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Online education may meet the needs of students who do not want to attend classes or of working adults who want to obtain a college degree. Yet an open question is whether online (OL) degrees meet the needs of employers (Adams & DeFleur, 2006; Columbaro & Monaghan, 2009). Specifically, our exploratory study investigates how professionals in public accounting firms perceive OL accounting degrees as compared to accounting degrees earned in the traditional face-to-face (FTF) environment relative to a hiring decision. To examine these issues, a survey was administered to accountants of small- and large-sized public accounting firms located in the southeast United States.

Our results revealed that public accounting professionals, in general, indicate a strong preference to hire students with a traditional FTF accounting degree as opposed to a candidate with an OL accounting degree. Even when both candidates (traditional vs. OL accounting degrees) had passed the CPA examination, public accounting firm professionals still prefer the traditional accounting degree. Yet public accounting firms were more willing to hire a candidate with an OL accounting degree from an Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) accredited university than a candidate with an OL accounting degree from a non-AACSB accredited university. Lastly, we found that the preferences for traditional accounting degrees existed across different job titles (e.g. partner, manager, senior) and different sized public accounting firms.

The purpose of this self-study is to examine how transformative leadership in student organizations contributes to doctoral students’ professional development in higher education. Drawing from Mezirow’s (1997) notion of transformative learning and Bass’s (1990) theory of transformational leadership, the researchers discuss how an academic student organization, Alpha Upsilon Alpha, provided opportunities for transformative leadership in scholarship and service thus crafted academic identities and re-envisioned student organizations as spaces of transformative professional development.

Drawing upon the theory of planned behaviour (TPB), the purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of managers’ attitude and other psychological factors on sustainability reporting (SR). In doing so, this paper aims to respond to calls for the use of previously untried theoretical approaches on the SR literature.

The study uses a survey of top and middle-level managers of listed and non-listed companies in Sri Lanka. Data were analysed using a Partial Least Squares path model.

The findings indicate that managers’ attitude towards SR, belief about stakeholder pressure, and their capacity to control SR behaviour influence their intention to engage in SR and, indirectly, actual corporate SR behaviour (in the context of listed companies). However, whilst managers of non-listed companies exhibit the intention to engage in SR, the lack of a relationship between intention and behaviour suggests that companies face barriers towards SR due to lack of actual control over the SR process. Religion, in the case of non-listed companies, and education, in the case of listed companies, has some degree of influence over managers’ beliefs.

The use of self-reported SR behaviour is a limitation but necessary to maintain anonymity of respondents. The low levels of self-reported SR correspond with past evidence on actual SR in developing countries.

The results show that managers’ psychological factors are important in determining SR behaviour in companies. Specifically, this highlights the possible roles that regulators, professional bodies and companies can play in improving educational and cultural influences towards improving the level of SR.

This is the first study to apply the TPB to understand SR behaviour by integrating psychological factors relating to managers’ belief, attitudes and perceptions.

This paper aims to explore the employers’ perceptions of graduates with on-line degrees.

The Ajzen and Fishbein’s (1980) theory of attitude formation and change informed the study. This Web-based study used self-administered open-ended questionnaires to collect data. It used purposive sampling to select 15 employers from nine employment sectors in Tanzania and used thematic analysis to analyse the data.

Findings indicate that employers prefer graduates with traditional to those with on-line degrees. However, the increasing number of organisations transforming from analogue to digital operations has opened the door for blended learning graduates to compete in the job market as factors associated with practical skills, relevant post-graduation job experience, reputation of the virtual university, course content and duration can work in their favour. These are factors on-line students need to consider when choosing an on-line degree programme. Similarly, institutions offering on-line degrees should strengthen their programmes by making these features an integral part of their education to boost the acceptability of their graduates in the job market and undermine negative perceptions associated with such degrees.

The research findings have implication to higher education institutions which need to structure their on-line programmes as recommended by employers who emphasised on increasing physical learners–instructor and learner–learner interactions as well as reducing on-line programme cost to increase students’ enrolment.

The research findings have practical implication to prospective on-line students that they should focus on reputable virtual university that integrates its on-line programme with hands-on skills.

To eliminate the negative perceptions and enhance integrity of on-line education, institutions providing on-line education need to be accredited by relevant bodies to offer on-line courses. Consequently, this will improve quality and strengthen students as well as societal satisfaction and confidence on on-line education.

The present study explored employers’ perceptions of graduates with on-line degrees versus those with traditional degrees in Tanzania. This study has yet to be conducted in Tanzania and thus produces a significant contribution to the literature, as it will help to inform prospective on-line programme students on relevant factors looked upon by employers in favour of or against graduates with on-line degrees.

The purpose of this paper is to bridge the knowledge gap in designing MBA strategy between China and the West by examining the content, context and process of MBA delivery. This paper challenges the assumptions and pedagogical approach underpinning the current design and delivery of MBA programmes that were originally moulded with Western management history and development in the era of globalization. There is consensus that MBA was used to train business managers; however, nowadays, people are inclined to state that MBA is used to develop global business leaders or full-fledged global competitors. How can we develop global business leaders without a global vision when designing MBA strategy?

Based on extensive literature review and critical analyses through the strategic management approach, this paper examines the status quo of current MBA programmes in the West and in China. This paper presents a conceptual framework that draws on the current MBA literature and on-going debates around management education and development in the West and in China.

The designing strategy of MBA has been originally strongly influenced by Western ideology and ethos. Therefore, the difficulties of management knowledge transfer are often explained through culture acclimatization and emphasize has been on cultural divergence rather than convergence. With synthesis between Western and Eastern management identified, we argue that the appropriateness and effectiveness of the traditional philosophy of MBA designing strategy based on Western management history has been challenged in the 21st century. The perception has fuelled criticism of business schools in the post-recession. They have come under fire for allegedly failing in their obligations to educate socially responsible business leaders (Barker, 2010). This leads to rethinking of the philosophy and vision underpinning the MBA designing strategy. A new philosophical approach – integration of Western management with Eastern philosophy has been under scrutiny, which is necessary in business education to enable future business leaders to become full-fledged competitors in the global market.

The output of this discussion helps to establish a conceptual framework which will provide strategic insight in enabling business/management school and MBA providers to address the current deficiency in MBA teaching and learning strategy and develop more appropriate arrangement when considering the design and development of a successful MBA programme in the 21st century.

This paper aims to propose a new smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH)-finite element (FE) algorithm to study fluid–structure interaction (FSI) problems.

The fluid domain is discretized based on the theory of SPH), and solid part is solved through FE method, similar to other SPH-FE methods in the previous studies. Instead of master-slave technique, the interpolating (kernel) functions of immersed boundary method are implemented to couple fluid and solid domains. The procedure of modeling completely follows the classic IB framework where forces and velocities are transferred between interacting parts. Three benchmark FSI problems are simulated and the results are compared with those of similar numerical and experimental works.

The proposed SPH-FE algorithm with promising and acceptable results can be utilized as a reliable method to simulate FSI problems.

Contrary to most SPH-FE algorithms, the calculation of contact force is not required at interacting boundaries and no iterative process is proposed to calculate forces, velocities and positions at new time step.

The purpose of this paper is to review the applications of the chemical reactor network (CRN) approach for modeling the combustion in gas turbine combustors and classify the CRN construction methods that have been frequently used by researchers.

This paper initiates with introducing the CRN approach as a practical tool for precisely predicting the species concentrations in the combustion process with lower computational costs. The structure of the CRN and its elements as the ideal reactors are reviewed in recent studies. Flow field modeling has been identified as the most important input for constructing the CRNs; thus, the flow field modeling methods have been extensively reviewed in previous studies. Network approach, component modeling approach and computational fluid dynamics (CFD), as the main flow field modeling methods, are investigated with a focus on the CRN applications. Then, the CRN construction approaches are reviewed and categorized based on extracting the flow field required data. Finally, the most used kinetics and CRN solvers are reviewed and reported in this paper.

It is concluded that the CRN approach can be a useful tool in the entire process of combustion chamber design. One-dimensional and quasi-dimensional methods of flow field modeling are used in the construction of the simple CRNs without detailed geometry data. This approach requires fewer requirements and is used in the initial combustor designing process. In recent years, using the CFD approach in the construction of CRNs has been increased. The flow field results of the CFD codes processed to create the homogeneous regions based on construction criteria. Over the past years, several practical algorithms have been proposed to automatically extract reactor networks from CFD results. These algorithms have been developed to identify homogeneous regions with a high resolution based on the splitting criteria.

This paper reviews the various flow modeling methods used in the construction of the CRNs, along with an overview of the studies carried out in this field. Also, the usual approaches for creating a CRN and the most significant achievements in this field are addressed in detail.

This paper sets out to present a fully explicit smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) method to solve non‐Newtonian fluid flow problems.

The governing equations are momentum equations along with the continuity equation which are described in a Lagrangian framework. A new treatment similar to that used in Eulerian formulations is applied to viscous terms, which facilitates the implementation of various inelastic non‐Newtonian models. This approach utilizes the exact forms of the shear strain rate tensor and its second principal invariant to calculate the shear stress tensor. Three constitutive laws including power‐law, Bingham‐plastic and Herschel‐Bulkley models are studied in this work. The imposition of the incompressibility is fulfilled using a penalty‐like formulation which creates a trade‐off between the pressure and density variations. Solid walls are simulated by the boundary particles whose positions are fixed but contribute to the field variables in the same way as the fluid particles in flow field.

The performance of the proposed algorithm is assessed by solving three test cases including a non‐Newtonian dam‐break problem, flow in an annular viscometer using the aforementioned models and a mud fluid flow on a sloping bed under an overlying water. The results obtained by the proposed SPH algorithm are in close agreement with the available experimental and/or numerical data.

In this work, only inelastic non‐Newtonian models are studied. This paper deals with 2D problems, although extension of the proposed scheme to 3D is straightforward.

This study shows that various types of flow problems involving fluid‐solid and fluid‐fluid interfaces can be solved using the proposed SPH method.

Using the proposed numerical treatment of viscous terms, a unified and consistent approach was devised to study various non‐Newtonian flow models.