The impact of learning outcomes in business education: assessing value, relevance and graduate ability in a multi-country study of employers and business graduates

This paper discusses critical findings from a two-year EU-funded research project involving four European countries: Austria, England, Slovenia and Romania. The project had two primary aims. The first of these was to develop a systematic procedure for assessing the balance between learning outcomes acquired in education and the specific needs of the labour market. The second aim was to develop and test a set of meta-level quality indicators aimed at evaluating the linkages between education and employment. The project was distinctive in that it combined different partners from Higher Education, Vocational Training, Industry and Quality Assurance. One of the key emergent themes identified in exploratory interviews was that employers and recent business graduates in all four countries want a well-rounded education which delivers a broad foundation of key business knowledge across the various disciplines. Both groups also identified the need for personal development in critical skills and competencies. Following the exploratory study, a questionnaire was designed to address five functional business areas, as well as a cluster of 8 business competencies. Within the survey, questions relating to the meta-level quality indicators assessed the impact of these learning outcomes on the workplace, in terms of the following: 1) value, 2) relevance and 3) graduate ability. This paper provides an overview of the study findings from a sample of 900 business graduates and employers. Two theoretical models are proposed as tools for predicting satisfaction with work performance and satisfaction with business education. The implications of the study findings for education, employment and European public policy are discussed.

The brain in business:the case for organizational cognitive neuroscience?

The application of cognitive neuroscientific techniques to understanding social behaviour has resulted in many discoveries. Yet advocates of the ‘social cognitive neuroscience’ approach maintain that it suffers from a number of limitations. The most notable of these is its distance from any form of real-world applicabity. One solution to this limitation is ‘Organisational Cognitive Neuroscience’ – the study of the cognitive neuroscience of human behaviour in, and in response to, organizations. Given that all of us will spend most of our lives in some sort of work related organisation, organisational cognitive neuroscience allows us to examine the cognitive underpinnings of social behaviour that occurs in what may be our most natural ecology. Here we provide a brief overview of this approach, a definition and also some possible questions that the new approach would be best suited to address.

Adoption of electronic commerce tools in business procurement:enhanced buying center structure and processes

Modern procurement is being shifted from paper-based, people-intensive buying systems toward electronic-based purchase procedures that rely on Internet communications and Web-enhanced buying tools. Develops a typology of e-commerce tools that have come to characterize cutting-edge industrial procurement. E-commerce aspects of purchasing are organized into communication and transaction tools that encompass both internal and external buying activities. Further, a model of the impact of e-commerce on the structure and processes of an organization's buying center is developed. The impact of the changing buying center on procurement outcomes in terms of efficiency and effectiveness is also analyzed. Finally, implications for business-to-business marketers and researchers are discussed.

Increasing the use of simulation in business

The nature of Discrete-Event Simulation (DES) and the use of DES in organisations is changing. Two important developments are the use of Visual Interactive Modelling systems and the use of DES in Business Process Management (BPM) projects. Survey research is presented that shows that despite these developments usage of DES remains relatively low due to a lack of knowledge of the benefits of the technique. This paper considers two factors that could lead to a greater achievement and appreciation of the full benefit of DES and thus lead to greater usage. Firstly in relation to using DES to investigate social systems, both in the process of undertaking a simulation project and in the interpretation of the findings a 'soft' approach may generate more knowledge from the DES intervention and thus increase its benefit to businesses. Secondly in order to assess the full range of outcomes of DES the technique could be considered from the perspective of an information processing tool within the organisation. This will allow outcomes to be considered under the three modes of organisational information use of sense making, knowledge creating and decision making which relate to the theoretical areas of knowledge management, organisational learning and decision making respectively. The association of DES with these popular techniques could further increase its usage in business.

Exporting and productivity in business services:evidence from the United States

Does exporting make firms more productive, or do more productive firms choose to become exporters? This paper considers the link between exporting and productivity for a sample of firms in US business services. We find that larger, more productive firms are more likely to become exporters, but that these factors do not necessarily influence the extent of exporting. This conforms with previous literature that there is a self-selection effect into exporting. We then test for the effect of exporting on productivity levels after allowing for this selection effect. We model both the relationship between exporting and productivity, and a simultaneous relationship between export intensity and productivity after allowing for selection bias. In both cases we find an association, indicating that productivity is positively linked both to exporting and to increased exposure to international markets.

Exporting and productivity in business services:evidence from the United States

Does exporting make firms more productive, or do more productive firms choose to become exporters? Given the amount of resources devoted by governments to supporting exporters, this is an important question. There are reasons to expect exporting to boost productivity, both through the exposure to foreign competition which exporting brings, and through ‘learning by exporting’. However, the broad thrust of previous research is that more productive firms self-select into export markets, with relatively little evidence that exporting leads to higher productivity thereafter. This paper considers the link between exporting and productivity for a sample of firms in US business services. We find that larger, more productive firms are more likely to become exporters, but that these factors do not necessarily influence the extent of exporting. This conforms with previous literature that there is a self-selection effect into exporting. We then test for the effect of exporting on productivity levels after allowing for this selection effect. We model both the relationship between exporting and productivity, and a simultaneous relationship between export intensity and productivity after allowing for selection bias. In both cases we find a clear association, indicating that productivity is positively linked both to exporting and to increased exposure to international markets.

The brain in business:neuromarketing and organisational cognitive neuroscience

The application of cognitive neuroscientific techniques to understanding social behaviour has resulted in many discoveries. Yet advocates of the ‘social cognitive neuroscience’ approach maintain that it suffers from a number of limitations. The most notable of these is its distance from any form of real-world applicabity. One solution to this limitation is ‘Organisational Cognitive Neuroscience’— the study of the cognitive neuroscience of human behaviour in, and in response to, organizations, which are arguably our most natural contemporary ecology. Here we provide a brief overview of this approach, a definition and also some examples of questions that the approach would be best suited to address. Furthemore, we consider neuromarketing as a subfield of organizational cognitive neuroscience, arguing that such a relationship clarifies the role of scholarly marketing research in the area, and provides a welcome emphasis on theoretical rigour.

Encouraging innovation in business relationships:a research note

How do buyer–supplier relationships affect innovation? This study suggests that the relational exchange norms of flexibility, information sharing, and solidarity (the bright side) encourage buyer innovation. However, negative (dark side) aspects of relationships with suppliers—loss of supplier objectivity, increasing buyer expectations, and supplier opportunism—may accompany the bright side and subsequently reduce buyer innovation. The study reports on the simultaneous effects of the bright and dark sides on innovation and the resultant effect on supplier performance as evaluated from the buyer's perspective. Using data from the travel and computer industry, regression models reveal that the bright side encourages buyer innovation. Buyers reciprocate this support by enhancing their supplier evaluations. The findings indicate that rising buyer expectations—supposedly a dark side of relational exchange—encourage innovation, while loss of supplier objectivity reduces relationship performance. These findings imply that the bright and dark sides are not mutually exclusive dimensions of good versus bad behavior.

Impact of longitudinal power budget in coherent transmission systems employing digital back-propagation

We report the impact of longitudinal signal power profile on the transmission performance of coherently-detected 112 Gb/s m-ary polarization multiplexed quadrature amplitude modulation system after compensation of deterministic nonlinear fibre impairments. Performance improvements up to 0.6 dB (Q(eff)) are reported for a non-uniform transmission link power profile. Further investigation reveals that the evolution of the transmission performance with power profile management is fully consistent with the parametric amplification of the amplified spontaneous emission by the signal through four-wave mixing. In particular, for a non-dispersion managed system, a single-step increment of 4 dB in the amplifier gain, with respect to a uniform gain profile, at similar to 2/3(rd) of the total reach considerably improves the transmission performance for all the formats studied. In contrary a negative-step profile, emulating a failure (gain decrease or loss increase), significantly degrades the bit-error rate.

The impact of transactional and relational strategies in business markets:an agenda for inquiry

The impetus for the special issue of Industrial Marketing Management is the importance of understanding the implications of transactional and relational strategies in business-to-business contexts. The objective of the special issue is to integrate conceptual and empirical research in this area. We highlight research that extends current thinking in the area to ensure that this special issue serves an impetus for future research on this important topic.

Are indigenous approaches to achieving influence in business organizations distinctive? A comparative study of guanxi, wasta, jeitinho, svyazi and pulling strings

Managers in five nations rated scenarios exemplifying indigenous forms of informal influence whose cultural origins were concealed. Locally generated scenarios illustrated episodes of guanxi, wasta, jeitinho, svyazi and pulling strings. Local scenarios were judged representative of local influence processes but so too were some scenarios derived from other contexts. Furthermore, many scenarios were rated as more typical in non-local contexts. While these influence processes are found to be widely disseminated, they occur more frequently in contexts characterized by high self-enhancement values, low self-transcendence values and high endorsement of business corruptibility. Implications for a fuller understanding of local business practices are discussed. © 2012 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.