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1 – 10 of over 2000This paper discusses tensions and identity resistance in a cross-cultural educational context in the United Arab Emirates. It focuses on how Emirati students, living and…
Abstract
This paper discusses tensions and identity resistance in a cross-cultural educational context in the United Arab Emirates. It focuses on how Emirati students, living and socialised in a conservative Arabic-Islamic society and shaped by Islamic values and epistemologies, construct their cultural identities while learning English with their Western-trained teachers, who are influenced by liberal ideologies and secular epistemologies. To understand the complex engagement between Emirati students and their Western-trained teachers this article uses both phenomenography and reflection on critical incidents to explore, investigate and interpret Emirati students’ intercultural experience with their Western-trained teachers and to highlight the tensions and identity resistance that arise from this educational encounter.
Juan A. Sanchis Llopis, Juan A. Mañez and Andrés Mauricio Gómez-Sánchez
This paper aims to examine the interrelation between two innovating strategies (product and process) on total factor productivity (TFP) growth and the dynamic linkages between…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the interrelation between two innovating strategies (product and process) on total factor productivity (TFP) growth and the dynamic linkages between these strategies, for Colombia. The authors first explore whether ex ante more productive firms are those that introduce innovations (the self-selection hypothesis) and if the introduction of innovations boosts TFP growth (the returns-to-innovation hypothesis). Second, the authors study the firm’s joint dynamic decision to implement process and/or product innovations. The authors use Colombian manufacturing data from the Annual Manufacturing and the Technological Development and Innovation Surveys.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses a four-stage procedure. First, the authors estimate TFP using a modified version of Olley and Pakes (1996) and Levinsohn and Petrin (2003), proposed by De Loecker (2010), that implements an endogenous Markov process where past firm innovations are endogenized. This TFP would be estimated by GMM, Wooldridge (2009). Second, the authors use multivariate discrete choice models to test the self-selection hypothesis. Third, the authors explore, using multi-value treatment evaluation techniques, the life span of the impact of innovations on productivity growth (returns to innovation hypothesis). Fourth, the authors analyse the joint likelihood of implementing process and product innovations using dynamic panel data bivariate probit models.
Findings
The investigation reveals that the self-selection effect is notably more pronounced in the adoption of process innovations only, as opposed to the adoption of product innovations only or the simultaneous adoption of both process and product innovations. Moreover, our results uncover distinct temporal patterns concerning innovation returns. Specifically, process innovations yield immediate benefits, whereas implementing both product innovations only and jointly process and product innovations exhibit significant, albeit delayed, advantages. Finally, the analysis confirms the existence of dynamic interconnections between the adoption of process and product innovations.
Originality/value
The contribution of this work to the literature is manifold. First, the authors thoroughly investigate the relationship between the implementation of process and product innovations and productivity for Colombian manufacturing explicitly recognising that firms’ decisions of adopting product and process innovations are very likely interrelated. Therefore, the authors start exploring the self-selection and the returns to innovation hypotheses accounting for the fact that firms might implement process innovations only, product innovations only and both process and product innovations. In the analysis of the returns of innovation, the fact that firms may choose among a menu of three innovation strategies implies the use of evaluation methods for multi-value treatments. Second, the authors study the dynamic inter-linkages between the decisions to implement process and/or product innovations, that remains under studied, at least for emerging economies. Third, the estimation of TFP is performed using an endogenous Markov process, where past firms’ innovations are endogenized.
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Cleomar Gomes da Silva and Fábio Augusto Reis Gomes
The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the teaching of undergraduate macroeconomics.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the teaching of undergraduate macroeconomics.
Design/methodology/approach
To suggest a roadmap, based on a consumption function, to be used by instructors willing to teach the Lucas Critique subject.
Findings
Therefore, this paper proposes a lesson, which consists of three parts, to help undergraduates better understand the subject: (1) a grading exercise to bring the topic closer to students’ lives; (2) a Keynesian and an optimal consumption function, followed by an example based on an unemployment insurance policy; and (3) two optional topics consisting of extensions of the optimal consumption function and some empirical results related to the Lucas Critique.
Originality/value
The Lucas Critique influenced the evolution of research in macroeconomics, but it is not easily grasped in a classroom.
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The aim of this research is to understand the relationship between cultural buildings, economic powers and social justice and equality in architecture and how this relationship…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this research is to understand the relationship between cultural buildings, economic powers and social justice and equality in architecture and how this relationship has evolved over the last hundred years. This research seeks to identify architectural and urban elements that enhance social justice and equality to inform architectural and urban designs and public policies.
Design/methodology/approach
The author explores the relationship between case studies of museums, cultural centers and libraries, and economic powers between 1920 and 2020 in Stockholm, Sweden. The author conducts a historical analysis and combines it with statistical and geographically referenced information in a Geographic Information System, archival data and in situ observations of selected buildings in the city. The author leverages the median income of household data from Statistics Sweden, with the geographical location of main public buildings and the headquarters of main companies operating in Sweden.
Findings
This analysis presents a gradual commercialization of cultural buildings in terms of location, inner layout and management, and the parallel filtering and transforming of the role of users. The author assesses how these cultural buildings gradually conformed to a system in the city and engaged with the market from a more local and national level to global networks. Findings show a cluster of large public buildings in the center of Stockholm, the largest global companies' headquarters and high-income median households. Results show that large shares of the low-income population now live far away from these buildings and the increasing commercialization of cultural space and inequalities.
Originality/value
This research provides a novel image of urban inequalities in Stockholm focusing on cultural buildings and their relationship with economic powers over the last hundred years. Cultural buildings could be a tool to support equality and stronger democracy beyond their primary use. Public cultural buildings offer a compromise between generating revenue for the private sector while catering to the needs and interests of large numbers of people. Therefore, policymakers should consider emphasizing the construction of more engaging public cultural buildings in more distributed locations.
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Discussions on tourism development address the urgent need to reduce the negative impacts of tourism on tourist destinations. Despite decades of trying to find potential ways to…
Abstract
Purpose
Discussions on tourism development address the urgent need to reduce the negative impacts of tourism on tourist destinations. Despite decades of trying to find potential ways to foster sustainability, however, current tourism development is still mainly driven by political interests and growth agendas. In spite of concepts intending to improve sustainable tourism development, negative dynamics, such as over-tourism and the exploitation of nature and local communities, dominate the current reality of tourism. This article focuses on the concept of degrowth as a potential solution for rethinking tourism policy and practices to ensure greater sustainability. Its aim is to explore the gap between these policies and the academic theories on instigating sustainable change, and the actual reality of the tourism industry, which is primarily driven by economic motivations such as growth.
Design/methodology/approach
To explore this dichotomy, this paper investigates the values of tourism lifestyle entrepreneurs. Small businesses are the most dominant group in the industry in terms of numbers. I contend that researching their viewpoint on current developmental trends could lead to valuable insights into how to tackle this gap between theory and reality. This paper also explores how the degrowth paradigm may promote sustainability in tourism, as well as the potential role that tourism lifestyle entrepreneurs could play in this development. The discussion is illustrated by a case study based on interviews with tourism entrepreneurs in Iceland.
Findings
The findings indicate that various tourism stakeholders have different approaches to growth, with many tourism lifestyle entrepreneurs tending to embrace degrowth practices by acting according to their value base, albeit sometimes unconsciously. This focus on aspects other than growth could potentially encourage tourism lifestyle entrepreneurs to contribute to sustainable development.
Research limitations/implications
The examples discussed in this paper are locally limited and cannot be generalized due to the small size of the interviewed sample group. The scalability of individual entrepreneurs’ impact is limited due to their small size.
Practical implications
The actions and values applied by these tourism lifestyle entrepreneurs demonstrate how degrowth can be manifest on a small scale: growth is only embraced up to a certain limit, so it oes not exceed social and environmental capacities; from that point on, community well-being plays the key role. This study demonstrates the untapped knowledge tourism lifestyle entrepreneurs could provide to rethinking the tourism industry.
Social implications
This study demonstrates the importance of shedding more light on ethical issues and values beyond growth in both academic and political discussions. Addressing tourism lifestyle entrepreneurs as smaller-scale actors of tourism degrowth could be a meaningful starting point for holistically rethinking tourism and give them a voice.
Originality/value
This research emphasizes untapped knowledge by acknowledging entrepreneurs and their potential for rethinking tourism development, concluding with recommendations for practice and policy.
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Daniel Gama e Colombo and Helio Nogueira da Cruz
This paper evaluates the effects of tax incentives on business innovation in Brazil that were established by Law 11,196/05 (the “Fiscal Incentives Law”) to test whether they have…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper evaluates the effects of tax incentives on business innovation in Brazil that were established by Law 11,196/05 (the “Fiscal Incentives Law”) to test whether they have had a positive impact on beneficiary firms' innovation input and output and on their performance.
Design/methodology/approach
The policy impacts are estimated using microdata on 13,706 firms available in the 2008 and 2011 editions of the Brazilian Innovation Survey (PINTEC) and by applying propensity score matching with difference-in-differences.
Findings
The results suggest a positive and statistically significant impact of the policy on research and development (R&D) expenditures (average of approximately US$ 264,000 in 2011), the number of research staff (average of five researchers) and total employment (approximately 5% of the beneficiary firms' mean size). However, no impact was found on the overall spending on innovative activities, the percentage of sales and exports from new products, net revenue or net revenue per employee.
Practical implications
The findings provide empirical support in favor of tax incentives as a policy tool to boost business innovation in the country. However, the absence of significant effects on innovative activities expenditures and on most indicators of innovation output and firms' performance reveals shortcomings of the policy that need to be addressed.
Originality/value
The study complements and advances the findings of previous studies by assessing policy impact on total innovative activities expenditures and on innovation output and firm performance.
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Ingrid Van Rompay-Bartels and Jannemieke Geessink
In spite of the potential of peer feedback, research related to the international classroom and the development of intercultural competences remains limited. This paper aims to…
Abstract
Purpose
In spite of the potential of peer feedback, research related to the international classroom and the development of intercultural competences remains limited. This paper aims to further explore this combination and associated gaps by presenting students’ perceptions of peer feedback on individual behaviour in group work.
Design/methodology/approach
Several studies have shown that peer feedback can be a powerful instrument in higher education. For this reason, this instrument is increasingly being deployed in the international classroom of a Dutch Business School (DBS), which has a student population of about 60 different nationalities. The present paper adopts an embedded case-study design in studying peer feedback within the international classroom.
Findings
The primary results of this study are twofold. First, they show that before joining DBS, the vast majority of international students have never been exposed to group work peer feedback. And second, they reveal that cultural background (bias) is a critical factor in how students provide and perceive peer feedback. Students from high-context cultures struggle with direct feedback provided by students from low-context cultures. Furthermore, the results show that domestic cultural values “lack consideration” when dealing with the contrasts in cultural values of non-domestic (international) students.
Originality/value
This study indicates that several aspects of the students’ cultural background have a direct impact on how they provide and perceive individual peer feedback on their behaviour in group work. Furthermore, it argues that peer feedback, when used as an instrument, requires specific training and guidance of students with regard to cultural differences, values and perceptions.
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The aim of this paper is to explore the importance of individual learner differences and the effect differentiated instruction (DI) has on learners' levels of engagement.
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this paper is to explore the importance of individual learner differences and the effect differentiated instruction (DI) has on learners' levels of engagement.
Design/methodology/approach
The author carried out this research using a small-scale action research (AR) study.
Findings
The findings suggest that in acknowledging and responding to individual learner differences, especially interests, levels of learner engagement are positively affected.
Research limitations/implications
This study’s key limitations were sample size, short-term study and potential teacher as researcher bias.
Practical implications
Recommendations were made for a further longitudinal study into the relationship between DI and language learner levels of engagement at University. An additional study into DI that looksbeyond language learning at HE, could add value to pedagogic approaches, which could make courses of greater intrinsic value to its students.
Originality/value
This research study aims to help fill a gap in the literature on the application of DI, as well as a unique perspective into its effect on learner engagement within a university context.
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Jasvir S. Sura, Rajender Panchal and Anju Lather
The main aim of this paper is to examine the claim that economic value added (EVA) advocates its superiority over the traditional accounting-based financial performance measures, i…
Abstract
Purpose
The main aim of this paper is to examine the claim that economic value added (EVA) advocates its superiority over the traditional accounting-based financial performance measures, i.e. profit after tax (PAT), earnings per share (EPS), return on assets (ROA), return on equity (ROE) and return on investment (ROI) in the Indian manufacturing sector and at the same time, give empirical facts. It also tests and examines the information content of various performance measures and their relationship with stock returns.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper uses the sample of 534 Indian manufacturing companies from the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) during the period 2000–2018. Multiple regression models are applied to examine the information content of EVA and traditional performance measures in explaining shareholders’ returns.
Findings
Relative information content tests revealed that traditional accounting-based measures such as EPS, ROE and ROA performed better than EVA in explaining the returns of Indian manufacturing companies. Incremental information content of EVA adds little contribution to information content above traditional performance measures. The claim of superiority of EVA over accounting-based measures in association with shareholder returns is proved invalid in Indian manufacturing companies.
Originality/value
This study concludes that EVA has no superiority over traditional accounting-based financial performance measures in explaining stock returns of Indian manufacturing companies. To achieve heftiness in outcomes, panel data are tested by using Breusch–Pagan–Godfrey (BPG) test for heteroskedasticity, Hausman’s test for fixed and random effect, variance inflation factor (VIF) test for multicollinearity and Durbin–Watson test for autocorrelation.
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The purpose of this paper is to determine if there is a link between corporate shareholder value creation and economic growth. The first objective of this paper is to determine…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to determine if there is a link between corporate shareholder value creation and economic growth. The first objective of this paper is to determine which specific shareholder value measurement best explains shareholder value creation for a particular industry. The next objective of the study is to establish, for each of nine different categories of firms examined, a set of value drivers that are unique and significant in expressing shareholder value for that particular category of firms. Lastly, the relationship between shareholder value creation and economic growth is tested.
Design/methodology/approach
To quantify and measure value creation, the paper investigates the various value creation measurements that are being applied. The next step is to ascertain whether various industries have different value creation measures that best explain value creation for the respective industries. Then, the value drivers of these specific value creation measures can be determined and their relationship with economic growth tested.
Findings
The results of this study indicate that each industry does have a specific shareholder value creation measurement that best explains shareholder value creation for that industry; for example, for five of the nine categories (industries) that were analyzed, market value added was found to be the best shareholder value creation measurement, but for capital-intensive firms and manufacturing firms, the Qratio is the best measure, while for the food and beverage industry, the market to book ratio was found to be a better measure of shareholder value creation than other measures tested. It was further found that an increase in corporate shareholder value creation is to the detriment of economic growth.
Originality/value
The contribution of the present study is its determination of a unique shareholder value creation measurement for particular industries. In addition, a specific set of variables per industry that create shareholder value is identified. Lastly, the important link between shareholder value creation and economic growth is exposed.
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