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The purpose of this paper is to identify the antecedents of the transformational learning process associated with early international experiences. Secondarily, this research aimed to explain how the antecedent “transformational triggers” may contribute to developing intercultural competencies.

A qualitative study was conducted using open-ended survey response data regarding the transformational triggers that occurred during a study abroad program. The data were collected from a sample of 82 participants from a Midwestern university in the USA.

Four categories of transformational triggers were identified: immersing with local customs and people, experiencing the novelty of “normality,” communicating in a new language, and finding time for self-reflection.

For a qualitative study, the sample size was sufficient for exploring the types of transformational triggers associated with early international experiences. One limitation of this study is that the sample studied were undergraduate students, or young sojourners, experiencing early, and for some even their first, international experience. Future research can replicate the findings to confirm the same typology of transformational triggers exists for older managers during their early or first international assignment.

The transformational triggers identified from this study provide managers with an understanding of the type of experiences that are important to developing intercultural competencies. With these triggers, they can design global leader development programs or expatriate assignments to include time and tools to reflect and provide support specific to each type of transformational trigger.

This study offers the first field study of the transformational triggers associated with developing intercultural competencies from early international experiences.

We examined a large multi-year undergraduate leadership development program (LDP) across seven universities and used an integrated framework of transformational leadership and situational judgment tests (SJTs) during a critical and formative period of leadership development. This study was the first to show a significant relationship between experience and transformational leadership style in students in an undergraduate LDP using SJTs and the multifactor leadership questionnaire (MLQ). The results showed that greater experience was positively related to increased transformational leadership style and that high overall decision scores were indicated in all groups of students with varying leadership styles and varying experience levels and decision abilities. The study findings and implications are discussed, along with recommendations for leadership educators to develop decision quality in LDPs.

This paper aims to examine critically the literature on transformational tourism and explore a research agenda for a post-COVID future.

A systematic review of the transformational tourism literature is performed over a 42-year period from 1978 to 2020.

Further research is required in terms of how transformative experiences should be calibrated and measured both in qualitative and quantitative terms, particularly from the perspective of how tourists are transformed by their experiences. Similarly, the nature and depth of these transformative processes remain poorly understood, particularly given the many different types of tourism associated with transformative experiences, which range from religious pilgrimages to backpacking and include several forms of ecotourism.

Future research directions for transformational tourism are discussed with regard to how COVID-19 will transform the dynamics of tourism and travel, including the role of new smart technologies in the creation of enhanced transformational experiences, and the changing expectations and perceptions of transformative travel in the post-COVID era. In addition, the researchers call for future studies on transformational tourism to explore the role of host communities in the delivery of meaningful visitor experiences.

Transformational tourism is an emerging body of research, which has attracted a growing level of interest among tourism scholars in recent years. However, to this date, a systematic review of published literature in this field has not been conducted yet in a holistic sense. This paper offers a framework for future research in this field.

The purpose of this paper is to present a qualitative understanding of participants’ experiences in an exemplar large-scale organization development intervention (LODI). The purpose was to understand what contributes to the success of LODIs from participant experiences.

The research design was a qualitative study of one-on-one interview findings (n=23) from participants involved in LODIs that spanned over four years in a complex healthcare system. Participants involved in the process represented clinical, operational, and support service staff as well as all levels from frontline to senior leaders. The 23 participants consisted of 13 women and ten men.

The qualitative analysis showed that participants reported experiences of transformational change, where contextual conditions as well as personal and organizational transformation processes existed in the LODIs. Contextual conditions were shown to have a multiplier effect on the attainment of transformation in what was considered a successful large-scale change, where desired business outcomes were also achieved. Further, access to shared transformational experience is what created context for the sense of community, responsibility, and accountability that spurred change agents into action.

Prior theory and research shows that large-scale and similar organization development interventions result in transformational change, deepened relationships, and successful outcomes as a result of organizational change processes such as emergence and generativity. This study provides new insight into why LODIs work from participants’ perspectives. These findings may be used to design successful LODI processes and expands research to include and be informed by participants’ experiences, in a field predicated on stakeholder involvement to begin with.

The purpose of this paper is to offer an approach to global business education that offers a transformative experience for students and results in greater confidence and expertise.

A model of global business competence is described, as well as an approach to global business education involving a short‐term study abroad experience. Transformational learning practices were embedded in the course design. Surveys were collected at two different times in the short‐term study abroad course to demonstrate changes in students' confidence and expertise. The first survey was conducted after completing reading assignments and classroom‐based instruction (Time 1) and the second was collected upon returning from the study abroad experience (Time 2).

Results indicated a significant change in students' perceptions of their global business competence from Time 1 to Time 2, indicating the benefits of the short‐term study abroad experience beyond classroom instruction and readings.

Further clarification regarding the specific short‐term study abroad experiences that had the most impact on student outcomes would further our knowledge of how to design and structure these experiences to maximally enhance global business expertise and effectiveness for business students. In addition, future research may explore longer‐term student outcomes as a result of the short‐term study abroad experience.

Business school faculty and administrators may identify practices described in this study that they could incorporate to enhance their global business education courses or study abroad experiences.

This paper builds on transformational learning and global business literature to provide a practical approach to graduate business education. A framework for defining global business competence and pedagogical design principles that promote transformational learning is offered and may be of interest to business school faculty and administrators.

The purpose of this study was to explore whether the transformational classroom leadership concept could describe the notion of the inspiring professor that the Gallup–Purdue survey (2014) found to be a major factor in enhancing college and university graduates’ workplace engagement.

Surveys of existing students and alumni of Lingnan University in Hong Kong were conducted to ascertain whether transformational classroom leadership is a proxy for the inspiring professor notion and to gauge the possible effect that transformational classroom leadership has on alumni workplace engagement.

The results of the study suggested a potential link between the experience of transformational classroom leadership and alumni subsequent levels of workplace engagement.

The results should be treated as indicative only, given that the Hong Kong study was limited to one university, and the sample sizes were similarly limited.

Should further investigations confirm the Hong Kong results, this could trigger a shift in emphasis and resources in higher education from research to teaching. Furthermore, the nature of transformational classroom leadership provides tremendous scope for establishing a professional development framework based on the model.

This is the first study that has explored the link between transformational classroom leadership and alumni levels of workplace engagement.

This paper aims to explore and compare the roles of brand’s experiential and transformational benefits in formation of consumer-brand relationships. Focusing on cosmetics consumption, the study investigates how brand’s experiential benefits (brand experience) and transformational benefits (self-esteem and self-expression) could impact the strength of consumer-brand relationships.

Data analysis was performed using structural equation modeling technique. The sample consisted of 373 university students, who completed self-administered questionnaires.

Results show that brand experience and self-expression have significant positive impacts on consumer-brand relationships. Brand experience plays a more important role, compared with transformational benefits, in this process. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.

Future research could study possible transformative experiences across various industries. It could also use a more divergent sample that better represents general population.

This study is among the first in the literature to investigate the impacts of emerging sources of brand value, i.e. experiential and transformational benefits, in formation of strong consumer-brand relationships. It is also among the first to compare the predictive power of those two types of benefits in shaping brand-related outcomes.

This study explores the positive and negative factors influencing transformational learning experiences of female leaders in women’s leadership development programmes in sports and examines the differences in learning/change factors cited by those who successfully addressed them and those who failed.

The study adopted a qualitative research method, using phone interviews with women leaders in a sports setting.

The findings revealed that participants presented clear progress in terms of leadership skills, but they failed to report whether this progress can be achieved if the programme is running within a specific sports organisation, targeting a specific kind of sports leadership in the long term.

There were a number of limitations for this study, e.g. selection of participants, sample size, exploratory methodology, which affected generalising the findings to other sports organisations or other countries.

The study provides a starting point for the exploration of the effectiveness of women leadership development programmes and how designers can evaluate the outcome of such initiatives in the UK.

Transformative learning (TL) and leadership are key leverage points for supporting society’s transition toward sustainability. The purpose of this study is to identify essential components of TL within an international sustainability leadership master’s program in Sweden that has been described by many students as life-changing, empowering and transformational.

Alumni spanning 15 cohorts provided answers to a survey and the responses were used to map components of TL as experienced by the students.

The survey confirms the anecdotal assertions that the program is transformational. The findings suggest that community, place, pedagogy, concepts and content, disorientation and hope and agency are essential components, combined with the synergy of those into an integrated whole that support transformational change according to many respondents.

This study provides program designers and educators with suggested components and emphasizes their integration and synergy, to support TL experiences for sustainability leaders.

A study of community college students enrolled in a for-credit study abroad program in Costa Rica sought to identify the experiences that influence intercultural competency growth during study abroad trips and to learn how the experiences influence the development of global leadership competencies. The results led to a modified global leadership development expertise model for understanding the process of global leadership development in student populations. The study revealed a key link between antecedent characteristics of participants and their transformational ability during the study. The study also revealed that there are types of transformational experiences that, when experienced sequentially, can maximize transformational potential and the development of intercultural competencies.