authors explain through a business example from the tourism industry. Supported by a narrative-based style, from a methodological point of view the framework is featured by the attempt to synthesize specific, extant literature into new theoretical development.
Findings
As its main theoretical contribution, the co-evolutionary time suggests how firms can adapt in a way that, from an evolutionary perspective, proves fitting both in terms of contents and methods, thus opening possibilities for new long-term social construction and reconstruction. As its main practical contribution, co-evolutionary time can constitute not only a temporary source of organizational success and competitive advantage but also an agent of enduring change and long-term business survival.
Originality/value
As its main novelty, the framework is developed through merging two literature streams. In particular, the authors first consider the literature about time, with a focus on its objective and subjective dimensions. The authors then consider the literature about organizational evolution, with a focus on the co-evolutionary nature of the firm/environment relationship.
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Zelalem Zekarias Oliso, Demoze Degefa Alemu and Jonathan David Jansen
The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of educational service quality (ESQ) on student academic performance via the mediating role of student satisfaction.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of educational service quality (ESQ) on student academic performance via the mediating role of student satisfaction.
Design/methodology/approach
To serve the study’s purpose, the study adopted a quantitative research approach. Three public universities representing 30% of the ten public universities located in the Southern part of Ethiopia participated in the study. Questionnaires were the main tools for gathering data. The adapted questionnaire, consisting of 116 items was administered to 400 randomly selected regular undergraduate graduating class students. The quantitative data collected via questionnaire were analyzed using descriptive and advanced inferential statistics.
Findings
The quantitative findings revealed that there is a statistically positive association between overall education service quality and students’ satisfaction (r = 0.712). The findings proved that the facets of education service quality accounted for 71.2% of the variations in students’ satisfaction in the universities. The quantitative findings further showed that the education service quality has a statistically indirect effect on students’ academic performance via the mediating role of students’ satisfaction (test statistic = 31.5311573, std. error = 0.00122536 and p-value = 0). The findings further confirmed that the overall education service quality accounted for 12.7% of the variations in students’ academic performance via student satisfaction in the universities.
Research limitations/implications
The present study was conducted in public universities located in the Southern part of Ethiopia. The findings and conclusions of the study may not be generalizable to all Ethiopian public universities. Future researchers and scholars should conduct their study in all Ethiopian public universities by taking a representative sample from the Ethiopian public universities.
Practical implications
The present finding suggests that an improvement in ESQ leads to students’ satisfaction and that could contribute to boosting their academic performance. The findings of the present may help the practitioners who measure higher education service quality by providing how the provision of ESQ indirectly influences the student’s academic performance in the universities.
Social implications
The findings of this study confirmed that the facets of ESQ are associated with students’ satisfaction and this, in turn, indirectly influences their academic performance. Student academic performance is one of the key indicators of quality education, and it has its influences on the social, political and economic development of a country. The findings of the present research provide valuable insights to higher education management bodies, higher quality assurance agencies and the Federal Ministry of Education to learn the indirect effect of ESQ on students’ academic performance and take necessary measures to improve the Ethiopian higher education quality.
Originality/value
The contributions of ESQ in the higher education sector are enormous. However, the existing service quality literature in higher education mainly focuses on the interrelation among service quality, student satisfaction, loyalty and behavioral intentions. Little is known about the indirect influence of ESQ on student academic performance (one of the key indicators of quality education), principally in Ethiopian higher education, the place of current research. The present study showed the indirect impact of ESQ on student academic performance in Ethiopian public universities. The study, therefore, suggests that university management bodies should actively monitor the quality of their services and commit themselves to boosting students’ learning outcomes.
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Fernando Kleiman, Sylvia J.T. Jansen, Sebastiaan Meijer and Marijn Janssen
The opening of government data is high on the policy agenda of governments worldwide. However, data release faces barriers due to limited support of civil servants, whereas the…
Abstract
Purpose
The opening of government data is high on the policy agenda of governments worldwide. However, data release faces barriers due to limited support of civil servants, whereas the literature neglects civil servants' role in opening data. This paper aims at understanding why civil servants can be reluctant to support the disclosure of data. The authors developed a model to explain civil servants' behavioral intention to open data.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors test a series of hypotheses by collecting and analyzing survey data from 387 civil servants and by applying multivariate hierarchical regression.
Findings
The results indicate the factors influencing the behavior of civil servants. Social influences, performance expectancy, data management knowledge and risks have a significant influence. Personal characteristics control these effects.
Research limitations/implications
Caution is needed to generalize the findings towards the support to open data provision by civil servants. Though the analyzed sample was limited to Brazil, other countries and cultures might yield different outcomes. Larger and more diversified samples might indicate significant effects on variables not found in this research.
Practical implications
The insights can be used to develop policies for increasing the support of civil servants towards governmental data disclosure.
Originality/value
This study suggests factors of influence to civil servants' behavior intentions to disclose governmental data. It results in a model of factors, specifically for their behavioral intention at the individual level.
In light of a need for more critical education about datafication, this paper aims to develop a framework for critical datafication literacy that is grounded in theoretical and…
Abstract
Purpose
In light of a need for more critical education about datafication, this paper aims to develop a framework for critical datafication literacy that is grounded in theoretical and empirical research. The framework draws upon existing critical data literacies, an in-depth analysis of three well-established educational approaches – media literacy, the German “(politische) Bildung” and Freirean “critical pedagogy” – and empirical analyses of online educational resources about datafication.
Design/methodology/approach
The study interconnects theoretical analyses with an empirical mixed methods investigation that includes expert interviews with creators of online educational resources about datafication and a qualitative survey with educators interested in teaching about data technologies.
Findings
The research identified novel findings on the goals of resource creators and educators, such as a focus on empowering and emancipatory approaches, fostering systemic understanding of datafication and encouraging collective action. Such perspectives are rare in existing critical data literacy conceptualisations but show resemblance to traditional education scholarship. This highlights how much can be learnt from practitioners and from these more established educational approaches. Based on these findings, a framework for critical datafication literacy is suggested that aims for systemic understanding of datafication, encouraging critical thinking and enabling learners to make enlightened choices and take different forms of action.
Originality/value
The study is unique in its interconnection of theoretical and empirical research, and it advances previous research by suggesting a grounded framework for critical datafication literacy.
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