Cross-boundary Learning Research Articles

Asia’s institutional innovation, cross-boundary learning, and resilience in business and society fostering international collaborations around the world

Asia’s institutional innovation, cross-boundary learning, and resilience in business and society fostering international collaborations around the world

Conceptualizing the adventure tourist as a cross-boundary learner

In recent years, the adventure tourism sector has seen new travelers seeking self-transformation, learning, and an expanded worldview rather than risk and thrill. They have attracted attention for their contribution to the local economies. However, their motivation behind seeking such goals through adventure tourism remains unknown. Therefore, this study proposes a hypothesis explaining their transformation. An explanatory hypothesis is that adventure tourists possess the evaluation axis of cross-boundary learners who discover new selves through serendipitous encounters and events. Cross-boundary learning, a part of organizational learning, can be conceptually identified with planned happenstance theory (psychology) and effectuation theory (management) that locates self-transformation source in given non-cognitive abilities. Also, adventure tourists have an “ambivalent value” allowing them to simultaneously evaluate the exploitation of knowledge from the servicescape and the exploration of knowledge from the ethnoscape. This conceptual model thus bridges theory and practice for the development of the adventure tourism industry. Management implicationsThe findings of this study can be summarized as follows.•Adventure tourists have ambivalent values of knowledge exploration and exploitation;•They become adventure tourists when they incidentally encounter ethnoscapes that are specific to and still rooted in the region of their travel destination; and•What makes them adventure tourists is a cross-boundary learning mindset, which can be confirmed by measuring their non-cognitive abilities.Based on the above, the management implications are that adventure tourism operators should.•Focus their attention not only on the sophistication of their services, but also on preserving the ethnoscape of the business area; and•Plan for the generation of communities of practice in destinations that facilitate cross-boundary learning including knowledge exploration and exploitation by travelers.

Conceptual Model of Cross-Boundary Learning in Adventure Tourism

This theoretical study aims to provide a learning model for adventure tour guides to become effective learning facilitators for adventure tourists, who have increasingly sought self-transformation through soft-adventure activities. This objective is drowned by the increasing interest in learning from different cultures among adventure tourists and also the attention to self-transformation through pedagogy, adventure tourism, outdoor adventure education (OAE), and pedagogy are becoming increasingly capable of sharing their theories under the concept of cross-boundary learning. This paper therefore organizes this sharing by considering the applicability of OAE theories to soft adventure tourist based on literature review. It then centers on the community of practice created from interaction between guides and tourists and between tourists as a way of learning, which can lead adventure tourists towards self-transformation, and discusses how guides can create opportunities for such cooperative learning community during their service. As a result, taking a cue from the SECI model, which underlies cross-boundary learning, a conceptual model was presented to implement the facilitator role of the guide in cross-boundary learning effectively. In this conceptual model, the guide’s role extends beyond knowledge transfer. Rather, the results of the study imply that guides are required to be co-creators of knowledge to accompany adventure tourists in their cross-boundary learning. The findings also suggest that guides need to become cross-boundary learners who may also learn from their customers.

Correction to: A Novel Bat Algorithm based on Cross Boundary Learning and Uniform Explosion Strategy

Correction to: A Novel Bat Algorithm based on Cross Boundary Learning and Uniform Explosion Strategy

The regulation of learning and co-creation of new knowledge in mobile learning

Mobile devices as learning tools enrich mobile computer supported collaborative learning (mCSCL). Engaging in metacognitive interaction promotes students’ regulatory learning and this can provide a positive influence to learning outcomes. However, despite insightful empirical studies, there is no research into the actual processes of new knowledge creation in this context. This leads to the question of how mobile learning experiences can support the co-creation of new knowledge. Two classroom action research studies were carried out using a qualitative research approach. The analysis of the mobile messages using conversation analysis indicates that self-regulated learning in mCSCL is non-linear, defying existing theory. The findings also show that learners find ways to self-regulate learning activities in socially stimulated learning environments. Through knowledge sharing, students seek new insights into the learning instead of mere transfer of existing content. The Strategic Co-creation of New Knowledge in mCSCL Model has been developed providing innovative ways to approach mobile learning. The findings also comprise improved descriptive models in cross-boundary learning. This research is significant as emerging elements encourage instructors to rethink and design better mobile learning activities to optimize learning. Three recommendations are made and if implemented, will enable learning facilitators to achieve enhanced learning outcomes, engage learners better and improve learning experiences.

A Novel Bat Algorithm based on Cross Boundary Learning and Uniform Explosion Strategy

Population-based algorithms have been used in many real-world problems. Bat algorithm (BA) is one of the states of the art of these approaches. Because of the super bat, on the one hand, BA can converge quickly; on the other hand, it is easy to fall into local optimum. Therefore, for typical BA algorithms, the ability of exploration and exploitation is not strong enough and it is hard to find a precise result. In this paper, we propose a novel bat algorithm based on cross boundary learning (CBL) and uniform explosion strategy (UES), namely BABLUE in short, to avoid the above contradiction and achieve both fast convergence and high quality. Different from previous opposition-based learning, the proposed CBL can expand the search area of population and then maintain the ability of global exploration in the process of fast convergence. In order to enhance the ability of local exploitation of the proposed algorithm, we propose UES, which can achieve almost the same search precise as that of firework explosion algorithm but consume less computation resource. BABLUE is tested with numerous experiments on unimodal, multimodal, one-dimensional, high-dimensional and discrete problems, and then compared with other typical intelligent optimization algorithms. The results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms other algorithms.

Urban and infrastructure resilience: Diverging concepts and the need for cross-boundary learning

The concept of resilience has attracted considerable attention in policy and research communities in the fields of both urban and infrastructure development and governance. Resilience has been framed as a boundary concept bridging different communities of knowledge production and practice. However, a closer look at the joint enterprise, the shared repertoire, and the mutual engagement of respective knowledge communities in urban and infrastructure research and planning practice reveals that resilience is understood and dealt with in rather diverging ways. This paper explores some of these divides, then argues that differences in knowledge production can induce somewhat disconnected policy outcomes and governance approaches which consequently weaken cities’ ability to address current and future challenges. Therefore, we call for more interaction and cross-boundary learning between respective knowledge communities.

Boundaries and boundary crossing in tourism: A study of policy work for tourism and urban regeneration

The paper argues for a research focus on understanding varied boundary relations in society, including social, political, geographical and discursive relations. Analytical themes are established for the study of tourism's boundary relations: the salience and permeability of boundaries, discursive boundaries, power relations associated with boundaries, and learning within and across boundaries. Particular attention is given to concepts of learning: identification, reflection, coordination and transformation. These themes and concepts are employed to explore boundary relations of the tourism and other urban regeneration policy sectors in two city districts. Cross-boundary learning across the tourism and urban regeneration policy sectors occurred through the identification of, and reflection about, tourism's role in urban regeneration and led to coordination and possibly some transformation. Yet this was within significant limitations and barriers. There was perhaps scope for more regular and comprehensive boundary crossing between the tourism and urban regeneration policy sectors.

An Embedded Systems Perspective in Conceptualizing Canada’s Healthcare Sustainability

Healthcare sustainability has been dominated by a strong fiscal orientation. In an era of budget cuts and staff reductions, the financial challenges in Canadian healthcare are immediate and must be addressed. However, an independent focus on financial viability is too narrow a framing; too limited to allow for the kind of creative, novel, and even radical thinking that is required to fundamentally alter the current course of healthcare in Canada and internationally. Prospects for solving the current financial challenges are likely to be greatly enhanced if we simultaneously account for the broad and interrelated dimensions of sustainability. What would a healthcare system look like if sustainability were adopted as the focal and principal goal? And what might a “deep” sustainability orientation imply for how we think about and manage healthcare systems? This analysis is informed by the notion that healthcare systems are fully contained within the societal system, which is itself fully contained within the broader ecological system. This model, which foregrounds nature as the most fundamental and important system, has both greater ecological validity and particular relevance to the healthcare context given the interdependence between the health of natural systems and the health of humans. Our understanding of nature in relation to health may be key to solving or at least reducing the economic burden of healthcare. A multidimensional systems orientation thus has the potential to unveil new modes of thinking that highlight intersectoral relations, communications, collaboration, and cross-boundary learning for improved health and wellbeing, healthcare performance, and sustainability.

An empirical study of mainland Chinese students’ learning needs, perceptions of self-identity and sense of belonging

Background This paper aims for an understanding of the learning needs of students from mainland China and their perceptions of self-identity and sense of belonging during their study in Hong Kong. Seeing the chances to promote internationalization, and with Hong Kong being one of the major Asian educational hubs, the Hong Kong government initiated higher education reform in early 2000 to widen the participation rate in higher education to cope with the acute demand for life-long learning in higher education programs in Hong Kong. The Sutherland Report on Higher Education in Hong Kong [1] suggested that the landscape of local higher education institutions be widened by strategically collaborating with overseas universities to develop new selffinanced programs and provide additional places for incoming students. Subsequently, the government has encouraged local institutions to develop self-financed higher education programs to cater to the demand from local students and to recruit overseas students, especially those from mainland China. A survey of students from mainland China reveals their concerns about learning support, professional qualifications, daily living, social and cultural acceptance and economical and emotional adaptation during their study in Hong Kong [2]. Apparently, along with their cross-boundary learning experiences, students from mainland China are also confronting the struggles of localization and adaptation to the Hong Kong community. In view of the above, it would be beneficial to know the learning needs of mainland China’s students along with the learning and teaching strategies to accommodate them. Furthermore, from a social-psychological perspective, we also look into the students’ perceptions of self-identity and sense of belonging while studying in cross-boundary programs and how they cope with the cultural differences to re-generate identity and a sense of belonging.

Gränser för kulturvetenskaplig kunskapsbildning?

Some findings from the project “The contents and organization of cross boundary learning” are reported and made relevant to the question of how to think the future of learning and pedagogy in cultural studies. In the project, the focus was on “boundary work” in interdisciplinary undergraduate programmes at two Swedish universities. The following three questions are addressed: Are concepts and other language practices of curricular change of any importance? How can we identify interdisciplinarity in a multidimensional grid? Are the limits and boundaries in higher education only those that derives from the inside of the academic world, or also those from the outside?

Connecting Worlds

The focus of this Special Issue addresses cross-boundary issues by taking a closer look at how learning connects various different spaces. This develops our understanding of `how learning takes place across boundaries’ and is highly relevant to organizations operate in highly distributed networks, encompassing dispersed geographical regions, partners, suppliers, regulators and customers. The particular themes which the papers address pertain to the properties of boundaries across which learning may take place, i.e. geographical, knowledge, organizational and temporal boundaries. We also pay attention to the way in which entities connect across these boundaries, i.e., the means for interaction via structures, socio-psychological processes and technology. Finally we consider the most appropriate unit of analysis via which we should study cross-boundary learning processes in order to connect our worlds.

Cross-Boundary Learning Systems—Integrating Universities, Corporations, and Governmental Institutions in Knowledge Generating Systems

This paper sets focus on the relationship between knowledge production in universities and its application in everyday life. The point of departure is the linear model of knowledge production placing the university in the dominating role. This position is challenged by taking on a systems perspective where learning takes place across tradition boundaries. Universities, corporations, and governmental institutions integrate in the same knowledge production chain, blurring the whole concept of understanding universities as the linking pin in knowledge creation.