Do business games foster skills? A cross-cultural study from learners’ views

Purpose: This study seeks to analyse students’ perception of the effectiveness of business games as an e-learning method in management training. This analysis of games’ effectiveness is centred in the generic and managerial skills acquired, through the comparison of students’ opinions in different cultural contexts within Europe. Design/methodology: The analysis focuses on 120 management students at postgraduate level who use the same business game at different universities in five European countries: Spain, Ireland, Portugal, Italy and Germany. Findings: The results indicate that students positively assessed the generic and specific managerial skills fostered by the business game. The generic skills most valued were information and decision-making, and leadership. Regarding the specific skills, the most valued were management skills and the least valued, skills related to planning and the acquisition of theoretical knowledge. However, significant differences were found between students in different cultural contexts and education systems in the case of certain specific managerial skills. Practical implications: This finding suggests that the students’ perception of how a business game helps them acquire specific managerial skills is influenced by cultural aspects and previous exposure to experiential learning, which determine that the teachers’ role and the teaching process should be adapted to the students’ learning model. Originality/value: With this study, a better knowledge about the students’ perception of this e-learning method is obtained, not just considering a specific educational environment, but comparing opinions of students from different cultural contexts, which adds value to the analyses developed.Peer Reviewe

Peripherality and proximity. Do business support services matter?

This essay is based on empirical evidence from the case of Tuscany (Italy) and follows previous work on the role and meaning of image in regional development and innovation policies (Bellini, 2004). Discussions about image and branding policies is usually placed in the framework of "place marketing" and marketing literature helps in defining the features, components and main characters of image and of its relationship with local identity. We suggest, however, that managing images is also a political process with significant impact in supporting and shaping the scenario (perceptions and expectations) for innovation policies. In fact this process implies a competition between images in order to "control" the representation of the past, present and future of an area. This competition aims at influencing the policy agenda by manipulating the gap between image and identity. In other words, we suggest that image-related policies should be considered part of the toolbox of a modern innovation policy.

New Policies for the New Economy

Clusters worden gevormd door cross-sectorale (verticale en/of laterale) netwerken en bevatten onderling verschillende en complementaire ondernemingen, die gespecialiseerd zijn rond een specifieke link of gemeenschappelijke kennisbasis in de waardeketen. In deze paper wordt een overzicht gepresenteerd van de verschillende cluster methodologie?n en -analyses alsmede van de bestaande cluster gebaseerde beleidsinitiatieven. Op basis hiervan wordt geconcludeerd dat clusters geen fenomeen van voorbijgaande aard zijn. De opkomende netwerkeconomie leidt tot hechtere, intensere, en meer langdurige relaties tussen ondernemingen onderling en tussen ondernemingen en overheidsorganisaties. Het clusterconcept raakt de kern van dit nieuwe paradigma en maakt het mogelijk dit op een coherente en systematische wijze te begrijpen

A Bibliometric Analysis of Domestic and International Research on Cognitive Interpreting Studies

This bibliometric analysis examines domestic and international core journal articles to map the thematic contours and overall development of cognitive interpreting studies (CIS) over the past two decades. Data were obtained from central databases, including China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Taiwan Humanities and Social Sciences Citation Index, Translation Studies Bibliography, Web of Science, and EBSCO. Visualized network maps generated by CiteSpace and traditional literature review provided multidimensional insights into research hotspots and frontiers, as evidenced by co-word frequencies, h-indices, citation counts, publication years, institutional distributions, authorship, and other metrics. Differences in philosophical paradigms, theoretical perspectives, methodologies, and research techniques are highlighted. Research has mostly focused on interpreting pedagogy, language comprehension, working memory, and interpreter capabilities. Looking ahead, fMRI studies, corpus-based analyses, eye-tracking experiments, and inquiries into simultaneous interpretation and sign language interpreting may emerge as new research trends in CIS. Current gaps point to strategies and recommendations for future inquiries to advance this burgeoning field

Information Literacy Trends in Higher Education (2006-2019): Visualizing the Emerging Field of Mobile Information Literacy

The thematic evolution of research on Mobile Information Literacy (MoIL) between 2006 and 2019 in the field of Information Literacy, learning and mobile technologies is analysed in an international context. For this purpose, the relevant bibliographic references from five databases (ERIC, LISA, LISTA, Scopus and WOS) were retrieved. To systematize the keywords, high dimensionality is reduced by means of a term-based process. Fields, topics, sub-topics and top terms are defined. The main top-terms and their relationships are analysed applying the fractional counting methodology using VOSViewer software. Fifteen major themes were set, which were grouped into six clusters to identify the main thematic trends during the period under review: IL & e-learning, Mobile devices & competencies, Ethics, Library & e-resources, Educational technology and Technological environment. The convergence of IL and elearning, the growth of e-literacy, the increasing relationship between mobile devices and information competencies, as well as that of libraries and e-resources, are thus detected. In conclusion, there is evidence of a growing interdisciplinarity in the scientific publications on Mobile Information Literacy, which interrelates the studies of information and digital literacy with e-learning and mobile technologies

Computing Competencies for Undergraduate Data Science Curricula: ACM Data Science Task Force

At the August 2017 ACM Education Council meeting, a task force was formed to explore a process to add to the broad, interdisciplinary conversation on data science, with an articulation of the role of computing discipline-specific contributions to this emerging field. Specifically, the task force would seek to define what the computing/computational contributions are to this new field, and provide guidance on computing-specific competencies in data science for departments offering such programs of study at the undergraduate level. There are many stakeholders in the discussion of data science – these include colleges and universities that (hope to) offer data science programs, employers who hope to hire a workforce with knowledge and experience in data science, as well as individuals and professional societies representing the fields of computing, statistics, machine learning, computational biology, computational social sciences, digital humanities, and others. There is a shared desire to form a broad interdisciplinary definition of data science and to develop curriculum guidance for degree programs in data science. This volume builds upon the important work of other groups who have published guidelines for data science education. There is a need to acknowledge the definition and description of the individual contributions to this interdisciplinary field. For instance, those interested in the business context for these concepts generally use the term “analytics”; in some cases, the abbreviation DSA appears, meaning Data Science and Analytics. This volume is the third draft articulation of computing-focused competencies for data science. It recognizes the inherent interdisciplinarity of data science and situates computing-specific competencies within the broader interdisciplinary space

Experiencing higher education, transitions and the graduate labour market: the non-traditional student perspective: book of abstracts

In the last three courses 2014-15, 2015-15 and 2016-17, Integration of Contents and English has been implemented at the Faculty of Sciences of Education in University of Malaga (Spain), specifically in Primary Education Studies. The initiative corresponds to the continuity of bilingualism that in the Spanish Education Normative and Curriculum begins with Child schools, continuing in Secondary and High Schools. Consequently, Education Faculty is involved in the preparation of future professional teachers, who not only will be an interpreter teacher with a degree in languages, but with knowledge and content related to the different areas of learning and teaching. That is the reason why Social Sciences Education area is researching in using CLIL and sharing didactic strategies like poster seasons among classroom groups or Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) within different city Institutions as Malaga Museum Picasso, developing the need of being students and citizens part of the scaffolding learning in Higher Studies. Therefore, internationalizing territories in the University, city/town and its Museums will be a goal when talking about innovation for internationalizing employability and entrepreneurship.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Increasing competitiveness of the construction sector by adopting innovative clustering

Companies in today's world need to become and stay competitive. This means, among other things, that they have to create new ideas and turn them into innovative products and processes. Appropriate innovation management strategies, including creation of various kinds of alliances with other business entities, need to be adopted within the company. Clustering is one of such possibilities. The paper discusses the main features of clusters and the benefits for their members; in addition, it identifies specific features of the construction sector that require specific approaches to establish a cluster.\ud The methodology Innovative Cluster Model with 3x3x3 mail elements (ICM333) is proposed and used to initiate and develop a cluster in the construction sector. In the cluster development three stages are identified: emergence, development and maturity of the cluster. Actions associated with these three stages tackle four areas (in each stage): rationale, organization, resources, and implementation. All areas are thoroughly elaborated and discussed in the paper. In the first step, the emerging cluster, the key element is identification, assessment and dissemination of development opportunities. It can run parallel with the cluster initiation, which is followed by the operation. Within the steps to be taken in the stage of the developing cluster, visions nad the goals have to be defined first, followed by the definition of the cluster organisation. The mature cluster stage has to focus on performance measurement and management, and take appropriate measures to garantee its sustainability and adequate innovative character.\ud Implementation of the proposed cluster development methodology has the potential of greatly facilitating the betterment of a construction sector in a particular country. It can be a valuable tool, when available to policymakers, chambers of commerce and trade, and other stakeholders that wish to foster the development of such clusters.\ud The paper reports on the results of the 7th Framework project FP7-REGIONS-2007-1 RegCon – Support Action for Innovation Driven Clusters in Construction.\u

Towards a framework for the evaluation of policies of cluster upgrading and innovation

In the current scenario, a large and growing number of policies for local development and cluster upgrading explicitly incorporate the idea of innovation as a systemic process, embedded in specific socio-cultural and institutional contexts and intermingled with international challenges, opportunities, and strategies. These policies bring new challenges to the activities of analysis and evaluation: despite the diffusion of a systemic approach both in innovation thinking and in innovation policies, a proper system-based framework for the analysis and evaluation of these policies is far from being achieved (Bellandi and Caloffi, 2010). Trying to advance our reflection on this field, we propose some exemplifications on a quite delimited set of contexts, i.e. those of industrial districts (Italian, in particular), characterized by SMEs clusters facing contemporary globalization challenges. Focusing on innovation policies aimed at supporting functional upgrading of districts and clusters soaked in changing international filières and value chains, the paper discusses the meaning of evaluation of industrial policies when a systemic perspective is considered. On such premises a couple of exemplifications are illustrate some features of appropriate evaluation methods. Finally, some methodological aspects concerning the design process of evaluation activities are discussed.Evaluation of policies; systemic approaches to evaluation; innovation and cluster policies; industrial districts