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The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically changed educational practices due to the intense use of information technology for teaching and learning. That phenomenon presents challenges for lecturers in higher education establishments because student engagement is threatened during online interactions. This study aims to analyze the effectiveness of the SME project for maintaining student engagement during online learning.

The research used a quasi-experimental method involving experimental and control groups. Researchers collect quantitative and qualitative data to obtain comprehensive information. The data were collected using an electronic questionnaire. Descriptive statistics, one-way ANOVA, and open coding were used to analyze the data.

The research used a quasi-experimental method involving experimental and control groups. Researchers collected quantitative and qualitative data using an electronic questionnaire to obtain comprehensive information. Descriptive statistics, one-way ANOVA, and open coding were used to analyze the data.

This study provides the educational community with a new insight into optimizing PBL in the online learning environment. Qualified PBL, as practiced by educators, will lead to student engagement, which leads to meaningful learning.

Universities can do more to deliver against the sustainable development goals (SDGs), working with faculty, staff and students, as well as their wider stakeholder community and alumni body. They play a critical role in helping shape new ways for the world, educating global citizens and delivering knowledge and innovation into society. Universities can be engines of societal transformation. Using a multiple case study approach, this study aims to explore different ways of strategizing sustainability toward delivering the SDGs are explored in a university setting with an example from the UK, Bulgaria (Europe) and USA.

The first case is a public UK university that adopted enterprise and sustainability as its academic mission to secure differentiation in a disrupted and increasingly marketized global higher education sector; this became a source of inspiration for change in regional businesses and the local community. The second case is a business sector-led sustainability-driven transformation working with a private university in Bulgaria to catalyze economic regeneration and social innovation. Finally, a case from the office for sustainability in a major US research university is given to show how its engagement program connected faculty and students in sustainability projects within the institution and with external partners.

Each case is in effect a “living lab,” positioning sustainability as an intentional and aspirational strategy with sustainable development and the SDG framework a means to that end. Leadership at all levels, and by students, was key to success in acting with a shared purpose. Partnerships within and with universities can help accelerate delivery of the SDGs, enabling higher education to make a fuller contribution to sustaining the economic, environmental, cultural and intellectual well-being of our global communities.

The role of universities as the engine of transformational sustainability toward delivering the SDGs has been explored by way of three case studies that highlight different means toward that end. The collegiate nature of the higher education sector, with its shared governance models and different constituencies and performance drivers, means that sustainability at a strategic level must be led with leaders at all levels acting with purpose. The “living lab” model can become a part of transformative institutional change that draws on both top-down and bottom-up strategies in pursuit of sustainable development.

The cultural and legal differences between foreign acquirers and African target firms can be substantial. There is also a large variation in cultures and legal systems within Africa. However, there is limited research on merger and acquisition (M&A) performance by foreign firms in Africa. The purpose of this paper is to fill this gap by exploring the “spillover by law” hypothesis (Martynova and Renneboog, 2008) that focuses on the influence of the external environment on the governance and performance of foreign M&As in Africa.

The data set covers 415 M&A transactions by foreign firms in Africa during the period of 1999–2016. Dynamic data covering the country’s legal, cultural and political environment are collected from the World Bank, the Heritage Foundation and Transparency International.

The authors find that the legal environment significantly affects the returns of bidders on African firms. For complete acquisitions, bidder returns are significantly higher when the bidder’s country has higher shareholder protection and higher creditor protection compared with the target firm’s country. The results show that the effects are significant when there is a full control change (including a change in the target firm’s nationality) but not in the case of partial control transfers. The results are consistent with the “spillover by law” hypothesis.

The authors contribute to the literature on cross-border M&As by separately studying the valuation effects of full, majority and minority changes in control; by being the first study of the legal spillover effects in Africa; and by being the most extensive study of the legal determinants of the valuations of non-African acquirers of African firms.

With the rise of the gig economy, management positions are increasingly staffed with flexible labor, so-called interim managers. They plunge into organizations for a limited period, operating in a liminal position as partly insider, partly outsider. Although several contributions to their client organizations are acknowledged, it is unknown how the interim manager’s knowledge from previous assignments is made useful in the new context under these particular working conditions. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to increase the understanding of how the interim manager’s knowledge is transferred to the client organization while operating from a liminal position.

This paper presents an interview-based multiple case study of six interim assignments where knowledge transfer is considered a social and context-dependent process.

The findings unveil the multifaceted nature of the liminal position, which consists of task orientation, time limitation, political detachment and cultural distance. These facets contribute to knowledge transfer in terms of new shared understandings and joint interests, which in turn might create new practices that augment continuous knowledge-sharing patterns.

The results contribute to the research on flexible work arrangements by shedding light on how the liminal position, predominantly depicted as an obstacle for the individual, might facilitate knowledge transfer. Through the process of knowledge generation, it is shown how a short-term engagement might enable the organization to increase its knowledge over time.

Developmental and prescriptive advising styles have been the focus of the academic advising literature for the past 35 years. Academic advising scholars have called for a new paradigm in the field. Drawing from leadership theory, a new model for academic advising is proposed. Full range advising encompasses laissez-faire, management-by-exception, contingent rewards, and transformational behaviors. The long-term impact of transformational advising is one that will likely take years to fully realize, however measures of transformational leadership are both reliable and valid. These measures can be used to determine whether advisors’ use of transformational advising behaviors is related to positive student outcomes.

This paper focuses on governance in higher education in China. It sees that governance as distinctive on the world scale and the potential source of distinctiveness in other domains of higher education. By taking an historical approach, reviewing relevant literature and drawing on empirical research on governance at one leading research university, the paper discusses system organisation, government–university relations and the role of the Communist Party (CCP), centralisation and devolution, institutional leadership, interior governance, academic freedom and responsibility, and the relevance of collegial norms. It concludes that the party-state and Chinese higher education will need to find a Way in governance that leads into a fuller space for plural knowledges, ideas and approaches. This would advance both indigenous and global knowledge, so helping global society to also find its Way.

Rights and duties are involved in every area of business and markets, and society and governments. Most often, rights and duties involve serious ethical and moral issues of conflict. A good theory of the ethics of rights and duties, obligations, and responsibilities will empower us to understand the impact of our actions on various stakeholders. Additionally, a deep understanding of rights and duties could help us to analyze better the impact of our executive actions on various stakeholders and, in particular, to fathom the damaging effects of rights and duties violated by the man-made current financial crisis when seen from an ethical and moral point of view. Our coverage on the ethics of corporate rights and duties will comprise of two parts: Part 1: The Nature of Corporate Business Rights and Duties, and Part 2: Respecting Corporate Rights and Duties. The chapter will feature Newcomb Wellesley Hohfeld’s framework of legal interests such as claims, privileges, power, and immunity and its various applications to contemporary market and corporate executive situations. We illustrate the theory of rights and duties using several cases from the current turbulent markets.

This paper aims to assess the fiscal sustainability in Egypt during the period 1990–2018 using deficit accounts (DA) approach. It also tries to investigate the possibility of applying generational accounts (GA) in Egypt as a new approach to assess fiscal sustainability.

This paper tries to assess fiscal sustainability in Egypt during 1990–2018 using DA and GA approaches. DA approach includes primary deficit indicator, tax gap indicator, augmented Dickey-Fuller stationarity test for debt/GDP ratio and Johansen co-integration test between government revenues and expenditures. However, concerning the possibility of applying GA in Egypt, field study form was designed including specific questions to academic and executive economic experts to investigate if it is possible to apply GA in Egypt.

The empirical findings of the field study indicate that Egypt witnessed fiscal sustainability during the period 1990–2018 using DA. On the other hand, there are various obstacles, including administrative, technical, legal and political obstacles which hinder Egypt from applying GA to assess fiscal sustainability.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this paper assesses fiscal sustainability in Egypt using DA for a longer and updated time series within 1990–2018. In addition, it is the first paper to examine the possibility of assessing fiscal sustainability using GA approach in Egypt.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the challenges faced with mobile information communication technology (M-ICT), more specifically tablet software, in the construction phase of UK infrastructure projects. Quality assurance in the context of passive fire protection is scrutinised, where M-ICT use is prevalent, to provide an industry perspective.

The research design is founded on exploratory multiple case study approach. Specific themes are developed, based on a critical review of previous ICT studies. The themes identified are used to inform a qualitative interview protocol for investigating three large UK infrastructure projects. Each project is at different stages in the construction phase, with varying examples of M-ICT implementation in use. Participants are interviewed regarding their experiences of the implementation of M-ICT on each project.

Findings identify diverse experiences across each project. Single and multiple M-ICT platforms are currently being used, with individual stakeholders using ICT in isolation, and in some instances, multiple project stakeholders are using it together. Complete replacement of paper-based processes is evident in one case study, but more commonly, digital technology is being used in parallel to traditional paper-based processes. The challenges, although varied across each case study, can be categorised under the themes of Technology (IT support, ICT infrastructure, IT security, contractual, software), People (social aspects, user competency, safety), Technical Compliance (technical compliance evidence) and Process (conventional processes).

It is recommended that each theme be reviewed at project commencement, with all key stakeholders, to ensure key aspects are considered prior to M-ICT deployment. This will ensure avoidance of challenges reported and maximise the opportunities that are available through M-ICT in a multi-stakeholder infrastructure project.

This study seeks to investigate the impact of financial intermediation on economic growth in Turkey using annual data spanning 1970–2017.

Based on the results of the augmented Dickey–Fuller and Phillips–Perron unit root tests for stationarity, the authors employ the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds testing to cointegration to establish the long-run impact of financial intermediation alongside other control factors on economic growth. The study also examines the short-run relationship between financial intermediation and economic growth by estimating the Error Correction Model (ECM).

The authors’ findings indicate that financial intermediation significantly influences economic growth in both short and long run. However, the effect is positive only in the short run, lending support to the supply-leading hypothesis. Regarding the control variables, the authors observe that while financial openness shows a positive significant impact on economic growth in the long run, gross fixed capital formation matters only in the short run. The results further infer that regardless of the time period, inflation impedes economic growth.

In the empirical analysis of the relationship between financial intermediation and economic growth, financial intermediation is always measured using a single variable. The authors argue that such studies could produce bias and misleading results given that a single proxy does not adequately reflect financial intermediation activities. Likewise, such findings may delude policy implementation. To provide a more vivid and robust analysis, the authors employ the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to construct a composite index for financial intermediation based on three broad measures. The researchers’ are unaware of any study on the financial intermediation–economic growth nexus using a composite index of financial intermediation. Thus, this paper fills this lacuna in the literature.