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In higher education, blended learning is already strongly established. The e-courses vary in their structure, assignments, prompt examinations, interaction between students and teachers, etc. Such aspects may influence the students’ perception of usefulness of blended learning. The purpose of this paper is to identify the factors which influence that feeling and to look for possible differences in perception by different subgroups of students.

Students in the survey evaluated 13 aspects of e-courses in which they were enrolled. From enrolment documents, additional demographic data were collected (gender, high-school grade, study programme, etc.). A multiple linear regression was used with perceived usefulness as the response variable and the 12 other e-course aspects as predictors. Further, the same regression analysis was performed on different subgroups of students based on demographical data.

The empirical results showed that the general impression regarding the e-courses, their consistency with the face-to-face teaching and the teachers’ responsiveness had a significant influence on the students’ perception of the usefulness of e-courses. Further analysis based on demographic data revealed several subgroups of students where the perception of usefulness was influenced by different aspects. The teachers’ feedback and supplementing the tutorial play an important role in higher years of study, while the general impression loses its influence.

The paper is the first to explore the importance of demographic determinants of perceived usefulness of e-learning tools in EAPAA (European Association of Public Administration Accreditation)-accredited undergraduate public administration programmes.

Scholars in major us research universities were surveyed to explore the normative bases of acknowledgement behaviour. Measures of agreement and divergence were established in respect of five issue sets pertaining to acknowledgement practice: expectations, etiquette, ethics, equity and evaluation. The results confirm the substantive role played by acknowledgements in the primary communication process. Although few formal rules exist, it is clear that many scholars subscribe to the idea of a governing etiquette. The findings also suggest that acknowledgement data could be mined to lay bare the rules of engagement that define the dynamics of collaboration and inter‐dependence among scholars.

This research explores perceptions of knowledge management processes held by managers and employees in a service industry. To date, empirical research on knowledge management in the service industry is sparse. This research seeks to examine absorptive capacity and its four capabilities of acquisition, assimilation, transformation and exploitation and their impact on effective knowledge management. All of these capabilities are strategies that enable external knowledge to be recognized, imported and integrated into, and further developed within the organization effectively. The research tests the relationships between absorptive capacity and effective knowledge management through analysis of quantitative data (n = 549) drawn from managers and employees in 35 residential aged care organizations in Western Australia. Responses were analysed using Partial Least Square-based Structural Equation Modelling. Additional analysis was conducted to assess if the job role (of manager or employee) and three industry context variables of profit motive, size of business and length of time the organization has been in business, impacted on the hypothesized relationships.

Structural model analysis examines the relationships between variables as hypothesized in the research framework. Analysis found that absorptive capacity and the four capabilities correlated significantly with effective knowledge management, with absorptive capacity explaining 56% of the total variability for effective knowledge management. Findings from this research also show that absorptive capacity and the four capabilities provide a useful framework for examining knowledge management in the service industry. Additionally, there were no significant differences in the perceptions held between managers and employees, nor between respondents in for-profit and not-for-profit organizations. Furthermore, the size of the organization and length of time the organization has been in business did not impact on absorptive capacity, the four capabilities and effective knowledge management.

The research considers implications for business in light of these findings. The role of managers in providing leadership across the knowledge management process was confirmed, as well as the importance of guiding routines and knowledge sharing throughout the organization. Further, the results indicate that within the participating organizations there are discernible differences in the way that some organizations manage their knowledge, compared to others. To achieve effective knowledge management, managers need to provide a supportive workplace culture, facilitate strong employee relationships, encourage employees to seek out new knowledge, continually engage in two-way communication with employees and provide up-to-date policies and procedures that guide employees in doing their work. The implementation of knowledge management strategies has also been shown in this research to enhance the delivery and quality of residential aged care.

This paper aims to gauge developers’ perspectives regarding the participation of the public and anonymous crowd testers worldwide, with a range of varied experiences. It also aims to gather their needs that could reduce their concerns of dealing with the public crowd testers and increase the opportunity of using the crowdtesting platforms.

An online exploratory survey was conducted to gather information from the participants, which included 50 mobile application developers from various countries with diverse experiences across Android and iOS mobile platforms.

The findings revealed that a significant proportion (90%) of developers is potentially willing to perform testing via the public crowd testers worldwide. This on condition that several fundamental features were available, which enable them to achieve more realistic tests without artificial environments on large numbers of devices. The results also demonstrated that a group of developers does not consider testing as a serious job that they have to pay for, which can affect the gig-economy and global market.

This paper provides new insights for future research in the study of how acceptable it is to work with public and anonymous crowd workers, with varying levels of experience, to perform tasks in different domains and not only in software testing. In addition, it will assist individual or small development teams who have limited resources or who do not have thousands of testers in their private testing community, to perform large-scale testing of their products.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate Arab deputy-principals’ perceptions of their role in Arab schools in Israel, relating to their expectations regarding principal-deputy relations and their aspirations for promotion.

A two-stage qualitative study included an open-ended questionnaire completed by 27 Arab deputy-principals, studying in a deputy-principals’ training program for the “New Horizons” reform. The questionnaire related to their perceptions of their professional role. Data from the open questionnaires were supplemented by data from in-depth semi-structured interviews conducted with eight of the deputy-principals.

The deputy-principals perceived their role as arduous and complex, indicating that this was the result of vague role definitions. They mostly dealt with administration though they longed to devote themselves to pedagogy, shaping education policy and the school vision. Most did not aspire to attain principalship.

A clearer role definition is required for the deputy-principal. Principal-deputy cooperation should be enhanced. Deputy-principals need better role-related training and supervision that considers the requirements of the school settings and culture.

This is the first study to examine the role of deputy-principals in Arab society in Israel.

In recent years, investment management education has become increasingly relevant. As a result of this development, it is essential that various role players should be consulted to ensure that investment management is taught in line with practitioners’ requirements. The South African Qualifications Authority also specifies that educators and practitioners should collaborate to maintain relevance in all fields of education. The importance of various areas in investment management was investigated. This article compares the ranking of these areas in terms of their importance as perceived by academics and practitioners. The study being reported also aimed to determine whether gaps exist between the areas that academics regard to be important and the areas that practitioners regard as such. Areas that are generally regarded to be most important include asset allocation, fundamental analysis and the measurement of risk and return. Areas that are regarded to be least important include arts, antiques and other hard assets; rights and capitalisation issues; and real estate. Areas in need of research include the measurement of risk and return; asset allocation; derivatives; and global markets and instruments. The findings of this study could have a significant impact on the provision of relevant training for South African investment specialists.

In this chapter the authors identified and discussed the most significant barriers faced by cooperative movements in Malta, providing recommendations for potential solutions. Primary data for this research were collected through the use of semi-structured interviews with a selection of 18 representatives of the small current Maltese cooperative movement, most of whom are active either in individual cooperatives (16) and/or in the cooperative institutions (five).

Findings indicated that the most significant problems are the lack of education and awareness regarding the cooperative movement. These are closely followed by the divide within the movement itself, which is also hindering further development of Maltese cooperatives. Therefore, for the movement to grow and develop, one must first tackle the lack of education and awareness of this business model. Furthermore, in order for the movement to reach its full potential there must be cooperation amongst cooperatives, leading to the appropriate environment for growth.

Through the identification of these significant barriers, targeted action may be recommended and taken so as to reduce, if not eliminate, these barriers and thereby help the Maltese cooperative movement flourish.

Focuses on a study about major innovation in the ISO 9000:2000 registration process. Shows that the application of the behavioural science field is an excellent strategy for businesses to use to help improve investment return on ISO 9001:2000. Reckons that, in order to maximise benefits from implementing ISO 9001:2000, companies should approach the process using an organizational behaviour strategy, to ensure motivation involving the workforce.

Special attention will be given in this part to the process of decline, which is to be seen as antipodal to development, and which nowadays is all too often neglected. By “decline” we mean here the decline of a whole society. But this definition is not yet sufficient to provide us with a very clear understanding. The statement that a whole society is in decline remains void of real meaning until we possess some concrete conception of what a “whole society” and the process of “decline” are. Since the meanings of both these terms are problematical, further explanation and closer precision are called for.

This paper introduces the development of a new type of sales promotion strategy to create more value for goods and to avoid price discounting. I use a psychological approach designed by creating consumer insight hypotheses based on in-depth interviews, which are then verified by web-motivation research and text-mining. This innovative sales promotion approach is a very hot topic as a new type of promotion development among large companies in Japan and is useful in avoiding price-discounting sales. This paper explains the concrete process used in this type of promotion and reveals the successful case of a large spice company in Japan. The process uses price sensitivity measurement (PSM) as a pricing technique. In the experiment, conducted in nine retail stores, the most successful sales promotion condition saw an increase of 900% in monetary sales without price discounting during the two weeks of the experiment, and 500% in the two weeks after that.