Enterprise Learning Research Articles

Linking personal initiative and family help as well as social support: a case study of learning challenges and solutions for older adults in rural China during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The sudden outbreak of the COVID-19 Pandemic has caused serious damage to the continuous learning of older adults around the world. While the existing literature focused more on older adults' learning in developed countries, few studies explored older adults' learning in developing countries with low social and cultural capital. This study took family-school cooperation in China as the platform and explored learning challenges and solutions through unstructured interviews with 12 older adults. The study found that due to policies of working and studying from home, older adults face obstacles in accessing physical learning institutions and digital learning knowledge, skills, and psychology. I further found that the older adults were not forced to accept the challenge passively, but created a lifelong learning model with Chinese characteristics by building self-learning based on personal initiative, developing sustainable intergenerational learning rooted in Chinese family culture, and participating in online learning in schools and enterprises under the government guidance. This study provided new knowledge for understanding the learning challenges and solutions of older adults in rural China. It is emphasized that policy value and practice enlightenment were highlighted and discussed in conversations with active aging, intergenerational learning, and harmonious societies.

Innovation Ecosystem Dynamics, Value and Learning I: What Can Hamilton Tell Us?

ABSTRACTHeld in Dublin, Ireland, IS2024 invites us to refresh understanding of contributions to systems engineering by Ireland's greatest mathematician— Sir William Rowan Hamilton (1805–1865), professor of astronomy at Trinity College Dublin and royal astronomer of Ireland. His profound contributions to science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) deserve greater systems community attention. Supporting theory and practice, they intersect foundations and applications streams of INCOSE's future of systems engineering (FuSE) program. Strikingly, key aspects apply to systems of all types, including socio‐technical and information systems. Hamilton abstracted the energy‐like generator of dynamics for all systems, while also generalizing momentum. Applied to the INCOSE innovation ecosystem pattern as dynamics of learning, development, and life cycle management, this suggests an architecture for integration of the digital thread and machine learning in innovation enterprises, along with foundations of systems engineering as a dynamical system.

A Lightweight and Secure Deep Learning Model for Privacy-Preserving Federated Learning in Intelligent Enterprises

A Lightweight and Secure Deep Learning Model for Privacy-Preserving Federated Learning in Intelligent Enterprises

Machine Learning in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises, Methodology for the Estimation of the Production Time

Data mining (DM) and machine learning (ML) are widely used in production planning and scheduling. Their application to production time estimation leads to improved planning and scheduling accuracy, resulting in increased overall efficiency. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) often have a small amount of data, which results in the limited adoption of DM and ML. Instead, production time estimation is still performed using rough approximations, which are inaccurate and non-reproducible. Therefore, this article proposes an ML methodology for production time estimation. It is adapted to the needs of SMEs and is applied with limited data. The methodology is based on the categorization of four job types (from A to D), the partitioning of data according to the limit theorem of data convergence, and the definition of risk based on metrics of probability and statistics. ML was applied by WEKA Workbench (Waikato Environment for Knowledge Analysis). It is also integrated into the Cross Industry Standard Process for DM. The methodology was implemented on data from a medium-sized company, Schoepstal Maschinenbau GmbH, for job types A and B to estimate machine/job cycle time, manufacturing cycle time, and lead time. Different accuracies were obtained for individual estimation models, confirming the strong dependence of the models on data quality. Suitable models were found for the implementation of the estimation of the manufacturing cycle time and the machine/job cycle time. The modeling of lead time estimation was unsuccessful. This was due to the weak dependence between the learning values and the values of the selected model attributes. The implementation of the methodology for job types C and D is the subject of further research.

Innovation Ecosystem Dynamics, Value and Learning I: What Can Hamilton Tell Us?

AbstractHeld in Dublin, Ireland, IS2024 invites us to refresh understanding of contributions to systems engineering by Ireland's greatest mathematician–Sir William Rowan Hamilton (1805 ‐ 1865), Professor of Astronomy at Trinity College Dublin and Royal Astronomer of Ireland. His profound contributions to STEM deserve greater systems community attention. Supporting theory and practice, they intersect Foundations and Applications streams of INCOSE's Future of Systems Engineering (FuSE) program. Strikingly, key aspects apply to systems of all types, including socio‐technical and information systems. Hamilton abstracted the energy‐like generator of dynamics for all systems, while also generalizing momentum. Applied to the INCOSE Innovation Ecosystem Pattern as dynamics of learning, development, and life cycle management, this suggests an architecture for integration of the digital thread and machine learning in innovation enterprises, along with foundations of systems engineering as a dynamical system.

Decentralized and robust privacy-preserving model using blockchain-enabled Federated Deep Learning in intelligent enterprises

In Federated Deep Learning (FDL), multiple local enterprises are allowed to train a model jointly. Then, they submit their local updates to the central server, and the server aggregates the updates to create a global model. However, trained models usually perform worse than centralized models, especially when the training data distribution is non-independent and identically distributed (non-IID). Because non-IID data harms the accuracy and performance of the model. Second, due to the centrality of federated learning (FL) and the untrustworthiness of enterprises, traditional FL solutions are vulnerable to security and privacy attacks. Therefore, to tackle this issue, we propose FEDANIL, a secure blockchain-enabled Federated Deep LeArning Model that improves enterprise models’ decentralized, performance, and tamper-proof properties, including two main phases. The first phase is proposed to address the non-IID challenge (label and feature distribution skew). In this phase, local models with similar data distributions are grouped into homogeneous clusters using the cosine similarity (CS) and affinity propagation (AP) techniques. Then, for each homogeneous cluster, Wasserstein Generative Adversarial Networks (WGAN) are used to deal with label and feature distribution skew. The second phase was adopted to address security and privacy concerns against poisoning and inference attacks via three steps. In the first step, data poisoning attacks are prevented by using CS. Then, in the second step, collude attacks were prevented by randomly selecting enterprises in the consortium blockchain. Finally, in the third step, model poisoning, membership inference, and reconstruction attacks have been prevented using the CKKS Fully Homomorphic Encryption (CKKS-FHE) technique and consortium blockchain. Extensive experiments were conducted using the Sent140, Fashion-MNIST, FEMNIST, and CIFAR-10 new real-world datasets to evaluate FedAnil’s robustness and performance. The simulation results demonstrate that FEDANIL satisfies FDL privacy-preserving requirements. In terms of convergence analysis, the model parameter obtained with the FEDANIL converges to the optimum of the model parameter. In addition, it performs better in terms of accuracy (more than 11, 15, and 24%) and computation overhead (less than 8, 10, and 15%) compared with baseline approaches, namely SHIELDFL, RVPFL, and RFA, respectively. The FEDANIL source code can be found on GitHub.11Code available on GitHub Repository: https://github.com/rezafotohi/FedAnil. For any questions about the code, please contact Fotohi.reza@gmail.com.

Enhancing Gross Anatomy Courses in Occupational Therapy with 3D Applications: An Assessment of Effectiveness

Traditional teaching methods, such as two-dimensional PowerPoint presentations, are prevalent in anatomy education but must provide an in-depth perception of anatomical structures. This article discusses integrating 3D anatomy application in an Occupational Therapy course as an advanced technique for anatomical learning. The "Complete 3D Anatomy" app was employed to facilitate the teaching of anatomy structures. Students from 2 different cohorts, 93 from 2022 and 96 from 2023 test scores, were considered in this endeavor. The 2022 group used the 3-D app on their own time, compared to the 2023 group, who were required to use it in class for every lecture by the instructor. Results showed improvement in their test score from 71% (2022) to 87% (2023), with the integration of the 3-D as a class activity. Based on these results, it is concluded that the 3D anatomy app is an essential tool for comprehensive anatomical learning. For future courses, there is a plan to integrate further and assess the benefits of requiring students to employ a tablet or iPad equipped with 3D apps, along with a virtual dissection table to complement teaching and learning enterprises in the human cadaver laboratory.

Teaching Strategies Strengthening EFL Learners’ Self-Confidence in Speaking Learning Dynamics

Studies on effective speaking teaching strategies have caught mushrooming attention in these last two decades. This is not happening by incidental matters as globalized educationalists are still having arduous moments in devising more suitable, enjoyable, and relatable speaking learning strategies that can maximize EFL learners’ self-confidence. According to previous researchers, self-confidence is one of the propelling factors enabling EFL learners to gain more advanced communication proficiency levels since they possess a higher level of preparedness in confronting a wide variety of challenging speaking learning enterprises. This small-scale library study employed a thematic analysis approach while analyzing a certain number of identical research results produced by prior 25 speaking investigations published worldwide. By utilizing this research method, the researcher can potentially yield more relevant, contextual, and comprehensible research outcomes due to an iterative data analysis conducted before initiating more specific research theme groupings. Based on the thematically categorized research results, second language educators can progressively inculcate robust speaking self-confidence among EFL learners upon the activation of more authentic and enjoyable speaking learning activities. More comprehensive delineations regarding these two speaking learning methodologies can be discerned in the ensuing parts of this research paper

Strategies for Leveraging the Role of Young Teachers in Enterprise Practical Courses Vocational Colleges in China

Enterprise practical courses are important courses that emphasize practical operations, professional ethics, integrate theory with practice, and possess specificity and flexibility. Teachers serve as advocates for school-enterprise cooperation and communication, maintain the connection between schools and society, and promote vocational education. However, there are several issues in current enterprise practical teaching, such as the separation between school learning and student enterprise practice, inconsistency between enterprise goals and student training, and lack of evaluation system for student internships. This article aims to address these issues by enhancing teachers' professional abilities and practical teaching levels, thereby providing better support and assistance for students' career development and employment competitiveness.

Sustainable economic development through strategic planning, environmental sustainability, innovation, and learning in community enterprises: evidence from Ranong Province, Thailand

Background This study explores the factors influencing the performance of community enterprises in Ranong Province, Thailand. Drawing on a literature review, the research focuses on the role of strategic marketing, green supply chain management, innovation capabilities, organizational learning, social entrepreneurship, and destination vulnerability in shaping the performance and competitiveness of these enterprises. The study aims to provide insights into how community enterprises can enhance their performance and contribute to the sustainable development of the region. Methods The findings were based on data collected from 460 community enterprise operators in Ranong province. The data was acquired through questionnaires and in-depth interviews using a combination of qualitative and quantitative research techniques. Results The findings of this study suggest that strategic marketing plays a crucial role in helping community enterprises identify opportunities, develop unique value propositions, and respond to dynamic market trends. Green supply chain management emerges as an important factor for community enterprises to consider, as adopting environmentally friendly practices can improve their reputation, attract loyal customers, and enhance their overall performance. Innovation capabilities are identified as essential for community enterprises to stay competitive and adapt to changing market conditions. Organizational learning and the establishment of communities of practice are found to be critical for fostering knowledge sharing and enhancing employee skills, thus improving organizational performance. Social entrepreneurship can enable community enterprises to leverage their social missions and differentiate themselves from competitors, while destination vulnerability assessment can help them build resilience and ensure long-term sustainability. Conclusions This study contributes to the understanding of the influences on the performance of community enterprises in Ranong Province and offers practical implications for entrepreneurs, policymakers, and local communities. By focusing on these key areas, community enterprises can improve their performance, achieve sustainable growth, and make a positive impact on their communities and the environment.

THE INFLUENCES OF PEER FEEDBACK IN IMPROVING EFL LEARNERS’ WRITING PERFORMANCES

Enhancing EFL learners’ writing performances should not solely rely on one-shot feedback imparted by second language educationalists but rather a joint endeavor where collaborative and mutual feedback exists to insistently support the ongoing writing learning enterprises. The further usage of peer feedback fully suits the aforementioned writing learning aspiration in which EFL learners collaboratively address a vast variety of beneficial suggestions, comments, and advice intended for the betterment of their writing performances. This present small-scale qualitative study was manifested in the form of an annotated bibliography review to comprehensively unravel the particular impacts of peer feedback in elevating EFL learners’ writing performances. To fulfill this major study objective, the researcher employed a document analysis method in reviewing the previously generated research results to yield more credible and understandable research results. To ascertain the relevance and applicability of the reviewed research results, the researcher also selected 10 prior peer feedback and writing investigations. The research results revealed that through the constant employment of peer feedback, worldwide EFL learners have progressively transfigured into more proactive, viable, and proficient writers since they conducted more efficient writing revisions in accord with their learning counterparts’ useful comments.

Enterprise education in undergraduate business programmes advances students' negotiating competence and self-confidence

PurposeBusiness graduates’ enterprising capability augments their work readiness, transforming them into professionals capable of driving successful outcomes. At the core lie self-confidence and negotiating competence. However, embedding enterprise education and developing assessments to evidence learning is challenging. This study aims to offer a blueprint for establishing enterprise learning in the classroom and investigating the effectiveness of cultivating negotiating competence and self-confidence.Design/methodology/approachModelled on Kolb’s experiential learning cycle, students engage in in-class and real-life negotiations, assessing self-confidence using a scale founded in Bandura’s self-efficacy theory. Open-ended reflections are also submitted. Quantitative data is analysed through multiple linear regression, while quantitative and qualitative data triangulation substantiates enterprise learning in negotiating competence and self-confidence.FindingsStudents’ reflections show that low self-confidence poses an initial barrier in negotiations, overcome with successive engagements. Quantitative analysis uncovers response-shift biases, with female and male students overestimating initial self-confidence levels. The gender and difference score type interaction reveals a more pronounced bias among female students starting from a lower baseline than male students, implying a more substantial self-confidence improvement for female students. These findings challenge traditional assumptions about gender differences in negotiations and emphasize the need for nuanced perspectives.Originality/valueEnterprising capability is pivotal for business professionals. This study highlights the advancement of negotiating competence and self-confidence. It contributes uniquely to the development of enterprise education pedagogy. Focusing on nuanced gender differences challenges prevailing assumptions, providing a perspective to the discourse on negotiating competence and self-confidence in management training.

Organizational learning, leadership style and knowledge management in enterprises: Basis for innovation performance improvement

Organizational learning, leadership style and knowledge management in enterprises: Basis for innovation performance improvement

Understanding Lifelong Learning in Successful Women Managed Small and Medium Enterprises in Kakamega County: The Case of Kenya Women Microfinance Bank

This qualitative study was a follow up to a 2022 study on the impact of lifelong learning (LLL) on women managed, small and medium enterprises in the context of KWFT biashara loan. The study sought to: create a deeper understanding of the LLL experiences of successful women managers of KWFTbiashara loan SMEs; find out the influence of LLL on successful women managed KWFT SMEs, from the perspective of the women managers, with an aim of making recommendations for policy and practice for LLL in the KWFT financial literacy training. This study utilized a multi-site case study approachthat purposively selected three successful SMEs from a pool of six SMEs that were observed in the 2022 study in Kakamega County of Kenya, under this Women Economic Empowerment Project funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and housed at Kenyatta University WEE-Hub. Data was collectedby use of semi-structured interviews and observation. Among other findings, this study reveals varied experiences and opinions concerning LLL in the context of KWFT biashara loan, including the group model of training and lending that was praised in one case and described as having some weaknessesthat required attention in two cases. Notably, all women managers of the successful KWFT biashara loan SMEs understood the basics of business and financial management, which they partly attributed to LLL in the context of KWFT financial literacy training. They also had strong support from their spouses,diversified their businesses and had visible assets that were acquired from the proceeds of the SMEs, among other findings. This study demonstrates how KWFT could strengthen the group model of training and improve on the training curriculum, among other recommendations.

Using Student Choice for Engaged Learning in Sport, Tourism, Recreation, and Live Entertainment Education

Fostering engaged learning in higher education contributes to students’ lifelong learning. Additionally, engaged learning prepares graduates to transfer their learning to the workplace, which is particularly important in pre-professional sport, tourism, recreation, and live entertainment (STRLE) programs. Engaged learning entails students actively and intentionally participating in their own learning, and learning autonomy is fundamental to their ownership of the learning enterprise. Student choice can be implemented as an engaged learning pedagogy by supporting student autonomy. Offering students choices in the classroom can increase engagement, enjoyment, and motivation; build competence and higher order thinking skills; and improve student success. Faculty engaged in this praxis in a sport management program at a small, private college. To further enhance student success, STRLE faculty can implement student choice following the recommended best practices. Offering choices that align with student interests and values, and provide connection and competence, best support autonomy. Faculty should also demonstrate warmth, flexibility, and consistency to increase the effectiveness of providing student choices. This commentary explores the literature on student choice as an engaged learning practice, illustrates a practice example, and makes recommendations for effectively applying student choice in the STRLE classroom.

Empowering Worldwide EFL Learners' Reading Learning Dynamics in the Support of the Jigsaw Technique

The significant impediments frequently hampering globalized EFL learners from continuing their reading learning enterprises are a higher sense of competitiveness among learning community members, satiation to read plenty of challenging reading texts, and constant perturbing of encountering adverse reading learning situations. These inevitable reading learning obstructions can be better mitigated with the continuous support of the jigsaw technique wherein EFL learners willingly, supportively, and collaboratively address insistent reading learning supports to achieve more gratifying reading learning outcomes as solid teammates. This current small-scale library study is a further attempt by the researcher to exhaustively investigate the influence and crucial role of the jigsaw technique in empowering worldwide EFL reading learning dynamics. To that end, the researchers utilized a thematic analysis approach in reviewing specifically attained research results derived from 20 jigsaw techniques in reading study techniques more trustworthy, robust, and representative findings. The 20 chosen journal articles ranged from 2018 until 2022 to ascertain the validity and reliability of the reviewed research results toward existing EFL reading learning contexts. The thematically categorized research results revealed that the jigsaw technique did not solely make EFL learners more proficient but also avid readers. Therefore, it is vitally essential for worldwide second language educators to commence their daily-based reading learning activities with the endorsement of the jigsaw technique. Keywords: Jigsaw technique; EFL reading; thematic analysis; library study

University learning partnerships

Universities hold a significant advantage in the development of enterprising learning partnerships where internal and intentional collaboration can assist in addressing complex problems. Building a collaborative learning partnership between faculties enhances learning, removes blocks to enterprise and addresses industry problems. The learning partnership developed in this collaboration included academic staff from two different faculties, a team of students as well as input from external stakeholders including schools and pre-service teacher candidates. The approach included digital expertise and developmental pedagogies; with a shared outcome designed to meet the enterprise goals of the industry’s partner. The student team developed confidence and capacity in their ability to communicate with the industry partner as they were encouraged to be creative, equal participants with the agency to take risks and problem solve. The tangible outcome was the delivery of a minimum viable product that has potential to address issues around teacher shortage and other limits to school resourcing. Learning partnerships within universities facilitate authentic learning and encouraged enterprise.

Inducing Better-Facilitated EFL Writing Learning Dynamics with an Enlightenment of Collaborative Writing Strategy

Abstract
 To better help globalized EFL learners withstand a wide variety of stumbling blocks residing in these modern second language writing learning enterprises, writing instructors should devise a learner-oriented learning approach where writers strongly establish more robust collaborative networking to successfully achieve their desired writing learning goals. A collaborative writing strategy plays an indispensable role to attain this coveted writing learning objective where EFL learners can supportively collate their distinctive ideas, perspectives, and strategies to compose more qualified writing compositions. This currently-initiated qualitative study was in support of an annotated bibliography approach to ascertain the credibility, relevancy, and applicability of the particularly-attained research results. To that end, the researcher utilized a document analysis and an open-coding approach to thematically categorize each identical research result generated by 10 already-published collaborative writing strategy journal articles conducted worldwide. The thematically-analyzed research results highly advised globalized second language writing instructors to incorporate a collaborative writing strategy at the inception of regular writing learning dynamics as it functioned as one of the propelling forces for EFL learners to gradually transform into more skilled, enthusiastic, confident, optimistic, and proactive target language writers. 
 Keywords: EFL writing; collaborative writing strategy; annotated bibliography; document analysis

THE INFLUENTIAL IMPACTS OF DIGITAL STORYTELLING TOWARDS THE IMPROVEMENT OF EFL LEARNERS’ SPEAKING SKILLS

AbstractIn this ever-changing modern age, EFL educators are still in search of more meaningful speaking learning enterprises by which second language learners are strongly encouraged to endure various L2 communication practice hurdles to transform into more proficient speakers. One of the promising ways to actualize this speaking-learning aspiration is through the use of digital storytelling. Previous researchers believed that digital storytelling could potentially promote a higher degree of speaking learning enjoyment where EFL learners’ speaking competencies can thrive to the utmost potential. This present small-scale library study was initiated to exhaustively investigate the positive influences of digital storytelling on EFL learners’ speaking skills improvement. To release this main study objective, the researcher conducted a thematic analysis of 25 previous digital storytelling and speaking studies to generate more relevant and comprehensible research results. Based on the thematic analysis, the constant utilization of digital storytelling was proved to transform EFL learners into more insightful L2 speakers and promote a psychologically sound speaking learning atmosphere in which their targeted L2 communicative competencies can be fostered to the fullest development. Future researchers need to include broader English language learning scopes and a greater number of reviewed digital storytelling investigations to generate more rewarding research results relevant to the applicability and feasibility of online learning platforms in modern EFL learning enterprises. Keywords: digital storytelling, speaking skills, library study

The Implementation of KWL Chart Strategy to Improve Worldwide EFL Learners’ Reading Comprehension Skills

There is a dire need for worldwide second language educators to sustainably invoke more interactive, favorable, and meaningful reading learning enterprises in which EFL learners are strongly willing to channel more effortful actions to hone their reading comprehension skills to the utmost development. KWL chart strategy can be one of the appropriate solutions to fulfill this reading learning demand by which EFL learners can activate their prior knowledge in harmony with the reading texts they are going to read, monitor their reading comprehension towards particular reading topics intensively, and profoundly evaluate their newly-acquired knowledge obtained through various passages. This present small-scale library study aimed to investigate the extent the KWL chart strategy can improve globalized EFL learners’ reading comprehension skills. 20 prior findings obtained from the KWL chart strategy in reading studies were thematically analyzed to yield more comprehensible and credible research results for the betterment of EFL reading learning enterprises nationwide. After analyzing those previous findings, two main research themes were generated namely: (1) KWL chart strategy transforms EFL learners into more spirited readers and (2) KWL chart strategy exceptionally escalates EFL learners’ reading proficiency level. In the end, it can be fairly concluded that the effective deployment of the KWL strategy not merely resulted in the significant enhancement of EFL learners’ reading comprehension skills but also their reading endeavor and knowledge. Keyword: KWL chart strategy, reading comprehension skills, EFL learners, library study, thematic analysis