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The aim of this study was to describe the experiences of graduate students who participated in the community of practice (CoP) and identify areas for improvement to support academic success.

In total, 19 graduate students engaged in a CoP to facilitate social interactions, knowledge sharing and learning within a culture of scholarship. A descriptive qualitative research study was conducted using semistructured interviews with eight participants who had attended the CoP meeting.

All participants were from the School of Nursing and perceived the CoP to be beneficial, particularly international students who had challenges in adapting to new academic and social environments. Areas for improvement include creating a group structure that enhances belonging and learning.

This is the first CoP that was implemented at the Faculty of Health Sciences at the authors’ university. It has been the authors’ experience that a CoP can benefit graduate students through networking, knowledge sharing, social support and learning. The finding of this research will be used to inform a new CoP to address the needs of graduate students. The authors will be adapting the CoP to the current context that includes a virtual platform during the COVID-19 pandemic and will include content specific for international students.

This paper aims to examine the effects of perceived desirability for entrepreneurship (PDE) and perceived self-efficacy (PSE) on the entrepreneurial intentions (EI) of business students, with the moderation effect of entrepreneurial knowledge (EK) in the context of the theory of planned behaviour.

We used a self-administered survey of 200 students registered in the business schools of Pakistani universities. The causal association between the variables was estimated through SmartPLS by using hierarchal linear modelling.

The study findings indicate that PDE and PSE significantly influence EIs. Furthermore, EK significantly strengthens the nexus between PDE and EIs and between PSE and EIs. Those students who had already acquired self-efficacy and exhibited desirability for the business venture were more inclined towards entrepreneurship if they had acquired some EK and vice versa.

This study reveals that a model of EIs is needed to configure the students’ goals and motivations. Also, using new education programmes will help students acquire new knowledge for business startups. Further implications are also discussed.

This research fills a gap by using the moderating role of EK on the nexus between PDE, PSE and EIs, which has remained untouched in the educational sector.

The purpose of this paper is to expand the competence-led structuring and understanding of sustainability education by analysing the practices of professional individuals who have completed university education geared to the development of sustainability change-makers.

The research scope was initially on examining professional practices following the boundary work theory. Social practice theory was used as a methodological approach in conducting and analysing thematic interviews with 19 sustainability-focused master’s programme alumni. The interviews were analysed against the theoretical framework while also noting findings that fell outside of this framework.

A framework for understanding materials, competences and meanings of practices connected to the professional field of sustainability was introduced. The framework suggests that in the practices of sustainability-educated professionals, meanings emerge as a top priority and are conveyed using position-based materials and various complexes of competency.

The authors suggest that boundary theory informs well the emergence of the professional field of sustainability, and the utilisation of a practice theory furthers the understanding of sustainability professionalism and its education.

The authors’ suggest that practice theory could thus provide deeper insights on how sustainability science alumni use their education after graduation, how they practice their profession and in return offer applicable reflections to sustainability education.

Research using practice theory in reflection on sustainability education and the professional practice of sustainability has not been widely conducted and in the authors’ opinion brings value to the education and practice of sustainability and to the research of sustainability education.

The purpose of this paper is to present a review of the student managed investment fund at the School of Business, University of Connecticut.

The authors trace the history and growth of the fund and identify the special features and dimensions that have contributed to its success.

The operation of the fund is a constantly evolving program and the authors discuss the important changes and improvements made in the program since its inception in the early 2000s in response to growth in the number of finance majors, new career opportunities in the field of investments and most importantly, the strength of capital markets and the development of new instruments in the capital markets. The authors also discuss the common features of over 300 student funds in the USA. The authors close with a discussion of the limitations and constraints the fund advisors at, and possibly, at other schools, face in the management and administration of the fund, and also what developments and adjustments the authors expect to see in these funds in the future.

The authors combine extensive analyses of fund history and performance. The authors also provide some suggestions for the future direction and priorities for student funds.

This qualitative study aims to provide insights and reflections of how the pandemic affected the identity and a sense of self of students, who completed undergraduate leadership learning academic program.

Interviews.

Findings of this study showed three major themes throughout the interviews. During the COVID-19 pandemic, participants identified experiences with self-reflection, building community and navigating issues of social justice.

These findings highlight how leadership learning enabled certain participants to navigate and seek to resolve these problems and how their leadership learning aided their own self-discovery.

In order to address the complex problems of society, the innovation research process should incorporate technical, social, economic and ethical factors, but also actively involve a diverse group of non-scientific actors. One way to prepare students for this type of research is to create “Citizen Scholars,” students who want to work for the betterment of society. Arvanitakis and Hornsby (2016) argue that we need to change how we teach and train students in specific proficiencies. The purpose of this paper is to assess how the pedagogical approach applied within the program contributes to building the proficiencies and attributes as described by Arvanitakis and Hornsby (2016).

The authors conducted a total of 12 interviews with alumni who started their program in 2014, one focus group discussion with lecturers and 132 questionnaires with alumni to discuss to what extend the proficiencies are trained in the program and whether these are used in their current jobs. The authors also included data of an earlier study conducted in 2014. These data contain 26 interviews with students during the first year of the program. These students graduated in 2017 and are thus from the same cohort as the alumni.

The results show that the pedagogical approach in the management policy analysis program trains all the attributes. Important elements in the program are: the inquiry-based approach intertwined with community service learning (CSL) throughout the program; gradually increased complexity of the real-world problems addressed; students working in teams; and gradually reducing support of the lecturer.

The authors conclude that our pedagogical approach applied in the program contributes to learning the proficiencies. The authors argue that for the training of inter- and transdisciplinary, the proficiency knowledge integration should be added.

The result show that more inquiry-based approaches and CSL programs can stimulate the four clusters of proficiencies, which should hold a central place in universities if we want to create citizen scholars.

With the approach, students contribute to research issues of local communities.

Despite the increasing interest of higher education to involve civic activities in the curricula, few pedagogical approaches are described. The research shows that theoretical insights in the adaption of a model to realize a citizen scholar.

This study aims to examine the role of gender balance in forming individuals’ understanding of entrepreneurship as manifested in the graduates’ occupational choices, asking: Does gender balance in entrepreneurship education influence start-up behaviour after graduation? Based on gender mainstreaming, this study builds on the assumption that gender balance influences classroom and student community discourses. This study presents two hypotheses suggesting a positive relationship between gender balance (student and mentor gender balance, respectively) and the likelihood of engaging in start-up behaviour after graduation.

The context is an international one-year master's programme in entrepreneurship and innovation, which adopts an experienced-based pedagogical approach to support learning. This study applies binary logistic regression analysis to test the hypotheses on a sample of 107 graduates who responded to a web-based questionnaire on post-graduation career paths.

This study finds support for the first hypothesis indicating that student gender balance in the classroom has a significant positive impact on graduates' likelihood of engaging in start-up activity post-graduation. In the interpretation of these findings, this study emphasizes that a master's programme in entrepreneurship is an important arena where students' attitudes, values, aspirations and intentions towards entrepreneurship are shaped and their identity developed.

While studies have demonstrated gender bias in the discourses on entrepreneurship education and content, there is little evidence of its consequences or how it is addressed. Findings of this study point directly to this gap by revealing that improved gender balance is not only beneficial to the underrepresented gender, but to the overall student group.

This paper focuses on bank audit committees and examines whether audit committee members who are former auditors are associated with the acquisition of audit and non-audit services from their former employers.

The study empirically examines a sample of large banks that are included in the S&P Composite 1500.

The paper reports significantly lower audit fees and a higher proportion of non-audit fees to total fees when the audit committee chair is an alumnus of the incumbent audit firm. Moreover, additional analysis reveals that these findings are stronger for banks with more earnings management.

Overall, the findings indicate that audit firms might consider banks using their alumni as audit committee chairs to be less risky or easier to audit, thus requiring relatively less effort from the auditors. The reduced effort required to audit clients with audit firm alumni on their audit committees then has the effect of reducing the audit fees charged. Alternatively, their auditing experience and cognitive proximity might influence the assessment of the need for auditing or the ability to negotiate lower audit fees on the part of audit firm alumni.

This paper provides empirical evidence of the association between audit firm alumni in influential positions on an audit committee and fees paid to those audit firms in the banking industry. The findings contribute to the literature by suggesting that banks with affiliated former auditors chairing their audit committees not only have significantly lower audit fees but also a higher proportion is spent on non-audit services.

This paper discusses the effectiveness of a consortium-based student mobility programme by investigating the impact of the Asian International Mobility for Students (AIMS) Programme. AIMS is a regional multilateral large-scale student mobility programme based on a consortium of 10 member countries and 87 member universities with the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization Regional Centre for Higher Education and Development (SEAMEO RIHED) as a facilitator. Over 6,000 students have participated in a semester-long intra-regional student exchange under AIMS since 2010.

The study employed questionnaire surveys and semi-structured interviews to investigate the impact of AIMS and its advantages as a consortium-based student mobility programme.

It was found that AIMS significantly impacted member universities by accelerating their internationalisation processes through increasing the number of inbound and outbound students and courses offered in English and so on. AIMS has promoted harmonisation among the members by developing common procedures and guidelines, providing platforms for mutual sharing of experiences and good practices and capacity building of international relations offices. AIMS has also had a significant impact on students by enhancing their regional identity and knowledge about the region of Asia, contributing to their development as future regional and global citizens. As advantages of AIMS, member universities efficiently built a foundation for international collaboration with common procedures and guidelines and shared their experiences through such venues as Annual Review Meetings. Students also feel supported by having clear guidance and find programmes prepared by host universities and SEAMEO RIHED useful.

This study is unique in that it empirically studies the impact of one of Asia’s largest student mobility programmes for the first time by analysing large-scale qualitative and quantitative data.

The purpose of this qualitative study is to conduct an exploratory investigation of the impact and sustainability of coaching on career and leadership development of students and later, alumni, in an Executive Master of Business Administration (EMBA) program.

The sample for this qualitative study consisted of 14 alumni of an EMBA program at a private university in the Southwestern US who graduated between January 2012 and May 2019. Eleven alumni participated in the focus groups, and three alumni participated in personal interviews.

The open coding of the data resulted in three emergent themes (personal development by overcoming personal deficiencies, coaching translates to learning about leadership and coaching motivates sustained change) that confirmed the positive long-term effect of coaching as part of an EMBA program.

By participating in an executive coaching engagement, the EMBA students learned a development process that they could repeat for themselves after graduation and transfer to others. In addition, the EMBA students were able to leverage knowledge gained from the coaching experience for the development of others.

While the positive impacts of coaching are well-documented, its long-term impact on EMBA students/alumni has not yet been studied. This study builds on other evaluative studies to identify the benefits of executive coaching.