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1 – 10 of 475Elise Labonte-LeMoyne, Pierre-Majorique Leger, Jacques Robert, Gilbert Babin, Patrick Charland and Jean-François Michon
A major trend in enterprise resource planning software (ERP) is to embed business analytics tools within user-centered roles in enterprise software. This integration allows…
Abstract
Purpose
A major trend in enterprise resource planning software (ERP) is to embed business analytics tools within user-centered roles in enterprise software. This integration allows business users to get better and faster insight to action. As a consequence, it is imperative for business students to learn how to use these new tools to adequately prepare them for new expectations in the industry. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
In this paper, the authors propose a new serious game, called ERPsim for big data, to enable the learner to acquire abilities at each level of the business analytics learning taxonomy. To maximize the pedagogical impact of the game, participatory design (PD) with professors as co-designers was used during game development.
Findings
This case study presents the PD approach and analyses the efficacy of the proposed new simulation.
Originality/value
The authors conclude by providing recommendations and lessons learned from this approach.
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A collection of essays by a social economist seeking to balanceeconomics as a science of means with the values deemed necessary toman′s finding the good life and society enduring…
Abstract
A collection of essays by a social economist seeking to balance economics as a science of means with the values deemed necessary to man′s finding the good life and society enduring as a civilized instrumentality. Looks for authority to great men of the past and to today′s moral philosopher: man is an ethical animal. The 13 essays are: 1. Evolutionary Economics: The End of It All? which challenges the view that Darwinism destroyed belief in a universe of purpose and design; 2. Schmoller′s Political Economy: Its Psychic, Moral and Legal Foundations, which centres on the belief that time‐honoured ethical values prevail in an economy formed by ties of common sentiment, ideas, customs and laws; 3. Adam Smith by Gustav von Schmoller – Schmoller rejects Smith′s natural law and sees him as simply spreading the message of Calvinism; 4. Pierre‐Joseph Proudhon, Socialist – Karl Marx, Communist: A Comparison; 5. Marxism and the Instauration of Man, which raises the question for Marx: is the flowering of the new man in Communist society the ultimate end to the dialectical movement of history?; 6. Ethical Progress and Economic Growth in Western Civilization; 7. Ethical Principles in American Society: An Appraisal; 8. The Ugent Need for a Consensus on Moral Values, which focuses on the real dangers inherent in there being no consensus on moral values; 9. Human Resources and the Good Society – man is not to be treated as an economic resource; man′s moral and material wellbeing is the goal; 10. The Social Economist on the Modern Dilemma: Ethical Dwarfs and Nuclear Giants, which argues that it is imperative to distinguish good from evil and to act accordingly: existentialism, situation ethics and evolutionary ethics savour of nihilism; 11. Ethical Principles: The Economist′s Quandary, which is the difficulty of balancing the claims of disinterested science and of the urge to better the human condition; 12. The Role of Government in the Advancement of Cultural Values, which discusses censorship and the funding of art against the background of the US Helms Amendment; 13. Man at the Crossroads draws earlier themes together; the author makes the case for rejecting determinism and the “operant conditioning” of the Skinner school in favour of the moral progress of autonomous man through adherence to traditional ethical values.
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Pierre‐Majorique Léger, Paul Cronan, Patrick Charland, Robert Pellerin, Gilbert Babin and Jacques Robert
It is argued that problem‐based learning (PBL) is a valuable approach to teaching operations management, as it allows learners to apply their knowledge and skills in an…
Abstract
Purpose
It is argued that problem‐based learning (PBL) is a valuable approach to teaching operations management, as it allows learners to apply their knowledge and skills in an environment that is close to real‐life. In fact, many simulations currently exist in the teaching of operations management. However, these simulations lack a connection to real‐life, as they are typically turn‐based and do not use real‐life IT support. The current paper seeks to address this issue by presenting an innovative pedagogical approach designed to provide learners with an authentic problem‐solving experience in operations management within an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper proposes a simulation game called ERPsim whereby students must operate an enterprise in a simulated economic environment using in real time a real‐life ERP system, namely SAP. Based on a survey with instructors, it assesses the extent to which this proposed simulation is aligned with the five characteristics of the PBL approach.
Findings
Survey respondents confirm that significant improvements in student evaluations, learner motivation, attendance, and engagement, as well as increased learner competence with the technology can be achieved by using the proposed approach.
Practical implications
For more than five years this pedagogical approach has been used by more than 250 professors, lecturers, and professional trainers in over 160 universities worldwide. Between September 2009 and June 2011, more than 3,000 simulations games were played by over 16,000 university student teams.
Originality/value
Results and observations on using the proposed pedagogical approach are presented and compared to the main characteristics of the PBL approach (authenticity, ill structured problems, student‐centered, small group settings and facilitator dimensions).
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Alistair Brandon‐Jones, Niall Piercy and Nigel Slack
The aim of this review and of the papers in this special issue is to critically examine different approaches to teaching operations management (OM) in order to provoke and…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this review and of the papers in this special issue is to critically examine different approaches to teaching operations management (OM) in order to provoke and stimulate educators within the discipline.
Design/methodology/approach
The papers within this special issue include empirical assessments of a problem‐based learning enterprise resource planning (ERP) simulation; a computer‐based learning tool for material requirements planning (MRP); a simulation of assembly operations; an operations strategy innovation game; an extension of the production dice game; an experiential teaching method in different class settings; and problem‐based assessment methods in OM. A variety of data are used to support these empirical studies, including survey, interview, and observational data.
Findings
The papers within the special issue support the argument that OM is well‐suited to more applied methods of teaching focusing on the application of subject knowledge to real‐life situations through a variety of techniques.
Practical implications
It is hoped that this review and the papers within this special issue act to stimulate educators to re‐evaluate their approaches to teaching OM and encourage them to consider adopting experiential teaching methods, business simulations, role‐plays, group exercises, live cases, and virtual learning environments, instead of, or in addition to, the more conventional lectures that typically dominate many OM modules around the world.
Originality/value
A special issue on teaching OM appears timely given the significant changes to both the university landscape and to the nature of the discipline that we have witnessed over the last quarter of a century.
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The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which Benjamin Franklin's understanding of political economy was shaped by his association with the French school of writers…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which Benjamin Franklin's understanding of political economy was shaped by his association with the French school of writers known as physiocrats.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper works from direct statements by Franklin in his published works and correspondence and biographical sources.
Findings
Franklin declared himself to embrace physiocratic principles and ideals but was not able to advance these ideals at home.
Research limitations/implications
Further details are undoubtedly available from sources not translated from French into English.
Practical implications
The course of history would have been significantly different had the physiocratic ideals become the basis for law and public policies.
Originality/value
The paper offers further evidence of the influence of the physiocratic school on Franklin, as one of the leading practical philosophers of his age.
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The purpose of this paper is to trace from ancient Greek scholars to the mid‐1950s the sentiments of two schools of economic thought on the role of marketing middlemen or…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to trace from ancient Greek scholars to the mid‐1950s the sentiments of two schools of economic thought on the role of marketing middlemen or intermediaries. One school disclaims any addition of value through middlemen's activities; the second maintains that marketing adds value.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper was originally a chapter in the author's doctoral dissertation titled “Value added as a measure of economic contribution by marketing institutions” at Ohio State University. It is reprinted here to explore and add insight to other work by and about the author in this issue of the journal. A brief historical analysis of writings by ancient Greek scholars, mercantilists, physiocrats, classicists, neoclassicists, and twentieth century dissenters, is presented.
Findings
Marketers add value and, in so doing, are productive. However, earlier scholars did not distinguish between measures of value added and measures of productivity and efficiency.
Originality/value
While other marketing historians have covered much of this literature since the time of its original writing, it was in 1957 among the earliest such work by marketing scholars. As mentioned above, this paper explores and adds insight to other work by and about the author in this issue of the journal.
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Adam Smith’s theory of economic growth, as presented in the Wealth of Nations, is based upon the potential for increasing returns in manufacturing generated by increased…
Abstract
Adam Smith’s theory of economic growth, as presented in the Wealth of Nations, is based upon the potential for increasing returns in manufacturing generated by increased specialization and division of labour and upon the accumulation of real capital, which is necessary to support the greater division of labour. The increasing returns part of Smith’s theory leaves open the possibility that bank credit, issued judiciously, might be used to extend the market and so increase an economy’s growth rate. However, Smith’s theory of bank credit and note extension is quite conservative. Henry Dunning Macleod, a century after Smith, made much of the potential of credit to extend the market. Notes Smith’s apparent inconsistency and considers reasons why he might have chosen not to promote the use of credit to enhance economic growth.
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The purpose of this paper is to establish Kautilya as a genuine contender to be a forerunner of the neoclassical price theory.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to establish Kautilya as a genuine contender to be a forerunner of the neoclassical price theory.
Design/methodology/approach
Rational reconstruction approach is used to present Kautilya's understanding of several most basic concepts in economics.
Findings
Kautilya's understanding of the law of diminishing returns is at par with the classicists. His applications of concepts like opportunity cost, and of demand and supply framework, are closer to those of the neoclassicals. His understanding of the rules (axioms) of comparison and consistency and the exploration of substitution possibilities is way ahead of the classicists.
Research limitations/implications
The current research in the history of economic thought concentrates too heavily on the exploration of Western history of economic thought.
Practical implications
Kautilya's Arthashastra is a new source of knowledge and the profession should encourage the exploration of other ancient contributions outside of Europe.
Originality/value
The paper revises the history of economic thought.
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The object of this research is the reconstruction of the existing legal response by European Union states to the phenomenon of immigration. It seeks to analyse the process of…
Abstract
Purpose
The object of this research is the reconstruction of the existing legal response by European Union states to the phenomenon of immigration. It seeks to analyse the process of conferral of protection.
Design/methodology/approach
One main dimension is selected and discussed: the case law of the national courts. The study focuses on the legal status of immigrants resulting from the intervention of these national courts.
Findings
The research shows that although the courts have conferred an increasing protection on immigrants, this has not challenged the fundamental principle of the sovereignty of the states to decide, according to their discretionary prerogatives, which immigrants are allowed to enter and stay in their territories. Notwithstanding the differences in the general constitutional and legal structures, the research also shows that the courts of the three countries considered – France, Germany and Spain – have progressively moved towards converging solutions in protecting immigrants.
Originality/value
The research contributes to a better understanding of the different legal orders analysed.
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