Business School Students Research Articles

Caught in a Cognitive Trap? An Examination of Student Heuristics and Debiasing when Analyzing an Accounting Restatement Case Study

ABSTRACT Student evaluations and judgments of the accounting method used in the restatement of financial statements by a public company for channel stuffing are examined. In order to reduce any heuristics and biases that may have affected student judgments, a group brainstorming method was incorporated to supplement individual assessments made by the students. The case study was administered to 206 students in three student groups: non-degree, justice school, and business school students. Between-subjects' assessments of the accounting restatements show that justice school and business school students are more likely than non-degree students to disagree with the assessment that the restatement was appropriate. Similar results were obtained for accounting major students compared to non-accounting major students. Empirical evidence was also found for the presence of social identity bias between business school and justice school students' evaluation of sanctions. Implications on the use of behavioral techniques in accounting and ethics education are discussed.

Study to Assess Attitudes towards Statistics of Business School Students: An Application of the SATS-36 in India

Study to Assess Attitudes towards Statistics of Business School Students: An Application of the SATS-36 in India

Understanding Student Perceptions of the Value of Ethics Training

In this paper, we attempt to replicate and expand a set of studies conducted by Tormo-Carbó, Seguí-Mas, and Oltra and published in Journal of Business Ethics and Procedia (with Klimkiewicz) in 2016 by conducting an experiment focused on directly addressing similar but refined research questions and contradictory results from their set of studies using improved methodology and question construction. Tormo Carbó and co-authors engaged business school students in a survey of their orientation towards ethics learning and discussion and generally found that those who had taken a business ethics class were more likely to express interest in and an appreciation for ethics training, this result was not robust in across locations more time when further studies were conducted using similar methodology in new settings and with different students. Using a student sample of 653 respondents enrolled in two introductory business and economics courses, we explore the influence that short ethics learning exercises have on students' interest in and appreciation for ethics training. We find that students' interest in ethics training does not increase after exposure to short training opportunities. We further find these students do not indicate an increased willingness to engage in that training or express an increase in the belief that ethics training should be required in degree programs.

I Regret as My Family Fallows My Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy! Evidence from the Male Sample of an Emerging Economy (Pakistan)

Abstract Entrepreneurial activities require thoughtful and cumbersome efforts, positive and forward-looking upward spiral, and strong entrepreneurial intentions. Drawing from the work-family interface model, this study aims at investigating the impact of entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE) on venturing intentions through moderated mediation mechanisms of family support and regret. The data were collected from 335 male graduate students of business schools through questionnaires from public sector universities of Pakistan in two lags, because the participation of the labor force in Pakistan is primarily influenced by the demographical composition (i.e., Males), which is linked with cultural traits of the nation. The study used Hayes Macros to test the hypotheses. The findings of the study reveal that ESE positively influences intentions, while low family support reduces the effects of ESE. Low family support also increases the regret of not starting a business for those individuals who had high self-efficacy. A Moderated-mediation mechanism also exists among the variables of the interest. This study reports the effects of low family support and regrets on intentions in the short-run (i.e., four months interval), future studies should conduct longitudinal studies to understand the long-term relationship. Increasing unemployment in developing countries requires unique and timely solutions and entrepreneurship is the most viable one. But this study highlights an important considerations of family support while making policy decisions. The findings highlight that mere entrepreneurial self-efficacy is not enough, and due to collectivist culture the family norms have great impact on the entrepreneurial choices and intentions. This study examines the mechanism between ESE and entrepreneurial intentions considering anticipated regret as a mediating variable and family support as a conditional variable. This study is first of its kind that has linked family support, ESE, regret, and entrepreneurial intentions using the work-family interface. It explains how family support can enhance regret and the relationship between self-efficacy and intentions.

Examining Entrepreneurial Intention among Business School Students in Indonesia

Encouraging students to become entrepreneurs can help alleviate the problem of the increasing number of unemployed in Indonesia due to the limited number of jobs, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic. The main objective of this research is to find out what factors encourage students to become entrepreneurs. This research analyzes the effect of personal attitude, perceived behavioral control, and subjective norms on entrepreneurial intentions. An online survey was conducted to collect primary research data. The total number of respondents of this study was 251, who were students majoring in Management and Business in Banten Province, Indonesia. Models and hypotheses are tested using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). SEM was considered to be a proper means for this analysis because the interpretive structural model involves multiple-path linkages between variables. The results of this study indicate that personal attitude and perceived behavior have a positive significant influence on entrepreneurial intention, while a relationship between subjective norm and entrepreneurial, was found to be a non-significant

Are You Ready? Devising a Personal Strategy for Life After Business School

This note offers a set of strategic questions to help you formulate an effective personal plan that can be especially useful for your first years after business school. It draws on theories and principles of management strategy as well as wisdom from top business thinkers, leaders, and Darden MBA alumni. Excerpt UVA-S-0342 May 4, 2021 Are You Ready? Devising a Personal Strategy for Life After Business School As a business school student, you conduct strategy analyses of organizations on a regular basis. But have you ever created a thorough strategic plan for yourself? Personal and career goals are good starting points. Such objectives or visions, however, are not strategy. Just as an organization needs to identify what it needs to do to achieve a goal and compete in the marketplace as well as how to do it, you can benefit from taking time to articulate and integrate the “what” and “how” parts of your personal plan. An individual strategy offers a roadmap to help you reach your goals for a fulfilling life that balances the personal and professional spheres. . . .

Measuring the Impact of Online Education on Academic Performance Amid COVID-19 with the Moderating Effect of Instructor

The COVID-19 pandemic imposed a new order, another pace for humanity. More than ever, in pandemic times, education is called upon to be unique and to reinvent itself by seeking other possibilities through digital technologies in virtual learning environments. Therefore, it is essential to know the critical factors that affect academic performance during online education. This paper aims to present the effects of student characteristics, time management, and course load on online education. The main aim is to check the impact of online education on academic performance with the mediating effect of burnout and the moderating effect technology and instructor. The data was collected from 313 students of Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, and Peshawar's reputable business schools, namely, IoBM, IBA, SZABIST, LUMS, IQRA University, and Institute of Management Sciences, and the data was analysed using PLS-SEM and SPSS. The result suggested that time management, course load, and student characteristics significantly impact online education. The result also indicates that burnout does not mediate the relationship between online education and academic performance. This study also investigated the role of technology and instructors as moderators between online education and academic performance. The result shows that the instructor's role moderates the relationship, but technology has no impact on moderating this relationship.

Enhancing Business Schools’ Pedagogy on Sustainable Business Practices and Ethical Decision-Making

Business school curriculums are designed to improve business skills and a student’s eventual workplace performance. In addition to these business skill sets the emerging business environment demands softer skills associated with ethical decision-making and sustainable business practices. The objective of the study is to identify the key influencers of ethical orientation and attitudes towards the environment as a first critical step for curriculum planning designed to develop both ethical decision-making and environmental sensibilities of students in business schools. Using a bivariate regression analysis (OLS) that compared the established New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) scale and the newly introduced Ethical Orientation Scale (EOS), this study assesses environmental eco-consciousness and ethical orientation over time and across varying socio-demographic variables. The study shows first, that in addition to socio-cultural variables, situational factors influence ethical decision-making. Secondly, it illuminates that ethical orientations as measured by the EOS predicts beliefs about the environment as measured by the NEP scale. It further provides evidence of the ethical underpinnings of the New Ecological Paradigm as well as provides initial validation for the new EOS. These outcomes provide additional levers to assist business educators in the creation of high impact teaching strategies to measure and encourage ethical decision-making and sustainable business practices that protect the environment.

Can students’ perception of the diverse learning environment affect their intentions toward entrepreneurship?

Business schools play a major role in influencing students’ entrepreneurial intentions and behaviors. Although research linking entrepreneurship education with intentions is abundant, few studies have focused on the learning environment through the lens of diversity. This paper adopts the well-established theory of planned behavior (TPB) model to explore the impact of students’ perception of diverse learning environment on their intentions toward entrepreneurship. Using a quantitative approach, data was collected from 407 students in an international business school in France. The results show that students’ favorable perception of the respect their business schools show diversity positively influences the formation of their entrepreneurial intentions through the mediating effect of personal attitude toward entrepreneurship, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control. This study contributes to existing knowledge about learning environments and their impact on students’ entrepreneurial intentions. It enriches research based on the TPB model through integrating an unprecedented construct: the diverse learning environment. In practice, it informs academic practitioners and institutions about the need to capitalize on diversity to develop students’ entrepreneurial intentions and drive entrepreneurship.

In the Name of Merit: Ethical Violence and Inequality at a Business School

This study examines how meritocracy as a collective social imaginary promoting social justice and fairness reproduces class and caste inequalities and fosters ethical violence. We interrogate discourse of merit in the narratives of the professional–managerial class-in-making at an Indian business school. Empirically, we draw on interviews, full-text responses to a qualitative questionnaire, and a student’s poem. We describe how business school students articulate merit as a neoliberal ethic, emphasizing prudential, enterprising attitudes, and responsibility. However, this positive, aspirational facade of merit masks practices of ethical violence, wherein individuals invoke an ethical principle as grounds for moral condemnation and linguistic injuries. These practices of ethical violence desubjectify disadvantaged students and result in silence as a form of inequality. We contribute to organizational research on inequalities by foregrounding ethical violence and desubjectification. We detail the possibilities of discursive agency in contesting and interrupting ethical violence.

Using Mind Mapping Learning Methods for Children’s Language Skills

Language skills are significant predictors of early academic and social-emotional outcomes of children and are important predictors of school readiness. This study aims to improve children's language skills through the application of mind mapping learning methods. This classroom action research used Kemmis and Taggart's cycle model. The research subjects were 12 children in group B consisting of eight boys and four girls. The data was collected through observation, interviews, and documentation with the validity of the data using source triangulation and method triangulation. This research uses data analysis techniques in the form of data condensation, data presentation, and drawing conclusions. The results showed that the children's language skills through the application of the mind mapping method in the first cycle were 75%, and in the second cycle had increased to 92%. Based on the results of teacher observations in the implementation of cycle I, the children's language skills obtained a percentage value of 61.5%, and in cycle II increased to 92.3%. While the results of observations of children's activities in the implementation of the first cycle obtained a percentage of 54%, and in the second cycle, it increased to 85%. This study found that the teacher's assessment of this mind mapping method was an easy method to understand so that it was easy to apply in classroom learning. The implication of this research is that it is necessary to carry out further research on the application of the mind mapping method for other aspects of development.
 Keywords: Early Childhood, language Skills, Mind Mapping Learning Methods

Redefining peer learning: Role of student entrepreneurs in teaching entrepreneurship in the UK higher education context

Entrepreneurship-related modules have become increasingly popular over the years, not only among business school students but also among those from other disciplines, including engineering and the arts and humanities. In some circumstances, they are offered as optional modules for students across different faculties and disciplines. While it is beneficial to mix students with different backgrounds, bringing in a wide range of perspectives, there are also challenges relating to course design and student engagement. With these challenges in mind, the authors trialled a new approach in the hope of motivating students from diverse academic and socio-cultural backgrounds to engage more fully in the classroom by utilising student entrepreneurs as guest speakers. The student-centric approach has proved effective in enhancing student engagement, as evidenced by both informal and formal feedback.

A Private Equity Course

Currently, there is a widespread and strong demand for courses covering private equity funds. This pressure is understandable given that most students in business schools are seeking jobs in the private equity industry, and plenty of students in other fields also want to join. Private equity funds grew from managing about $5 billion in 1980, to about $500 billion in 2000, to about $5 trillion in 2016, and are nearing $10 trillion as of 2020. This growth has exceeded that of any other financial products. In addition, in the US alone, nearly 10 million people work for a company controlled by a private equity fund. Finally, this industry is home to a stockpile of mythologies, war-stories and fantasies, all shrouded in complex jargon, making the need for education yet more pressing. This private equity course attempts to assist students on their quest to become fluent in the private market language and techniques. This up-to-date, authoritative, and non-complacent course builds on twenty years of academic research and teaching in this field, with the contribution of practitioners who intervene as guest speakers and tutors. The course textbook, “Private Equity Laid Bare” (v3.0, 381 pages) is affordable, especially as it includes five case studies, of which two role plays, and a specialised dictionary (Alternative Oxford Private Equity Dictionary). A companion podcast series also provide a body of asynchronous material free of charge.

An Examination of Intragroup Process in Service-Learning Teams

Small group work performed in the context of university service-learning projects has been seen as a vehicle well-suited to teaching students about group dynamics and how to work on real world problems as members of a team. Little research, however, has focused on the intragroup processes involved in service-learning. The present study was conducted in the context of a service-learning project in which twenty groups of four to five university business school students taught continuation high school students a series of lessons regarding life skills such as goal setting and career readiness. The lesson planning sessions of the university students were video recorded and the videos were then analyzed for patterns of utterances by group participants (questions; instructions; suggestions; etc.) that occurred during the sessions. An iterative process of coding and recoding was employed to capture each behavior for further study. The results suggest that the groups engaged in a surprising level of meaningful collaboration, with leadership shared among group members, and little evidence of individual dominance of groups, or conflict between students.

A Business Communication Assessment Tool Based on Workplace Assessment Processes and Service-Learning

The instructor developed an assessment tool based on Service-Learning (S-L) for developing business and professional communication (BPC) skills in business school students in India ( N = 117). The students practiced their organizational, leadership, and interpersonal communication skills in an authentic, contextual, and workplace atmosphere during this S-L assessment project. The effectiveness of the assessment tool has been studied with a posttest and then pretest. The need for an innovative and holistic BPC skills assessment tool is discussed. The article also presents implications of the project for students and pedagogy along with the challenges in using the assessment project.

Determinants of accounting students’ undergraduate learning satisfaction

AbstractThis paper examines factors that influence the learning satisfaction of business school students in general and accounting students in particular. Guided by both the literature and the findings from a series of eight focus group sessions involving 43 university undergraduates, a research instrument capable of examining factors associated with student learning satisfaction was designed. Survey responses from 548 students generated seven factors of student satisfaction, with students attributing high importance to all seven factors. It was further found that gender and student major moderated the relationship between the seven factors and students’ reported learning satisfaction.

Draw your organization! A solution-focused theory-method for business school challenges and change

PurposeThis study aims to present a solution-focused approach to current problems and criticisms faced by business schools.Design/methodology/approachTo facilitate the required shift from problems to solutions, this study outlines a theory method and demonstrates how it has informed my teaching at Financial Times (FT)-ranked business schools and other institutions of higher education in two subjects and on three continents.FindingsThe study reports on two student exercises showing that even advanced business school students confuse organizations with political economic hierarchies.Originality/valueThe study concludes that business schools pursuing a smart specialization strategy by challenging this reductionist view may turn into new schools of management distinguished by a broader, multifunctional concept of themselves and their impact on their environment.

Examining continuance intention in business schools with digital classroom methods during COVID-19: a comparative study of India and Italy

ABSTRACT This study investigates and compares the continuance intention of full-time business school students and faculty in India and Italy who moved from traditional pedagogy style to the digital classroom due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The study integrates the Expectation Confirmation Model (ECM) and Task-Technology Fit (TTF) to examine their continuance intention. Survey data was collected from 396 business school students and 130 faculty members from India and Italy and analysed using SmartPLS 3 software. The study found that perceived usefulness, satisfaction, and task-technology fit significantly impact the continuance intentions of students and faculty. Multigroup analysis of students indicates that Italian students are more driven by task-technology fit as compared to Indian students in their continuance intention; in comparison, Indian students rely more on gaining experience and knowhow on technology. Finally, the multigroup study of faculty suggests that Italian educators have a comparatively stronger orientation towards the fit between digital classroom technology and a portfolio of related tasks. In comparison, their Indian counterparts rely more on the perceived usefulness of technology. The strength of relationship between task-technology fit and continuance intention is comparatively lower for faculty as compared to students in both countries. Finally, implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Framing a model for green buying behavior of Indian consumers: From the lenses of the theory of planned behavior

The world faces continuous environmental degradation because of extreme industrialization, construction, and overexploitation of natural resources. This degradation has started to create consciousness and attitude towards pro-environmental buying and consumption. Green consumer behavior has gained significant research attention world-wide attributed to its ability to reduce environmental damage. Thus, this research explores the extended model based on the theory of planned behavior (TPB) and the value-attitude-behavior hierarchy in Indian demography. Environmental and health awareness is used as a human value (internal indirect variable) in the extended TPB model. This study administered a cross-sectional survey on the corporate executive, executive MBA students, and regular MBA students of Indian top business schools and firms. Models are validated, and hypotheses tested using variance-based structured equation modeling on the 350+ clean collected sample. The studies’ outcome reflected the non-linear relationship between the independent variables and dependent variables (green buying behavior) of the modified theory of planned behavior (TPB) model. Perceived behavioral control is found as an important independent factor compelling Indian consumers towards green buying behavior. The modified TPB model also gave considerable outcomes in the Indian demography. Government organizations and corporate shall use the results to inculcate more buying behavior among Indian consumers.

Gender and entrepreneurial propensity: risk-taking and prosocial preferences in labour market entry decisions

PurposeThis study aims to examine gender differences in risk-taking and prosociality through a hypothetical labour market entry choice experiment.Design/methodology/approachTo explore differences between male and female subjects by risk levels and framing effects, a labour market entry choice task that manipulated risk conditions was administered to business school students whereby subjects chose between a managerial job at a company, starting a commercial business or starting a social enterprise. The experimental design isolated and tested the influence of the type of value creation, risk propensity and framing effects. The results were then statistically analysed to test for significant differences between the two gender groups.FindingsResults indicate that in low-risk conditions women prefer the prosocial entrepreneurial option while men opt for purely commercial entrepreneurial activities. As risk increases, differences between men and women initially converge and then reverse under conditions of extreme risk, where men select the social entrepreneurial choice at a higher rate than women.Research limitations/implicationsThe research was conducted within the single country context of Peru and carried out using a specific subset of potential entrepreneurs (i.e. business school students). Second and related, the experimental labour entry task was hypothetical. Whether decisions would hold if business school students faced an actual occupational choice remains open to further investigation.Practical implicationsThe practical implication of the paper suggests that Peruvian business school students react differently towards potential labour market opportunities depending on their gender. Perhaps, because of gender biases common in the Latin American context, women appear to respond more positively to low-risk prosocial opportunities. However, as risk increases, contextual factors appear to become less important and reveal core sets of prosocially anchored men and commercially anchored women.Originality/valueThis research provides new insights into risk-taking and prosocial differences between men and women facing labour entry decisions, especially in a developing country context with strong gender norms, and is particularly useful to those with an interest in entrepreneurial propensity and in the identification and development of entrepreneurial women.