Business Courses Research Articles

Exploration of Mixed Teaching Mode of International Business Courses Based on CBI Teaching Concept——Taking International Business English as an Example

Since entering the 13th Five-Year Plan construction, the state has actively promoted the development and construction of education informatization, encouraged teachers to use information technology to innovate teaching models, update teaching concepts, and improve teaching quality to cultivate talents that meet the needs of the society in the new era. The mixed teaching mode combines the advantages of traditional teaching methods with the advantages of networked teaching. It not only plays the leading role of teachers in guiding, enlightening, and monitoring the teaching process, but also fully reflects the initiative and creativity of students as the main body of the learning process. This article analyzes the current teaching situation of international business courses in application-oriented universities, and explores the implementation strategies of a hybrid teaching model combining classroom teaching and online teaching. It will analyze four aspects from self-learning before class, internalization of knowledge in class, online consolidation after class and the assessment system, and provide references for the application of mixed teaching model in business courses.

Preparing Business Students for the World of Work—Games for Intercultural Skill Development

Most work environments today are diverse—gender, age, culture, language, values, ethnicity. Businesses are also increasing their global presence with branches in international locations and daily interactions across countries and cultures, all made easier through technological advances. Business education must be at the forefront in preparing students to work effectively in these contexts, and in particular, help future managers develop the skills to establish high performing diverse teams within and across organizations. A number of pedagogical approaches can be implemented in business courses to help students develop intercultural competencies. Three games for engaging students in the recognition and appreciation of cultural differences are described in this article. Ideas for debriefing are provided as well as for analyzing learning outcomes. The purpose of this article is to share strategies and approaches for implementing intercultural development pedagogies and measuring their effectiveness.

Understanding social media users’ privacy-protection behaviors

PurposeThis study aims to identify the roles that privacy experiences and social media use play in influencing privacy-protection behaviors. As social media use expands in terms of the number of users and functionality; it is important to understand social media user privacy-protection behaviors and the users’ psychological underpinnings driving those behaviors. Among these, perceptions are the users’ evaluation of their privacy concerns and data sharing benefits inherent in social media use which influence the users’ behaviors to protect their privacy.Design/methodology/approachTo research these issues, a theoretical model and hypotheses were developed, based on self-efficacy theory. The theoretical model was empirically tested using 193 questionnaire responses collected from students enrolled in business courses at a medium-sized university in the western USA. All the respondents reported that they routinely use social media. The empirical analysis was performed using structural equations modeling in PC SAS version 9.4, procedure Calis.FindingsThe estimation of the paths in the structural model indicates that privacy concerns positively influence social media users’ protection behaviors while the perceived benefits of data sharing negatively influence protection behaviors. Privacy experience positively influences privacy concerns. Alternatively, social media use positively influences social media self-efficacy and perceived usefulness, which, in turn, have meaningful influences on data sharing benefits.Originality/valuePrevious findings about the effect of self-efficacy on protection behaviors has been inconclusive. This study adds some clarity. Specifically, the findings suggest that the effect depends upon the foci of self-efficacy. While higher self-efficacy with respect to using privacy-related features of a specific technology tends to lead to greater privacy concerns, higher self-efficacy with respect to the more general technology (e.g. social media, computer) seems to affect protection behaviors through perceived benefits. Further, the results of this study offer conclusions about the roles that privacy experiences, social media use and perceived social media benefits play in affecting protection behaviors.

Motivation as a key element of psychological potential for entrepreneurial activities among the retired military personnel

The article considers with the problem of diagnosing the motivation of military personnel leaving the reserve, in order to assess their psychological potential for entrepreneurial activity. The currently known approaches to assessing the psychological potential of entrepreneurial activity are analysed. The necessity of identifying diagnostics of motivation as a key element for predicting the success of a serviceman who is transferred to the reserve in creating his own business is noted. Based on the analysis of the research results obtained during the implementation of the national project “Small Business Course” for military personnel and members of their families, the most significant motivators for two types of entrepreneurs were identified: innovators (capable of generating new ideas and modifying them from a business plan) and imitators ( who prefer to distribute previously developed technologies).

An Empirical Study on the Perceptions of Students enrolled in Business Programs toward Online Courses and Online Course Engagement Strategies during COVID-19

A rapid transition to online learning occurred in the United States in the Spring of 2020, triggered by the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. An online survey questionnaire was administered in the Spring of 2021 to students enrolled in business programs in the United States at two universities to investigate the perceptions of students toward online business courses and the importance of engagement strategies within three types of interactions: learner-to-content, learner-to-teacher, learner-to-learner. Results indicated significant differences in perceptions among the groups (gender, online course experience, age) exist and provides guidance and practical suggestions to structure and design online business courses.

Every Book You Take: Evaluating Compliance Behavior in an Information Commons

Abstract There has been a heated debate related to the effects of business background on ethical behavior. According to some authors, students majoring in business courses - such as accounting, economics, and management - would be more likely to free ride or defect from coalitions in collective action situations, given the emphasis of such courses on individualistic values. Other authors have challenged that view, presenting empirical evidence that questions the link between business education and opportunistic behavior. The present paper revisits this debate, by studying the impact of business education on rule compliance in a specific type of information commons (libraries). Employing a novel dataset related to more than 700,000 library transactions during a 10-year period (2006-2015), I correlate business background with users’ compliance behavior, while controlling for their time-invariant characteristics. I find no evidence of a significant effect of business education on rule compliance in this specific setting. In fact, some of the estimates here reported suggest a negative correlation between business background and compliance behavior. These results have important implications for ethical theories in economics, suggesting that compliance behavior is context-dependent.

English-Medium Instruction and Content Learning in Higher Education: Effects of Medium of Instruction, English Proficiency, and Academic Ability

English-medium instruction (EMI) has become increasingly popular in higher educational institutions across the world due to the prominence of English and the internationalization of higher education. Nevertheless, limited research to date has investigated its impacts on content learning through objective measures. The present study addresses this gap by examining whether students taught in English at a university in China perform differently in a business course from their counterparts taught in Chinese and how English-taught students’ English proficiency and academic ability (as measured by grade point average) relate to their EMI academic outcomes. The study employed a quasi-experimental design and adopted inter-translated versions of the same syllabus, textbook, class materials, and exam paper for the English- and Chinese-medium classes. It found no significant differences in students’ academic outcomes (i.e., total score, assignment, participation, and final exam) between the English- and the Chinese-taught classes. It also showed that both English proficiency and academic ability were statistically significant predictors of English-taught students’ academic outcomes with academic ability being a much stronger predictor than English proficiency. These findings add to a growing but still limited body of evidence on the impacts of EMI on content learning and point to several important implications for EMI.

Opportunity Seeking to Start Up Business Community Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) Next Innovate Way

This study of business opportunities is showing an ability to understand or notice something easily or quickly is an ability of individual that can help to improve and develop the knowledge and skills of the student. The researcher reason in the development and utilization of instructional materials in business opportunities for entrepreneurship subject is to cultivate the availability, creativity and skills of the students to motivate them in pursuing the course and be part of their future career. This study of instructional module for the easy understanding of the training that the academe gave as guide and execution of the project or program that was aligning in the needs of the community. It has been identified that using instructional module to facilitate learning or instructions is not always the issue but how to use it and its availability. The instructional materials that the researchers propose will be urgency response in the new normal of learning. This workbook will guide the potential entrepreneurs’, students in business courses, and presently in operating a business. The increased quantity and quality of instructional module are producing a split from the traditional audiovisual aids approach to the more comprehensive and efficient learning resource concepts. The trainer problem today, is not the lack of materials but how to make the best instructional module use of those available. There are two characteristics of inherent instructional learning, first was the active learning, which involve in learning activities and the second was the continuous nature which cradle to the grave, before school, after school, outside of school and all through life.

Animal activism in the business school: Using fierce compassion for teaching critical and positive perspectives

This article explores a practical approach to teaching animal ethics in food systems as part of a business course. We argue that tackling such complex and emotionally charged topics is vital to shifting unsustainable and hurtful behaviours towards more positive futures. Our teaching example outlines a pedagogy of courageously witnessing, inquiring with empathy and prompting positive action; an activist approach we term fierce compassion. These three layers blend positive and critical perspectives in a classroom to address contentious issues of large-scale industrial animal production hitherto largely neglected in a traditional business curriculum. While acknowledging that academic activism is controversial, we argue that fierce compassion – noticing the suffering that is remote and often systemically hidden – can inform and structure education towards more post-anthropocentric and just futures for all living beings – human and nonhuman alike.

Revisiting the Benefits of High School Accounting to Increase the Number of Accounting Majors

In recent years, there has been concern surrounding the future supply of accounting graduates due to declining accounting program enrollment. This exploratory study investigates which undergraduate class year is likely better suited for increased efforts by accounting faculty to influence students’ decisions to major in accounting, particularly students who studied accounting in high school. Using variables from a prior study that conceptualized an integrative theoretical model based on social cognitive career theory and the theory of reasoned action, we examine the potential effect that precollege coursework in accounting might have on students’ personal interest, accounting technical skills self-efficacy, image of the accounting profession, and intent to major in accounting. Undergraduate business students enrolled in core business courses were surveyed and high school students participated in focus group discussions. Study results indicate differences between groups of students who did (did not) study accounting in high school and suggest freshmen year is influential towards intent to major in accounting.

Exploring students’ satisfaction in the university learning environment: A study of newly introduced courses for state universities in Sri Lanka

Newly introduced undergraduate courses in state universities failed due to various reasons. The purpose of this study is to explore the factors that affect student satisfaction in the learning environment and to which extent such factors influence the learning behaviour of university students. The study adopts the nudge theory to analyse the students’ decision making based on choice architecture and the constructivist grounded theory, which explores how students determine satisfaction with learning. This study has been conducted in the context of the students who follow newly introduced courses in state universities in Sri Lanka. The study has applied quantitative research design to answer the research questions following the survey method. The conceptual framework of the study focuses on physical and intellectual support factors in the learning environment to measure student satisfaction. The results derive that academic support provided by the staff is the main factor to satisfy the students in the learning environment, which has a significant relationship. Support of the library has been identified as a factor which negatively affects student satisfaction. The study reveals that how students’ decision-making behaviour can be analysed through nudging. The primary contribution of the study is to the literature on identifying key factors which assist students in the learning environment to do the studies satisfactorily when they read for newly introduced courses in state universities. The study develops a novel theoretical structure through nudge theory to identify the students’ behaviour and satisfaction level. The practical implications are vital in this study which indicates that important aspects of developing in higher education in Sri Lanka to improve the quality of newly introduced courses in business.
 Keywords: Satisfaction, Learning environment, Nudge

Differences in consulting experiences with for-profit and non-profit clients: Implications for practice and research

There have been calls to incorporate more experiential learning activities such as problem-based learning and service-learning in business and management program curricula. Although there has been greater implementation of such pedagogies and more research on the effect of these pedagogies on learning outcomes, there still are gaps in our understanding of how to use them. One form of problem-based learning that has increased in popularity involves incorporating consulting projects in a variety of business courses. Students, in such courses, typically are organized into teams and act as “consultants” to local non-profit or for-profit businesses. Despite the growing popularity of student consulting courses and their potential advantages, few studies compare experiences when consulting with for-profit organizations with experiences when consulting with non-profit organizations. This article sought to identify the differences in the two and offer suggestions for instructors designing a project-based course, to maximize student learning and the likelihood of success. We draw from our own reflections in teaching courses that have incorporated these projects over the course of nearly two decades. Our experience indicates that projects with non-profit organizations require greater instructor preparation in advance of the project start date, more active management from the instructor during project completion, and more time for reflection after the projects are completed. We explore the implications for research and practice and offer suggestions for future research.

To keep or divest a division: Canon’s strategy in an oligopolistic market

The issue in this teaching case is the future of the Lithography Division of Canon. The case is situated in 2015 when this division represents around 7.5% of the company’s assets, 13.8% of its sales, and 10% of its capital expenditures. The division is loss-making. This issue is faced by two persons in the organization: the CEO and the CFO of Canon. The CEO would like to keep the division, while the CFO prefers to divest it. The case is particularly interesting because of the market structure: the division operates in the lithography market, which is a clear example of an oligopoly. The case can be used in Strategy, Technology, or Digital Business courses in MSc or MBA programs. The learning objectives of the case are (1) combining information provided via academic journals with facts from the case and the collective knowledge and creativity of a team of students, (2) analyzing the collected information and building a case with strong arguments, (3) creating a convincing strategic plan including a persuasive presentation, and (4) practicing the skills of presenting. The information provided in this case is based on the annual reports of Advanced Semiconductor Materials Lithography (ASML), Canon, and Nikon, and on other publicly available information on the lithography industry. The case itself is fictional. The authors are not aware of any discussions within Canon about the future of the company’s lithography division.

Can Multiple-Choice Questions Replace Constructed Response Test as an Exam Form in Business Courses? Evidence from a Business School

The discussion of whether multiple-choice questions can replace the traditional exam with essays and constructed questions in introductory courses has just started in Norway. There is not an easy answer. The findings depend on the pattern of the questions. Therefore, one must be careful in drawing conclusions. In this research, one will explore a selected business course where 30 percent of the test is comprised of multiple-choice items. There obviously are some similarities between the two test methods. Students who perform well on writing essays tend also to achieve good results when answering multiple- choice questions. The result reveals a gender gap where multiple-choice based exam seems to favor the male students. There are some challenges in how to measure the different dimensions of knowledge. This study confirms this. Hence, it is too early to conclude that a multiple-choice score is a good predictor of the outcome of an essay exam. This paper will provide a beneficial contribution to the debate in Norway, but it needs to be followed up with more research. Keywords: multiple choice test, constructed response questions, business school, gender, regression model.

Enhancing Interactional Competence Through the Use of English Expressions

An exploratory study was conducted on the use of common English expressions in accountancy and business courses in a Singapore university. The aim of the study was to investigate the use of English expressions required by students to engage in effective communication at their workplace either during their internship period or upon graduation. Data garnered through a quiz, an online survey, semi-structured focus group interviews with students, and face-to face interviews with business professionals were analysed through descriptive statistics and qualitatively to gather the perceptions of students and business professionals on the use of English expressions such as common idioms, proverbs and catchphrases relevant for workplace communication. The study found that students’ interactional competence can be enhanced by increasing their learning engagement through relevant communicative activities that include English expressions in the physical and/or virtual classroom.

Artificial intelligence in business curriculum: The pedagogy and learning outcomes

Artificial intelligence is rapidly reshaping the technological landscape, becoming an important component of work processes and decision-making in many domains. However, AI education has yet to catch up with the challenge of introducing this complex and very important area of technology to audiences beyond the students of computing and engineering disciplines. This is not surprising, given the lack of materials for and experience in teaching AI for non-technical audiences. In this paper we present the challenges in developing an AI course in business schools and propose a curriculum for a graduate-level business course in AI, which balances AI fundamentals with the latest developments in the field. We discuss our choices and present the results of a study, examining students’ experiences, learning outcomes, and perceptions regarding the course. We offer practical guidelines for the curriculum design that other educators may adopt in designing their AI training courses.

Connecting teacher and student assessment literacy with self-evaluation and peer feedback

Teachers’ feedback literacy is a focus of increasing attention in higher education. It may be framed through intentional design decisions, inter-relational aspects of engagement and pragmatic considerations of enacted curricula. Thus, teachers’ feedback literacy is connected to both the enacted curriculum and students’ relationship to feedback. How these connections take shape in particular approaches to the curriculum, affecting students’ roles in feedback and evaluation is not as well-understood. This paper presents findings from an intervention aimed at developing students’ peer feedback and self-evaluation skills in an undergraduate business course. Peer feedback and self-evaluation are increasingly common modes of engaging students as active participants in feedback and evaluation processes. It is therefore worthwhile to understand the ways in which these processes affect and link teacher and student feedback literacy. Data was analysed from a 14-week course aimed at developing students’ competencies in self-evaluation, peer feedback and teamwork. Results are presented and discussed according to three major areas: how teacher’s feedback on student engagement with feedback served as affective ‘meta’ scaffolding, the trajectory of students’ growth in feedback literate self-evaluation, and the relationship of feedback literacy to trajectory of growth in teamwork competencies. The paper concludes with suggestions for further, crossdisciplinarity research.

Delivery Modes: Learning Effectiveness and Student Satisfaction

We use objective and subjective measures of learning outcomes to compare learning effectiveness and student perceptions across three different delivery modes, traditional (face-to-face), hybrid, and online. For the objective measures, we use scores on rote, critical thinking and engagement assessment tools in the introductory international business course. For the subjective measures, we compare student perceptions by analyzing scores from the Student Evaluation of Instructors (SEIs) surveys that are administered at the completion of each course section. We find differences in the critical-thinking and engagement components whereby students in the hybrid delivery group performed better than their counterparts in the traditional and online groups. Online students had in general lower scores across the board, especially on the engagement dimension. In their totality, the objective data results support the value of the in-person factor for learning effectiveness. On the student perceptions side, results show similar assessment of learning experiences in the traditional and hybrid modes across most dimensions. Students were more critical in assessing instructors and learning experiences in online course sections.

Narcissism in Cyberspace: Effect of Instructor Narcissism Based on Linguistic Data in Business MOOCs

Existing literature has tended to associate narcissism as a negative personality trait that brings out negative outcomes. In the present study, we investigate and uncover that narcissistic lecturers could be an asset instead of a debt for online videotaped courses. We choose online business courses from Coursera MOOCs to study the effect of narcissism on learners’ outcomes and experiences. A linguistic analysis by LIWC was conducted on course scripts and reviews from learners to measure instructor narcissism and student psychological states. We demonstrate that lecturer narcissism leads to less learner negative affect and positively relates to learner self-efficacy, which both subsequently, positively associated with high course ratings. These findings contribute to the online courses and narcissism in cyberspace on both theoretical and practical levels.

The online marketplace for business education: An exploratory study

The Internet has had a vast and pervasive impact on the education industry, one of which is the creation of an online educational marketplace. This study investigates the online marketplace for business courses by viewing it as part of the platform economy. Data pertaining to 9064 business courses was collected from the Udemy website using a web scraper tool. The analysis of the data reveals that the demand for MOOCs in business is great, with an average of 3169 students enrolled in each course, with some courses surpassing 100,000 students. The demand varies between categories, with business & data analytics, and entrepreneurship being among the most popular categories. The results also show that course enrollment in courses is highly skewed, giving support for the notion that power asymmetries that seem to arise in such decentralized markets. Finally, the analysis reveals that not all participants in the online marketplace for business education benefit equally. Specifically, the study found that courses tended to have a higher enrollment rate when the course provider was male. Finally, the analysis showed that despite increasing academic interest in online education, academics have been slow to enter the digital marketplace as service providers.