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The purpose of this study is to document the process of transformative learning during students’ internships.

A qualitative study was conducted with 13 interviewed students to gain deeper insights into their learning experiences during their internships. Their weekly reflections from their 6 month’s internship experience were also coded for common themes.

The study found numerous trigger events ranging from task-related challenges to interpersonal challenges to environmental challenges led to mindset shifts in students during their internships. The mindset shifts are enabled by students engaging in the trigger events through asking questions, seeking information and reflecting. Other enablers of these mindset shifts are workplace psychological safety, social support and individual learning orientation. The conclusion drawn is that trigger events and enabling resources such as external support are central to healthy mindset shifts and learning.

This paper provides important guidance for supporting transformative learning during student internships.

This paper provides important guidance for supporting transformative learning during student internships.

This study aims to analyse the influence of digitalisation on the management control function of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). In particular, it aims to illuminate how digitalisation influences management control elements, organisation and roles/competencies and to identify obstacles to digitalisation of management control in SMEs and measures taken to overcome them.

The study is based on guideline-supported expert interviews conducted with 14 financial managers from SMEs in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

This study reveals the influence of digitalisation on management control elements, organisation, and roles/competencies. The automation and standardisation of management control processes result in new elements for management control, such as strategic support for management. In addition, the increased availability and transparency of data enable the use of instruments within a company that allow for quick analyses of the company's development. Digitalisation leads to the integration of management control into the corporate network and, thus, a change in the organisation of management control. It also triggers the expansion of management control competencies, especially IT competencies. A shortage of internal digitalisation resources, unclear corporate roadmaps, and a lack of managerial experience loom as central challenges for digitalising the management control function. Measures derived from the interviews can help SMEs overcome the obstacles to the digitalisation of management control.

This research is the first interview-based study of the impact of digitalisation on management control in SMEs, potential obstacles to that digitalisation, and measures to overcome those obstacles. Thus, it contributes to the emerging debate on factors that may explain why SMEs lag in terms of the digitalisation of their internal processes.

The outbreak of COVID-19 has caused a slowdown of economic activity across the globe, which has resulted in high levels of disruption to labour markets. This study seeks to examine how the outbreak of COVID-19 has impacted the search strategies of students seeking for an internship, and whether these have changed since the start of the pandemic. The study utilises the strength of weak ties hypothesis, social capital theory and status attainment theory to explore the changes in securing a position since the outbreak of COVID-19.

This study draws on data from two cohorts of MBA students seeking to secure internships: one before the outbreak and one during. A multinomial regression is employed to examine how students have used network ties to secure internships and how this has changed since the outbreak of COVID-19.

The multinomial regression results indicate that there was little difference in the strategies employed by students before the crisis compared to those that secured them during, potentially indicating that students are unwilling to deviate from typical job search strategies, especially in times of uncertainty.

This study provides insights into how network ties are used by job seekers during a period of economic and environmental uncertainty.

Purpose: Nikoletta Taylor and Close, (2022) asserts that a skill gap analysis can be used to determine the lacking skill and carry out recruitment based on that gap. It goes without saying that for a student, that would be their first employment, and with internships, there is no way to experience all aspects of the working world.

Need for This Study: When it comes to the recruiter’s expectations and the applicant’s skills, specifically among students, a gap still exists, leading to a need for practical exposure for applicants.

Study Design/Methodology/Approach: A quantitative study was adopted. A questionnaire was prepared with constructs and variables from the review and a total of 403 responses was collected from reputed institutions in Tamil Nadu.

Findings: This study reveals that skill development is needed; it is found that experiential learning through the gamification process is a suitable learning strategy. The experiential learning factors supporting skill development are self-efficacy, outcome expectation, interest, choice actions, and performance, followed by review, feedback, and continuous improvement.

Originality/Value: Learning all these factors through the gamification process would give students practical exposure to real-time scenarios of the corporate world. The proposed model gives students experience through gamification and learning activities.

Purpose. This chapter discusses the challenges and different strategies to increase skill development for the future workforce.

Methodology. Multiple sources on the topic were studied and reviewed in this chapter. The idea of skill and its development is discussed in the literature review.

Findings. Different nations’ governments have promoted human capital development by providing up-skilling and retraining programs to balance supply and demand. Skills gaps need to be brought to the attention of stakeholders, such as governments, businesses, and the educational system. Teachers, employers, and other stakeholders need to develop strategies and action plans to ensure that the skills gaps are appropriately identified and adequately addressed. These initiatives must be developed with input from various stakeholders.

Practical Implications. The research results would inform the curriculum, incorporating skill development processes tailored to various scenarios. These findings would aid business organisations in crafting skill development programs that address identified skill gaps. Challenges in skill development would be taken into account during course development, and relevant teaching–learning materials would be created. Key stakeholders, such as accrediting organisations, employers, and students, should exert more influence on academic institutions to prioritise societal demands for economic development.

Originality/Value. The uniqueness and significance of this chapter lie in its concise summary of the strategies to tackle the hurdles in skill development.

There remains a critical issue in sport management scholarship in that the field lacks a well-defined framework for delineating practical implications in research. This research aims to answer the following research questions: (1) What types of practical implications can be identified in sport management research? (2) How can sport management research frame the practical implications of the study in a way that is both theoretically sound and useful for practitioners?

Through a scoping review and within the lens of Jaworski (2011)'s framework for managerial relevance, the study examined 427 articles from European Sport Management Quarterly, Journal of Sport Management and Sport Management Review published between 2000 and 2020.

This study presents a five-pronged framework that identifies target managers, organizational tasks, time horizons, philosophical impact and desired outcomes. Furthermore, the current research offers suggestions for how to present managerial implications in sport management research.

The findings shed light on the managerial relevance of the recent sport management body of work, developing an important framework for practical implications for the field to reflect and incorporate into future studies. With a theoretical understanding of how to frame the practical implications of sport management research, the gap between academia and industry can continue to narrow, and the relevance to the industry may be more pertinent than ever before.

After completion of the case study, students are expected to demonstrate understanding of the process of strategy formulation (which include conducting situational analysis) and strategy implementation.

Perusahaan Azan, which trades under the brand name Roti Azan for its fresh bread and Azan for its dry bread or rusks, was established as a family business in 1968 by Haji Abu Bakar bin Ali in his hometown in Kuala Pilah, in the state of Negeri Sembilan in Malaysia. In the mid-1980s, the management of the business was passed on by Haji Abu Bakar to one of his sons, Haji Mohd Ghazali bin Haji Abu Bakar. Haji Ghazali was named managing director in 1985 and officially inherited his father’s company in 1987. By 2004, Perusahaan Azan breads had started to penetrate major grocery stores nationwide, and later the business began to expand internationally in 2010, with Oman and Iraq among the first countries it ventured into. The company sold both its fresh and dry bread in local stores; however, in the international market, only dry bread types were sold, specifically wholemeal rusks and long rusks, which had longer shelf lives. Post-pandemic, by 2022, the company had exited the retail fresh bread market and had focused only on its contractual fresh bread and retail dry bread markets. He thought about the main strategic choices he had of going forward, either to revive its retail fresh bread segment or venture into a coffee shop business. The former was the bread and butter of the company in the last 50 years. However, he knew that re-entering this market was getting more difficult, as it requires competing head-to-head with the giant breadmakers. There were also issues of rising costs and high wastage. For the latter coffee shop project, the company did not have experience in directly “serving” the customers, with its businesses so far had been mainly in production. He pondered on the best decision to undertake to sustain the company’s profitability into the next generation. Few family businesses can pass this crucial stage. He knew he had to act fast to ensure that the company’s plans for the future could be successfully implemented. The case study is suitable for use in teaching courses in strategic management, organisational management and integrated case study for advanced undergraduates and postgraduates in the programmes of business administration, Muamalat administration and accounting.

The case study is suitable for use in advanced undergraduate students in management, business administration, Muamalat administration and postgraduate students in MBA, Master in Muamalat Administration or other related master’s programmes with a course in strategic management, organisational management and integrated case study.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.

This paper aims to explore the Spanish Self-Initiated Expats’ (SIEs) motivations and factors involved in the choice of the host destination.

Through an exploratory and qualitative study, drawing upon SIE literature on motivations and careers, 22 Spanish SIEs were interviewed in a semi-structured way.

Most SIEs clearly detailed the line of reasoning behind the host destination choice (specific destination); a second group considered a limited number of potential countries to relocate to (alternative destinations), and the smallest one did not choose a specific location. Career motivations were the most mentioned ones and different degrees of career planning were found: those with a very defined career planning process relied upon one potential destination, while those with a less defined one considered several alternative host destinations. The European Region Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students experience was one of the most mentioned factors influencing the choice of the host destination, which may be common to other European Union (EU) nationals. As to the limiting ones, the visa requirements outside the EU were identified. Other factors were particular to Spain, such as the perceived need for English proficiency for a successful global career and the degrees of career planning.

These findings may assist Talent Management Managers to align organizational strategies with SIEs motivations. They may also help future Spanish and European SIEs in their individual career management process.

This study contributes to a better understanding of the expatriation motivations and factors influencing the destination location of Spanish SIEs, adding to the SIE and global career literature.

This study aims to explore the relationships between career competencies and job search self-efficacy via the serial multiple mediation effect of career adaptability and self-perceived employability within multiple theoretical frameworks.

This study adopts a cross-sectional design to collect data at a specific point in time and employs self-report questionnaires to collect data from participants. In total, 302 students from the “management and organization department” in a vocational school of a public university completed the survey forms. To test the hypothesized model, a serial multiple mediation analysis was performed using structural equation modeling (SEM) via SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) AMOS (Analysis of Moment Structures).

The results indicated that career competencies, career adaptability, job search self-efficacy and self-perceived employability all had significant and positive relationships. Additionally, the relationship between career competencies and job search self-efficacy was serially mediated by career adaptability and self-perceived employability as anticipated.

Considering the growing importance of the subject of how universities might better prepare their graduates for the job market, the study's findings have important policy implications. University students should also be provided with career management resources, specifically adaptation resources, to help them navigate their individual characteristics and transfer more successfully into the existing job market. This is the cause of the need for constant planning, adaptation, assessment and evaluation of career competencies in current labor markets.

The study contributes to international career development and vocational education research by filling a gap in the literature by demonstrating that job search self-efficacy, which is a predictor of job search behavior, can be promoted by career competencies, career adaptability and self-perceived employability. These findings are particularly significant because they highlight the importance of career-related knowledge, skills and abilities in engaging university students seeking employment in a developing country with a highly competitive labor market.

This study aims to provides the insights on the advantages and disadvantages of international franchising and licensing from the perspectives of legal and business considerations in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

Using a quantitative research approach, the authors conducted a survey with 150 business owners and franchisees in the GCC and analyzed the data using descriptive statistics, structural equation modeling and frequency analysis.

The findings reveal that while international franchising and licensing offer significant benefits for business expansion and revenue growth, they also pose risks related to legal compliance, cultural differences and intellectual property protection. Indeed, the results of this study provide valuable insights into the advantages and disadvantages of international franchising and licensing in the GCC from both legal and business perspectives.

There is limited research on the legal and business perspectives of international franchising and licensing in the GCC. This study contributes to the literature by providing a comprehensive analysis of the legal and business perspectives of international franchising and licensing in the GCC.