iLEAP: An Intercultural Leadership Pilgrimage for Young Adults (Age 18-24)

The opportunity addressed in this research is to create an effective leadership capacity-building experience equipping young adults (18-24 years old) to practice justice, equity, reconciliation, and perseverance while positively impacting society in Lebanon and Oregon. iLEAP: An Intercultural Leadership Pilgrimage for Young Adults, is the result. My research has revealed that young adults want a learning environment that supports the cultivation of positive self-identity, meaningful connection with others, and agency. They want to develop cross-cultural friendships and collaborations and want to be equipped for effectively working with difference. Additionally, they want to cultivate visioning skills that lead to discerning and implementing practical, transformational projects which incarnate the gospel values of justice, equity, reconciliation, and perseverance in their context. Simultaneously, they believe that mental health challenges may create a barrier to them successfully doing so. Thus, integrating trauma resiliency skills will also be highlighted. Since July 2013 I have been serving in the role of Regional Liaison to Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and the Gulf States on behalf of the Presbyterian Church (USA). This research and the resulting project were motivated by what I have learned from the practice of bridging between cultures. My focus for iLEAP in this project is designing year-one of the three-year pilgrimage with a summary of what year-two and year-three will hold. Year-one includes twenty-six weekly sessions. It is a cohort based experiential learning environment. The goal is for participants to become globally aware citizens with skills in the areas of intercultural competency, leadership, entrepreneurship, advocacy, and peacebuilding competencies used in service of discerning, designing, and implementing transformative initiatives in their local contexts. Students 18-25 from Lebanon and Oregon will participate in a variety of learning activities focused on developing their cultural competency and leadership shaped by these four values—justice, equity, reconciliation, and perseveranc

Instructional technology portfolio (PDF)

Demonstrates the author's knowledge of and background in the field of instructional technolog

Improving U.S. Expatriate Success in Mexico: A Case Study Incorporating The Host Country Manager Perspective

Expatriate assignments are a main tool for multinational enterprises (MNEs) to open new operations and execute their strategies in international markets. However, such assignments are expensive and have a high failure rate (Johnson et al., 2006; Lin et al., 2012). Furthermore, the impact of failed assignments can result in significant negative impact beyond the assignment\u27s direct cost. Mexico is one of the countries with the highest number of US expatriates (InterNations, 2022) partly due to its significant trade with the US. Most of the existing literature concentrates on how selection and training can improve the success of the expatriate throughout the expatriate journey from the perspective of the expatriate manager and the Multinational Enterprises (MNE) (Jones et al., 2014; Romero, 2002). US MNEs can greatly benefit from increasing the success of US expatriates. A case study methodology was used to study a US MNE operating in Mexico by interviewing host country managers that work with US expatriates. The context of the study is the US expatriate in Mexico, the case is the US MNE, and the unit of analysis is each interviewed host county manager in Mexico. This work aspires to expand existing theory and theoretical frameworks on expatriate assignment success by introducing the voice of the host country manager throughout the expatriate journey. The study has practical applications for MNEs trying to maximize their international expatriate investments to execute or advance their strategies and/or develop global managers

EthnoQuest: An interactive multimedia simulation for cultural anthropology fieldwork

EthnoQuest, an interactive multimedia CD-ROM simulating a visit to a fictional village named Amopan, was conceived as an adjunct to college-level classroom instruction in introductory anthropology courses. Since these classes typically involve large numbers of students, the logistics on conducting actual fieldwork pose serious problems for instructors and students alike. The conception of an engaging, interactive, accessible learning tool that incorporates appropriate pedagogical principles has found its ultimate expression in EthnoQuest

Exploring the experiences of instructors teaching massive open online courses in tourism and hospitality: a mixed methods approach

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have existed as a disruptive educational phenomenon for nine years. Grounded in the roots of distance education, open education, Open Educational Resources, and OpenCourseWare, MOOCs have now survived various critics and have continued growing globally. Reports about MOOCs in both the press and scholarly publications began to grow significantly in 2013 (Sánchez-Vera, Leon Urrutia, & Davis, 2015; Zancanaro & Domingues, 2017) and, since then, more and more researchers have joined the discussions, developing them to explore various new topics. To contribute to the literature of MOOC studies, this doctoral thesis begins with an in-depth analysis of the background, history, growth, and vision, and proposes a tentative definition of MOOCs. Meanwhile, by conducting bibliometric research to review MOOC studies conducted between 2015 and 2017, this thesis fills in the gap that has existed due to a lack of systematic reviews of MOOC literature since 2015. The results of the bibliometric research summarised the relevant MOOC research into nine categories, including learner focused, commentary and concepts, case reports or evaluations, pedagogy, curriculum and design, course object focused, provider focused, technology, systematic review of literature, and learning analytics and big data. They also suggested a limited amount of provider focused research, which became the research interest and focus of this thesis. In the centre of the Europe, Swiss universities have marched forward in the MOOC movement, together with other over 550 universities (Shah, 2016) around the world. Università della Svizzera italiana (USI; Lugano, Switzerland), a Swiss public university, became a MOOC provider in 2015 and offered the first MOOC in the topic of eTourism: eTourism: Communication Perspectives. This doctoral thesis is closely related to this university-level initiative, which was dedicated to producing the first pilot MOOC at USI. Therefore, the cases chosen by this thesis are positioned in the discipline of tourism and hospitality. The first MOOC with a large audience taught artificial intelligence in 2011 (Zancanaro & Domingues, 2017). Nowadays, MOOCs have broken the barrier of space and time to educate the masses in a wide range of subjects. However, the provision of MOOCs in the subject of tourism and hospitality did not appear until 2013, when two MOOCs from two American universities became available. In the past four years since these MOOCs were launched, the number of tourism and hospitality MOOCs available in the market has remained limited (Tracey, Murphy, & Horton-Tognazzini, 2016). This scarcity contradicts the fact that tourism and hospitality is the field that contributes the most to the employment of the global workforce. Pressing problems, such as high turnover, seasonality, and new global challenges have urged for solutions to quickly training people working in this area to become available (Cantoni, Kalbaska, & Inversini, 2009). A call for more studies about tourism and hospitality MOOCs has emerged. The combined reality of the lack of studies regarding MOOC providers, opportunities for first-hand experience of producing a tourism MOOC in a university, and the deficiency in both the research and practises of tourism and hospitality MOOCs has inspired the direction of this thesis in regard to exploring MOOC instructors’ experiences, using cases in the field of tourism and hospitality. It cumulates six studies, using a mixed methods approach, to tackle the two main research objectives: to investigate at large the tourism and hospitality MOOC provisions between 2008 and 2015 and to report the experiences of Università della Svizzera italiana (USI) when producing the eTourism MOOC. In order, the first two studies in Chapter 3 of this thesis focus on tourism and hospitality MOOCs in general and produce a big picture context for the other four studies in Chapter 4. The first study proposes a conceptual framework through which to describe and analyse the course design of a MOOC and applies it to 18 tourism and hospitality MOOCs produced between 2008 and 2015. The second study then continues to interview six tourism and hospitality MOOC instructors, to describe their experiences and perspectives of teaching MOOCs. After exploring a holistic view of the overall development of MOOCs in tourism and hospitality and gaining a deep understanding of the instructors behind these offerings, this thesis introduces the experiences of one single MOOC provider: Università della Svizzera italiana (USI) in Chapter 4. It first introduces its overall implementation process (Study 3), and further elaborates three phases of this process: how it selected a suitable MOOC platform at the beginning (Study 4); how it assessed learner engagement in the MOOC (Study 5); and, eventually, how it evaluated the performance of the MOOC (Study 6). This thesis was written mainly from the perspective of eLearning, with the intention of benefiting its community of scholars and practitioners. It has contributed to the literature by developing a framework with which to review MOOCs (in Study 1), the implementation process of producing MOOCs (in Study 2), practical review schema of MOOC platforms (in Study 4), the MOOC Learner Engagement Online Survey (in Study 5), and how to use the Kirkpatrick model to evaluate MOOCs (in Study 6). These conceptual frameworks and experiential tools can benefit future researchers and practitioners. Meanwhile, due to its intimate connection with the field of tourism and hospitality, by directly using its cases, the research outputs of the six studies can also benefit the tourism and hospitality education and training sector as a reference for further action

Searching for New Landscapes

“Searching for New Landscapes” ventures beyond familiar environments to explore new territories in graphic design. By changing our environment and patterns, looking at things anew with a fresh perspective, and transforming the tools we use, we can spark new insights and catalyze evolution for growth. This study proposes getting away from known environments and breaking existing habits by responding instinctively and rapidly to unexpected prompts. The collected works and writing underpin the importance of thinking flexibly with a lighthearted “why not?” attitude and looking at things beyond existing definitions. These methodologies are further applied to the action of teaching, to create spaces that empower students to push beyond the traditional boundaries of their discipline. As a present continuous, “Searching for New Landscapes” keeps seeking ways to discover new horizons

Assessing Authentically – Learnings From Marketing Educators

This paper demonstrates the importance and role of authentic assessments, that replicate industry practice, within Higher Education marketing programmes. We answer the call from employers, that students need to gain much-needed employability skills, and we illustrate how such assessments can be created to enable the development of employability skills. We provide an overview of four case studies, to illustrate different forms of authentic assessments, the theory which was used to underpin the designs, the skills developed during the assessments, and the outcomes of the assessments. As we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced a move to online assessments, it is timely that we reflect on the value of authentic assessments and adjust our practice

Corporate mobility: Impacts on life domains and implications for work-life balance of international business travelers and expatriates

In my dissertation I aim to explore the impacts of work-related mobility on job, family life and personal well-being of the travelling employees. To do so, three studies have been conducted with the purpose to investigate business travel behavioral patterns and impacts of work-related mobility on various life domains of the three segments, namely frequent corporate business travelers, expatriates and travelling academics, for whom the issues of travel stress and work-life balance are of great relevance. The first study focuses on the analysis of business travel impacts, both positive and negative ones, on the professional and private life of the 'road warriors', investigating the role of frequent work-related journeys in deteriorating work-life balance of the travelling employees. Having analyzed benefits and downsides of frequent business trips I address the possibility to enhance travel experience and improve employees' satisfaction and work productivity by means of providing travelers with the option to get involved into leisure life of visited destinations. The second paper examines factors that determine the degree of psychological success of expatriates and their satisfaction with international assignments overall, analyzing a wide array of variables from job, family and personal life domains. The research addresses the expatriation theme from the side of international assignees, providing implications for HRM departments directed towards improvement of expatriation experience. The last study sheds light on travel behavior of academics, investigating modes of travel and types of work-related trips undertaken by university employees, along with their attitude to travel and the influence of business trips on their work-life balance. The research demonstrates which trip features, work and non-work variables, as well as socio-demographic characteristics do matter when it comes to satisfaction with travel. The results of the afore-mentioned studies are relevant in terms of both theoretical contributions to the under-researched field of business travel, as well as practical implications. Apart from adding to the existing knowledge in the mobility field, the research outcomes demonstrate the necessity to carefully manage manifold aspects of business travel and expatriation in order to improve satisfaction of mobile employees with their trips of shorter or longer duration. In particular, the research sheds some light on work-life balance issues connected with travel, contributing to 'work-private life' conflict elimination and highlighting the crucial role of organizations in solving the existing problems