Search results

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how globalised business programmes in higher education in Taiwan fills latent gaps between business education and the local job markets from viewpoints of teachers, students in higher education, and those working in the job markets within five years of graduation. The distinction in viewpoints from teachers, students, and graduates is valuable in examining how globalised business programmes in Taiwan help students in competitiveness in the local job markets.

Six teachers (five males, one female) in business programmes from two national universities with teaching experiences ranging from 2 to 19 years were interviewed. Ten students (four males, six females) in business programmes from six universities ranging from junior to master’s level were interviewed. Nine people (five males, four females) who were working full-time in the local job markets within five years of graduation from business programmes were interviewed. A total of 25 subjects (14 males, 11 females) participated in the study.

In course-related issues, students seem to have difficulties in understanding certain issues with different cultural background, and this affects teachers using textbooks and cases with USA or European standpoints. In applicability, some teachers believe it is students’ responsibilities to know how to apply what they have learned in school in practice. Those graduates who are working in local markets explained that in reality they do not apply much of what they have learned in globalised business programmes at work. In crossing over the gap, some teachers try to include local cases in teaching materials.

The argument in this study is not to lose the beauty of localisation in globalisation in business programmes in higher education. The latent gaps between globalised business programmes and local job markets can be crossed over with a strong foundation of training in theories in globalised business programmes plus some experiences obtained in working experiences.

Findings in this study provided new insights into gaps between globalised business programmes and local job markets, and how it can be crossed over with a strong foundation of training in theories plus experiences obtained in practical training. Generic competence and transferable skills in local business operations ought to be included in globalised business programmes.

Companies often aspire to create advantages for their businesses through acquisitions. Their participation has increasingly been documented to include different motives for acquirers, while focusing less on the ambitions of acquired parties with the acquisitions. The purpose of this paper is to describe and discuss gaps and the handling of gaps between acquirers and acquired parties in acquisitions of innovative firms.

In the paper, the authors specifically focus on acquisitions of innovative firms. Four case studies illustrate gaps between the acquirers and the acquired parties.

The authors conclude that gaps may be present from the start as latent gaps, and become activated in integration or as the consequence of non-integration decisions. Gaps between the acquirer and the acquired party may be further manifested in external parties’ reactions to the integration. The handling of gaps emphasizes a transition time and communication about expectations between the acquirer and the acquired party.

The paper contributes to previous research on mergers and acquisitions in general, and acquisitions of innovative firms in particular. Prior literature on acquisitions is scarce on descriptions of gaps or the handling of gaps. Gaps complement ideas on differences in culture between acquirers and acquired parties. It also highlights how acquired parties have as much intention with an acquisition as acquirers.

Digitalised and interconnected production systems in the era of fourth industrial revolution or Industry 4.0 (I4.0) have triggered the need of reshaping the traditional Quality Management (QM) models and roles of quality professionals. The purpose of this paper is to review the body of literature on QM in the I4.0 environment (also termed as “Quality 4.0”) and identify future research possibilities.

The morphological analysis (MA) framework is used to identify research gaps in a systematic manner. We present the MA framework based on a literature review of 51 papers on the Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC) list identified using systematic review protocol.

The MA framework, built on six relevant dimensions, namely, production and operations function, scope of QM activities, enabling technologies, latent capabilities of digitalisation, performance metrics and QM principles, and 41 associated variants, reveals 367 research gaps as an upper bound of opportunities for future research.

This paper is possibly the first to use MA for reviewing the QM literature, presenting important contributions. The MA framework acts as a ready reckoner on the QM in I4.0 literature. It documents research gaps through the construction of a cross-consistency matrix.

The minimum wage has been regarded as an important element of public policy for reducing poverty and inequality. Increasing the minimum wage is supposed to raise earnings for millions of low-wage workers and therefore lower earnings inequality. However, there is no consensus in the existing literature from industrialized countries regarding whether increasing the minimum wage has helped lower earnings inequality. China has recently exhibited rapid economic growth and widening earnings inequality. Since China promulgated new minimum wage regulations in 2004, the magnitude and frequency of changes in the minimum wage have been substantial, both over time and across jurisdictions. The growing importance of research on the relationship between the minimum wage and earnings inequality and its controversial nature have sparked heated debate in China, highlighting the importance of rigorous research to inform evidence-based policy making. We investigate the contribution of the minimum wage to the well-documented rise in earnings inequality in China from 2004 to 2009 by using city-level minimum wage panel data and a representative Chinese household survey, and we find that increasing the minimum wage reduces inequality – by decreasing the earnings gap between the median and the bottom decile – over the analysis period.

There is compelling evidence that demonstrates that organisations are failing to reap the full benefits of lean initiatives. While much work has been conducted on what factors are critical to the success of lean initiatives, there is a dearth of empirical evidence relating to whether team leaders implement critical success factors (CSFs) in practice. Therefore, this study aims to explore the extent to which functional team leaders implement lean practices focussing on the role of leadership, empowerment and culture.

The research analysed team leaders in a single-site manufacturing organisation. A state-of-the-art analysis was conducted to isolate relevant themes and an instrument was developed to capture data. Empirical data was collected and analysed from 34 team leaders in engineering, quality and manufacturing.

The study found that while many good managerial practices to support lean is implemented, there remain significant challenges relating to cultural issues which must be addressed. The findings illuminate a latent gap in commitment and communication from senior management, as well as an underlying discrepancy in time and resource allocation.

The study’s findings provide new knowledge concerning the extent to which CSFs are implemented by functional team leaders in a real-world environment. The enquiry makes a valuable departure from previous research that focusses on leadership at a senior and middle manager level. It bridges the gap between academia and practice and provides tangible and concise results to management on how CSFs relating to leadership, empowerment and culture impact team leaders to drive lean methodologies.

Managers sometimes hide their level of corporate social performance (CSP) from investors, intentionally or unintentionally. The purpose of this study is to estimate such “hidden CSP” of firms.

In this study, it is assumed that Japanese public firms can be classified into two groups based on the difference in corporate social responsibility (CSR) awareness. Thus, the respondents to the CSR questionnaire survey are classified as the CSR-aware group, and the non-respondents are treated as the CSR-unaware group. It is further assumed that a significant relationship exists between CSP and a firm’s attributes, including financial performance and stock ownership. Under these assumptions, a model to estimate the CSP of non-respondents is constructed using the relationship between CSP and a firm’s observable attributes.

There is a significant latent gap between the CSP of respondents and the hidden CSP of non-respondents because of differences in firm size, foreign dependency of business and reputation and trust in the financial markets, rather than because of differences in financial performance. Insider-oriented ownership structures are negatively associated with CSP.

The estimation model developed in this study depends on a set of assumptions. In particular, a stable relationship between CSP and firm-specific variables, i.e. there is no structural change during the observation period, is assumed. Despite these limitations, this study extends the CSR research perspective, as it makes it possible to estimate the hidden CSP of public firms.

In practice, the findings of this study surface a part of the missing CSR that investors need and that could alert non-respondent firms to the importance of CSR strategy and related disclosures to adapt to rapidly changing social and environmental business settings.

This study is the result of academic interest in examining the missing information related to CSR activities to obtain an overall picture of the CSP distribution of Japanese listed firms as a whole.

The purpose of this study is to increase understanding of gaps in buyer‐seller relationships. Increasingly complex, rapidly changing, and dynamic business environments provide a rich research environment for analysing gaps in business relationships. Traditionally, gaps have been examined from the static and single party perspective. However, dyadic buyer‐seller relationships can be revealed, described, and analysed in new ways by viewing intraorganisational and interorganisational gaps longitudinally as chains of interactions in relationships and from the perspectives of several parties. In this study the gaps are understood as consisting of concepts such as inconsistency, critical incident, conflict, gap, and perceived differences.

The question of how to develop human capabilities to meet current and future needs of organisations has become an important issue at national, organisational and individual levels. An essential ingredient is shared understanding of the skills and competences deemed necessary and/or desirable for current and future performance. Current indications in the UK are that this may not exist and that there is an incompatibility between supply and demand. This paper reports on a research project undertaken in the UK automotive sector to explore the extent and nature of the differences in perception among stakeholders relating to the skills and development needs of current and future employees. Using the template approach data were collected from those providing training and those who are consumers of training. Comparison identified competing demands and differences in expectation and attainment, particularly in relation to prospective employees, potentially resulting in dissatisfaction and disappointment for all concerned.