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This paper aims to provide the rationale for the Students Needs 2025 & Beyond study. Its key purpose was to support the development of an organizational innovation function and to identify potential disruptions or surprises.

This paper is an introduction that supports the collection of articles to follow.

The paper points out three ways in which this study took a unique view of higher education, ultimately focused around a theme of focusing on student rather than institutional needs. It recommends four ways in which the study could be used by the client organization, centered on aiding its innovation function.

This paper is an introduction to the research.

The paper is intended for educators, researchers and administrators to gain a better understanding of the student perspective on what they will need from higher education.

This paper introduces the study that took the perspective of the students in looking at the future of higher education, in contrast to most studies emphasizing the perspective of the institution.

Even when global players are increasingly dominating an industry, smaller competitors can win in local markets by paying attention to the different needs and expectations of their customers. The top‐down standardization of strategy adopted by many multinational consumer product companies can fail badly if these differences are ignored. Consumer needs and desires are not necessarily consistent across different market segments. Competitors can often exploit these differences to great advantage, particularly if some core competencies, like distribution or market intelligence, can be brought to bear. The old adage “Think global, act local” still applies in many industries. This SuÄrez Company beer case study demonstrates the impact that local market knowledge and positioning can have on a product’s success. Nimble local or regional players may dethrone even the largest of multi‐national or global competitors who often fail to recognize or embrace cultural differences and unique market conditions. These same multinationals may derive global benefits by re‐integrating local market experience into their broader positioning, as Coors is doing now.

Since Masaaki Imai coined the term Kaizen in the mid 1980s it has been regarded as a key element in the competitiveness of Japanese companies. However, even though Kaizen was defined by the author who created the term, writings by scholars and practitioners in the field exhibit a certain degree of ambiguity and inconsistency. Finally, there is a clear need to develop this theory in the field of operations management. The purpose of this paper is to analyse Kaizen in the academic and practitioner literature, in order to better understand it and further explore and contribute to its potential theoretical profile.

A literature review was carried out using Kaizen as a search term. Various databases were used for this purpose and books written by both scholars and by practitioners on the subject were also consulted. The literature concerning Kaizen was methodically analysed and categorised.

The findings of the study indicate that Kaizen is presently displayed under three perspectives or umbrellas, which include a series of principles and techniques. By comparing the three perspectives, a set of guiding principles and/or cornerstones for Kaizen have also emerged.

Analysis and classification is based on the literature that has been found and reviewed, along with the knowledge of authors on the subject, and may include other features as well as other angles of analysis.

The Kaizen literature review is very limited. In writing this paper a considerable number of articles and research related to Kaizen has been reviewed. This review resulted in an initial classification of Kaizen (three umbrellas) and four major topics, which may prove useful for managers or executives who are introducing or developing Kaizen in their organizations.

As far as the authors are aware, this is one of the first papers that proposes a literature review in an attempt to clarify Kaizen, both in academic and practitioner ambits.

Only few festival studies in the Philippines attempted to examine the capability of festivals as folk media to communicate development. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the development-oriented activities and messages in the San Isidro Pahiyas Festival in Lucban, Quezon.

The researcher conducted participant observation, ethnographic photography, key informant interview and record review. A historical analysis of the festival’s background, thematic analysis of its list of programs, visual analysis of the photographs guided by Barthes’ (1964) semiology and hermeneutics were employed.

Formerly a native ritual before the Hispanic rule in the country, the San Isidro Pahiyas Festival is currently held by the Local Government of Lucban, Quezon, primarily for touristic purposes. The festival’s activities in 2015 reflected the municipality’s dependence on agriculture and the residents’ religiosity, skills and creativity. The adornments during the said celebration likewise gave a glimpse of the residents’ social status, livelihood sources and reverence to Saint Isidore. Through hermeneutics, the researcher also found issues on the residents’ idolatry and their motivation to display their produce during the festival.

The findings of this study can only hold true for the 2015 celebration of the San Isidro Pahiyas Festival. Despite this, the study finds hermeneutics and Barthes’ (1964) semiology useful for festival studies. It also appeals to folk media studies and postcolonial theories.

This research provides an unconventional methodology for festival studies, which contributes to the very limited hermeneutic tourism studies abroad and folk media studies in the Philippines.

We extend theories of the firm to the entrepreneurial finance setting and argue that R&D-focused start-up firms will have a greater likelihood of financing themselves with equity rather than debt. We argue that mechanisms which reduce information asymmetry, including owner work experience and financier reputation, will increase the probability of funding with more debt. We also argue that start-ups that correctly align their financing mix to their R&D focus will perform better than firms that are misaligned. We study these ideas using a large nationally representative dataset on start-up firms in the United States.

This paper aims to examine how bank stress tests affect bank tax planning.

The study uses US bank stress test bank size thresholds and a regression discontinuity design to investigate the effect of the Dodd-Frank Act and the instituted bank stress tests on bank tax planning. We use different measures of tax planning, including bank-specific measures and measures of tax avoidance, tax aggressiveness, and effective tax planning from recent literature. Our regression discontinuity and difference-in-differences regression analyses include bank and year fixed-effects and lagged bank characteristics to control for potential endogeneity.

This study finds that stress tests have the unintended consequences of intensifying tax planning and increasing tax avoidance. Stress-test banks increase tax avoidance by accelerating charge-offs, net interest, and non-interest expenses. However, this increase in tax planning is not optimally maximized, leading to lower effective tax planning compared to non-stress-test banks. Banks with a substantial increase in tax avoidance under the Dodd–Frank Act tend to increase their risk, investing in high-risk-weight assets and lending in riskier loan categories. These findings are consistent with tax minimization conditions under added regulatory attention and policy uncertainty.

Literature on bank tax planning is limited. Most tax avoidance literature excludes financial institutions such as bank holding companies mainly due to differences in business practices and regulatory frameworks. This study is the first to investigate tax planning behavior among US banks. The current study thus extends the research field by examining the effect of bank transparency regulations, such as bank stress tests, on bank tax planning activities. Our findings have a direct bank policy implication. They show that stress testing has the unintended consequences of increasing tax planning activities and consequently increasing risk-taking on banks with high tax avoidance, which goes against the goals of stress testing regulations.

This article explores the use of natural language processing (NLP) techniques and machine learning (ML) models to discover underlying concepts of gender inequality applied to artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in female social media conversations. The first purpose is to characterize female users who use this platform to share content around this area. The second is to identify the most prominent themes among female users’ digital production of gender inequality concepts, applied to AI technologies.

Social opinion mining has been applied to historical Twitter data. Data were gathered using a combination of analytical methods such as word clouds, sentiment analyses and clustering. It examines 172,041 tweets worldwide over a limited period of 359 days.

Empirical data gathered from interactions of female users in digital dialogues highlight that the most prominent topics of interest are the future of AI technologies and the active role of women to guarantee gender balanced systems. Algorithmic bias impacts female user behaviours in response to injustice and inequality in algorithmic outcomes. They share topics of interest and lead constructive conversations with profiles affiliated with gender or race empowerment associations. Women challenged by stereotypes and prejudices are likely to fund entrepreneurial solutions to create opportunities for change.

This study does have its limitations, however. First, different keywords are likely to result in a different pool of related research. Moreover, due to the nature of our sample, the largest proportion of posts are from native English speakers, predominantly (88%) from the US, UK, Australia and Canada. This demographic concentration reflects specific social structures and practices that influence gender equity priorities within the sample. These cultural contexts, which often emphasize inclusivity and equity, play a significant role in shaping the discourse around gender issues. These cultural norms, preferences and practices are critical in understanding the individual behaviours, perspectives and priorities expressed in the posts; in other words, it is vital to consider cultural context and economic determinants in an analysis of gender equity discussions. The US, UK, Australia and Canada share a cultural and legal heritage, a common language, values, democracy and the rule of law. Bennett (2007) emphasizes the potential for enhanced cooperation in areas like technology, trade and security, suggesting that the anglosphere’s cultural and institutional commonalities create a natural foundation for a cohesive, influential global network. These shared characteristics further influence the common approaches and perspectives on gender equity in public discourse. Yet findings from Western nations should not be assumed to apply easily to the contexts of other countries.

From a practical perspective, the results help us understand the role of female influencers and scrutinize public conversations. From a theoretical one, this research upholds the argument that feminist critical thought is indispensable in the development of balanced AI systems.

The results also help us understand the role of female influencers: ordinary individuals often challenged by gender and race discrimination. They request an intersectional, collaborative and pluralistic understanding of gender and race in AI. They act alone and endure the consequences of stigmatized products and services. AI curators should strongly consider advocating for responsible, impartial technologies, recognizing the indispensable role of women. This must consider all stakeholders, including representatives from industry, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), civil society and academia.

This study aims to fill critical research gaps by addressing the lack of a socio-technical perspective on AI-based decision-making systems, the shortage of empirical studies in the field and the need for a critical analysis using feminist theories. The study offers valuable insights that can guide managerial decision-making for AI researchers and practitioners, providing a comprehensive understanding of the topic through a critical lens.