Search results

The purpose of this paper is to report how one University has sought to test the effectiveness of strategies to enhance employability skills, and the key themes which emerged from this investigation.

A survey tool has been used to record staff perceptions of where employability skills are strongly developed and assessed in a sample of courses. The results have been triangulated against explicit statements/mapping in course documentation, and top level University strategies and policies. Key performance indicators have been reviewed, and focus groups have been conducted to appraise student perceptions. An external scan of selected comparator benchmark institutions has also been undertaken.

Key emerging themes include issues surrounding the role of higher education; deficiencies in the classification of graduate destinations; the challenge of predicting the needs of employers of the future; and gaps between strategies, perceptions and realities.

A number of the outcomes of the audit are University specific. However, some of the key themes and issues that have emerged are relevant to the sector as a whole. This paper highlights these broader issues, whilst acknowledging that individual Universities will find their own unique responses to these challenges.

This paper shares an approach to the critical evaluation of the effectiveness of strategies to enhance employability skills development, which may be of value to educational establishments wishing to review their own provision. The paper also draws attention to key issues relating to the enhancement of graduate employability.

Stepgrandparent-stepgrandchild relationships are increasingly common as a result of relatively high rates of divorce and remarriage and increased longevity. When relationships are close, stepgrandparents may be valuable resources for stepgrandchildren, but the relational processes salient to the development of these ties remain largely unknown. The purposes of our research were: (1) to explore the complexity of stepgrandparent-stepgrandchild relationships, and (2) to examine processes that affected stepgrandparent-stepgrandchild relationship development.

We present results from four grounded theory projects, which were based on semistructured interviews with 58 stepgrandchildren who provided data about 165 relationships with stepgrandparents. Collectively, these studies highlighted key processes of stepgrandparent-stepgrandchild relationship development operating within four distinct pathways to stepgrandparenthood – long-term, later life, skip-generation, and inherited pathways.

Stepgrandchildren’s closeness to stepgrandparents was influenced by factors such as timing (the child’s age and when in their life courses intergenerational relationships began), stepgrandparents’ roles in the life of the middle-generation parent and the quality of those relationships, whether or not the stepfamily defined the stepgrandparent as kin (e.g., through the use of claiming language), intergenerational contact frequency, and stepgrandparents’ affinity-building.

Our study furthers understanding of stepgrandparent-stepgrandchild by attending to the importance of context in examining the processes that affect intergenerational steprelationship development. Exploring processes related to intergenerational steprelationships strengthens our understanding of the benefits and challenges associated with steprelationship development. Our study also sheds light on the “new look at kinship” and the processes that inform the social construction of family in a changing familial landscape.

To discuss the requirement for a university to adopt a clearly defined marketing strategy to increase its international student population and generate additional revenue.

Primary research was undertaken to investigate the notion that customer satisfaction influences perceived quality and in turn affects profitability. The research methodology carried out among hospitality and tourism management students at Bournemouth University combined qualitative and quantitative methods. A student focus group and staff members with specialised knowledge were interviewed using a semi‐structured approach to allow a pre‐determined core of open‐ended questions to be addressed, while enabling other related issues to be pursued.

Within Bournemouth University, the reputation of the hospitality and tourism programmes and educational links are the most important considerations in student decision making, regarding their choice of programme and place of study.

It could be argued that the courses selected attract more outgoing individuals and those more prepared to adapt to change and adopt a different culture. However, the students were from a range of countries and were representative of the mix at the University.

In an increasingly competitive market for international students, institutions need to provide an optimum service. International education marketing to international students should be managed to enhance consumer satisfaction, and raise perceived quality.

The findings should be taken into account when programmes are revalidated to ensure that these disciplines continue to provide students with the knowledge required by a global industry.

The following is an annotated list of materials dealing with information literacy including instruction in the use of information resources, research, and computer skills related to retrieving, using, and evaluating information. This review, the twenty‐second to be published in Reference Services Review, includes items in English published in 1995. After 21 years, the title of this review of the literature has been changed from “Library Orientation and Instruction” to “Library Instruction and Information Literacy,” to indicate the growing trend of moving to information skills instruction.

While it is well known that managers make scheduling decisions based on multiple objectives, the majority of sequencing research is directed towards single criterion assessments of scheduling performance. A preference value decision model approach for the selection of job shop sequencing rules using multiple performance criteria is presented. The model is general in nature and may be applied to any of a number of sequencing rules and performance measures. A case example is provided to illustrate the procedure.

This chapter documents monthly meetings of Bank Street College Reading and Literacy alumnae between October 2002 and December 2004. It describe the ways in which case study and self-study methodologies enabled participants to support their own professional development and that of colleagues. Findings suggest that the process enabled participants to revisit, reconsider, and reframe understandings and perspectives both in the minute and later as they shared experiences with a broader audience. Outcomes include a more extensive professional knowledge base, increased ability to meet the needs of children and parents, and a stronger sense of self as professional identity.

Research indicates honesty, ethics and leadership are critical during a crisis. This paper aims to examine that ideology by analyzing the role acceptance or denial of executive malfeasance has on firm value after a crisis.

This is an event study that examines crises attributed to executive malfeasance. These qualitative crises data are blended with an analysis of abnormal returns to assess differences between executive actions.

These results indicate that ethical and timely acceptance of a firm’s role in malfeasance does not appear to be rewarded by stockholders. These data also show that there is no reward for a delayed acceptance of malfeasance. Therefore, ethics and honesty do not appear to differentiate post-crisis recovery.

This research focuses on a major factor of firm success – its value. It would be interesting to explore how stakeholders, beyond those that invest in the firm, impact the value over the long run.

While prior research indicates that honesty is prudent, this examination indicates that obfuscation does not impact firm value during a recovery. This study promotes questioning one’s ethical compass as a stock or stakeholder in malfeasance-mired firms.

In conflict with crisis-based research, this study reveals that honesty in crisis management does not always offer an advantage. The results indicate that value is multidimensional, and it may not be based on trust and ethics in the short run.

Time is the top priority. We now live in real time. It's no longer life in the fast lane because every lane is fast. The computer has changed the way we view time. We expect everything to occur at Pentium speed! A time lag causes stress since it is viewed as an unnecessary waste. This is not a matter of immediate gratification; rather delays—such as standing in line—are viewed as something being wrong with the system, and the company that allows it to happen is perceived as not being up to speed! (Graham, 1996, p. 4).

This case study deals with the financial accounting fraud at Sunbeam Corporation during the time “Chainsaw” Al Dunlap was the company’s CEO. This was a very pervasive fraud, involving improper revenue recognition, understatements of the reserves for sales returns and bad debts, abuse of the rules governing consignment sales, and other manipulations. While the amounts involved seem insignificant when compared to those of Enron and WorldCom, the study of Sunbeam is illuminating. Many of the problems at Sunbeam were caused by an abusive and egotistical CEO. In addition, Sunbeam’s external auditor during the period of the fraud was Arthur Andersen. Sunbeam can be viewed as being part of a continuum of audit failures extending from Waste Management to WorldCom. This case is designed in part to serve as an antidote to the coverage found in typical accounting by exposing students to a real situation in which people knowingly violated GAAP, and still received a clean audit opinion, and the company was eventually forced to declare bankruptcy.