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The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have transformed the global outlook for international higher education. Given the rapid shift to online learning, the Tokyo Convention in the Asia-Pacific entrusted to UNESCO has become an important policy framework to facilitate regional collaboration, authoritative information sharing and recognition of qualifications across diverse modes of learning. This paper examines the role of the Tokyo Convention to establish an inclusive platform for monitoring and collaborative governance of mobility and internationalization based on fair and transparent recognition policies and practices in the Asia-Pacific.

In August 2019, a standardized survey instrument was sent by the Secretariat of the Tokyo Convention Committee at UNESCO Bangkok to competent recognition authorities in 46 countries in the Asia-Pacific, including the eight State Parties to the Tokyo Convention that ratified the Convention as of the reporting period. In total, qualitative data from n = 27 countries/states was received and analyzed to assess implementation of the Tokyo Convention throughout the region. The research design illustrates how normative instruments such as the Tokyo Convention are monitored and assessed over time.

A multi-stakeholder approach based on collaborative governance is needed to effectively monitor implementation and implications of the Tokyo Convention for diverse higher education stakeholders in the Asia-Pacific region.

Implications include establishing baseline data and methods for monitoring implementation of the Tokyo Convention. Based on collaborative governance theory, the paper explores potential for a multi-stakeholder approach to promote mutual accountability in the Asia-Pacific and to develop mechanisms for inclusive participation in the governance of the forthcoming Global Convention on recognition.

As the first systematic review of its kind, this paper includes a unique dataset and insights into UNESCO's methodology to monitor implementation of standard-setting instruments for qualifications recognition in the Asia-Pacific.

The study aims to assess the views of archives and records management (ARM) professionals in Eswatini about massive open online courses (MOOCs). The purpose of this study is to explore the potential of MOOCs as open gateways for ongoing learning opportunities to scholars, institutions and academics across the globe. It explores the challenges of providing MOOCs in a developing country such as Eswatini.

The study was anchored on the interpretive research paradigm and adopted a qualitative research methodology. The study used maximum variation sampling to identify individuals that would constitute the research sample. The rationale behind this sampling is to obtain participants with a shared experience within a phenomenon but who have some demographic variance.

The findings revealed that there was lack of awareness of the potential of MOOCs in revolutionizing the delivery of ARM courses in Eswatini. The findings support the need for higher education institutions in Eswatini to adopt MOOCs to deliver ARM courses. The study revealed that access to internet connectivity was among the key inhibitors undermining the adaptation of MOOCs for the delivery of ARM courses in Eswatini.

The novelty of the study is that it brings into the limelight the factors that impede the adaptation of MOOCs for the delivery of ARM courses in Eswatini. It brings into focus the challenges encountered by ARM institutions in Eswatini in moving towards a MOOC-centric mode of course delivery.

The 2020 pandemic disrupted traditional student mobility and forced a larger majority of transnational programmes to switch to a virtual or hybrid mode, including joint and double degree programmes. Therefore, this study aims to perceive the linkage between quality assurance (QA) and delivery modes of cross-border higher education (CBHE) in Asia before and during the pandemic.

Through an online survey and semi-structured interviews, the process by which top 200 ranked universities in the 2022 QS global ranking responded to QA and qualification issues of joint/dual degree programs in conjunction with delivery modes was explored.

The study has discovered that most respondents from universities, to some extent, tended to be positive about the effectiveness of hybrid delivery of the joint/dual degree programs, even if they still preferred the physical mode to alternatives. Either “divergence” or “responsiveness” QA modes were not applied appropriately in most joint/dual degree programs of the selected universities during the pandemic. Moreover, a fair, transparent and convergent quality and qualification system should be established to facilitate agility and responsiveness of CBHE.

The findings are of value for policymakers, QA agencies and universities to advocate the new QA model for CBHE as a systematic approach in response to changing higher education landscape in the post-pandemic era.

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have opened up a gateway for ongoing learning opportunities to students, faculty and researchers. MOOCs are now being offered in the field of Library and Information Science (LIS) by a number of universities and institutions. This paper aims to explore how this new model of education can bring opportunities to LIS schools to overcome such constraints as lack of teachers, variable skills levels, paucity of funds and limited infrastructure, all of which can be significant barriers to effective delivery of LIS education. This paper will provide the first perspective from a developing country like India. It will explain the concept of MOOC and discuss its present role in LIS, and will explore its potential for collaboration in furthering teaching and research in this area.

A desk-based approach was used to study the philosophy behind MOOCs and its applicability in the field of LIS. However, a survey method was implemented to collect views of LIS professionals in India, to assess their understanding and interest in MOOCs. The scope of this study was limited to explaining how this new form of education can bring opportunities to LIS schools in India.

The study reveals great interest among Indian LIS professionals in further study through MOOCs, although the adoption of this learning method in Indian LIS schools is still a rarity. However, policy initiatives recently proposed by the Government of India will make it necessary for LIS schools to start experimenting with this new medium of education.

Some of the areas of collaboration discussed in this paper may enable LIS teachers and schools to adopt MOOCs to further LIS education and research, especially in developing countries.

This study aims to investigate whether frugality increases customer complaints via the mediating role of the zone of tolerance (ZOT) of quality for Shanzhai products. Additionally, the study seeks to explore how customer empathy as a boundary condition affects the relationship between the ZOT of quality and customer complaints.

Based on the purchasing data of 241 low-income customers from business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce and social platforms in China, hierarchical analysis was conducted in the study. Moreover, “PROCESS SPSS Macro” was used to test the mediation effect of the ZOT of quality and the moderated mediation effect with customer empathy as a moderator.

The results indicate a positive impact of frugality on customer complaints, which is mediated by the ZOT of quality. Moreover, with an increase in customer empathy, the negative effect of the ZOT of quality on customer complaints increases, and the positive influence of frugality on customer complaints, through the mediation of the ZOT of quality, also becomes stronger.

Drawing upon the principle of cognitive consistency, this study not only extends the stream of research on frugality by exploring how frugality influences customer complaints via the mediation of the ZOT of quality but also sheds new light on the research on customer empathy by exploring its moderating role in the relationship between the ZOT of quality and customer complaints.

Emergencies have become a growing concern for organizations, which require flexibility to respond to changes in emergencies based on their contingency, dynamic evolution rapidly and other characteristics. In order to enhance the ability of engineering project organizations to cope with emergencies, this study explores the mechanism of its influence on knowledge innovation under emergencies from the perspective of bricolage theory, and provides a new perspective for the traditional preplanning-based handling of emergencies by improvising to enhance the ability and results of improvisation.

Firstly, a structural equation model of the relationship between bricolage and knowledge innovation was constructed by introducing improvisational behavior and serendipity as mediating and moderating variables of the relationship between bricolage and knowledge innovation based on bricolage theory; secondly, drawing on previous well-established measurement scales about bricolage, improvisational behavior, knowledge innovation and serendipity, a questionnaire survey was conducted with different types of engineering project managers and technicians in Gansu Province as the research subjects, and 238 valid questionnaires were returned; finally, validation factor analysis and correlation analysis were performed, and the hypothesized relationships were verified using AMOS 24.0 software.

The results show that bricolage positively influences improvisational behavior; improvisational behavior positively influences knowledge innovation; bricolage positively influences knowledge innovation; bricolage influences knowledge innovation through the mediating role of improvisational behavior and serendipity positively moderates the impact of resource bricolage on knowledge innovation.

It reveals the mechanism of knowledge innovation of engineering project organizations in response to emergencies and the innovation mechanism of the episodic nature of emergency decision-making, extends the applicable context of bricolage theory and provides a new perspective for engineering project organizations in response to emergencies.

While implementing green innovation-driven strategies when facing growing grim environmental problems and the realistic demands of achieving high-quality development is increasingly urgent, changing abruptly is inevitably detrimental to the smooth functioning of social and economic development. Restrained by resources, innovation-driven strategy is a huge strategy for an organization to shift from traditional technological innovation to green innovation. Supports and implementation in green technology investment would necessarily crowd out other business investment and lead to reduction of innovation outputs and mount of financial uncertainty. Under the guidance of harmonious balance, the equilibrium allocation between green research and non-green counterpart is badly needed to be addressed for decision-makers inside and outside the organizations. The differentiated inputs of them would lead to different effects on organizational performance in practice.

The authors first conducted a Hausman test on green research intensity (GRI) and innovation performance, economic performance, social performance, and environmental performance, respectively. Adopting the fixed effects model for estimation seems accurate, if there is no significant heteroscedasticity shown in the BP test. The authors then adopted the least square dummy variable method to handle individual heterogeneity (Xia et al., 2020). After controlling the industry effect and time effect simultaneously, the results were consistent with that of fixed effects model, thereby eliminating the impact of heteroscedasticity.

The authors construct a multi-dimensional performance system—innovation performance, economic performance, social performance, and environmental performance—to probe into the influence of GRI from the resource-based view and allocation theory. Different performance does not benefit equally from increasing the intensity of green research. Performance increase may squeeze out the quantity of total innovation but can compensate quality for knowledge spillovers of green technology. The organization's growth and long-term value may be beneficial from the increase, but not the short-term financial performance. While the relationship between GRI and social performance has the characteristic of reverse U-curve, there has to be some scale of green research to gain considerable and nonlinear environmental performance. Low level of green research may increase pollution until green research has cross over the inflection point. These relationships are intensely moderated by the environmental regulation.

Because of the focus of this study is on the organizational performance of green research, the analysis comes with some limitations that should be addressed in future research. Data were inter-professional, with large enterprises and small businesses innovating green technology at the same time. Though the hypotheses presented here were grounded in existing theoretical rationale, the generality of this study cannot be assumed. Multi-performance of green activities in small- and medium-sized businesses should be further explored. Additionally, concrete index of the corresponding evaluation system constructed here contribute more to practical activities of green innovation. Refinement of synergy performance index is the task for future work. Further, grounded in Chinese context, the authors' results could be compared with other scenario with institutional heterogeneity to provide detailed evidences for institutional theory. Future studies could also move forward to longitudinal case study to delicately investigate the performance differentiation of green research when in different development stage.

First, what and how the authors do is novel as the authors use listed Chinese manufacturing companies to probe into the complex relationship between GRI and multiple performance rather than discussing the performance of green innovation input from a single perspective merely. Second, the authors systematically define the performance as economic performance, environmental performance, social performance and innovation performance in depth, which consider adequately the tangible and intangible value as well as internal and external benefits of green research. And finally, in the context of environmental regulation, the study discusses the differentiation of the increase of green research intensity from the perspective of resource constraints, providing reference for optimizing the resource allocation in green and non-green research and solving the decoupling between earnest social appeal and sluggish or reluctant green behaviors.

Economists and governments worldwide are largely concerned about sustainability, CO₂ footprint and climate change, which are mostly caused by fossil fuel emissions. This study aims to provide an in-depth analysis of the significant role played by renewable energy (RE) sources in generating clean energy for achieving sustainable net-zero standards and mitigating climate change.

A thorough review of literature was conducted on the topic to provide insights into the existing state about the adoption of RE sources to achieve the net-zero goals.

As a result of the extensive review, it is found that all forms of RE, such as hydropower, solar energy, wind energy, bioenergy and geothermal power, are currently being used in many countries. Also, application of these sources across various sectors and their environmental consequences also vary for each RE source.

This chapter emphasises that adoption of RE sources is crucial to reduce the usage of limited fossil-based natural resources, which have significant negative effects on the environment. The adoption of RE at large scale requires the implementation of new regulations and policies along with technological progress for enhancing the affordability and effectiveness of these sources.

This chapter provides compelling evidence to support the acceleration of the transition from a vulnerable fossil fuel–dependent economy to a sustainable low-carbon one, with RE sources playing a central role.

As Chinese stock market develops and grows, mutual fund plays an increasingly important role for strong financial strength and good social resources. This paper aims to present an overview of fund investment effect, identify the investment preference of institutional investors and explore the socially responsible investment value of mutual fund, especially green fund.

In order to test the green effects in the fund market, especially from the perspective of institutional shareholding, the authors build three panel data models to examine the attention, promotion and network effect respectively.

In general terms, the authors obtain a positive relationship between mutual funds and green firms (attention effect). This positive relationship is conducted by the comparison of institutional shareholding level between green firms and non-green firms by using two-sample t-test. The authors find that although all the coefficients of mutual funds' shareholding variables are positively related to social performance, only the number of mutual fund shareholders shows slight significance. The authors observe a stronger promotion effect of green funds on social performance than the other mutual funds (promotion effect). From a network perspective as well as previous social capital research, the mutual funds shareholding network shows a significant and positive effect on the firm's social performance in the firm–fund network (CFClose) as well as in the firm–firm network (CCClose), while the coefficients of closeness in the firm and green fund network are positive but non-significant (network effect).

Although some valuable findings have been documented, there is a great potential to be further explored. For example, how to guide more green funds to solve the finance problem of middle and small-sized firms may be another crucial task for the point of view of government or industry level. While at the mutual fund level, it is essential to positively participate in and fulfill the environment duty of listed firms which can not only satisfy the expectation of environment value investment.

The fund market has witnessed unprecedented growth in China and plays an important role in promoting the development of green industries. This indicates the practice of mutual funds as socially responsible investment in China. Some effective measures should be taken to incentive the mutual funds to continually invest in environment-friendly firms, which would benefit to the promotion of social performance driven by financing innovation.

The ESG issue is a global one that needs the participation of the countries worldwide. As one of the most important emerging markets, regulators in China should consider taking more action in promoting ESG concerns. To some extent, institutional investments can actually reflect how the responsible investments are going in this market.

This paper provides a systematic empirical analysis of Chinese fund market in the view of institutional investor preference. Three green effects, namely attention, promotion and network effects, are put forward, which have not been employed in previous studies. Our work is useful for understanding sustainable finance which has been elevating into national strategy.