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The Australian Government has long used its international scholarship programs as an instrument of soft power in international diplomacy. The paper examines an international scholarship program and its role in Australia’s soft power efforts during a period in recent history.

The Australia in the Asian Century White Paper of 2012 is used as a lens to reveal how the Australian Government viewed the role of international scholarship programs in international diplomacy at a specific point in the recent past, and compares it with research revealing what was contemporaneously happening with one key government-funded scholarship program.

This paper is based on a comprehensive case study of the Australian Government’s Endeavour Scholarships and Fellowships program (2004–2019). Endeavour was an ambitious and expensive merit-based program with 6,600 recipients in numerous and diffuse sub-categories. The program was complex and cumbersome and lacked clear priorities, particularly in its lack of geographic focus. It missed opportunities to connect with the political zeitgeist, largely due to opaque priorities and inadequate evaluation regimes which focused entirely on outcomes for individual recipients rather than on relationships for Australia.

This research draws on the first academic study of the Endeavour program. Other scholarship programs (for example Australia Awards and the New Colombo Plan) have attracted considerable scholarly interest. The Endeavour research provides an additional counterpoint for studies of Australian scholarship programs and their contribution to international diplomacy. It is timely to consider this in 2024 when Australia is putting a new focus on its investment in international scholarships.

This study examined the influence of university corporate social responsibility (University CSR) on university corporate brand legitimacy through the lens of university brand trust.

The study utilized a cross-sectional research design with a quantitative approach to gather data from a sample of 398 university students. The collected data were analyzed using structural equation modeling.

The findings of the study suggest that University CSR has a significant influence on the legitimacy of a university's corporate brand. Moreover, the study identified the mediating role of university brand trust in the proposed relationship.

The study was conducted in the context of higher education in Tanzania. As a result, the generalizability of the findings to other contexts that significantly differ from Tanzania, a developing country, may be limited.

The study recommends that the management of higher education institutions in developing countries should include CSR practices in the strategic plans of universities. Additionally, faculty members should be empowered to play a significant role as initiators and implementers of CSR programs.

This study is one of the few attempts to examine the interplay between university CSR, corporate brand trust and university corporate brand legitimacy. The study contributes to the state of knowledge in the education sector by highlighting the role of university CSR in building social acceptance, which is a crucial pillar in empowering universities to play a role in social and economic development.

This paper discusses the effectiveness of a consortium-based student mobility programme by investigating the impact of the Asian International Mobility for Students (AIMS) Programme. AIMS is a regional multilateral large-scale student mobility programme based on a consortium of 10 member countries and 87 member universities with the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization Regional Centre for Higher Education and Development (SEAMEO RIHED) as a facilitator. Over 6,000 students have participated in a semester-long intra-regional student exchange under AIMS since 2010.

The study employed questionnaire surveys and semi-structured interviews to investigate the impact of AIMS and its advantages as a consortium-based student mobility programme.

It was found that AIMS significantly impacted member universities by accelerating their internationalisation processes through increasing the number of inbound and outbound students and courses offered in English and so on. AIMS has promoted harmonisation among the members by developing common procedures and guidelines, providing platforms for mutual sharing of experiences and good practices and capacity building of international relations offices. AIMS has also had a significant impact on students by enhancing their regional identity and knowledge about the region of Asia, contributing to their development as future regional and global citizens. As advantages of AIMS, member universities efficiently built a foundation for international collaboration with common procedures and guidelines and shared their experiences through such venues as Annual Review Meetings. Students also feel supported by having clear guidance and find programmes prepared by host universities and SEAMEO RIHED useful.

This study is unique in that it empirically studies the impact of one of Asia’s largest student mobility programmes for the first time by analysing large-scale qualitative and quantitative data.

This paper explores organization-level racialized work strategies for maintaining racialized organizations (Ray, 2019). It focuses on intentional actions to maintain dominant racial norms, demonstrating how work strategies are informed by dominant racial structures that maintain racial inequities.

We compiled a chronological case study (Yin, 2012) based on 168 news media articles and various organizational documents to examine responses to athlete protests at the University of Texas at Austin following the death of George Floyd. Gioia et al.’s (2013) method uncovered how dominant racial norms inform organizational behaviors.

The paper challenges institutional theory neutrality and identifies several racialized work strategies that organizations employ to maintain racialized norms and practices. The findings provide a framework for organizations to interrogate their strategies and their role in reproducing dominant racial norms and inequities.

In 2020, the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement was reinvigorated within sporting and corporate domains. However, many organizations engaged in performativity, sparking criticism about meaningful change in organizational contexts. Our case study examines how one organization responded to athlete activists’ BLM-fueled demands, revealing specific racialized work strategies that maintain structures of racism. As organizations worldwide disrupt and discuss oppressive structures such as racism, we demonstrate how organizational leadership, while aware of policies and practices of racism, may choose not to act and actively maintain such structures.

This paper explores the mechanism of organizational Pao culture in an Oriental cultural context and its impact on CSR implementation and outcomes.

Three short cases are presented to reveal how the traditional Chinese Pao culture influences CSR implementation and outcomes in Chinese firms.

The findings suggest that the traditional Chinese Pao culture is the driver behind the value orientation of the norms of passing on favors and doing good deeds will be rewarded. Knowing this can help leaders in such organizations to incentivize member participation in building organizational Pao culture.

Through the collaborative construction of the core of Pao culture and external evaluation standards of corporate social responsibility, enterprises can thus achieve the dual goals of self-development and social benefits.

Enterprises and managers can be encouraged to draw management wisdom from the essence of cultural norms, so as to achieve the goal of realizing the interests of all CSR participants.

This paper emphasizes the dynamics and outcomes of CSR implementation in the context of the traditional Chinese Pao culture and expands the boundary of CSR research beyond a Western cultural setting.

The aging population, a higher proportion of older adults (aged 65+), is considered a global and severe problem, while the information systems (IS) literature on detecting the relationship between the aging population and the development of electronic commerce (e-commerce) is limited and insufficient. Hence, the main objective of this paper is to examine whether an aging population can moderate the effect of infrastructure constructions on e-commerce sales and whether an aging population can affect e-commerce sales.

To investigate the relationship between the aging population and e-commerce sales, this study proposes two potential influential mechanisms: moderating the effects of infrastructure development on e-commerce sales and direct influence. Subsequently, a sample of 31 Chinese provinces from 2013 to 2019 is utilized to conduct regression analyses in order to examine these hypotheses.

The findings suggest that the development of urban transportation infrastructure and network constructions can significantly contribute to the enhancement of e-commerce sales, and the influence cannot be affected by aging population. Furthermore, it is noteworthy that an aging population can have a positive effect on e-commerce sales.

The findings can inform future infrastructure constructions by assessing the potential of infrastructure projects to boost e-commerce sales and examining whether this effect varies in an aging population context.

The findings substantiate the pivotal role of older adults in the e-commerce industry. Moreover, the obtained results establish a positive relationship between an aging population and e-commerce sales, thereby offering diverse perspectives on existing theories.

Drawing upon curiosity drive theory, we examine the effects of epistemic curiosity (EC) on employees' innovative work behavior. Additionally, we explore the potential mediating role of work engagement (WE) and the moderating effects of leader-member exchange (LMX).

The data were collected from 406 employees employed in public service organizations within the United Arab Emirates. Structural equation modeling was employed as the analytical approach to test the hypotheses.

The findings of this study indicate that EC is positively related to innovative work behavior. Further, WE mediates the relationship between EC and creative work behavior. Moreover, LMX moderates the indirect effect of WE on the link between EC (interest and deprivation types) and innovative work behavior. The mediating association is stronger when the leader and member’s exchange is high.

This study will assist practitioners of service organizations in focusing their attention on EC to enhance employees' innovative work behavior and achieve optimal performance. Our research extends work on interest and innovative work behavior in an emerging economic context.

Our study suggests that policymakers should embrace the philosophy of curiosity to nurture innovative behavior in the workplace.

This study addresses the gap in research concerning student attitudes toward ethics and social responsibility (E&SR) within diverse organizational contexts, specifically as they transition into managerial and non-managerial roles.

A total of 425 business students from four universities participated. To determine statistically significant differences between potential managers and non-managers (M&NM), a paired comparison inferential t-test was employed.

The study revealed positive E&SR attitudes among business students. However, it differed from existing literature by finding a significant difference in perceived E&SR importance between aspirants in managerial and non-managerial positions. Notably, non-managerial students exhibited significantly stronger support for these principles.

This study, conducted in an emerging economy, offers a unique perspective by analyzing E&SR perceptions across both potential management and non-management employees. Given the direct and indirect influence employee perceptions have on business performance, this research sheds light on the crucial role of E&SR in management practices. The findings are further substantiated by robust data and include implications for human resource management, along with suggestions for future research directions.

PhD graduates are entering an increasing range of careers, but past research has highlighted a lack of preparation for these careers. This study aims to explore the reflections of PhD graduates from science and humanities and social science disciplines regarding support for career development (CD) during their study.

The authors used an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design and collected 136 survey responses and interviewed 21 PhD graduates from two US and one New Zealand universities to investigate their career readiness. Using the lens of Cognitive Information Processing theory, the authors explored the development of self-knowledge and career options-knowledge, and how support at the macro (institutional), meso (departmental) and micro (supervisors) levels influenced CD.

During doctoral study, there was very poor engagement with CD activities. Graduates displayed limited self-knowledge and poor knowledge about career options. Graduates reported drawing mainly on their departments and supervisors for career guidance. Although there were pockets of good practice, some departments were perceived as promoting academia as the only successful outcome, neglecting to support other possible pathways. Some graduates reported excellent supervisor support for CD, but others described disinterest or a damaging response if students said they were not wanting to pursue academia.

The enabling aspects for developing self- and options-knowledge are collated into a conceptual model, which identifies key factors at institutional, departmental and supervisor levels, as well as for PhD students themselves.

Gamification is a strategic approach employed by practitioners to foster meaningful engagement and enhance the acceptance of recommendations. Gamification affordances (e.g. achievement, self-expression, interaction, and cooperation) catalyze significant psychological processes in consumers, leading to behavioral changes. Despite its application, a gap remains in understanding how these gamification affordances in e-commerce contexts impact customers' perceived values and drive recommendation acceptances.

Employing affordance theory and perceived value theory as our foundation, we have crafted a comprehensive framework that addresses the multifaceted nature of e-commerce gamification, thereby unifying the fragmented knowledge in this area. We implemented a quantitative research design to empirically test the proposed model.

The research reveals that the four principal affordances of gamification – achievement, self-expression, interaction, and cooperation – significantly enrich consumer values across hedonic, utilitarian, and social dimensions. This enrichment facilitates an increased propensity for accepting recommendations.

This study provides a novel lens through which to view the influence of gamification affordances on recommendation acceptance within gamified e-commerce settings. It delineates the effects of each affordance on consumers' perceived value and highlights the pivotal affordances that shape gamified e-commerce experiences. These insights yield actionable strategies for practitioners aiming to refine e-commerce gamification designs and cultivate more engaging consumer interactions.