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Skills development for business students is increasingly becoming more important in business education and the workplace. In this paper, students’ research skills are examined. The purpose of this paper is to identify some of the issues and challenges students face in developing research skills and how these can be addressed.

The study combines external marker evaluation and content analysis to evaluate one hundred 2,000-word essays and identify issues and challenges associated with students’ development of research skills.

Results show that the essays rate well in collecting and using sources and summarising key topics but miss on integrating sources in writing and inconsistency in citations and referencing.

One of the paper’s limitations is using a sample from a single course in a business school in Australia. Nonetheless, the sampled essays represent similar writing tasks elsewhere that require students to display research skills.

Some implications for business and higher education are offered, including suggestions to address the issues and challenges raised in business education. For example, academics are encouraged to communicate clear expectations for writing tasks, provide support and show exemplars of business writing that incorporates practical research skills.

Business students who develop effective research skills contribute to society by developing skills in effectively searching and evaluating information. This ensures business graduates in industry workplaces reach considered conclusions before making recommendations that could impact people’s lives.

The study is original in its approach to investigating the nuances of research skills deficiencies by using external expert examination combined with content analysis.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact and contribution of the Journal of Behavioral Finance (JBF).

It uses the metadata from 328 journal articles (2004–2017) extracted from Scopus and Web of Science. The data included 2,602 author-submitted keywords, 1,825 index keywords and 310 abstracts.

Results indicate that JBF is still a young journal with 196 academic articles cited by 372 documents. Most citations come from JBF itself and the Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance. Mesly and Seiler are the most published, University of Gothenberg has more contributions than any other institution while the USA, Australia and UK represent nearly half of those citations. Investment policy is the most used author keyword next to behavioural finance, while risk is the most used index keyword. The most commonly used words in abstracts are investor or investors. The implications of and for JBF are discussed.

It is a unique and novel approach to analysing almost the entire publication history of the journal by using citation analysis.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the ten highly ranked journals in finance, and identify the most published authors, most cited articles, top publishing countries, top publishing universities, top publication years and the most discussed topics using keywords.

Using the services of the Web of Science™ (WoS), all the available data about each journal’s published articles were extracted. A total of 6,029 articles containing 23,521 keywords and 208,905 cited references were analysed.

Results indicate that Viscusi, Chemmanur and Statman are the most published authors. The most cited article is Fama and French’s (1993) article – Common risk factors in the returns on stocks and bonds – with 522 citations. The most cited author is Eugene Fama with 2,848 citations followed by Michael Jensen with 1,367 citations. USA and England contributed more articles than any other country, where US University of California System ranked first. “Information”, “risk” and “market” were the most discussed topics. Findings from this study reveal not only the popular authors, articles and topics in the scholarly finance literature, but also the lesser-known areas of research, which may need attention.

It is the first large-scale citation analysis study of its kind, representing data from 178 years of combined publication history.

This paper explores some management concepts and how applying these concepts from business to higher education can be problematic, let alone incompatible, particularly in relation to measuring quality in higher education.

It provides a conceptual understanding of the literature on quality in the higher education context. It does so by examining the literature on students as customers, customer expectations, customer satisfaction and other management theories that have been applied to higher education.

It argues that the current bases for perceiving quality such as meeting customer expectations, satisfying the customer, ensuring quality control, meeting standards and assessing the cost associated with poor quality are in disagreement with the principal aims and measures of quality in higher education.

This paper can certainly benefit from many other concepts in business that have been applied in higher education, which it lacks. It only focussed on a number of key and popular ideas in management theory that have been used in higher education more broadly.

Student-focussed quality initiatives can be devoid of the student as customer concept. How programs, subjects and experiences are curated can be solely for the purpose of continuous improvement. Second, universities that choose to treat the student as a customer may find it beneficial to apply a relationship marketing approach to higher education. Lastly, those against the student as customer concept may focus on the long-term impact of quality initiatives such as promoting lifelong learning, building long-term relationships with alumni and employers and those that further promote academic integrity.

Some considerations have been offered. These considerations revisit the basic notions of teaching and learning in higher education. It puts an emphasis on sidestepping the student as customer metaphor, that learning is not expressed in dollar terms, and that the quality of the student experience cannot be measured by student evaluation alone because it is felt much later in life.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an analysis of specific learning outcomes in an undergraduate commerce degree in a large research-intensive university in Australia.

It uses data collected from assurance of learning activities as part of Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business accreditation. A total of 267 assessments were marked using nine different rubrics in nine different subjects. It assessed six learning outcomes.

Results indicate that a number of skills deficits exist among commerce students’ application of mathematical tools, analysis of business issues or problems, demonstration and application of theories, models or concepts, describing alternative methods of analysis, and generating supported conclusions or solutions, and analysing the research of others. These findings tell us that there are a number of higher order thinking skills that students need to develop when they pursue a commerce degree. It also creates a challenge for universities to foster an environment where these skills are developed in the curriculum.

The wider implications to higher education include a reconsideration of the purpose of the commerce degree, the importance of feedback from various stakeholders (e.g. alumni, employers) to inform the commerce curriculum, and the range of learning experiences that develop these skills. More importantly, this study has identified specific skills deficits across the broad generic skills embedded in the commerce degree. It can assist academic staff and program managers in planning for future curriculum improvements as they see fit in the context of their own commerce programs.

This is a novel contribution in that it provides specific assessment of skills deficits in business undergraduate education.

Little attention is paid to understanding generic skills in business. Even less attention is paid to collecting evidence of students' development of these skills. This paper aims to fill this gap.

Four generic skills in business undergraduate and graduate programs are examined – written communication; critical thinking; use of mathematical and statistical tools; and information literacy. A total of 341 individual student assessments were reviewed.

Results suggest that there are skills deficits in effectively using language and coherence in writing; taking different perspectives and integrating ideas; understanding, presenting and solving a problem; and evaluating information to produce new and original thought.

This paper presents some important findings from the evaluation of student development of four different generic skills promoted in business disciplines.

Little attention has been given to the preparedness of academic staff for their role as research trainers or supervisors. In addition, limited work has been done on this topic in developing countries such as the Philippines. The Philippines is an important case, as it is a national priority to develop university research and improve research training practices, and there is a graduate skill deficit (in terms of critical thinking, academic writing, and data analysis skills). The purpose of this paper is to identify the challenges confronting the government and universities that relate to academic staff development, research supervision, and staff and student support, involving 53 government and university executives and academics from the Philippines.

The survey involved the participation of selected government and university executives, including the zonal research centre directors, via interviews; and survey of academic staff via a questionnaire.

Results indicate that the most critical challenges for government and universities in the Philippines relate to effectively meeting the dual demands of teaching and research, building a critical mass of researchers, and developing excellent research skills and competences among staff and students.

The paper is the first to study research training and supervision in Philippine universities, providing a case for the Philippines internationally, which is less featured in research.