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This chapter attempts to capture what teaching excellence looks and feels like for students. Our research reports on research conducted by two student authors at separate institutions. It suggests that the most crucial aspect of the student experience of ‘teaching excellence’ is a teacher's ability to build rapport and create meaningful interpersonal relationships with their students. Leanne Hunt's research was conducted with her fellow students at the University of Bradford. She outlines how, for her participants, the student–teacher rapport informed a positive learning experience which translated into a mutual understanding of excellent teaching. Widening participation, college-based HE student Hollie Shaw, now at Sheffield Hallam University, defines teaching excellence as flexible enough to respond to student learning needs, but strong enough to inspire interest in the discipline. In this chapter, we consider their separate testimonies carefully: we argue that exploring unconscious bias furthers understanding of how differences between student and teacher may compromise interpersonal relations and so student recognition of a tutor's positive and crucial role in the student experience and the implications of how one might measure this given the emphasis on proxies for teaching excellence in the TEF. We suggest breaking down unconscious bias calls for embracing differences, reflection and recognising the complexities of contemporary staff and student university lives. This chapter's exploration of staff–student partnership opens up potential for the creation of more equitable and honest learning dynamics in higher education – where a nuanced understanding of ‘teaching excellence’ can be defined, understood and evidenced within a HEI, with external bodies such as the Office for Students, and included in the Teaching Excellence Framework.

This study examined the output quality of a US microenterprise training program created to help entrepreneurs develop business plans for their ventures. The program concludes with the entrepreneurs' plans being scored by a panel of experts. Hypotheses were developed and tested to determine the importance of feedback, key components of business plan scores, and differences between teams and solo entrepreneurs. Timely feedback on business plan homework was the most significant driver of business plan quality, contributing to higher scores on the written plan and on the plan's presentation to the expert panel. Plans developed by teams also scored higher than those prepared by solo entrepreneurs.

This article compares the educational background and years of work experience of students entering a Microenterprise Training Institute (MTI) program. Hypotheses were developed and tested to determine whether human capital attributes (education and work experience) influenced students' ability to graduate from an MTI program, to submit homework on time, and/or contributed to a better score on an evaluation of their business plan. Results indicated that education level was a significant, positive influence on the ability to graduate and on business plan scores, but had no influence on on‐time homework completion. Work experience had no effect on ability to graduate, homework submission, or business plan score.

This paper proposes to examine the role that gender plays in a microenterprise program (MEP) that focused on developing quality business plans.

Data were collected over four years from 1,013 participants in a microenterprise business development program. Empirical evidence is presented on the outcomes of the program.

Women and men had similar program completion rates and similar overall business plan scores. However, women scored significantly better on the presentation of their plan to judges. The level of formal education a participant had upon entering the program mattered, but only for women.

Further research could determine whether the type of formal education made a difference in producing higher scoring plans (liberal arts, business, etc.) or is it the process of formal learning that matters? Startups and existing firms, segmentation of firm type (retail, service, etc.) should be researched in conjunction with gender.

MEPs that emphasize helping women should pay particular attention to the level of formal education a participant has upon entering the program. Women were also found to do a better job of explaining their business plan to outsiders, which should enhance their growth potential.

This article systematically examines differences that gender makes in completing a business plan development program.

The purpose of this paper is to encourage and assist collection of adult‐level, graphic novels and book‐length comics by women, and to demonstrate the breadth and depth of such work.

This paper provides a brief history of women and independent comics, tracing the medium's development from the 1970s underground comix movement to the present day. Individual creators and their works are discussed.

In the early years of independent comics, many of the women creating them were consciously reacting to an overwhelmingly male‐dominated profession. There was a high degree of shock value in these early works. As time went on the comics still tended towards the autobiographical, but storytelling gained importance. Most of the women creating comics today are still doing so from a woman's point of view, but their target audience seems more universal.

Graphic novels are in increasing demand, both for scholarly and leisure reading. Guides to collecting graphic novels exist; however, the vast majority of the artists included in these guides are men. This paper fills a gap by introducing librarians to several women graphic novelists who have been overlooked thus far.

Entrepreneurship.

MBA and masters in management.

Raizcorp Chief Executive Allon Raiz was faced each day with many applications to join his business incubation prosperator programme. He knew what to look for in an entrepreneur, but it was not always “cut and dried”. In September 2012, he and his panel were considering an applicant who had passed all the tests with flying colours, and they were unanimous in their belief that he had what it took to be successful. His business, however, left them in doubt. It was a struggling IT support company, which they felt had no differentiating factors in an already overtraded industry. Raizcorp believed in “backing the jockey but not the horse”, which often meant having to change the entrepreneur's mindset and helping them explore new ideas. Would they be successful in this case? And was it worth the investment of time and resources? It worried Raiz, because he knew if the individual was to embark on a new venture, it would take some time before Raizcorp would see any return on its investment.

The case has the following objectives: to demonstrate understanding of the key concepts of entrepreneurship, to discuss entrepreneurship as a process, to analyse human and social capital attributes relating to successful entrepreneurship, to identify entrepreneurial motivations/cognitions/behaviours, to appreciate the key factors of successful entrepreneurship practices, to assess the relevance of the practice of entrepreneurship to individuals and society, to illustrate key ideas of entrepreneurship with reference to empirical case studies on entrepreneurship, and to analyse rigorously the RAMP model in the case study.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

Online feminist activism has opened a different path for ordinary Iranians who are not necessarily versed in post-revolutionary discourses on feminism and political activism, nor are familiar with the names and past achievements of Iranian women’s activist pioneers since the birth of the Islamic Republic in 1979. Social media has helped to tease apart government statecraft that continually touts and reemphasizes Islamic values, at the same time providing a platform for a feminist consciousness that more recently has passionately supported individual rights, especially the right to privacy. This chapter delves into this move toward a more individualized form of dissent, surveying the generational, ideological, and technological divides that have emerged among Iranian women’s activists following popular uprisings that have been happening domestically since 2009.

In this chapter, the authors present several current issues that are representative of chinks’ in the armor of university administration today. This study brings into attention the importance of philosophy, society, development and education that serve to strengthen the operational–development nexus in higher education institutions. The objectives are (i) to draw the attention of administrators to these “chinks” in the armor of university operations; (ii) to indicate how their resolution can strengthen the operations–development nexus; and (iii) to encourage continuous reflection on the background of better understandings of a philosophy of management, society, development and education.

This study investigates the perception of professionals in the field of accounting, and those associated with forensic auditing, about the knowledge and skills, experience and technique that a forensic auditor should possess to provide high-quality services in fraud detection. The study also shows the impact of forensic auditing tools on fraud detection.

With the use of a self-administered questionnaire, the study adopts a survey design in which 298 respondents participated. Data were subjected to descriptive statistics (ranking, mean and standard deviation), inferential statistics (binary logistic regression and ordinary least square regression).

The findings indicate that adequate knowledge of economic damage calculation and financial statement valuation is essential for forensic auditors' service. The results also reveal that forensic auditor skills and techniques is a significant predictor for fraud detection in the Nigerian public sector.

The paper draws attention of the federal government parastatals to the need to improve their internal control system to reduce the fraudulent practices in their parastatal. The study also draws the attention of the Nigeria University Commission and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria on the needs for revision of the accounting curricular for the training of accounting graduates and professional accountants in Nigeria.

The paper is of importance to other developing nation as it provides empirical evidence on the needs to do periodic forensic audits of government corporations.

With the persistent increase in the number of fraudulent cases, current views of those associated with forensic auditing (judiciaries, parastatals, forensic auditors and academics) on mechanisms for timely detection of fraud are needed.

This editorial aims to discuss how technology has transformed the cultural map for libraries so that experiences in Taiwan, Iran, India, Greece, or New Zealand are relevant anywhere in the developed world.

The methodology draws heavily on cultural anthropology in looking at the cultural context and its changes over time.

Four sets of shared problems emerge in these articles: technology applications to solve specific library problems, user studies, cataloging issues, and electronic publishing. These are topics that librarians discuss around the world.

It is a commonplace today that technology has tended to equalize widely separated parts of the world. This is obviously true in terms of consumer goods, but appears to be less well accepted in terms of scholarly endeavor. The international and intellectual breadth of this issue can be seen as something to celebrate.