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1 – 10 of 43Rosa Isusi-Fagoaga, Adela García-Aracil and Isidora Navarro-Milla
This paper analyses teachers' perceptions of how teaching-learning approaches affect the development of higher education (HE) graduates' learning outcomes based on competencies…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper analyses teachers' perceptions of how teaching-learning approaches affect the development of higher education (HE) graduates' learning outcomes based on competencies development. The authors focus the analysis on Belarus, a post-Soviet country which transitioned from a centrally planned to a market economy and needs reforms to the HE sector there. In particular, Belarus requires HE graduates equipped with competencies that match the needs of a market economy.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors use Fostering Competencies Development in Belarusian Higher Education (FOSTERC) data to study how teachers contribute to the development of HE graduates' competencies, employing factor analysis to categorize 24 competencies and group the graduates into two groups: entrepreneurial or transversal. The authors also consider variables such as teachers' educational background and experience, predominant teaching field of study and university location – using regional dummies.
Findings
The results point to a lack of attention to entrepreneurial and transversal competencies and suggest a disconnect between HE and society needs in Belarus.
Originality/value
Although Belarus has introduced some changes to the HE system following the adoption of the Bologna process, Belarus, especially Belarus' national HE system are still influenced by the country's Soviet past, where universities prepare the students for participation on one job and one career, instead of offering more attractive and constructive curricula that would allow future graduates to operate in a changing world.
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While scholars have commonly inquired into how capital structures the material world, far less attention has been paid to how the material world has structured the historical…
Abstract
While scholars have commonly inquired into how capital structures the material world, far less attention has been paid to how the material world has structured the historical relations of the capitalist world economy. This chapter is concerned with the expansion of Caribbean sugar industry in the world economic conjuncture of the first half of the nineteenth century. It examines the relation of the material requirements of sugar production, regional geography, and productive space. The ability of planters in particular locations to respond to world economic conditions was subject to material and spatial constraints. Increased output and technological innovation were dependent on the creation of new productive spaces – including both the formation of new commodity frontiers and the reconstitution the sugar plantation – that conformed to the changing requirements of sugar manufacture. Thus, the spatial and material conditions of staple production shaped the pattern of accumulation and political economic development.
Sílvia Monteiro, Leandro Almeida and Adela García-Aracil
This study addresses the specific topic of transition between higher education and the world of work, taking differences naturally inherent to the individual and to the…
Abstract
Purpose
This study addresses the specific topic of transition between higher education and the world of work, taking differences naturally inherent to the individual and to the surrounding micro and macro contexts. With a holistic approach, this paper aimed to provide a deeper understanding about the university-to-work transition process in a period of turbulence and continuous changes in the labour market.
Design/methodology/approach
The three research questions that guide this qualitative study are as follows: (1) What are the factors that facilitate the transition to the labour market? (2) What are the factors that constrain the transition to the labour market? (3) What are graduates' perceptions of their employability? To answer these questions, eleven graduates were interviewed about facilitators and barriers of the transition process and perceptions of employability. Data collected from the interviews were then related to categories previously defined from the literature review. Version 12.0 of the NVivo software was used to support the process of data analysis.
Findings
Overall, participants' discourse refer to a multidimensional and dynamic perspective of factors related with work transition and employability. The obtained results indicate that the lack of career agency during graduation and professional experiences, together with late career exploration processes, represent possible barriers of transition, especially in study fields with targeted job offers. Likewise, experiences promoting the development of competencies through supportive practice from teachers, mentors and colleagues are referred as facilitators of transition.
Practical implications
One of the most consistent outcomes of the interviews conducted concerns the importance of a stronger focus on developing practical experiences during higher education studies. This empirical study demonstrated how this type of experience can mitigate the impact of the transition from university to the labour market.
Originality/value
This empirical study demonstrated how work being integrated into learning in curricula can mitigate the impact of the transition from university to the labour market. It offers important insights about possible strategies that could be adopted to promote graduates' employability from a perspective of shared responsibility.
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Anabel Fernández‐Mesa, Joaquín Alegre‐Vidal, Ricardo Chiva‐Gómez and Antonio Gutiérrez‐Gracia
The aim of this paper is to present design management as a dynamic capability and to analyze its mediating role between organizational learning capability and product innovation…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this paper is to present design management as a dynamic capability and to analyze its mediating role between organizational learning capability and product innovation performance in small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
Design/methodology/approach
Structural equation modeling is used to test the research hypotheses based on data from the Italian and Spanish ceramic tile industries. The data are derived from the responses of 182 companies (50 percent of the target population) to a questionnaire addressed to Product Development Managers and Human Resource Managers.
Findings
The results suggest that organizational learning capability enhances product innovation through the mediation of design management capability. The authors find an interesting interplay between organizational learning, design management capability and product innovation that can be very useful to better understand how to improve innovation performance. This finding shows that design management, as a dynamic capability, emerges from learning and allows the firm to adapt to environmental changes.
Originality/value
Several works have studied dynamic capabilities but without specifying the nature of these capabilities. More recent empirically‐based studies conceptualize and refer to specific dynamic capabilities. In this paper, the authors present design management as a dynamic capability. This study aims also to develop a better understanding of how organizational learning capability impacts on the product innovation performance of SMEs and how this relationship is mediated by design management capability.
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Philippe Mongeon, Nicolas Robinson-Garcia, Wei Jeng and Rodrigo Costas
It is widely recognized that sharing data is beneficial not only for science but also for the common good, and researchers are increasingly expected to share their data. However…
Abstract
Purpose
It is widely recognized that sharing data is beneficial not only for science but also for the common good, and researchers are increasingly expected to share their data. However, many researchers are still not making their data available, one of the reasons being that this activity is not adequately recognized in the current reward system of science. Since the attribution of data sets to individual researchers is necessary if we are to include them in research evaluation processes, the purpose of this paper is to explore the feasibility of linking data set records from DataCite to the authors of articles indexed in the Web of Science.
Design/methodology/approach
DataCite and WoS records are linked together based on the similarity between the names of the data sets’ creators and the articles’ authors, as well as the similarity between the noun phrases in the titles of the data sets and the titles and abstract of the articles.
Findings
The authors report that a large number of DataCite records can be attributed to specific authors in WoS, and the authors demonstrate that the prevalence of data sharing varies greatly depending on the research discipline.
Originality/value
It is yet unclear how data sharing can provide adequate recognition for individual researchers. Bibliometric indicators are commonly used for research evaluation, but to date no large-scale assessment of individual researchers’ data sharing activities has been carried out.
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Daniel Torres-Salinas, Juan Gorraiz and Nicolas Robinson-Garcia
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the capabilities, functionalities and appropriateness of Altmetric.com as a data source for the bibliometric analysis of books in…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the capabilities, functionalities and appropriateness of Altmetric.com as a data source for the bibliometric analysis of books in comparison to PlumX.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors perform an exploratory analysis on the metrics the Altmetric Explorer for Institutions, platform offers for books. The authors use two distinct data sets of books. On the one hand, the authors analyze the Book Collection included in Altmetric.com. On the other hand, the authors use Clarivate’s Master Book List, to analyze Altmetric.com’s capabilities to download and merge data with external databases. Finally, the authors compare the findings with those obtained in a previous study performed in PlumX.
Findings
Altmetric.com combines and orderly tracks a set of data sources combined by DOI identifiers to retrieve metadata from books, being Google Books its main provider. It also retrieves information from commercial publishers and from some Open Access initiatives, including those led by university libraries, such as Harvard Library. We find issues with linkages between records and mentions or ISBN discrepancies. Furthermore, the authors find that automatic bots affect greatly Wikipedia mentions to books. The comparison with PlumX suggests that none of these tools provide a complete picture of the social attention generated by books and are rather complementary than comparable tools.
Practical implications
This study targets different audience which can benefit from the findings. First, bibliometricians and researchers who seek for alternative sources to develop bibliometric analyses of books, with a special focus on the Social Sciences and Humanities fields. Second, librarians and research managers who are the main clients to which these tools are directed. Third, Altmetric.com itself as well as other altmetric providers who might get a better understanding of the limitations users encounter and improve this promising tool.
Originality/value
This is the first study to analyze Altmetric.com’s functionalities and capabilities for providing metric data for books and to compare results from this platform, with those obtained via PlumX.
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Elena Castro‐Martínez, Albert Recasens and Fernando Jiménez‐Sáez
This study aims to provide an in‐depth understanding of the innovation system and the learning processes involved in a very specific cultural field: the production of early music.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to provide an in‐depth understanding of the innovation system and the learning processes involved in a very specific cultural field: the production of early music.
Design/methodology/approach
A single case study of the generic value chain in the music production industry describes and analyses the process and the actors involved in editing a new early music collection resulting from the collaboration between a record company and a public research organization.
Findings
There is a need for new knowledge in the various stages of performance and publication of a new recording. The early music sector is a knowledge‐intensive, science‐driven sector that can be characterized as a system because the interactions among actors substantially influence final products.
Research limitations/implications
The single case study represents a specific sector within the music industry. However, its conclusions can be applied to other fields in the cultural heritage sector.
Originality/value
The literature on innovation in the cultural field primarily focuses on the relationship between art and information and communication technology (ICT). This paper is novel in analysing a case where scientific knowledge is key to new product development, and suggesting that we need to take account of the interactions among cultural heritage entities, universities and other knowledge production organizations. It concludes that these organizations should be involved institutionally in other aspects of the innovation process.
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J. Andrés Domínguez-Gómez, Hugo Pinto and Teresa González-Gómez
The university is changing. Its social role is growing in diversity and complexity. In a knowledge-based society, there is a huge public expectation in the results and impacts of…
Abstract
The university is changing. Its social role is growing in diversity and complexity. In a knowledge-based society, there is a huge public expectation in the results and impacts of the university’s activities. Its traditional roles – training and qualification of individuals and production of new knowledge – are no longer valid. As a result of university–industry interactions, policy-making began to give additional significance to the role of the university in regional development, mainly motivated by shining examples of success in transferring scientific knowledge to valuable innovation, many through academic entrepreneurship. This change in the role of the university is reflected not only in the mode of knowledge production, which became more transdisciplinary and applied, but also in the active engagement of different institutional spheres, the university, the firm, the government, and end-users, creating new hybrid and overlapping areas for the governance of innovative dynamics. This chapter defines and analyses the position of the university in contemporary society as a socially legitimised institution for the production of knowledge and innovation. Three different theoretical traditions – Actor–Network Theory, Stakeholder Theory and territorial innovation models – inspire the analysis of 15 in-depth interviews with key actors in their local innovation system and knowledge networks around the University of Huelva (Andalusia, Spain). The main conclusions suggest that the university today faces a huge challenge in responding to the expectations that society places on it.
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Pablo Aránguiz Mesías, Guillermo Palau Salvador and Jordi Peris-Blanes
This paper aims to explore how young students experience the contribution of a pedagogical assemblage based on design thinking (DT) while contributing to the transition to a more…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore how young students experience the contribution of a pedagogical assemblage based on design thinking (DT) while contributing to the transition to a more just and sustainable university.
Design/methodology/approach
This qualitative research considers the case of two pedagogical experiences developed at Universitat Politècnica de Valencià, Spain. In both experiences, a methodological proposal that includes practices of care, just transitions and DT was implemented. The data obtained through in-depth interviews, surveys and digital whiteboard labels was analyzed under the lens of three relational categories in the context of sustainability.
Findings
Learnings are acquired through five categories: place-based learning, prior learning, embodied learning, collaborative teamwork and intersectionality. The research shows how the subjective knowledge of young students positions them as co-designers and leaders of a University that drives a more just and sustainable transition.
Originality/value
The originality of the paper lies in the shift of DT from a human-based approach to a justice-oriented relational approach.
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Yongli Li, Sihan Li, Chuang Wei and Jiaming Liu
Due to the unintentional or even the intentional mistakes arising from a survey, the purpose of this paper is to present a data-driven method for detecting students’ friendship…
Abstract
Purpose
Due to the unintentional or even the intentional mistakes arising from a survey, the purpose of this paper is to present a data-driven method for detecting students’ friendship network based on their daily behaviour data. Based on the detected friendship network, this paper further aims to explore how the considered network effects (i.e. friend numbers (FNs), structural holes (SHs) and friendship homophily) influence students’ GPA ranking.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors collected the campus smart card data of 8,917 sophomores registered in one Chinese university during one academic year, uncovered the inner relationship between the daily behaviour data with the friendship to infer the friendship network among students, and further adopted the ordered probit regression model to test the relationship between network effects with GPA rankings by controlling several influencing variables.
Findings
The data-driven approach of detecting friendship network is demonstrated to be useful and the empirical analysis illustrates that the relationship between GPA ranking and FN presents an inverted “U-shape”, richness in SHs positively affects GPA ranking, and making more friends within the same department will benefit promoting GPA ranking.
Originality/value
The proposed approach can be regarded as a new information technology for detecting friendship network from the real behaviour data, which is potential to be widely used in many scopes. Moreover, the findings from the designed empirical analysis also shed light on how to improve GPA rankings from the angle of network effect and further guide how many friends should be made in order to achieve the highest GPA level, which contributes to the existing literature.
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