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This paper aims to explore how the competence-based vocational education and training (VET) curricula facilitate shaping of work values of VET students. It discusses methodological and ideological orientations of competence-based VET in teaching work values and discloses the typical characteristics of teaching work values in the VET system of Lithuania.

A quantitative research approach leading to a survey method is adopted to investigate how VET students acquire and apply work-related values and attitudes to work.

The survey of the VET students has disclosed that students are open to accepting different values of work, including cognitive values, social prestige and altruist values. However, orientation of the VET curricula to and provision of instrumental values lead to relatively weak internalization of the work values related to societal and spiritual dimensions.

The paper provides empirical evidence regarding the implications of the competence-based curricula for teaching students work values in the school-based VET.

Although doctoral education has experienced substantial development in recent decades, it remains an elite, hence fragile, dimension of university policy and practice. This study aims to articulate perspectives to guide the next phase of strengthening and growth.

Working from theoretical and empirical research conducted in China, including scholarship on workforce ecosystems, education design and the student experience, this study contributes a framework with qualitative insights which clarify the goals and experiences of doctoral education in ways that will render it more relevant, effective and contributing.

The paper identifies areas for doctoral reform to ensure career readiness, including three distinctive outcomes and four indispensable experiences.

This study advances a doctoral design framework which can render transparent the substance of programs and prompt program coordinators to develop and ensure career relevance.

Even if digital financial services have a positive impact on financial inclusion, it creates a digital as well as gender divide within and across countries, creating regional disparity even within developing nations. Though pandemic has initiated digitalization of various services, there has been scanty research on whether digital transfer of income can improve digital financial inclusion in post-pandemic era, especially in developing countries. The purpose of the current study is to explain the regional disparity within developing countries from three regions East Asia Pacific, South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, using latest World Findex data, 2021.

The author takes an instrumental variable approach to run bivariate probit model to find the factors that motivate the users to make digital payments.

The study observes that electronic transfer of wages, government transfers and remittances can motivate individuals to make use of digital mode of transactions and mobile. The practice of formal saving and borrowings are the prerequisites. However, this mechanism holds good for East Asia Pacific and not for South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, which are poor in information and communication technology infrastructure. Women are lagging behind men, but digital transfer of wages motivate them to make digital transaction.

Digitalization of all government services and provision of affordable mobile network and internet services are necessary for regions like South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. In East Asia Pacific region, data protection, data governance and better regulatory framework are required. Higher female labor force participation with digital transfer of wages and empowerment with smartphones are key to reducing the Gender gap.

The current study corrects for the possible endogeneity issue, which the extant literature has not paid attention to, and provides region-specific and gender-specific policy recommendations for an improved digital inclusion.

The purpose of this study is to examine the formation of sustainable development competencies (SDCs) in future primary school teachers during English for specific purposes classes, and to assess the correlation between English proficiency and the development of SDCs, including Collaboration, Strategic thinking, Critical thinking, Modelling sustainable behaviour, Systems thinking and Future thinking.

The research experiment involved the application of content and language integrated learning and facilitation methods in three higher education institutions in Ukraine. The students’ level of English language proficiency was assessed based on the results of the online Cambridge English Language Assessment test, while the level of SDC formation was measured using research methods adapted to the Ukrainian context.

The experiment revealed positive changes in the levels of SDCs and English language proficiency through integrated learning and the application of facilitation methods.

The study established a correlation between the level of English language proficiency and the formation of competencies, such as Collaboration, Strategic thinking, Critical thinking, Modelling sustainable behaviour, Systems thinking and Future thinking, all of which are vital for sustainable development.

This study aims to investigate the influence of inventors’ abilities to acquire external knowledge, provide broad and professional knowledge and patenting output (i.e. different types of inventors) on the formation of structural holes.

The authors collected 59,798 patents applied for and granted in the USA by 33 of the largest firms worldwide in the pharmaceutical industry between 1975 and 2014. A random-effects tobit model was used to test the hypotheses.

The inventors’ ability to acquire external knowledge contributes to the formation of structural holes. While inventors’ ability to provide broad knowledge positively affects the formation of structural holes, their ability to provide professional knowledge works otherwise. In addition, key inventors and industrious inventors are more likely to form structural holes than talents.

The results identify individual factors that affect the formation of structural holes and improve the understanding of structural hole theory. This study is unique in that most scholars have studied the consequences of structural hole formation rather than their antecedents. Studies on the origin of structural holes neglect the effect of inventors’ knowledge abilities and patenting output. By addressing this gap, this study contributes to a more comprehensive theoretical understanding of structural holes. The results can guide managers in managing structural holes in accordance with inventors’ knowledge abilities and patenting outputs, which optimize the allocation of network resources.

This study aims to explore possible behavioural change venues, beyond the traditional approach to financial education, using the capability-opportunity-motivation behaviour theoretical framework of behavioural change.

The study included 45, semi-structured, in-depth interviews of young adults to explore which elements of financial behaviour formation should interventions target to be effective.

To strengthen capability, the study recommends behavioural education and training for boosting financial knowledge and skills, enablement of financial independence and modelling for empowering self-control and reducing impulsiveness. To boost motivation, gamification of modelling is advised for boosting responsible financial behaviour as part of the identity and inducing consideration of future consequences. Persuasion is advised for inducing positive emotions while incentivization and coercion are advised for empowering self-conscious intentions. To rise opportunity, the study proposes incentivization and coercion imposed by parents, and governmental efforts regarding restriction, enablement and environmental restructuring.

The study brings recommendations for developing efficient interventions for strengthening responsible financial behaviour that may help design type-specific education programmes to promote responsible financial behaviour.

The present study attempts to explore new venues in intervention design that break away from the traditional approach of financial education focused on knowledge and skills that is proven to be ineffective

Our work adds to the debate regarding higher education graduates’ skills required in the labour market in Germany and beyond.

Using Q-methodology and the accompanying narrations, we explore German employers’ and employees’ views (N = 26) on characteristics required at the entry level.

Our findings show three areas of the labour market with different skill requirements. Whereas the first area, “The world of rules”, applies more likely to the professions and academia, the two other areas, “The middle field” and “The people-oriented and critical market”, can be found throughout the labour market. The disciplinary affiliation does not play a role. In all three areas, soft skills are crucial and specialised knowledge is only highly valued in the area of “The world of rules”.

In contrast to previous findings, we do not focus on singular skills. Instead, we focus on skill sets and discuss their relevance from the background of their usability.

This study reveals the trigger of innovative behavior from the perspective of intrinsic and extrinsic spiritual inspiration and provides a new research idea for the formation mechanism of innovative behavior. The purpose of this study is to provide certain guidance and implications for enterprises to cultivate and enhance employees’ innovative behavior.

We conducted three studies, collected multi-source data (N = 1,175) from different countries longitudinally, as well as used hierarchical regression analysis and fuzzy-set quantitative comparative analysis to verify the theoretical model.

According to the findings, both spiritual leadership and career calling have a positive impact on employees’ innovative behavior through the mediating effect of autonomous motivation and the moderating effect of person-vocation fit.

Innovative behavior is the positive professional pursuit of employees, which is difficult to form without the motivation of spiritual factors. Spirituality is a complex concept that contains intrinsic and extrinsic spiritual factors, both of which could stimulate employees’ innovative behavior. Although many discussions have been held on this topic in recent years, little attention has been paid simultaneously to the motivating effects of the two perspectives. Drawn from self-determination theory, this study explores the mechanisms of two spiritual motivation paths (i.e. the intrinsic and extrinsic spiritual motivation paths) in the improvement of employees’ innovative behavior.

This study aims to examine why tax reforms fail and explores how tax collection can be improved within a developing country context.

Data comprise 28 semi-structured interviews with taxpayers, tax experts and tax authority personnel based in Pakistan. The results are analysed using a combined lens of taxpayer trust and tax agencies’ capabilities.

Tax reforms failed to build taxpayers’ trust and tax agencies’ capabilities. Building trust is challenging and demands extensive ongoing engagement with taxpayers while yielding gradual permanent results. This requires enhancing confidence in government; educating taxpayers; removing complexities; introducing transparency and accountability in tax agencies’ operations and the tax system; promoting procedural and distributive justice; and reversing perceptions of corruption through reconciliation and stakeholder inclusivity. Developing tax agencies’ capabilities requires upgrading outdated technologies, systems and processes; implementing governance and organisational reforms; introducing an oversight board; and recruiting and training skilled professionals.

The findings can assist policymakers and tax collection authorities in understanding why tax reforms fail and identifying potential solutions.

This study contributes to the emerging literature by exploring tax administration failures in developing countries. It contributes to the literature by engaging stakeholders to understand why reforms fail and potential solutions to stimulate tax revenues.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the practices that owners of public profiles in social networking sites can leverage to actively build online reputation and to evaluate the impact of the adoption of such practices on the initial formation of trust toward these individuals when they are presented as new virtual work partners.

A theoretical model was developed and an experiment with 233 participants was utilized to assess the model using partial least squares structural equation modeling.

The results suggest that individuals can build their online reputations in public profiles of social networking sites via a series of practices of self-disclosure of information and that the adoption of these practices has significant effects on the initial formation of trust toward the profile owner in virtual work contexts. Categorization mechanisms such as stereotyping, unit grouping and reputation categorization have been found to contribute to the initial formation of trust, both from an affect and cognition-based perspectives.

Little is known about the information disclosure practices in public profiles of social networking sites that new work partners can adopt to facilitate the formation of trust between them before they start working together. This study has contributed to the existing body of literature by clarifying these practices and the relative importance of online reputation to the initial formation of trust during the outset of a new virtual work relationship.