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Project management is an essential skill in the hospitality organization that is only becoming more important (Tereso et al., 2019). Bridging the gap between academia and industry is achievable by experiential learning or providing students with curriculum that gives them hands-on access to real-world industry research projects that attempt to solve real-world industry issues (Steed and Schwer, 2003). The purpose of this paper is to understand the scope of project management curriculum in universities’ hospitality programs, to understand the scope of project management skill requirements in hospitality firms and to narrow the disconnect between project management in academia and in hospitality firms.

The study used a mixed method approach. On the side of academia, a quantitative collection method was used to gage which universities offered a project management course, how many universities offer these courses and how many project management courses each university had. On the side of industry, a survey was administered to industry professionals in senior management positions. It was a quantitative survey designed to gage the importance of having project management as part of university curriculum. The aim was to show what was expected to be a disconnect between the two sides – academia and industry. A total of 57 responses were collected. Out of them 49 were usable. The Human Subjects consisted solely of two populations: individuals who worked in the hospitality industry. This accounted for 12 of the responses; individuals who worked in academia – more specifically in higher education at schools that offer Hospitality Management curriculum. This accounted for 37 of the responses. The subjects were identified and recruited through the professional networking site LinkedIn (for subjects that were industry professionals) and through both LinkedIn and American Hotel Lodging and Educational Institute databases for the subjects in academia. There were no direct potential benefits to the subject. The potential societal benefits of the study were the advancement of knowledge within the disciplines of both Hospitality Management and Project Management. The authors used the University of Memphis’ Qualtrics system and changed settings to anonymize responses so IP addresses would not be collected. The Qualtrics’ default is to collect IP addresses and GPS coordinates of those who responded. By setting the survey to anonymized responses the investigators were not able to collect this identifiable information. This information was included in the confidentiality, methods/procedures and in any other necessary sections/documents noting that the investigators would set Qualtrics to anonymize responses.

H1 was supported. The findings showed that most colleges and universities did not require project management classes for degree completion. Preliminary research showed that of 68 of the top hospitality programs in the world that were researched, only 7.5 percent required taking project management centric courses in order to graduate (College Choice, 2019; The Best Schools, 2019; Top Universities, 2018). In total, 43.2 percent of respondents answered “yes” when asked if their school offers courses in project management based on this definition of project management: “A project is temporary in that it has a defined beginning and end in time, and therefore the defined scope and resources. And a project is unique in that it is not a routine operation, but a specific set of operations designed to accomplish a singular goal. A project team often includes people who do not usually work together – sometimes from different organizations and across multiple geographies. Project management, then, is the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities to meet the project requirement” (Project Management Institute) (See Table A1). Of 43.2 percent that answered yes, 64.3 percent said that the courses were required for graduation (See Table AII). Meaning, only 27.8 percent of schools surveyed offered and required completing project management courses for graduation. It should be noted that this number may be lower as bias may have played a factor. It is evident that hospitality programs understand the importance of project management because 85.7 percent of the colleges and universities surveyed are teaching project management concepts in courses that are not project management centric, like Meeting and Event Planning (See Table AIII). H2 was supported. Only 9.1 percent of respondents believed that project management skills are not at all important to line level employees. Most, 54.6 percent, believed that project management skills are important to some extent for line level employees. In total, 9.1 percent believed that project management skills are not at all important for supervisory level employees; 27.3 percent believed they are needed to some extent and 36.4 percent believed they are needed to a moderate extent. As for management level employees, it was found that 63.6 percent believed project management skills were needed to a great extent. For director level employees, 63.6 percent believed project management skills are necessary. Finally, 72.7 percent of respondents believed project management skills are necessary for both VP level employees and executive leadership (See Table AIV). It should be noted that one person did not believe themselves qualified to answer questions regarding project management within their organization. More than half of respondents said that project management skills are used to a great extent within their organization. H3 was not supported. Both hospitality schools and hospitality companies agreed that project management skills have some level of importance in academia and in industry – most believed the skills were very important at both junctions (See Tables AV and AVI). However, in the preliminary research the authors found that 55 percent of the top 111 hospitality companies had project management positions, meaning that there was a potential need for project management courses in colleges and universities (Ranker, 2019). As stated earlier, only 7.5 percent of the top 68 colleges and universities required project management courses to be completed upon graduation. So, the discrepancy lies within the vastly different percentages between project management positions within companies and project management courses within schools.

The data provided strong evidence that supported the idea that project management is not required in hospitality programs upon completion. This opens new avenues to research the reasons behind schools not offering project management courses or making it a requirement for degree completion. On the other hand, project management skills are considered to be needed by hospitality managers. This provides valuable information for future studies that look to close the gap between academia and industry. The results indicated that project management is important for hospitality companies and schools, but the lack of project management education in colleges and universities is evident. The results of this study provided good news to students that aim to work in hospitality companies, since they can improve their project management skills and encourage their programs to stay updated with the industry needs so that they can succeed in their professional lives. Though this was an exploratory study of the project management discipline within the hospitality industry – with a limited sample size – the data clearly justified that there is room for additional data collection and research in this area of study.

The results show that there is a disconnect between project management curriculum in schools and project management skill demand in the hospitality industry. The research should encourage schools to invest appropriate resources into required project management curriculum. The hospitality industry is vast in the types of businesses that fall under it. Project management is one skill set that can be useful across most of the different businesses in the hospitality industry. From a practical standpoint, providing students with a solid background in the project management discipline provides them an advantage in the highly competitive hospitality industry. It accomplishes this by providing the students with in-demand knowledge and competencies that are both universally accepted and highly regarded by hospitality management companies as a skill set that is widely used in the industry.

There were limitations to this study. Some pieces may be improved in future research. The Qualtrics survey could have been reduced in number and order of questions for a better interaction and results. The use of the Qualtrics database might be helpful to reach a bigger population. Potential steps could be taken to reduce bias that may play a factor in the responses. For example, some respondents may have claimed that their schools offer project management curriculum when in fact they do not, or they do not know to what extent.

Project management is an essential skill in the hospitality organization that is only becoming more important (Tereso et al., 2019). Bridging the gap between academia and industry is achievable through experiential learning or providing students with curriculum that gives them hands-on access to real-world industry research projects that attempt to solve real-world industry issues (Steed and Schwer, 2003). Most graduate level curriculum at universities was found to hone skills like written and oral communications, problem solving and decision making, organization, time management and cost control (Steed and Schwer, 2003). It has been suggested that universities add project management curriculum and experiential learning to their programs for a more streamlined transition from academia to industry (Steed and Schwer, 2003). Existing research on this subject is a bit dated, so the objectives were: to understand the scope of project management curriculum in universities’ hospitality programs; to understand the scope of project management skill requirements in hospitality firms; to narrow the disconnect between project management in academia and in hospitality firms.

Yair Aharoni is a Professor Emeritus at the Faculty of Management, Tel-Aviv University. He received his DBA from the Harvard University Graduate School of Business Administration. His doctoral dissertation – The Foreign Investment Decision Process – was published in a book version and was translated to Spanish and Japanese. He is a Fellow of the International Academy of Management and the Academy of International Business. During his long and distinguished academic career, Aharoni was the Daniel and Grace Ross Professor of International Business and later the Issachar Haimovic Professor of Business Policy – both at Tel Aviv University. He was the Thomas Henry Caroll Ford Foundation Visiting Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration (1978–1979). He was also the J. Paul Stitch Visiting Professor of International Business at Duke University (1987–1995) and the director of CIBER (Center of International Business Education and Research) (1992–1995). He published several dozens books and monographs in Hebrew and in English, more than 100 papers and chapters in books and more than 150 cases. For his academic achievements he was awarded both Landau Prize (2007) and Israel Prize in management science (2010).

Quality management is high on the reform agenda of both universities and hospitals. This paper studies how quality management is implemented: who is responsible for QM and which instruments are used? The guiding research question is whether these two very distinct professional organizations respond in similar or different ways to a common reform trend. To analyze the extent of isomorphic tendencies a cross-sectoral, descriptive data analysis with data from 135 hospitals and 83 universities in Germany has been conducted. The results show that QM in hospitals is more elaborated in terms of quality instruments and at the same time more standardized. Universities, in contrast, follow quite individualistic ways to organize quality management.

The study aims at reviewing a synthesis of disclosure, transparency, and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) implementation in an attempt to provide directions for future research. Prior research overwhelmingly supports that the IFRS adoption or effective implementation of IFRS will enhance high-quality financial reporting, transparency, enhance the country’s investment environment, and foreign direct investment (FDI) (Dayanandan, Donker, Ivanof, & Karahan, 2016; Gláserová, 2013; Muniandy & Ali, 2012). However, some researchers provide conflicting evidence that developing countries implementing IFRS are probably not going to encounter higher FDI inflows (Gheorghe, 2009; Lasmin, 2012). It has also been argued that the IFRS adoption decreases the management earnings in countries with high levels of financial disclosure. In general, the study indicates that the adoption of IFRS has improved the financial reporting quality. The common law countries have strong rules to protect investors, strict legal enforcement, and high levels of transparency of financial information. From the extensive structured review of literature using the Scopus database tool, the study reviewed 105 articles, and in particular, the topic-related 94 articles were analysed. All 94 articles were retrieved from a range of 59 journals. Most of the articles (77 of 94) were published 2010–2018. The top five journals based on the citations are Journal of Accounting Research (187 citations), Abacus (125 citations), European Accounting Review (107 citations), Journal of Accounting and Economics (78 citations), and Accounting and Business Research (66 citations). The most-cited authors are Daske, Hail, Leuz, and Verdi (2013); Daske and Gebhardt (2006); and Brüggemann, Hitz, and Sellhorn (2013). Surprisingly, 65 of 94 articles did not utilise the theory. In particular, four theories have been used frequently: agency theory (15), economic theory (5), signalling theory (2), and accounting theory (2). The study calls for future research on the theoretical implications and policy-related research on disclosure and transparency which may inform the local and international standard setters.

The aim of the study was to illustrate how three different institutional logics, present in the implementation of action research, interact in a formalised project, in a traditional university setting.

The article is empirical in nature and the research method used is an instrumental case study. The case was the implementation of action research within the framework of an educational project co-financed by EU funds, conducted in a Polish public university. The research process was conducted from September 2017 to November 2019. The following techniques were used: document analysis, in-depth interviews, participatory observation during the project. Constant comparative analysis was used as an analytical approach.

The study indicates that action research, project management and university management follow different “logics”. The dominant logic of action research is problem-solving, of project management is efficiency and of university management is compliance. These different logics and the relationship between them is explained in the paper.

The research enriches the ongoing discussion on logic multiplicity and project management in a new context – that of the university environment and combines the issue of the implementation of action research with broader conversations on institutional logics.

The purpose of this paper is to put forth a model for implementation of an environmental management system (EMS) in institutes of higher education in India.

The authors carried out initial environmental review (IER) and strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis to identify the major environmental concerns in the university. This was followed by preparation of environmental policy and plan based on ISO 14001 guidelines.

The key concerns in the university have been identified as energy consumption, waste generation, transportation, etc. The SWOT analysis shows that the university is doing satisfactorily in energy efficiency and water conservation while there is scope for improvement in case of waste management, transportation and landscaping. The environmental management plan has been prepared keeping in mind the gaps observed through the IER and SWOT analysis.

Carbon footprint and water footprint analysis have not yet been carried out and hence, quantifiable targets have not been included in the environmental management plan.

Implementing an EMS at the university will help reduce the impact on environment due to various day‐to‐day activities. It will also lead to developing environmental consciousness in the minds of young professionals who graduate from the university as well university staff.

There have been very few examples of environmental consciousness in educational institutions in India. There is a need for model systems for incorporating environmental management in the university set‐up. This research documents the process of identification of environmental concerns followed by preparation of the management plan for an educational institution. The research also documents the need for different aspects of the environmental management plan.

This article is the result of a brief survey, conducted across the Internet by researchers from the Archives and Records Management Programme at the University of Wales at Aberystwyth. The authors discuss the need for records management training and education world‐wide, and the emergence of records management as a subset of information management, with an acknowledged impact on the systematic and efficient management of organisations. They show how the focus of records management has shifted over the recent past from the archival management of unwanted documents, to the management of electronic systems, giving records managers an equal standing with other professionals in the field of information management. Using a comparison between Malaysia, where much of the training is provided by visiting consultants, and the United Kingdom, where records management training is provided by the universities, the authors conclude that the needs of qualified and well‐informed professionals in this distinct field is dependent upon the training and education provided by courses in universities world‐wide. Their survey, however, reveals that there is no standard approach to the training provided by these institutions: some are likely to reflect their archival origins, others represent various streams of the broad context of information studies.

The purpose of this paper is to assess records management components, such as record scheduled, records appraisal, destroyed/disposed, retained, training of staff on the management of the student affairs records (SARs), provided access, the challenges associated with efficient management of SARs and strategies for effective management of SARs, to determine the extent the Student Affairs Department (SAD) complies with the University of Mpumalanga (UMP) records management policy.

This paper uses qualitative methodology of a triangulation of data collection and this included interviews, document analysis and observation.

The literature review, as well as the interview, revealed that findings on the UMP records management policy are multi-layered. A number of participants mentioned lack of records centre, records retention and appraisal of records, records management training and managing access to information as a challenge to the management of SARs.

The research was only limited to the UMP, Student Affairs Division, with a population of 15 staff members even though the findings can be applied to all the universities in South Africa.

SAD has a unique contribution to make to ensure that records created within their division are managed in terms of the UMP records management policy by ensuring that components such as records storage retention and appraisal of records management training and managing access to information are adhered to.

Failure to comply with the UMP records management policy by the Student Affairs Division will contribute to the loss of institutional memories, non-compliance with legislations such as Promotion of Access to Information Act 2000, National Archives and Records Services Act 46 of 1996 and the Protection of Personal Information Act No 4. Of 2013.

The research appears to be the first of its kind, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to assess SARs at the UMP, South Africa.

The basic concepts of strategic management from the business world are of great value to university administrators in responding to serious threats in their environment. Although there are strong similarities between business and university strategic management, the differences make university strategic management, and particularly the university chief executive′s role in it, much more difficult for the following reasons: (1) the profit motive in business in not present in universities; (2) faculty tenure restricts universities′ freedom to reallocate resources; (3) faculty governance limits the authority of university administrators; (4) universities are more political than business; (5) state university systems impose many constraints on strategic management. Despite these difficulties in implementing these business concepts in universities, strategic management is important for the success or even survival of a university.

This paper describes the extent to which Australian university alumni offices currently apply benchmarking principles. Not surprisingly, there is considerable diversity in the way that the offices measure, evaluate, and progress their operations. Benchmarking has been adopted by only half of the respondents to a survey of management practices. To some extent, the differences reflect differences in alumni officers’ perceptions of the primacy of various customer groups, and the extent to which the top echelons of the universities advocate quality management practices. Resource constraints and concerns about meeting target performance measures are key deterrents to the adoption of benchmarking. Those associations that adopt benchmarking out‐perform those that do not on the following dimensions: commitment to quality management practices; communication with employees; continuous improvement, emphasis on customer satisfaction; and participative management. Organisations that have adopted quality management principles vary according to how they implement benchmarking, including the types of benchmarking partners adopted.