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The purpose of this paper is to examine efforts made by the UNESCO Hong Kong Association (UNESCOHK) in integrating education for sustainable development (ESD) into school subjects and into the curriculum in 2009-2016. It investigates: the distribution and development of the three key components of environment, society and economy in student work, and in school assessment reports; the relevancy level of ESD learning to school subjects; the condition in Hong Kong in practicing the integration of ESD learning into the school curriculum; and the practices of integration of ESD learning into the school curriculum in Hong Kong and other countries.

Grounded theory is deployed to analyze the distribution and development of ESD as understood by students and schools, and the application of knowledge acquired through school subjects to ESD learning activities undertaken by students and schools.

The study succeeds in identifying the precise distribution and development of the three key components of environment, society and economy in ESD, and in establishing the level of relevancy of ESD learning activities to school subjects and to the school curriculum. UNESCOHK’s initiative is in line with the general trend adopted by countries to integrate ESD into the school curriculum.

The scope of investigation is limited to ESD learning activities in eight schools and to one single economy.

The study facilitates attempts to reorientate the lifestyles of students and their parents.

The study is a pioneering work in Hong Kong to integrate ESD learning into school subjects, which is in alignment with the trend to integrate ESD into the school curriculum.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate factors affecting university students’ participation in discussion forum of electronic learning platforms of teacher–student interaction.

One-stage cluster sampling was used and a cross-sectional survey of 113 university students from four courses was done.

A combined model based on United theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) and DeLone and McLean models serves as a research framework. Female and male students’ behavioral intentions were affected by different factors. System quality affects male students’ behavioral intention and information quality affects female students’ behavioral intention. Social influence affects female students’ behavioral intention but male students. Men are more focused on the hardware and women are more focused on the content of the message.

The research is limited by the nature of university students. User experience and underlying perceived risk are possible moderators. Dyad approach could be considered. One way to enhance students and teachers’ academic discussion is to establish a closed university social media site. The site should be made mobile-friendly with chatbot included.

The results support the validity of the proposed new research framework on e-learning platform by the constructs coming from two established models: UTAUT model and DeLone and McLean’s model. Factors affecting intention and use behavior in discussion forum are different for male and female students. System quality affects male students’ behavioral intention, while information quality affects female students’ behavioral intention. Social influence affects female students’ behavioral intention but not male students.

Following a spate of corporate scandals, the bursting of the “Internet bubble,” and media revelations of research analyst bias at the nation’s largest investment banks, regulators launched a series of investigations and rulemaking initiatives that culminated in the adoption of extensive new rules regarding the conduct of research analysts and in the April 2003 global settlement (“Global Settlement”) of enforcement actions against 10 firms relating to research and investment banking conflicts. Although the Global Settlement by its terms only applies to the settling firms, as a practical matter, its reach will be much broader because state regulators and other third parties are looking to it to define a set of “best practices” to supplement the new rules. Although the new rules and the Global Settlement are intended to address the same concern ‐ i.e., conflicts of interest between research analysts and investment banking personnel at multi‐service brokerage firms ‐ their approaches to handling these conflicts reflect different assumptions and result in regulatory regimes that differ in such basic respects as the universe of persons who are deemed to be “research analysts.” These differences are not surprising. The new rules are the product of a lengthy, iterative rulemaking process that was open to the public and in which a diverse range of interested parties participated. In contrast, the undertakings detailed in the Global Settlement were the result of an enforcement action, concluded through bi‐lateral negotiations between the regulators and the 10 firms and without the opportunity for other interested parties to provide input or contribute to the process. However, for firms that seek to comply with both sets of requirements, the overlapping, and at times inconsistent, terms create a confusing and costly environment.

The purpose of this investigation is to gain insight into parents' perceptions of benefits vs burdens (value) of educational and healthcare service received for their child with ASD. Parents are the main integrators of long-term educational and healthcare service for their child with ASD.

Design/methodology/approach included (1) a sentiment analysis of discussion forum posts from an autism message board using a rule-based sentiment analysis tool that is specifically attuned to sentiments expressed in social media and (2) a qualitative content analysis of one-on-one interviews with parents of children diagnosed with ASD, complemented with interviews with experienced educators and clinicians.

Findings reveal the link between customized service integration and long-term benefits. Both parents and service providers emphasize the need to integrate healthcare and educational service to create holistic long-term care for a child with ASD. Parents highlight the benefits of varied services, but availability or cost are burdens if the service is not publicly provided, or covered by insurance. Service providers' lack of experience with ASD and people's ignorance of the challenges of ASD are burdens.

Ensuring health outcomes for a child with ASD requires an integrated service system and long-term, customer-centric service process because the scope of service covers the child's entire childhood. Customized educational and healthcare service must be allocated and budgeted early in order to reach the goal of a satisfactory service output for each child.

This is the first service research to focus on parents' challenges with obtaining services for their child with ASD. This paper provides service researchers and managers insight into parents' perceptions of educational and healthcare service value (i.e. benefits vs. burdens) received for their child with ASD. These insights into customer-centric perceptions of value may be useful to research and may help service providers to innovate and provide integrated service directly to parents, or indirectly to service providers, who serve children with ASD.

This paper aims to illustrate the importance of the quality of Online Learning Physical Environment (OLPE) and Online Learning Self-efficacy (OLSE) in predicting academic performance in online learning, which was the primary mode of teaching during the outbreak of COVID-19 in Hong Kong. Policy recommendations were made based on the findings from a psychological perspective.

Responses from 104 Hong Kong undergraduate students were collected through a questionnaire survey. Data were analysed using multiple linear regression, simple linear regression, and Pearson correlation.

Despite the fact that OLSE showed no significant direct effect on academic performance in online learning, OLSE was positively correlated with and predictive of OLPE, while OLPE was positively correlated with and predictive of online learning performance. The findings indicated that undergraduate students from low-income families tended to have less superior academic performance, which was associated with poorer OLPE and OLSE.

The findings suggested that in order to alleviate learning inequality in online learning, policy makers may allocate funding to enhance OLPE and OLSE of undergraduate students from low-income families.

The present study adopts the analytical framework of new managerialism (NM) to explore the progress, challenges and outlook of self-financing post-secondary institutions in Hong Kong since 2000. This study also identified issues and related managerial implications for developing this niche form of higher education in Hong Kong.

This study conducted a critical review of self-financing post-secondary institutions in Hong Kong, including the sub-degree and degree sectors, via collecting a series of policy documents and archives from the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, the Public Records Office and other government bodies. To supplement the findings, semi-structured in-depth interviews of 18 academic staff of Hong Kong's self-financing post-secondary institutions were carried out.

The study shows that self-financing post-secondary institutions not only encounter challenges related to insufficient resources but also face pressure from accreditation requirements of various international organisations. The study also suggests that massification and privatisation of self-financing post-secondary institutions, and embracing a managerial approach for operation and governance will induce a new wave of self-financing post-secondary institutions in the near future.

This study offers insights for self-financing post-secondary institutions into implementing appropriate strategies to maintain competitiveness and retain talents in the coming years.

The purpose of this paper is to go beyond satisfaction as an indicator of customer loyalty and propose a holistic model of service switching in a mobile internet setting. The model, which reflects both barriers and inducements of switching, is developed based on the “mooring” and “pull” concepts in the migration literature.

Focusing on Generation Y mobile internet subscribers, the study analyzed a total of 417 usable questionnaire responses. Partial least squares structural equation modeling was used to test the research model.

The results show that first, satisfaction and switching barriers (i.e. a focal firm’s marketing innovation initiatives, switching costs, inertia, and local network effects) are positively related to customer loyalty; second, switching barriers have a stronger influence on customer loyalty compared with satisfaction; third, switching inducements (i.e. competitors’ marketing innovation initiatives, alternative attractiveness, variety-seeking tendencies, and consumers’ susceptibility to social reference group influence) is negatively related to customer loyalty and the relationship is weaker when perceived switching barriers are high.

This study empirically validates multidimensional scales of switching barriers and inducements from a more nuanced perspective, and specifies them as reflective-formative type II models. This study is among the first to use opposing dimensions to measure switching barriers and its counterpart. Hence, it illustrates how the two contrasting mechanisms can coexist in the minds of mobile internet subscribers.

The authors seek to show the extent and nature of qualitative research in international marketing in IMR (International Marketing Review) and then aim to understand and explain developments in this area. They explore the global coverage of extant qualitative work in IMR and reflect on the thematic focus, theoretical purpose, research design and transparency of methods prevailing in these studies.

The authors identify and content-analyze 79 qualitative international marketing-focused articles published in IMR from 1990 to 2010.

The analysis revealed several areas that can assist researchers in identifying gaps to be filled by future qualitative international marketing studies. These include: global coverage needs to be further developed; an increase in the number of comparative studies, yet insights from three or more countries remain scarce; extant qualitative studies seem to explore ten key themes; there is a growing trend in theory elaboration studies; interviews are still the most popular data collection method, yet the repertoire of methods is expanding; there is an upward trend in higher transparency in the description of data collection and analysis, but this needs further development.

The paper fosters the development of qualitative research in international marketing by: highlighting the value of qualitative research for advancing theory in this field; inspiring international marketing scholars to learn more about qualitative methods; and offering guidelines to researchers that seek to advance this field.

Opioid use disorder (OUD) poses a national public health challenge including for the Veterans Health Administration (VHA). However, the responsiveness of VHA, as a centralized national health care system, to local conditions has not been studied. The purpose of this paper is to examine the correlation of measures of population-based OUD case identification and provision of opioid agonist treatment (OAT) in VHA and in local systems at the state level thus evaluating the responsiveness of VA as centralized health system to local conditions.

Correlation of VHA administrative data and local survey data reflecting OUD and OAT rates were evaluated with Pearson correlations. Further analyses examined the correlation of VHA and non-VHA OUD and OAT measures with state rates of opioid-related deaths, median income, health insurance coverage and education levels.

VHA rates of OUD and OAT at the state level were both significantly correlated with corresponding state data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (r=0.28, p=0.048 and r=0.71, p=0.002, respectively). Both OUD and OAT in VHA were positively and significantly correlated with state rates of opioid-related deaths, while indicators of OAT were significantly associated with higher state-level median income, health insurance coverage and levels of education.

Although centrally managed from Washington, D.C., VHA case identification and OAT service delivery appear to be correlated with relevant local measures.

Significant associations with general population indicators point to underlying conditions that may shape both VHA and local health system performance.

Public health systems would benefit from performance evaluation data to examine responsiveness to local conditions.

This article describes financial professionals' perceptions of their clients' financial behaviors and the explanatory factors underlying these behaviors.

In this qualitative research, the authors seek to understand financial professionals' experiences in relation to how their clients manage their own finances. The authors conduct and analyze 26 semi-structured interviews with financial professionals from several industries within the financial sector in Canada.

The professionals in this study noted that despite their clients' financial knowledge, several other factors can explain these individuals' financial behaviors. They include psychological factors (such as financial bias, the need for instant gratification, and the lack of awareness regarding the long-term effects of certain types of financial behaviors), financial habits (such as lifestyle, financial planning and lack of discipline) and the financial system's flexibility with respect to debt financing and repayment. These perceptions are categorized according to whether they are related to debt financing or repayment, savings or investments.

By using a qualitative methodology that relies on the perceptions of financial professionals, this study aims to better understand the financial behaviors of individuals and households, and these behaviors' underlying factors. This study's findings could be useful to various stakeholders interested, in one way or another, in financial literacy, such as organizations aiming to strengthen and promote financial literacy, educators, researchers, regulatory bodies of financial institutions and financial advisers.