Search results

The Schools Council Enquiry No 1 (HMSO) published in 1968 revealed that employers, parents, teachers and the pupils themselves considerd the preparation of pupils to cope with the demands of the adult world of work in social and economic terms to be a major responsibility of the school. However it was equally apparent that little of what was done as a specific part of the curriculum in schools was designed to meet this aim, and at meetings of teachers and advisers at Teachers' Centres in Warwickshire, Coventry and Staffordshire it was decided to devise a course to fulfil this need.

This paper aims to explore corporate governance (CG) and succession planning in family-owned businesses in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Semi-structured interviews are conducted with 16 owners and heirs of UAE family businesses. The interviews – face-to-face and asynchronous electronic – are conducted instead of a questionnaire to get an in-depth analysis of the topic in the context of both medium- and large-sized family businesses.

The responses are mixed with regard to governance challenges (duality, gender, internal control, transparency, etc.). The majority of the interviewees indicate that succession planning remains one of the biggest challenges for family businesses in the UAE. Fifteen of the sixteen interviewees document that a sound succession strategy must be in place to ensure the continuity of the business and prevent future disputes among potential successors. Similarly, the respondents also emphasise the importance of transparency and accountability for the sustainability of family businesses. The sustainability of family businesses relies on many aspects, such as national regulations, corporate systems and the succession process. Finally, most of the respondents from medium-sized companies opined that incorporating CG is a time-consuming and expensive process.

The interviewees supported stewardship theory in case family members are occupying positions on the board as they have more long-term commitment and a greater sense of belonging to the business (socio-emotional wealth) compared to non-family members. The interviewees acknowledge that the lack of professionalism and conflicts of interest among family members can be offset by recruiting non-family members.

Family businesses are particularly significant in the Arab world as they account for over 60% of gross domestic product (GDP) and use above 80% of the workforce which make them interesting research subject. In addition, this paper explores the CG challenges faced by both large- and medium-sized family businesses in the UAE within the theoretical framework of stewardship theory.

In the context of educational segregation by ethnic group, it has been argued that rigorous pairwise segregation comparisons over time or across space should be invariant in two situations: when the ethnic composition of the population changes while the distribution of each ethnic group over the schools remains constant (invariance 1), or when the size distribution of schools changes while the ethnic composition of each school remains constant (invariance 2). This paper makes two contributions to the segregation literature. First, it argues by means of the Mutual Information or M index, which is neither invariant 1 nor 2, that both properties have strong implications, and it provides reasons to defend that the overall segregation index need not satisfy either one. Second, nevertheless, it is shown that in pairwise comparisons this index admits two decompositions into three terms. In the first decomposition, a term is invariant 1 and also satisfies a weak version of invariance 2. In the second decomposition, a term is invariant 2 and also satisfies a weak version of invariance 1. It is shown that these decompositions can be used to reach the analogous ones obtained in Deutsch et al. (2006).

The analysis of poverty is fundamentally focused on examining the well-being condition of the poor. We usually neglect the information provided by the rich. Nevertheless, perhaps the non-considered information indicating the determinants of non-poverty is also useful for fighting against poverty. The purpose of this paper is to analyze poverty under a new angle i.e. focusing on the information provided by the non-poor instead of the poor. For that a richness index is calculated in order to estimate econometric models regressing both indices i.e. poverty and richness indices on same selected characteristics. Thus, the comparison of the determinants of poverty and non-poverty for Tunisian case have allowed the classification of the selected explanatory variables with significant effect into four categories: the variables having significant effect on both sides (permanent effect), the variables having significant effect on the poor but not on the non-poor (transitory effect), the variables having significant effect on the non-poor but not on the poor (insurance effect) and the variables without any effect on both cases (neutral effect). This procedure is thus important given that it provides additional information and new way to enhance the targeting efficiency of the poor and fighting against poverty.

Using Tunisian data, an original procedure is proposed for calculating a richness index, defined based on the common formula of calculating the poverty index. Next econometric models are estimated regressing both the indices i.e. poverty and richness index on same selected characteristics.

The comparison of the determinants of poverty and non-poverty have allowed the classification of the selected explanatory variables with significant effect into four categories: the variables having significant effect on both sides (permanent effect), the variables having significant effect on the poor but not on the non-poor (transitory effect), the variables having significant effect on the non-poor but not on the poor (insurance effect) and the variables without any effect on both cases (neutral effect).

The analysis and the classification of the determinants of poverty according to the determinants of non-poverty is never made before in the litterature. This procedure is important given that it provides additional information and a new way to enhance the efficiency of targeting the poor and fighting against poverty.

This study aims to examine the influence of the quality of voluntary disclosure (QVD) on earnings management (EM) amongst a sample of commercial banks in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

Using a sample of 1,060 bank-year observations for the period 2006–2015, this paper developed a three-dimensional framework to measure the QVD, which considers the quantity, spread and usefulness of the information. Furthermore, this study examines the QVD-EM nexus using an ordinary least squares regression model. This technique is supplemented with conducting an instrumental variable regression model and a two-stage least squares model to overcome the potential occurrence of endogeneity problems.

The findings suggest that QVD is negatively attributed to EM in the context of MENA banks. The findings also confirm that the quality of financial reporting is enhanced by QVD dimensions that were considered in the framework, leading banks to less engagement in EM practices. In contrast, the influence of the quantity dimension (level) of the disclosed information has an insignificant impact on EM, while the spread and usefulness dimensions of VD are negatively and significantly associated with EM in the region.

Although the results are robust to various measurements and to the possible occurrence of endogeneity problems, there are a few limitations should be acknowledged, which provides opportunities for future research. For example, the sample size is relatively small due to data accessibility issues. Likewise, the findings of the research might not be appropriate for non-financial sectors. These limitations provide a good opportunity for future studies to expand on the research by covering other developing economies and, thereby, enriching the understanding offered by this study.

This study offers several implications for bank managers, academics and policymakers. Firstly, it may help managers to appreciate the function and the importance of QVD in mitigating EM. Secondly, for academics, the study provides suggestive evidence on the impact of QVD on EM; however, future research may need to consider the role of morality and ethical behaviour across different environments in reducing excessive risk-taking and constraining earnings manipulation. Finally, it provides insights for policymakers and regulators to develop a framework or guidance that can help banks in providing high-QVD in the context of developing economies.

The study distinctively develops an innovative measurement for QVD using a new multi-dimensional model. This paper also bring new evidence on QVD complexity and its impact on EM practice from an under-researched developing context, namely, the MENA region.

Enterprise and entrepreneurship education (EEE) is seen as a major contributor to economic growth and development in the post-2008 environment we term the “New Era”. The role of EEE in enabling graduates to develop entrepreneurial intentions and career plans is therefore of major importance. The paper explores how EEE can influence postgraduate entrepreneurship and career initiation in the context of the New Era economy at an international level.

The paper explores the learning experiences of a group of 60 postgraduate international students who completed an Entrepreneurship programme at the University of Lincoln which included the development of personal learning narratives and career plans. The students were exposed to the opportunity-centred entrepreneurship approach and the “Entrepreneurial Effectiveness” model in the QAA (2012) guidelines. Their narratives were analysed to assess: prior career intentions, proposed career intentions resulting from the EEE programme, application of learning arising from the EEE programme and a survey of students was used to validate the narratives

EEE has a wider influence on personal development and career planning than simply the intention to create new ventures. The paper builds on a prior study of international postgraduate students’ orientation to entrepreneurship education in their expectations of the UK higher education, which confirmed that career development is a major motivator for international study in the UK (Rae and Woodier-Harris, 2012). The paper contributes new understanding of the relationships between EEE and graduate career intentions, especially at PG and international levels. The paper explores personal growth, confidence and identity development, formation of new career intentions and the application of learning. The international dimension is considerable and this is discussed.

The paper has implications for the marketing, design and delivery of EEE at international and HE institutional levels, as well as for the practices of educators in designing, validating and delivering programmes for entrepreneurial career development, at national and international levels.

The paper contributes new understanding to the role of EEE in postgraduate career initiation at international level in a period of significant and complex economic transformation.

This study reports on the career management and career choice preferences of a sample of bioscience postgraduate students and postdoctoral researchers according to their personality type as determined using the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). Correlations can be found but other decision‐making processes come into play and are more influential regarding career choices. The aim of this study was to investigate whether personality (measured here as Psychological Type) has an influence on career management style and career preference. The study was conducted on a group of bioscience postgraduate students and postdoctoral researchers who had previously attended a one‐day career development workshop. The qualitative survey analysis aimed to determine whether there is a relationship between a person’s preference for particular aspects of their career management such as skills development and everyday tasks (e.g.devising experiments, attending conferences, writing papers, analysing data) and their career preferences (e.g. on their preference for particular types of work).

This study explores the relationship between economic freedom and gender ideologies on the allocation of women’s opportunity-to-necessity entrepreneurship across countries. Opportunity entrepreneurship is typically understood as one’s best option for work, whereas necessity entrepreneurship describes the choice as driven by no better option for work. Specifically, we examine how economic freedom (i.e. each country’s policies that facilitate voluntary exchange) and gender ideologies (i.e. each country’s propensity for gendered separate spheres) affect the distribution of women’s opportunity-to-necessity entrepreneurship across countries.

We construct our sample by matching data from the following country-level sources: the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor’s Adult Population Survey (APS), the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom Index (EFI), the European/World Value Survey’s Integrated Values Survey (IVS) gender equality index, and other covariates from the IVS, Varieties of Democracy (V-dem) World Bank (WB) databases. Our final sample consists of 729 observations from 109 countries between 2006 and 2018. Entrepreneurial activity motivations are measured by the ratio of the percentage of women’s opportunity-driven total nascent and early-stage entrepreneurship to the percentage of female necessity-driven total nascent and early-stage entrepreneurship at the country level. Due to a first-order autoregressive process and heteroskedastic cross-sectional dependence in our panel, we estimate a fixed-effect regression with robust standard errors clustered by country.

After controlling for multiple macro-level factors, we find two interesting findings. First, economic freedom positively affects the ratio of women’s opportunity-to-necessity entrepreneurship. We find that the size of government, sound money, and business and credit regulations play the most important role in shaping the distribution of contextual motivations over time and between countries. However, this effect appears to benefit efficiency and innovation economies more than factor economies in our sub-sample analysis. Second, gender ideologies of political equality positively affect the ratio of women’s opportunity-to-necessity entrepreneurship, and this effect is most pronounced for efficiency economies.

This study offers one critical contribution to the entrepreneurship literature by demonstrating how economic freedom and gender ideologies shape the distribution of contextual motivation for women’s entrepreneurship cross-culturally. We answer calls to better understand the variation within women’s entrepreneurship instead of comparing women’s and men’s entrepreneurial activity. As a result, our study sheds light on how structural aspects of societies shape the allocation of women’s entrepreneurial motivations through their institutional arrangements.

This qualitative, exploratory study uses constructs from the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) and construct variables from literature, as a basis to ascertain similarities and differences in the behaviour by business undergraduates (UGs) and postgraduates (PGs) of mobile apps and the purpose of this paper is to suggest implications for consumer behaviour theory and marketing practice for the two groups of students.

Literature informed us of the paucity of research on the relationship between behavioural theory and mobile apps usage in the Asia region. An exploratory and interpretivist approach, with thematic analysis, was employed to aid in data processing.

The investigative outcomes highlighted more similarities than dissimilarities in terms of perceived attitude (e.g. mood, ethical guilt, familiarity, addiction) and more differences in perceived subjective norms (e.g. family, friends, classmates and teammates) and perceived users’ behavioural control (e.g. promotional inducements, self-confidence) towards the usage of mobile apps exhibited by two different sets of data.

Homogeneity of participants, small sample size and generalisability of results were the main concern, hence, it warrants further research. In addition a cross-cultural comparison would be beneficial which might generate more meaningful results.

The research, albeit exploratory, serves as a guide for marketers and apps content providers to focus on usability of features and functions of apps as well as credibility, social context, timing, location, excitement of advertisements and promotional messages especially when marketing to the 18-30-age group. The research also shows that practitioners should be nuanced in their appeals to UGs and PGs.

Despite the provision of numerous mobile apps, this study, using the constructs of the TPB as a basis, offers a new insight into the reasons for, and usage of, specific and top popular apps (e.g. FB, Whatsapps and WeChat) Malaysian students used which reflects a varied behavioural dimension as opposed to planned behaviour.