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The purpose of this paper is to challenge higher education professors and institutions to consider their role and practice in light of the changing landscape of higher education. It draws attention to the substantial changes taking place in society due to the technological and related knowledge revolution and questions the value of the current paradigm of educational practice.

This conceptual paper utilises a sociological lens to explore the future of higher education learning and teaching. It draws on a range of literature to focus on the concepts of mobile education and mobile knowledge and explores these concepts in relation to the role and function of the professor and the university and the implication for pedagogy, curriculum design and teaching practice.

While changes in higher education are taking place, they are largely within the current paradigm. With knowledge freely available via technology, the university is no longer the primary holder of knowledge and students are less likely to engage in content delivery styles of education. It is time therefore to consider the shape of education in a new mobile knowledge paradigm.

This paper draws on a range of existing literature from several fields to highlight the need for a new paradigm in higher education pedagogy.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a clear outline of how external training and development support helped AZ Essentials, part of AstraZeneca, during a period of major change. This involved bringing nine existing functions together into the single operating unit that was AZ Essentials.

Oakridge's approach was to better understand current opinions of the proposed new organization and its requirement through one‐to‐one interviews. Using this approach it was able to understand better the current view of the change and decide which development tools to adopt to bring the business functions together to operate as one cohesive group.

Interviews demonstrated there was inconsistency in understanding of the role and purpose of AZ Essentials. What Oakridge understood from this was the need to move acceptance and development forward quicker and more effectively. The leadership team needed to better understand the rationale for the new organization and its purpose in order to accept the change.

A workshop program engaged the leadership team in a highly involved and participative way to achieve the desired outcomes. From here work on the value proposition sought to identify what the different functions had in common and how they could be coordinated and work together. The leadership team worked on the vision for AZ Essentials, which needed to be clear, consistent and one that would drive the organization. Oakridge was totally focused upon the requirement and engaged with each issue ensuring the group remained motivated throughout the development work.

The paper provides useful information on how external training and development support can help during a period of major change.

This paper aims to demonstrate the variety of ways institutions and their libraries approach student success both conceptionally and operationally.

Librarians from eight different institutions of higher education were given a series of questions about student success on their campuses and in their libraries. They responded with written essays describing their experiences and perspectives.

The contributed pieces in this second installment are collected together and a variety of ways the academic library engage with “student success” are discussed. Initiatives include high-impact practices, fostering academic rapport and creating a sense of belonging, experiential learning and creative spaces and professional development.

These examples help to observe what is happening throughout higher education and see potential paths forward at the institutions engaged in this work.

This paper aims to explore how regional organizations manage its affairs, peace-building and economic development focussing on a crucial analytical dimension: the link between global order, regional integration and multi-culturally diverse stakeholders.

This conceptual paper focusses on the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) by grounding the arguments based on the conceptualization of regional integration and “stakeholder management”. It offers an exploration of concepts of the “new global order”, “multilateralism”, “institutions”, effective stakeholder collaboration and cross-cultural management.

Defined in terms of EU-style institutionalization’ ECOWAS is one of the modes of regionalism classified as failed. The organization has struggled with the member-states internal crisis, inter-state border crisis, a growing army of unemployed youths, high political-instability, militant terrorism, cybersecurity and farmers-herders conflict. Also, it has a poor implementation of treaties and poor cultural communications.

Besides contributing to the emerging interest in the understanding of how regional organizations improve organizational efficiency, this study develops an interest in stakeholder management from the perspective of political, economic and peace-building organizations with different national, cultural and political experiences.

This paper aims to analyze how a tangram activity improved students’ abilities to explain sustainability, articulate a positive perception of sustainable design and relate sustainability with innovation in engineering design.

The concept of paradigm shift was introduced in the classroom by using a tangram activity to help students understand that sustainable design requires out-of-the-box thinking. Instructors from three institutions teaching various levels of sustainability courses to engineering majors used the activity to introduce sustainable design, then measured the understanding and appreciation of the concepts introduced through the tangram activity with pre- and post-activity surveys.

Findings from the study indicate that students’ perceptions of sustainability significantly improved due to the activity, without regard to the institution. The activity also significantly improved students understanding of the connection between sustainability and innovation, across all three institutions, across all majors and across all years of study except second-year students. Improving engineering students’ views on sustainability may lead, over time, to changes in the industry, in which environmental performance is incorporated into the engineering design process.

Active learning approaches are needed for affective-domain learning objectives in the sustainability field for students to learn the necessary attitudes, values and motivations to implement sustainability in engineering design. Simple, easily implemented active learning techniques, such as the tangram activity presented here, can be implemented across the curriculum or to the public to introduce the paradigm shift necessary with sustainable design.

E-learning is an increasingly popular form of education for college students (Allen & Seaman, 2007). There are a number of best practices for teaching online courses (Lewis & Abdul-Hamid, 2006) which should be followed by leadership educators. In addition, for a wide variety of reasons, women comprise a significant portion of the distance education population. Because of their differing communication styles and needs (Tannen, 1989, 1991), women may have a harder time being perceived as valuable members of the virtual community. They may also find the experience less meaningful than their male counterparts (Harper, 2007). If leadership education is to be successful moving into the 21st century it must be welcoming to female students. Suggestions for improving online learning are provided, especially for female students.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the value investors place on S&P index additions relative to uncertainty surrounding the firm and the market. Investors look for reassuring signals or tell-tale signs around uncertainty.

Variation in the market response to announcements of S&P additions to the 400, 500 and 600 indices is examined against measures of risk factors. Internal risk factors include firm size relative to the index, total firm risk and liquidity, and whether the firm is a brand new index entrant. External risk factors related to market uncertainty are measured by the Chicago Board of Exchange volatility index.

Firms with lower market capitalization relative to the index, higher total risk, lower trading volume and first-time entrants to any S&P index elicit a positive market reaction compared to firms with less pricing uncertainty. In times of increased market uncertainty, investors tend to place more value on signals from respected institutions such as S&P, and riskier firms benefit more from inclusion in the S&P index. Overall, this study finds that the market overreaction is explained by the degree of uncertainty surrounding the added firms, as well as by the degree of market uncertainty at the time of the announcement.

The findings of this study suggest that investors interpret the prospect of S&P index addition as an opportunity for firms to reduce uncertainty surrounding them, and thus partially hedge their exposure to market uncertainty by joining an index tracked by dozens of index funds. The value of such a hedging strategy rises for riskier firms during market turbulence.

This research aims at understanding the routes public e-marketplaces take, in the motor carrier spot market, to generate trust among participants.

This work borrows cue signaling theory and an e-marketplace content analysis instrument from information systems literature. Our primary data captures differences in usage of a broad spectrum of cues between motor carrier spot e-marketplaces and a control sample.

Transportation e-marketplaces use graphical cues more frequently than the control sample, display these cues on their “operational path” (where users click to conduct transactions) and try to generate beliefs in participants' integrity and competence.

The motor carrier online spot market constitutes a relevant test bed for trust-related theories. Several levels of trust-building conceptualizations are tested; the cue level shows the most potential. This paper extends cue signaling theory in the transportation e-marketplace context and calls for further work on operational path cues to enrich swift trust theories.

This study helps e-marketplace designers by identifying essential and facultative cues for the motor carrier spot market.

Research on public spot e-marketplaces in the motor carrier context is scant. The context is described in detail to show its specificities in structures and behaviors. This helps to contribute to both practice and research. By evolving an existing research instrument from information systems literature, this study ensures replicability (problematic in academic research) .

On January 9th Tony Newton, the Under Secretary at the Department of Health and Social Security, launched the government's £600,000 promotional campaign for the introduction of the controversial new plastic National Insurance cards. These plastic cards contain the following ‘visible’ information: name, national insurance number and a check digit. What has been of most concern, is that the card contains a magnetic strip that can store information ‘invisible’ to the card holder. As the dhss has announced it is not the intention to include any type of ‘secret information’ on this strip, the current anxiety expressed by certain organisations and individuals has been seen by many as a fuss about nothing; but is there really cause for concern, and what has all this to do with libraries?