Teaching innovation in the studies of Business Bachelor under the European Space for Higher Education

Resumen basado en el de la publicaciónTítulo, resumen y palabras clave también en inglésSe describe una actividad integradora de conocimientos denominada “La Fábrica de Dados” realizada a partir de una actividad de simulación empresarial llevada a cabo con alumnos de tercer y cuarto curso de la Licenciatura en Administración y Dirección de Empresas de una universidad española y otra chipriota. El objetivo es integrar el conocimiento teórico adquiridos a lo largo de la carrera y contribuir a la adquisición y desarrollo de diferentes competencias necesarias para lograr el éxito en el mundo profesional entre los alumnos, tales como el trabajo en equipo, gestión de la información, planificación, innovación, creatividad y responsabilidad, entre otras. Sin embargo, también se pretendió que la actividad docente propuesta contribuyese a minimizar el efecto de los inhibidores de aprendizaje entre los estudiantes universitarios. Para contrastarlo, 392 estudiantes participaron en la actividad y completaron dos cuestionarios semi-estructurados (antes y después de participar en “La Fábrica de Dados”). Los excelentes resultados obtenidos tras analizar los estadísticos descriptivos y el contraste de medias relacionadas confirman la idoneidad de “La Fábrica de Dados” a nivel docente.ES

MANAGING CHANGE: THE PRIVATE UNIVERSITY SECTOR IN CYPRUS, OPERATIONS WITHIN THE EUROPEAN CONTEXT. A CASE STUDY

Abstract Keywords: Change Management, Business Administration, Higher Education, Case Study Introduction Organizations worldwide are confronting with more turbulent, more demanding times and shareholders, less time to act and more astute "customers", hence many are restructuring their business to meet at least these challenges. The only question mark is on how much time and change dependent are such requirements and which is the sustainable effect foreseen on the education industry as a whole. Sustainable growth in private business has always relayed on the restructuring of the business strategies utilized and on the recovery of the investment and consumption markets. As this latest crisis was an over-consumption-overspending-overleveraging related one, the way to tackle such sustainable growth requires focused socio-economic and financial skills, but in essence, the long term indirect engine is the continuous adaptation to change in all sectors of the economy and now more then ever, in the education system reformation. In this perspective, the private Universities sector in Cyprus is now operating within a very competitive and highly regulated European environment. The existing private Universities have acted under a much simpler college type organizational structure and have had to face the inevitable changes brought about by a new economic environment. The fact that since 2004 Cyprus has become a member of the European Union has changed the general setup of the problem, since nowadays more then 53% of students study in the EU. (Cyrpus in the EU Scale, 2008.) Within this general context, private Universities had to develop and adapt to the new demanding regulations that govern the operations of a university teaching and research typ

MANAGING CHANGE: THE PRIVATE UNIVERSITY SECTOR IN CYPRUS, OPERATIONS WITHIN THE EUROPEAN CONTEXT. A CASE STUDY

Our case study attempts to show the manner by which change has been introduced and dealt within the Business School of a private Cypriot University, the European University Cyprus. Then it tries to demonstrate if the success of the change process has its roots in the history of the organization and its representative strategies as per the theoretical framework of the literature review. Out of the main study results it emerges that it is the trust placed on the organization by the management, the staff and the student body that can bring high standards of education to the change process along with the acceptance for process and embedded innovation. At the other end, there are still strong drawbacks that hider change management to its full positive results. These reside mostly the inequalities, the social contract issues and keeping promises

Where to? -- The EU unemployment post crisis

The paper combines under a literature review, secondary and tertiary data analysis, a unique construct of three perspectives: the new classical macroeconomics theory related to unemployment, a finance approach of the relationship with exchange rates and the legal repercussions of the social policy drawn by the latest Lisbon Treaty. When comparing the strong evidence of similar reactions following the recent 2007-2010 financial crisis with the post crisis situation of 1973, EU's performance looks always unfavourable compared to the one of the US. One of the reasons presented is the EU's four-folded modular pattern in social and political policies compared to a relatively unitary one across the Atlantic. Despite evidence of similar reactions, the difference between the two worlds regards a certain degree of inability to understand the core of the problem economically, socially and politically, leading to failure to find the appropriate applicable social policies towards economic success.unemployment, migration, market rigidities, financial crises, macroeconomic indicators, EU, European Union, classical macroeconomics, exchange rates, legal repercussions, social policies, Lisbon, treaties, international agreements, post crisis situations, USA, United States, four-folded patterns, political policies, modular patterns, politics, unitary patterns, economic success, global business, economics, finance,

Bank shares restore under recent industry bailouts

This paper structures ten effective implications/lessons of the most recent bank bailouts of 2007-2009 in the Western economy model when analysing actual shareholders' value retrenchment or growth opportunities. The author finds that recent bank bailouts relate to: global bailout interconnections, economic downturn and liquidity boost, abnormal returns, efficiency recovery, evade social costs, new opportunities for M&A, new risk management applications, opportunistic investors and eventually patience. The novelty of the paper resides not in calculating ratios and interpreting them, but rather to looking more into some interesting strategic moves used to boost shareholders' value. We recommend shareholders to grasp opportunities for bargains from bailout banks, get more knowledge about the issue and still harvest their existing investments. Eventually, we advise the management of both government and financial institutions on the choice for reasoning bank bailouts, providing some critical thinking views and raise important research questions to both investors and academics.shareholder value; banks; banking; bailouts; consolidation; mergers; acquisitions; financial crises; social responsibility; corporate responsibility; bank shares; Western economy; global interconnections; globalisation; economic downturns; liquidity boosts; abnormal returns; efficiency recovery; cost evasion; social costs; new opportunities; risk management; opportunistic investors; opportunism; patience; ratios; bargains; share issues; investments; entrepreneurs; entrepreneurship; entrepreneurialism; relations management; relationships; value creation; sustainable development; sustainability.

The fiscal cliff and the Robin Hood eurozone crisis

In a world of polarized politics that is symbiotic with the decisions of policy-making organizations, during, post, and in the transition from the recent economic and financial crises, more emphasis is foreseen in the remaining tools to combat the sluggish growth, the banks’ cash excess, the low inflation and the hiccupping interest rates in the financial markets. By resorting to a trio of economic tools (taxation, interest rates, and inflation) to invigorate economy growth and protect from further financial risk dispersion, this article’s hypothesis is whether to tax the banks’ profits directly, thus affecting the pricing of their products as well as their economic growth, or indirectly by asking to hold higher capital adequacy ratios or in taxing their borrowing and then bails them out or bail them from within