Search results

Motivated by the perceived disparity between supply and demand for skilled workers in STEM fields, namely, science, technology, engineering and math, the purpose of this paper is to conduct an empirical study of attitude and readiness for STEM education and careers among American and Chinese college students in business disciplines. The authors’ findings point out that students in China and the USA have some significantly different perspectives of STEM maybe because they are prepared and inspired differently. These differences may have fundamentally impacted their attitude and readiness for pursuing a STEM career. Implications from this research project should be noteworthy to educators and academic administrators so that appropriate curricula and cultivation can be offered.

The authors have decided to look into the situation using a comparison approach by surveying a randomly chosen group of college students from China and another from the USA and then analyzed their responses to the authors’ delicately constructed survey in a hope of finding any patterns that may cause the authors to rethink about the authors’ approaches to cultivating interest in STEM.

The findings described in the paper should offer us some significant, though still preliminary, implications as follows: both American and Chinese students admire STEM careers, but feel rewarding differently; American students may have other career choices that may be equal or more rewarding while Chinese students choose STEM fields by following a cultural norm; having early exposure to science subjects and gaining relevant experience help grow interest in STEM among American students, but such exposure may bring about negative effect on career choices; American female students are at least as capable of succeeding in STEM as their male counterparts; American students seek more advice on their career choices than Chinese students who may follow a cultural norm. Advisory service from teachers and parents may impact differently from peer influence does; extracurricular activities can more positively affect interest in STEM than taking science courses.

Although the survey has collected responses from only business students in both countries, the resulting implications should reflect what a sizable segment of college students feel and think about STEM and thus should allow educators and institutional administrators to use as evidence in pursuing innovative curricula and advisory services that would better prepare our future students for STEM education and beyond, especially in those disciplines, like business administration, in which STEM skills are increasingly in demand.

Some significant, though still preliminary, implications should be readily drawn from the study: first, both American and Chinese students admire STEM careers, but rewarding may mean different things to them. American students may have other career choices that may be equal or more rewarding per their definition of rewarding while Chinese students may pursue STEM fields by following a cultural norm rather than by considering it rewarding. Second, having early exposure to science subjects and gaining relevant experience can help grow interest in STEM among American students, but such exposure, especially taking science courses, may bring about negative effect on career choices. Extracurricular activities can more positively affect interest in STEM than taking science courses. Third, female students are at least as equally interested and capable of succeeding in STEM as their male counterparts, but their interest and confidence may be more vulnerable to challenges imposed by market reality and cultural bias. Fourth, American students seek more advice when available on their career choices than Chinese students do as the former may face more competing career choices and possess less preparation for STEM than the latter does. Finally, advisory service from teachers and parents may impact differently than the influence peers can perpetrate. Club activities when peers can naturally influence each other may be quite effective in promoting interest in and preparing readiness for STEM, and these activities are more effective to American students than Chinese students and to male students than female students.

Nine hypotheses are proposed to validate through this empirical study. These hypotheses reflect thoughts upon the literature review and pertain to the factors that should impact STEM education.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the success rate of information system development by means of an empirical research with a focus on how various user factors. The authors examined user reactions, interactions and participation during the early, middle and late stages of an ISD project to analyze the effect of user involvement. Once the data were collected, they analyzed the effectiveness of each kind of user involvement by tying the user involvement to the final result of the corresponding project.

This empirical research is to study 35 information system development projects, whose sample size is determined to maintain statistical confidence as well as the intensity of each interview.

The authors have obtained some interesting findings as follows: user involvement itself does not improve the chance of success for an IS project; user expectations could profoundly impact the success rate of IS projects – clear user expectations in early stages significantly improve the chance of success and user expectations in late stages through user involvement do not obviously improve the chance of success; user attitude toward an IS project is much more important than user involvement; user attitude is largely influenced by effective communications from the management; corporate training and labor practices do not have significant impact on project success rate, nor does user competency; the success rate of IS projects is more relevant to decision-making approaches than to individual project management – a bottom-up approach, a transparent decision-making protocol, a positive attitude toward new ideas, a supportive corporate culture, etc.; and finally, the overall corporate culture is the single most important critical success factor for an ISD, including the overall performance of the company and the top-level management support.

Through an empirical study, this research has examined user factors of ISD in general and analyzed the efficacy of user involvement in different stages of ISD in particular. While other research results emphasize more on user involvement, the findings from this research reveal indicate that user involvement does not always effectively benefit ISD, but their involvement in the early stages of the ISD does. Furthermore, our findings indicate that effective user involvement can be achieved through psychological involvement via adequate communications rather than through participatory involvement.

The managerial implications entailed to this research should help refocus our attention on project management and could result in more effective improvement on the success rate of an ISD.

Through an empirical study, this research has examined user factors of ISD in general and analyzed the efficacy of user involvement in different stages of ISD in particular. While other research results emphasize more on user involvement, the findings from this research reveal indicate that user involvement does not always effectively benefit ISD, but their involvement in the early stages of the ISD does. Furthermore, our findings indicate that effective user involvement can be achieved through psychological involvement via adequate communications rather than through participatory involvement.

This paper aims to consolidate and review the literature in the field of market-calibrated option pricing analysis. By doing so, the paper brings out the gaps in the extant literature and makes suggestions for future researchers in the field.

The methodology used in this research is inspired by the works of Ferreira et al. (2016), Jabbour (2013), Lage Junior and Godinho Filho (2010), Seuring (2013) and Sharma et al. (2018). A total of 1,500 papers written on the pricing of options globally are collated from the Web of Science ranging across 2010-2018.

Most of the research papers present mathematical proposals to value options; without calibrating it with real market data points. The authors bring out five important gaps in the extant literature.

This is arguably the first study that consolidates the literature in the field of market calibrated option pricing analysis with a view to suggest directions for future researchers.