Search results
1 – 10 of 397Hoai Than Nguyen, Tan Thanh Nguyen, Thi Vinh Tran Nguyen and Thi Thanh Truc Nguyen
This study sought to investigate the attitudes of Vietnamese undergraduate business students towards English-Medium Instruction (EMI) courses.
Abstract
Purpose
This study sought to investigate the attitudes of Vietnamese undergraduate business students towards English-Medium Instruction (EMI) courses.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected through purposive sampling using structured questionnaires, resulting in a dataset comprising 291 responses. This study employs a combination of Importance–Performance Analysis (IPA) and structural equation modeling (SEM) to evaluate students' perceptions of effectiveness of EMI courses, their satisfaction and loyalty.
Findings
The study’s findings revealed a noteworthy pattern: students assigned higher levels of importance to various aspects of EMI courses than the actual performance levels of these elements. Additionally, the analysis identified specific attributes that fell into different IPA quadrants, shedding light on their relative significance. Notably, the students placed their teachers' professional expertise and English proficiency in the “keep up the good work” quadrant, indicating the strengths of these attributes. In contrast, learning assessment techniques, course learning materials and electronic teaching platforms were situated in the “concentrate here” quadrant, implying room for improvement in these areas. Furthermore, it was observed that attributes falling within the “keep up the good work” quadrant had a positive effect on students' overall satisfaction and loyalty, while other characteristics did not significantly contribute to predicting these outcomes.
Originality/value
Based on these findings, the study offers recommendations for educational institutions and educators concerning the planning and implementation of EMI courses.
Details
Keywords
Abhyudaya Anand Mishra, Mridul Maheshwari and William E. Donald
Drawing on a framework of sustainable career theory, this paper aims to understand the interplay of agentic and contextual factors for digital micro-entrepreneurs to lead…
Abstract
Purpose
Drawing on a framework of sustainable career theory, this paper aims to understand the interplay of agentic and contextual factors for digital micro-entrepreneurs to lead sustainable careers.
Design/methodology/approach
Eighteen YouTube content creators in India participated in semi-structured interviews, offering coverage of digital content creators across acting, cosmetics, finance, fitness, food, law, modelling, music, teaching, travel, and video games.
Findings
The findings showed three agentic and three contextual themes associated with the career sustainability of a digital micro-entrepreneur. Additionally, four paradoxes were identified, capturing the interplay between the agentic and contextual themes.
Practical implications
The career of a digital micro-entrepreneur is a dichotomy of promising hope, stardom, and flexibility while concealing challenges like precarity, hate comments, and financial instability. Knowing this can help individuals make better-informed career decisions.
Originality/value
The study advances sustainable career theory by capturing insights from digital micro-entrepreneurs in India to understand the interplay of agentic and contextual factors that create a series of paradoxes for such individuals to navigate over time.
Details
Keywords
Wendy A. Bradley and Caroline Fry
The purpose of the present study is to investigate the extent to which female and male university students from low-income countries express different entrepreneurial intentions…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of the present study is to investigate the extent to which female and male university students from low-income countries express different entrepreneurial intentions. Specifically, the study empirically tests whether the anticipated financial returns to entrepreneurship versus salaried employment, or the perceived barriers to entrepreneurship exert a stronger influence on the relationship between gender and entrepreneurial intentions.
Design/methodology/approach
To test the relationship of anticipated rewards versus barriers to entrepreneurship on gender and entrepreneurial intention, the study uses new data from a field survey in Sierra Leone and employs multiple mediation analyses.
Findings
The authors find that the relationship between gender and entrepreneurial intentions operates through the mediator of perceptions of the financial returns to entrepreneurship but not perceived barriers to entrepreneurship.
Research limitations/implications
The authors study intent, not behavior, acknowledging that cognitive intent is a powerful predictor of later behavior. Implications for future research on entrepreneurship in the African context are discussed.
Practical implications
The results from this study can be applied to both pedagogic and business settings in the field of entrepreneurship, with concrete implications for policymakers.
Originality/value
Results suggest that the gender gap in entrepreneurial intentions (EI) for science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)- and business-educated students in Sierra Leone is predominantly influenced by anticipated financial returns to occupational choices, as opposed to perceived barriers to entrepreneurship, a more frequently studied antecedent to EI.
Details
Keywords
Dukun Xu, Yimin Deng and Haibin Duan
This paper aims to develop a method for tuning the parameters of the active disturbance rejection controller (ADRC) for fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The bald eagle…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to develop a method for tuning the parameters of the active disturbance rejection controller (ADRC) for fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The bald eagle search (BES) algorithm has been improved, and a cost function has been designed to enhance the optimization efficiency of ADRC parameters.
Design/methodology/approach
A six-degree-of-freedom nonlinear model for a fixed-wing UAV has been developed, and its attitude controller has been formulated using the active disturbance rejection control method. The parameters of the disturbance rejection controller have been fine-tuned using the collaborative mutual promotion bald eagle search (CMP-BES) algorithm. The pitch and roll controllers for the UAV have been individually optimized to obtain the most effective controller parameters.
Findings
Inspired by the salp swarm algorithm (SSA), the interaction among individual eagles has been incorporated into the CMP-BES algorithm, thereby enhancing the algorithm's exploration capability. The efficient and accurate optimization ability of the proposed algorithm has been demonstrated through comparative experiments with genetic algorithm, particle swarm optimization, Harris hawks optimization HHO, BES and modified bald eagle search algorithms. The algorithm's capability to solve complex optimization problems has been further proven by testing on the CEC2017 test function suite. A transitional function for fitness calculation has been introduced to accelerate the ability of the algorithm to find the optimal parameters for the ADRC controller. The tuned ADRC controller has been compared with the classical proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller, with gust disturbances introduced to the UAV body axis. The results have shown that the tuned ADRC controller has faster response times and stronger disturbance rejection capabilities than the PID controller.
Practical implications
The proposed CMP-BES algorithm, combined with a fitness function composed of transition functions, can be used to optimize the ADRC controller parameters for fixed-wing UAVs more quickly and effectively. The tuned ADRC controller has exhibited excellent robustness and disturbance rejection capabilities.
Originality/value
The CMP-BES algorithm and transitional function have been proposed for the parameter optimization of the active disturbance rejection controller for fixed-wing UAVs.
Details
Keywords
Jasmin Lin, Qin Yang and Marcel C. Minutolo
This case study was built from secondary data such as news articles and videos. Several drafts of the case study with teaching note were tested in classroom settings and shared at…
Abstract
Research methodology
This case study was built from secondary data such as news articles and videos. Several drafts of the case study with teaching note were tested in classroom settings and shared at a case writing conference. The case was revised based on feedback from students and roundtable discussions from the conference.
Case overview/synopsis
“What’s next: Ever Given after the Suez Canal incident (Evergreen Marine Corporation in, 2022)” explores the situation of the firm Evergreen Marine Corporation, a world-leading cargo shipping company headquartered in Taiwan, and its efforts to deal with challenges stemming from a pandemic and the global supply chain transition. The case provides background on the latest changes in global business environments, the Suez Canal Incident stemming from the grounding of Ever Given and firm-specific information, which would help students to understand the context affecting Evergreen Marine Corporation’s (EMC) strategic decisions. The case enables students to evaluate EMC’s overall position and to analyze the actions that they can take to deal with these challenges in a dynamic global environment.
Complexity academic level
This case would be appropriate for a course in strategy or international business, especially with the topic of international supply chain management.
Details
Keywords
Lourdes Susaeta, Esperanza Suárez and Frank Babinger
The cruise sector's workforce is highly diverse in terms of nationalities, age, and gender. However, diversity in the workforce does not guarantee business success.Decades of…
Abstract
The cruise sector's workforce is highly diverse in terms of nationalities, age, and gender. However, diversity in the workforce does not guarantee business success.
Decades of research on the effects of diversity indicate that it can negatively or positively affect an organization's performance. A more diverse workforce does not automatically perform better financially, feels more committed to their companies, nor experiences higher levels of satisfaction. Indeed, data suggest diversity may produce more conflict, employee turnover, but if well managed can lead to greater creativity and innovation.
This chapter explores the cruise industry's diversity and inclusion challenges and management practices. To examine what cruise companies are doing in this field, we reviewed the public data of the four largest cruise companies. We analyzed how these companies define diversity, their commitment to inclusion, their practices, their metrics, and their primary objectives.
Firstly, there is no theoretical model that includes all variables that affect the management of diversity in the cruise sector. Secondly, companies communicate a commitment to inclusion in their corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports and refer to similar policies implemented by the hospitality industry. Thirdly, the main challenges are the multicultural environment and the limited female representation.
The major limitation of this study is the data source. We recommend further studies supported by nonpublic company data. We encourage cruise industry leaders to support the research to develop an empirically tested model that captures the specific variables that affect diversity management in the industry.
Details
Keywords
Evette Smith Johnson and Nanibala Immanuel Paul
The purpose of this qualitative, single-case study was to explore the development of Jamaica’s maritime education and training (MET) curriculum within the local education context…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this qualitative, single-case study was to explore the development of Jamaica’s maritime education and training (MET) curriculum within the local education context. In this research, the story of the development and sustainability of the local MET curriculum in its 40-year journey from 1980 to present (post 2020), as communicated by various maritime stakeholders and archival documents, is chronicled.
Design/methodology/approach
The study utilized a qualitative orientation and was an embedded single-case study in its design. The entire local MET institution community and those legislatively and operationally allied to its sustained viability constituted the general population of this study. Non-probability sampling techniques were used to arrive at a maximum variation sample. Three sources of data were used in this study: individual interviews, focus group discussions and documents.
Findings
The Jamaican (local) MET curriculum was the brainchild of local perspicacity that was empowered by international benevolence. It was developed to satisfy market demands that existed at the time of its inception. These market requirements of the maritime industry are what impacted the development of the local MET curriculum over four decades. Several other factors led to the sustained viability of the local MET curriculum. These included the ability of the local MET curriculum to meet direct market needs and maintain its fitness for purpose.
Research limitations/implications
It is the view of the researcher that the findings of this study were limited by the fact that the voices of current students and employers from the four decades of the curriculum's existence are not represented in this initial study. The perspectives from these two sources would have broadened the description presented in this study.
Practical implications
This research has shown that specialized higher education (HE) institutions are better served in their business when they maintain a symbiotic relationship with the industry for which they are producing graduates.
Social implications
The treatment of HE as a service industry has gained traction globally. This would suggest that ‘product placement' in specialized HE is important to the growth, development and longevity of that course of study within the society in which it exists.
Originality/value
There is a dearth of national research on Jamaica's four-decades-old MET curriculum and the elements that lend to the sustained viability of same. This discussion of sustainability of the MET curriculum will benefit maritime educators and policymakers, who must continue to hone this curriculum so that it is fit for purpose. The study will also identify some of the elements of a sustainable, specialized HE curriculum. The elements identified herein can serve as exemplars and conceptual starting points for other contexts where the discussion of the sustainability of curriculum needs to be had.
Details
Keywords
Hsin-Te Wu and Kuo Cheng Chung
This study aims to focus on the Artificial Intelligence of Things (AIoT) course. As AIoT has many theoretical theories and students usually have little interest in learning the…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to focus on the Artificial Intelligence of Things (AIoT) course. As AIoT has many theoretical theories and students usually have little interest in learning the protocols, the experiments can help stimulate their curiosity. Due to the environmental factor, the teaching requires assistive videos and Problem-Based Learning (PBL) to understand students' learning conditions.
Design/methodology/approach
The experimental design generally follows the course theories going from easy to complex, and students can extend the acquired concepts to other project development, yet, without in-depth knowledge about the experiment, resulting in limited creativity.
Findings
The assessment analysis can reveal whether students have grown from the teaching. The final analysis at the end of the term can show learners' conditions; meanwhile, students can deliver their level of satisfaction. The click-and-mortar teaching environment provided in this research can improve learning setting and quality, solidifying learners' proficiency.
Originality/value
The research result has proved the feasibility of the proposed method. Apart from showing the experimental steps, the video also explains the corresponding theories, helping students reinforce experimental knowledge and boost learning willingness.
Details
Keywords
Assunta Di Vaio, Anum Zaffar and Meghna Chhabra
The aim of this study is to review the literature on how intellectual capital (IC) contributes to the decarbonization efforts of firms. It explores how carbon accounting can…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this study is to review the literature on how intellectual capital (IC) contributes to the decarbonization efforts of firms. It explores how carbon accounting can measure the components of IC in decarbonization efforts to balance profitability with environmental and social goals, particularly in promoting decent work and economic growth (Sustainable Development Goal [SDG] 8 and its targets [2, 5, 6, 8]). Moreover, it emphasises the importance of multi-stakeholder partnerships for sharing knowledge, expertise, technology, and financial resources (SDG17-Target 17.G) to meet SDG8.
Design/methodology/approach
As a consolidated methodological approach, a systematic literature review (SLR) was used in this study to fill the existing research gaps in sustainability accounting. To consolidate and clarify scholarly research on IC towards decarbonization, 149 English articles published in the Scopus database and Google Scholar between 1990 and 2024 were reviewed.
Findings
The results highlight that the current research does not sufficiently cover the intersection of carbon accounting and IC in the analysis of decarbonization practices. Stakeholders and regulatory bodies are increasingly pressuring firms to implement development-focused policies in line with SDG8 and its targets, requiring the integration of IC and its measures in decarbonization processes, supported by SDG17-Target 17.G. This integration is useful for creating business models that balance profitability and social and environmental responsibilities.
Originality/value
The integration of social dimension to design sustainable business models for emission reduction and provide a decent work environment by focusing on SDG17-Target 17.G has rarely been investigated in terms of theory and practice. Through carbon accounting, IC can be a key source of SDG8-Targets 8.[2, 5, 6, 8] and SDG17-Target 17.G. Historically, these major issues are not easily aligned with accounting research or decarbonization processes.
Details
Keywords
Assunta Di Vaio, Anum Zaffar and Meghna Chhabra
Although intellectual capital (IC) and human dynamic capabilities (HDCs) play a significant role in decarbonization processes, their measurement and reporting is under-researched…
Abstract
Purpose
Although intellectual capital (IC) and human dynamic capabilities (HDCs) play a significant role in decarbonization processes, their measurement and reporting is under-researched. Hence, this study aims to identify the link between HDCs, carbon accounting and integrated reporting (IR) in the transition processes, investigating IC and HDCs in decarbonization processes to achieve net-zero business models (n-ZBMs).
Design/methodology/approach
A systematic literature review with a concise bibliometric analysis is conducted on 229 articles, published from 1990 to 2023 in Scopus database and Google Scholar. Reviewing data on publications, journals, authors and citations and analysing the article content, this study identifies the main search trends, providing a new conceptual model and future research propositions.
Findings
The results reveal that the literature has rarely focussed on carbon accounting in terms of IC and HDCs. Additionally, firms face pressure from institutions and stakeholders regarding legitimacy and transparency, necessitating a response considering IR and requiring n-ZBMs to be developed through IC and HDCs to meet social and environmental requirements.
Originality/value
Not only does this study link IC with HDCs to address carbon emissions through decarbonization practices, which has never been addressed in the literature to date, but also provides novel recommendations and propositions through which firms can sustainably transition to being net-zero emission firms, thereby gaining competitive advantage and contributing to the nation’s sustainability goals.
Details