Search results for: entrepreneurial competence

Authors: Cristina-Corina Bențea, Teodora-Mihaela Iconomescu, Laurențiu-Gabriel Talaghir, Claudiu Mereuță, Anamaria Berdilă

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The study aims to examine the relationships between motor abilities, self-evaluation of athletic competence, and demographic characteristics in a sample of late-childhood participants. Defined as physical elements that enable the movements, motor skills are classified according to movement precision as gross and fine motor skills. Across their development, children enhance their ability to coordinate the limbs to produce different actions. In educational settings, they perform various instructional activities that involve the improvement of their athletic prowess and are taught how to strengthen their gross and fine motor abilities. Also, in relation to their activities, children tend to evaluate themselves differently across the various domains of their life. Starting from childhood, athletic competence is one of the area-specific evaluations of competence that refers to one’s ability to do well at sports, including outdoor games. Method: The sample consisted of fifty-eight primary school children, thirty girls, and twenty-eight boys, with ages between 8-10 years. The Bruininks-Oseretsky test of motor proficiency was used to assess both gross and fine motor skills in eight specific areas (fine motor precision, fine motor integration, manual dexterity, bilateral coordination, balance, running speed and agility, upper-limb coordination, strength). Athletic competence self-perceived was assessed with one of the six subscales of the Self-Perception Profile for Children. Results: Were examined both the relationships between each motor skills scale and subscales and between motor skills and general self-perceived athletic competence. Results indicated correlations between the athletic competence and four motor skills subscales depending on the gender and age of the children. The findings of the study were discussed related to the possibility to improve children's physical proficiency in educational settings according to the level of self-perceived athletic competence.

Keywords: gross motor skills, fine motor skills, athletic competence, self-evaluation, children, education

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Authors: Prabin Raj Gautam

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Entrepreneurship in tourism sectors, particularly hotel entrepreneurship has contributed to Nepalese Gross Domestic Production (GDP). The tourist standard and star hotels in developing countries have not only been generating revenues but also providing international hospitality to the guest in the local areas. For doing so, these hotel enterprises must need to implement different business strategies to enhance and maintain their international business benchmark. The Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO) is core for making business strategies. Meanwhile, the corruption is labeled as negative factor for economic development. This paper presents the relationship between EO of Nepalese star hotels and organizational corruption. The study employed questionnaire survey as data collection tool under the quantitative methodology. Five hypotheses are developed and tested. After gathering the data form 216 questionnaire distributed to CEOs/Managers of the sample hotels, the findings show that out of five dimensions of EO, only autonomy, pro-activeness, and innovativeness are not significant to organizational corruption; however, risk-taking and competitive aggressiveness are found significant contributor. The descriptive statistics and structural equation modeling are employed to describe the data and fit the model.

Keywords: entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial orientation, organizational corruption, dimensions

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Authors: Patrick Ebong Ebewo

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The trend of high unemployment levels globally is a growing concern, which suggests that university students especially those studying the creative industries are most likely to face unemployment upon completion of their studies. Therefore the effort of university in fostering entrepreneurial knowledge is equally important to the development of student’s soft skill. The purpose of this paper is to assess the significance of perceived university environment and perceived educational support that influencing University students’ intention in starting their own business in the future. Thus, attempting to answer the question 'How does perceived university environment affect students’ attitude towards entrepreneurship as a career option, perceived entrepreneurial abilities, subjective norm and entrepreneurial intentions?' The study is based on the Theory of Planned Behaviour model adapted from previous studies and empirically tested on graduates at the Tshwane University of Technology. A sample of 150 graduates from the Arts and Design graduates took part in the study and data collected were analysed using structural equation modelling (SEM). Our findings seem to suggest the indirect impact of perceived university environment on entrepreneurial intention through perceived environment support and perceived entrepreneurial abilities. Thus, any increase in perceived university environment might influence students to become entrepreneurs. Based on these results, it is recommended that: (a) Tshwane University of Technology and other universities of technology should establish an ‘Entrepreneurship Internship Programme’ as a tool for stimulated work integrated learning. Post-graduation intervention could be implemented by the development of a ‘Graduate Entrepreneurship Program’ which should be embedded in the Bachelor of Technology (B-Tech now Advance Diploma) and Postgraduate courses; (b) Policymakers should consider the development of a coherent national policy framework that addresses entrepreneurship for the Arts/creative industries sector. This would create the enabling environment for the evolution of Higher Education Institutions from merely Teaching, Learning & Research to becoming drivers for creative entrepreneurship.

Keywords: business venture, entrepreneurship education, entrepreneurial intent, university environment

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Authors: Randa Ismail Sharafeddine

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The Islamic economic system is distinctive in that it implicitly recognizes money as a separate, independent component of production capable of assuming risk and so entitled to the same reward as other Entrepreneurial Factors of Production (EFP). Conventional theory does not identify money capital explicitly as a component of production; rather, interest is recognized as a reward for capital, the interest rate is the cost of money capital, and it is also seen as a cost of physical capital. The conventional theory of production examines how diverse non-entrepreneurial resources (Land, Labor, and Capital) are selected; however, the economic theory community is largely unaware of the reasons why these resources choose to remain as non-entrepreneurial resources as opposed to becoming entrepreneurial resources. Should land, labor, and financial asset owners choose to work for others in return for rent, income, or interest, or should they engage in entrepreneurial risk-taking in order to profit. This is a decision made often in the actual world, but it has never been effectively treated in economic theory. This article will conduct a critical analysis of the conventional classification of factors of production and propose a classification for resource allocation and income distribution (Rent, Wages, Interest, and Profits) that is more rational, even within the conventional theoretical framework for evaluating and developing production and distribution theories. Money is an essential component of production in an Islamic economy, and it must be used to sustain economic activity.

Keywords: financial capital, production theory, distribution theory, economic activity, riba avoidance, institution of participation

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Authors: Pauline Swee Choo Goh, Kung Teck Wong

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The research reported here investigates variation in beginning teachers’ early experiences of their own teaching competency. A phenomenographic research approach was used to show the qualitatively different ways teacher competence was understood amongst beginning teachers in Malaysia. Phenomenographic interviews were conducted with 18 beginning teachers who had started full time teaching for between 1-3 years. Analysis revealed that beginning teachers ‘saw’, ‘understood’ the conceptions of competency in five different ways: i) the ability to manage classroom and student behavior, ii) a strong knowledge of the subject content, iii) the ability to reach out for assistance and support, iv) understanding the students they teach, and v) possessing values of professionalism. The relationships between these different ways are represented diagrammatically. This investigation gives an insider’s perspective a strong voice of what constitutes teacher competence, as well as illustrates that if teacher competence is to be used for any articulation of teacher standards, the term must be carefully defined through the help of the group most affected by any judgements of their competency to avoid misunderstandings, unhappiness and discontent.

Keywords: pre-service teachers, phenomenology, competency, teacher education

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Authors: Rui Xing, Xiaowen Zhao, Hao Huang, Chang Liu

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Creativity is regarded as vital for new ventures' development since the whole process of entrepreneurship is rooted in the creation and exploration of new ideas. The entrepreneurial leader is central to the entrepreneurial team, who plays an especially important role in this process. However, few scholars have studied the impact entrepreneurs' leadership styles on the creativity of entrepreneurial teams. In this study, we integrate the historically disjointed literatures of leadership style and team creativity under entrepreneurship circumstance to understand why and when entrepreneurs' different leadership style relates to team creativity. Focus on answering the following questions: Is humility leadership necessarily better than narcissism leadership at increasing the creativity of entrepreneurial teams? Moreover, in which situations humility leadership or narcissism leadership is more conducive to the entrepreneurial team's creativity? Based on the componential theory of creativity and entrepreneurial cognition theory, we explore the relationship between entrepreneurs' leadership style and team creativity, treating team cognitive diversity and environmental uncertainty as moderators and psychological empowerment as mediators. We tested our hypotheses using data gathered from 64 teams and 256 individual members from 53 new firms in China's first-tier cities such as Beijing and Shanghai. We found that there was a significant positive relation between entrepreneurs' humble leadership and psychological empowerment, and the more significant the positive correlation was when the environmental uncertainty was high. In addition, there was a significant negative relation between entrepreneurs' narcissistic leadership and psychological empowerment, and the negative relation was weaker in teams with a high team cognitive diversity value. Furthermore, both entrepreneurs' humble leadership and team psychological empowerment were significantly positively related to team creativity. While entrepreneurs' narcissistic leadership was negatively related to team creativity, and the negative relationship was weaker in teams with a high team cognitive diversity or a high environmental uncertainty value. This study has some implications for both scholars and entrepreneurs. Firstly, our study enriches the understanding of the role of leadership in entrepreneurial team creativity. Different from previous team creativity literatures, focusing on TMT and R&D team, this study is a significant attempt to demonstrate that entrepreneurial leadership style is particularly relevant to the core requirements of team creativity. Secondly, this study introduces two moderating variables, cognitive diversity and environmental uncertainty, to explore the different boundary conditions under which the two leadership styles play their roles, which is helpful for entrepreneurs to understand how to leverage leadership to improve entrepreneurial team creativity, how to recruit cognitively diverse employees to moderate the effects of inappropriate leadership to the team. Finally, our findings showed that entrepreneurs' humble leadership makes a unique contribution to explaining team creativity through team psychological empowerment.

Keywords: entrepreneurs’ leadership style, entrepreneurial team creativity, team psychological empowerment, team cognitive diversity, environmental uncertainty

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Authors: Dorsaf Ben Malek

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The function of culture in language teaching changed because of globalization and the latest technologies. English became a lingua franca which resulted in altering the teaching objectives. The re-evaluation of cultural awareness is one of them. Business English teaching has also been subject to all these changes. It is therefore a wrong idea if we try to consider it as a diffusion of unlimited listing of lexis, diagrams, charts, and statistics. In fact, business students’ future career will require business terminology together with intercultural communicative competence (ICC) to handle different multicultural encounters and contribute to the international community. The first part of this paper is dedicated to the necessity of empowering business students with intercultural communicative competence and the second turns around the potential of multicultural literature in implementing ICC in business English teaching. This was proved through a qualitative action research done on a group of Tunisian MA business students. It was an opportunity to discover the potential of multicultural literature together with inquiry-based learning in enhancing business students’ intercultural communicative competence. Data were collected through classroom observations, journals and semi-structured interviews. Results were in favour of using multicultural literature to enhance business students’ ICC. In addition, the short story may be a motivating tool to read literature, and inquiry-based learning can be an effective approach to teaching literature.

Keywords: intercultural communicative competence, multicultural literature, short stories, inquiry-based learning

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Authors: Saeyoung Lee

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As the enthusiasm for education in Korea is too much high, it is well known by others that children in Korea get good scores in Mathematics. However, behind of this good reputation, children in Korea are easy to get lose self-confidence, tend to complaint and rarely participate in the class because of too much competition which leads to lack of competences. In this regard, the main goals of this paper are, by applying the programme based on peer-communication on Mathematics education field, it would like to improve self-managemental competence to make children gain self-confidence, communicative competence to make them deal with complaint and communitive competence to make them participated in the class for the age of 10 children to solve this problem. 14 children the age of 10 in one primary school in Gangnam, Seoul, Korea had participated in the research from March 2018 to October 2018. They were under the programme based on peer-communication during the period. Every Mathematics class maintained the same way. Firstly a problem was given to children. Secondly, children were asked to find many ways to solve the problem as much as they could by themselves. Thirdly all ways to solve the problem by children were posted on the board and three of the children made a group to distinguish the ways from valid to invalid. Lastly, all children made a discuss to find one way which is the most efficient among valid ways. Pre-test was carried out by the questionnaire based on Likert scale before applying the programme. The result of the pre-test was 3.89 for self-managemental competence, 3.91 for communicative competence and 4.19 for communitive competence. Post-test was carried out by the same questionnaire after applying the programme. The result of the post-test was 3.93 for self-managemental competence, 4.23 for communicative competence and 4.20 for communitive competence. That means by applying the programme based on peer-communication on Mathematics education field, the age of 10 children in Korea could improve self-managemental, communicative and communitive competence. Especially it works very well on communicative competence by increasing 0.32 points as it marked. Considering this research, Korean Mathematics education based on competition which leads to lack of competences should be changed to cooperative structure to make students more competent rather than just getting good scores. In conclusion, innovative teaching methods which are focused on improving competences such as the programme based on peer-communication which was applied in this research are strongly required to be studied and widely used.

Keywords: competences, mathematics education, peer-communication, primary education

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Authors: Gloria Chen

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In the past, when we complimented someone who had a good command of English, we would say ‘She/He speaks/writes standard English,’ or ‘His/Her English is standard.’ However, with English has becoming a ‘global language,’ many scholars and English users even create a plural form for English as ‘world Englishes,’ which indicates that national/racial varieties of English not only exist, but also are accepted to a certain degree. Now, a question will be raised when it comes to English teaching and learning: ‘What variety/varieties of English should be taught?’ This presentation will first explore Braj Kachru’s well-known categorization of the inner circle, the outer circle, and the expanding circle of English users, as well as inner circle varieties such as ‘Ebonics’ and ‘cockney’. The presentation then will discuss the purposes and contexts of English learning, and apply different approaches to different purposes and contexts. Three major purposes of English teaching/learning will be emphasized and considered: (1) communicative competence, (2) academic competence, and (3) intercultural competence. This presentation will complete with the strategies of ‘code switch’ and ‘register switch’ in teaching English to non-standard English speakers in both speaking and writing.

Keywords: world Englishes, standard and non-standard English, inner, outer, expanded circle communicative, academic, intercultural competence

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Authors: Erizal Lugman

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To achieve their academic goals whilst studying abroad, international students must successfully adjust to cross-cultural differences. As a result, they need to develop new abilities including intercultural competence and politeness in order to effectively communicate with different languages and cultures. (Im)politeness is also an essential aspect of intercultural competence which is vital for effective intercultural communication. This study seeks to integrate different aspects of intercultural competence, (im)politeness and the use of social media platforms which is solely focused on Indonesian students studying in the UK. Using a purposive sampling method, participants will be recruited to address the research questions who will all be volunteers and have lived in Britain for at least six months or who have passed the cultural adjustment period. Using a range of quantitative and qualitative methods, in this respect, participants will be recruited and asked to relate the intercultural experiences they encountered during the cultural adjustment period through the use of e-portfolios, interviews, and critical reflection. This will be followed by online surveying from the Indonesian participants' point of view using the cross-cultural adaptability inventory (CCAI), which aims to measure the individual potential for cross-cultural adaptability. A discursive approach will be employed which aims to focus on analysing (im)politeness as reported and narrated by the participants.

Keywords: im)politeness, intercultural communication, intercultural competence, social media

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Authors: Anmari Viljamaa, Elina Varamäki

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In this study we compare the profiles of transitory hybrid entrepreneurs and persistent hybrid entrepreneurs to determine how they differ. Hybrid entrepreneurs (HEs) represent a significant share of entrepreneurial activity yet little is known about them. We define HEs as individuals who are active as entrepreneurs but do no support themselves primarily by their enterprise. Persistent HEs (PHEs) are not planning to transition to fulltime entrepreneurship whereas transitory HEs (THEs) consider it probable. Our results show that THEs and PHEs are quite similar in background. THEs are more interested in increasing their turnover than PHEs, as expected, but also emphasize self-fulfillment as a motive for entrepreneurship more than PHEs. The clearest differences between THEs and PHEs are found in their views on how well their immediate circle supports full-time entrepreneurship, and their views of their own entrepreneurial abilities and the market potential of their firm. Our results support earlier arguments that hybrids should be considered separately in research on entrepreneurial entry and self-employment.

Keywords: hybrid entrepreneurship, part-time entrepreneurship, self-employment, Theory of Planned Behavior

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Authors: Maximilian Cedzich, Ingo Dietz Von Bayer, Roland Jochem

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In order for industrial companies to continue to succeed in dynamic, globalized markets, they must be able to train their employees in an agile manner and at short notice in line with the exogenous conditions that arise. For this purpose, it is indispensable to operate a proactive competence management system for employees that recognizes qualification needs timely in order to be able to address them promptly through qualification measures. However, there are hardly any approaches to be found in the literature that includes systematic, proactive competence management. In order to help close this gap, this publication presents a process model that systematically develops bottom-up, future-oriented target competence profiles based on the tasks of the employees. Concretely, in the first step, the tasks of the individual employees are examined for assumed future conditions. In other words, qualitative scenarios are considered for the individual tasks to determine how they are likely to change. In a second step, these scenario-based future tasks are translated into individual future-related target competencies of the employee using a matrix of generic task properties. The final step pursues the goal of validating the target competence profiles formed in this way within the framework of a management workshop. This process model provides industrial companies with a tool that they can use to determine the competencies required by their own employees in the future and compare them with the actual prevailing competencies. If gaps are identified between the target and the actual, these qualification requirements can be closed in the short term by means of qualification measures.

Keywords: dynamic globalized markets, employee competence management, industrial companies, knowledge management

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Authors: Zhang Qingzhong

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Though there exists an increasing number of research studies on the headquarters-subsidiary relationship, and within this context, there is a focus on subsidiaries' contributory role to multinational corporations (MNC), subsidiary autonomy, and the conditions under which autonomy exerts an effect on subsidiary performance still constitute a subject of debate in the literature. The objective of this research is to study the MNC subsidiary autonomy and performance relationship and the effect of subsidiary entrepreneurial orientation and trust on subsidiary autonomy in the China environment, a phenomenon that has not yet been studied. The research addresses the following three questions: (i) Is subsidiary autonomy associated with MNC subsidiary performance in the China environment? (ii) How do subsidiary entrepreneurship and its trust in headquarters affect the level of subsidiary autonomy and its relationship with subsidiary performance? (iii) Does subsidiary autonomy have a mediating effect on subsidiary performance with subsidiary’s entrepreneurship and trust in headquarters? In the present study, we have reviewed literature and conducted semi-structured interviews with multinational corporation (MNC) subsidiary senior executives in China. Building on our insights from the interviews and taking perspectives from four theories, namely the resource-based view (RBV), resource dependency theory, integration-responsiveness framework, and social exchange theory, as well as the extant articles on subsidiary autonomy, entrepreneurial orientation, trust, and subsidiary performance, we have developed a model and have explored the direct and mediating effects of subsidiary autonomy on subsidiary performance within the framework of the MNC. To test the model, we collected and analyzed data based on cross-industry two waves of an online survey from 102 subsidiaries of MNCs in China. We used structural equation modeling to test measurement, direct effect model, and conceptual framework with hypotheses. Our findings confirm that (a) subsidiary autonomy is positively related to subsidiary performance; (b) subsidiary entrepreneurial orientation is positively related to subsidiary autonomy; (c) subsidiary’s trust in headquarters has a positive effect on subsidiary autonomy; (d) subsidiary autonomy mediates the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and subsidiary performance; (e) subsidiary autonomy mediates the relationship between trust and subsidiary performance. Our study highlights the important role of subsidiary autonomy in leveraging the resource of subsidiary entrepreneurial orientation and its trust relationship with headquarters to achieve high performance. We discuss the theoretical and managerial implications of the findings and propose directions for future research.

Keywords: subsidiary entrepreneurial orientation, trust, subsidiary autonomy, subsidiary performance

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Authors: S. J. Yune, K. H. Park

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The purpose of this study was to examine the validity of the research process for enhancing the humanities competence of the medical students. The research process was developed to be operated as a core subject course of 3 semesters. Among them, the research process for enhancing humanities capacity consisted of humanities and societies (6 teams) and education-psychology (2teams). The subjects of this study were 88-second grade students and 22 professors who participated in the research process. Among them, 13 professors participated in the study of humanities and 37 students. In the validity test, the professors were more likely to have more validity in the research process than the students in all areas of logic (p = .001), influence (p = .037), process (p = .001). The validity of the professor was higher than that of the students. The professors highly evaluated the students' learning outcomes and showed the most frequency to the prize group. As a result of analyzing the agreement between the students and the professors through the Kappa coefficient, the agreement degree of communication and cooperation competence was moderate to .430. Problem-solving ability was .340, which showed a fair degree of agreement. However, other factors showed only a slight degree of agreement of less than .20.

Keywords: research process, medical school, humanities competence, validity verification

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Authors: Vineesh Amin, Ananya Agrawal

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In a prolonged period of uncertainty and disruptions in the pre-said normal order, non-cognitive skills, especially entrepreneurial mindsets, have become a pillar that can reform the educational models to inform the economy. Dreamverse Learning Lab’s IVR-based storytelling program -Call-a-Kahaani- is an evolving experiment with an aim to kindle entrepreneurial mindsets in the remotest locations of India in an accessible and engaging manner. At the heart of this experiment is the belief that at every phase in our life’s story, we have a choice which brings us closer to achieving our true potential. This interactive program is thus designed using real-time storytelling principles to empower learners, ages 24 and below, to make choices and take decisions as they become more self-aware, practice grit, try new things through stories, guided activities, and interactions, simply over a phone call. This research paper highlights the framework behind an ongoing scalable, data-oriented, low-tech program to kindle entrepreneurial mindsets in media dark zones supported by iterative design and prototyping to reach 13700+ unique learners who made 59000+ calls for 183900+min listening duration to listen to content pieces of around 3 to 4 min, with the last monitored (March 2022) record of 34% serious listenership, within one and a half years of its inception. The paper provides an in-depth account of the technical development, content creation, learning, and assessment frameworks, as well as mobilization models which have been leveraged to build this end-to-end system.

Keywords: non-cognitive skills, entrepreneurial mindsets, speech interface, remote learning, storytelling

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Authors: Muhammad Umar Usman

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This study investigates the entrepreneurial intentions, drivers and challenges of starting a business among final year students in Jigawa State polytechnic. Nigeria. Final year students of Jigawa State Polytechnic from the department of accounting, business administration and management and public administration were used as a case study. The study became necessary due to the alarming rate of graduate unemployment in Nigeria. The study adopted a holistic case study approach involving a multiple methods of questionnaires involving (182) Higher National Diploma (HND) and National Diploma (ND) final year students and a telephone interview with two lecturers teaching entrepreneurship in the college. The findings clearly indicate that exposer to entrepreneurship education increases students’ entrepreneurial intentions. The result found that desire for independence, confidence and strong intention are the most important factors that influence students’ entrepreneurial intention. The study identified 3 key drivers of students’ entrepreneurial intentions. These are to earn a living, to seek job security and provision of employment. The result again identified 4 factors namely lack of support, finance, insecurity and erratic power supply as the major challenges in starting a business in Nigeria. It was also revealed that the current entrepreneurship education programme prepares students on how to open up a business not becoming an entrepreneur. The study concluded entrepreneurship helps students toward building and driving their intention to venture into business. However, the challenges of entrepreneurship in Nigeria need to be addressed in order to enable individuals to become an entrepreneur and create employment opportunities that will lead to the development of Nigerian economy. Thus, the government should provide adequate support particularly the issue of infrastructures. The Federal Government of Nigeria in collaboration with the National Board for Technical Education should fashion out the curriculum thereby making it more practically-oriented so that students may become more interested. Polytechnics should develop an internship programme for students to work in firms so as to put theory learnt in the class to practice. Students should try to align the theory learnt in college with the practical application in dynamic economic environment. Hence, this will help in building their capabilities toward entrepreneurship development in Nigeria.

Keywords: entrepreneurial intention, entrepreneurial drivers, challenges, entrepreneurial education

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Authors: Hazem Hasan Hushayish

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Motivation and teaching strategies are commonly believed to improve students’ communicative competence in English as a foreign language; still, there is not much empirical evidence to support this claim. The present study is intended to focus on the effects of motivational factors and teaching strategies on the communicative competence among the Palestinian undergraduates. In the first phase, one hundred and eighty participants, who are studying English language in three Palestinian universities, answered a questionnaire. The questionnaire included items derived from Gardner’s 2001, 2004, 2006, 2007 Attitude/Motivation Test Battery AMTB and items from Dörnyei 2007 and Guilloteaux and Dörnyei 2008 teaching strategies framework for foreign language classrooms. In the second phase, 6 participants, from the same universities, were interviewed. The quantitative results indicated that participants’ communicative competence is significantly affected by motivation and teaching strategies. Also, the qualitative results indicated that teaching strategies do not directly affect students’ communicative competence, but rather affect their motivation. Consequently, the current study will add substantively to the literature concerning the effects of motivation and teaching strategies in communicative competencies among EFL learners in the Palestinian context, and some suggested procedures and suggestions that help improve learners’ communicative competences.

Keywords: communicative competence, motivation, teaching strategies, Palestinian undergraduates

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Authors: Radin Siti Aishah Radin A Rahman, Norasmah Othman, Zaidatol Akmaliah Lope Pihie, Hariyaty Ab. Wahid

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The recent instability in economy was found to be influencing the situation in Malaysia whether directly or indirectly. Taking that into consideration, the government needs to find the best approach to balance its citizen’s socio-economic strata level urgently. Through education platform is among the efforts planned and acted upon for the purpose of balancing the effects of the influence, through the exposure of social entrepreneurial activity towards youth especially those in higher institution level. Armed with knowledge and skills that they gained, with the support by entrepreneurial culture and environment while in campus; indirectly, the students will lean more on making social entrepreneurship as a career option when they graduate. Following the issues of marketability and workability of current graduates that are becoming dire, research involving how far the willingness of student to create social innovation that contribute to the society without focusing solely on personal gain is relevant enough to be conducted. With that, this research is conducted with the purpose of identifying the level of entrepreneurial intention and social entrepreneurship among higher institution students in Malaysia. Stratified random sampling involves 355 undergraduate students from five public universities had been made as research respondents and data were collected through surveys. The data was then analyzed descriptively using min score and standard deviation. The study found that the entrepreneurial intention of higher education students are on moderate level, however it is the contrary for social entrepreneurship activities, where it was shown on a high level. This means that while the students only have moderate level of willingness to be a social entrepreneur, they are very committed to created social innovation through the social entrepreneurship activities conducted. The implication from this study can be contributed towards the higher institution authorities in prediction the tendency of student in becoming social entrepreneurs. Thus, the opportunities and facilities for realizing the courses related to social entrepreneurship must be created expansively so that the vision of creating as many social entrepreneurs as possible can be achieved.

Keywords: entrepreneurial intention, higher education institutions (HEIs), social entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurial activity, gender

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Authors: Berger Aida

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Social entrepreneurship has emerged as an active area of practice and research within the last three decades and has called for a focus on Social Entrepreneurship innovation. Areas such as academics, practitioners , institutions or governments have placed Social Entrepreneurship on the priority list of reflexion and action. It has been accepted that Social entrepreneurship (SE) shares large similarities with its parent, Traditional Entrepreneurship (TE). SE has grown over the past ten years exploring entrepreneurial cognition and the analysis of the ways of thinking of entrepreneurs. The research community believes that value exists in grounding entrepreneurship in neuroscience and notes that SE, like Traditional Entrepreneurship, needs to undergo efforts in clarification, definition and differentiation. Moreover, gaps in SE research call for integrative multistage and multilevel framework for further research. The cognitive processes underpinning entrepreneurial action are similar for SE and TE even if Social Entrepreneurship orientation shows an increased empathy value. Theoretically, there is a need to develop sound models of how to process functions and how to work more effectively as entrepreneurs and research on efficiency improvement calls for the analysis of the most common practices in entrepreneurship. Multitasking has been recognized as a daily and unavoidable habit of entrepreneurs. Hence, we believe in the need of analyzing the multiple task phenomena as a methodology for skill acquisition. We will conduct our paper including Social Entrepreneurship within the wider spectrum of Traditional Entrepreneurship, for the purpose of simplifying the neuroscientific lecture of the entrepreneurial cognition. A question to be inquired is to know if there is a way of developing multitasking habits in order to improve entrepreneurial skills such as speed of information processing , creativity and adaptability . Nevertheless, the direct link between the neuroscientific approach to multitasking and entrepreneurship effectiveness is yet to be uncovered. That is why an extensive Literature Review on Multitasking is a propos.

Keywords: cognitive, entrepreneurial, empathy, multitasking

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Authors: Waleed Omri

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With the growth of the small business sector in emerging markets, developing a better understanding of what drives 'day-to-day' entrepreneurial activities has become an important issue for academicians and practitioners. Innovation, as an entrepreneurial behavior, revolves around individuals who creatively engage in new organizational efforts. In a similar vein, the innovation behaviors and processes at the organizational member level are central to any corporate entrepreneurship strategy. Despite the broadly acknowledged importance of entrepreneurship and innovation at the individual level in the establishment of successful ventures, the literature lacks evidence on how entrepreneurs can effectively harness their skills and knowledge in the workplace. The existing literature illustrates that religion can impact the day-to-day work behavior of entrepreneurs, managers, and employees. Religious beliefs and practices could affect daily entrepreneurial activities by fostering mental abilities and traits such as creativity, intelligence, and self-efficacy. In the present study, we define religious capital as a set of personal and intangible resources, skills, and competencies that emanate from an individual’s religious values, beliefs, practices, and experiences and may be used to increase the quality of economic activities. Religious beliefs and practices give individuals a religious satisfaction, which can lead them to perform better in the workplace. In addition, religious ethics and practices have been linked to various positive employee outcomes in terms of organizational change, job satisfaction, and entrepreneurial intensity. As investigations of their consequences beyond direct task performance are still scarce, we explore if religious capital plays a role in entrepreneurs’ innovative behavior. In sum, this study explores the determinants of individual entrepreneurial behavior by investigating the relationship between religious capital and entrepreneurs’ innovative behavior in the context of small businesses. To further explain and clarify the religious capital-innovative behavior link, the present study proposes a model to examine the mediating role of entrepreneurial creativity. We use both Islamic work ethics (IWE) and Islamic religious practices (IRP) to measure Islamic religious capital. We use structural equation modeling with a robust maximum likelihood estimation to analyze data gathered from 289 Tunisian small businesses and to explore the relationships among the above-described variables. In line with the theory of planned behavior, only religious work ethics are found to increase the innovative behavior of small businesses’ owner-managers. Our findings also clearly demonstrate that the connection between religious capital-related variables and innovative behavior is better understood if the influence of entrepreneurial creativity, as a mediating variable of the aforementioned relationship, is taken into account. By incorporating both religious capital and entrepreneurial creativity into the innovative behavior analysis, this study provides several important practical implications for promoting innovation process in small businesses.

Keywords: entrepreneurial behavior, small business, religion, creativity

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Authors: Li Yuqing

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Fostering the development of intercultural (communicative) competence (IC) is one way to equip our students with the linguistic and cultural skills to communicate effectively with people from diverse backgrounds, particularly English majors who are most likely to encounter multicultural work environments in the future. The purpose of this study is to compare the English majors' intercultural competence in terms of cognitive, affective, and behavioral aspects before and after a ten-week telecollaboration program between 23 English majors at a Chinese university and 23 American students enrolled in a Chinese class at an American university, and analyze their development during the program. The results indicate that subjects' cognitive, affective, and behavioral perceptions of IC improved significantly over time. In addition, the program had significant effects on the participants' “Interaction Confidence,” “Interaction Engagement,” and “Interaction Enjoyment” - three components of intercultural sensitivity - as well as their overall intercultural effectiveness (except for “Message Skills”). With the widespread use of the internet, this type of online cultural exchange has a promising future, as suggested by the findings of the current study.

Keywords: intercultural competence, English majors, computer-mediated communication, telecollaboration

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Authors: Ghazala Kausar

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This study investigates Pakistani first year university students’ perception of the role of pragmatics in their general approach to learning English. The research is triggered by National Curriculum’s initiative to provide holistic opportunities to the students for language development and to equip them with competencies to use English language in academic and social contexts (New English National Curriculum for I-XII). The traditional grammar translation and examination oriented method is believed to reduce learners to silent listener (Zhang, 2008: Zhao 2009). This lead to the inability of the students to interpret discourse by relating utterances to their meaning, understanding the intentions of the users and how language is used in specific setting (Bachman & Palmer, 1996, 2010). Pragmatic competence is a neglected area as far as teaching and learning English in Pakistan is concerned. This study focuses on the different types of pragmatic knowledge, learners perception of such knowledge and learning strategies employed by different learners to process the learning in general and pragmatic in particular. This study employed three data collecting tools; a questionnaire, discourse completion task and interviews to elicit data from first year university students regarding their perception of pragmatic competence. Results showed that Pakistani first year university learners have limited pragmatic knowledge. Although they acknowledged the importance of linguistic knowledge for linguistic competence in the students but argued that insufficient English proficiency, limited knowledge of pragmatics, insufficient language material and tasks were major reasons of pragmatic failure.

Keywords: pragmatic competence, Pakistani college learners, linguistic competence

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Authors: Lukman Omobola Adisa

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Spelling is rule bound in a written discourse. It, however, calls into question, when such convention is grossly contravened in a formal setting revered as citadel of learning, despite availability of computer spell-checker, human knowledge, and lexicon. The foregoing reveals the extent of decadence pervading education sector in Nigeria. It is on this premise that this study reviews the effect of spelling on communicative competence of the University of Ibadan Registry Staff. The theoretical framework basically evaluates diverse scholars’ views on communicative competence and how spelling influences the intended meaning of a word/ sentence as a result of undue infringement on grammatical (spelling) rule. Newsletter, bulletin, memo, and letter are four print materials purposively selected while the methodology adopted is content analysis. Similarly, five categories, though not limited to, through which spelling blunders are committed are considered: effect of spelling (omission, addition, and substitution); sound ( homophone); transposition (heading/body: content) and ambiguity (capitalisation, space, and acronym). Subsequently, the analyses, findings, and recommendations are equally looked into. Summarily, the study x-rays effective role(s) plays by spelling in enhancing communicative competence through appropriate usage of linguistic registers.

Keywords: communicative competence, content analysis, effect of spelling, linguistics registers

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Authors: Eno Jah Tabogo

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The aim of this research is to identify and examine current deficiencies in entrepreneurial training in improving the performance of small businesses in sub Saharan Africa economies. This research achieves this by examining the course content, training methods, and profiles of trainers and trainees of small business service providers in Sub Saharan Africa (SSA) to identify training deficiencies in improving small businesses. Data was for the analysis was collected from a sample of four entrepreneurial training providers in SSA. These four providers served an average of 1,500 trainees. Questionnaire was used to collect data via face to face and through telephone. Face validity was determined by distributing the questionnaire among a group of colleagues, followed by a group discussion to strengthen the validity of the questionnaire. Interviews were also held with managers of training programs. Content and descriptive statistics was used to analyse the data collected. The results indicated only 25% of the training content were entrepreneurial. In terms of service provided, both business, entrepreneurial, technical and after-care services were identified. It was also discovered that owners of training firms had no formal entrepreneurship background. The paper contributes by advocating for a comprehensive entrepreneurship-training program for successful small business enterprises. Recommendations that could help sustain emerging small business enterprises and direction for further research are presented.

Keywords: entrepreneurship, emerging markets, small business, training

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Authors: Susan Ka Yee Chow

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Effective clinical preceptorship is affecting students’ competence and fostering their growth in applying theoretical knowledge and skills in clinical settings. Any difference between the expected and actual learning experience will reduce nursing students’ interest in clinical practices and having a negative consequence with their clinical performance. This cross-sectional study is an attempt to compare the differences between preferred and actual preceptorship experience of final year nursing students, and to examine the relationship between the actual preceptorship experience and perceived clinical competence of the students in a tertiary institution. Participants of the study were final year bachelor nursing students of a self-financing tertiary institution in Hong Kong. The instruments used to measure the effectiveness of clinical preceptorship was developed by the participating institution. The scale consisted of five items in a 5-point likert scale. The questions including goals development, critical thinking, learning objectives, asking questions and providing feedback to students. The “Clinical Competence Questionnaire” by Liou & Cheng (2014) was used to examine students’ perceived clinical competences. The scale consisted of 47 items categorized into four domains, namely nursing professional behaviours; skill competence: general performance; skill competence: core nursing skills and skill competence: advanced nursing skills. There were 193 questionnaires returned with a response rate of 89%. The paired t-test was used to compare the differences between preferred and actual preceptorship experiences of students. The results showed significant differences (p<0.001) for the five questions. The mean for the preferred scores is higher than the actual scores resulting statistically significance. The maximum mean difference was accepted goal and the highest mean different was giving feedback. The Pearson Correlation Coefficient was used to examine the relationship. The results showed moderate correlations between nursing professional behaviours with asking questions and providing feedback. Providing useful feedback to students is having moderate correlations with all domains of the Clinical Competence Questionnaire (r=0.269 – 0.345). It is concluded that nursing students do not have a positive perception of the clinical preceptorship. Their perceptions are significantly different from their expected preceptorship. If students were given more opportunities to ask questions in a pedagogical atmosphere, their perceived clinical competence and learning outcomes could be improved as a result.

Keywords: clinical preceptor, clinical competence, clinical practicum, nursing students

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Authors: Myonghwa Park, Eun Jeong Choi

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Persons with dementia living at home have complex caregiving demands, which can be significant sources of stress for the family caregivers. Thus, the dementia family support program facilitators struggle to provide various health and social services, facing diverse challenges. The purpose of this study was to research the effects of training program for the dementia family support program facilitators on self-efficacy, competence, and target complaints concerning operating their program. We created a training program with systematic contents, which was composed of 10 sessions and we provided the program for the facilitators. The participants were 32 people at 28 community dementia support centers who manage dementia family support programs and they completed quantitative and qualitative self-report questionnaire before and after participating in the training program. For analyzing the data, descriptive statistics were used and with a paired t-test, pretest and posttest scores of self-efficacy, competence, and target complaints were analyzed. We used Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) statistics (Version 21) to analyze the data. The average age of the participants was 39.6 years old and the 84.4% of participants were nurses. There were statistically meaningful increases in facilitators’ self-efficacy scores (t = -4.45, p < .001) and competence scores (t = -2.133, p = 0.041) after participating in training program and operating their own dementia family support program. Also, the facilitators’ difficulties in conducting their dementia family support program were decreased which was assessed with target complaints. Especially, the facilitators’ lack of dementia expertise and experience was decreased statistically significantly (t = 3.520, p = 0.002). Findings provided evidence of the benefits of the training program for facilitators to enhance managing dementia family support program by improving the facilitators’ self-efficacy and competence and decreasing their difficulties regarding operating their program.

Keywords: competence, dementia, facilitator, family, self-efficacy, training

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Authors: Tharsinithevy Kirupananthan, Thivahary Geretharan

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Since creation of agricultural enterprises going to reflect the micro and macro level development of Sri Lanka, it is vey important to study the entrepreneurial trends of Agricultural Undergraduates. Likert scale scoring method was used to assess the responses of involvement, Role model effect, aware of demands, confidence and willingness. 37.8% were strongly agreed to do full time business. The average score for to do agriculture businesses were between agree and strongly agree. The average scores for role model effects were less than agree. Average score for aware of needs of society was less than agree. 75.7% of them were able to identify the demands of the society. The demands identified were human capital, self sufficient domestic production, safe and nutritional foods. The confidence of having enough skills score was less than agree. 64.1% of them were owned special skills to carry out entrepreneurial activities. Such skills were possession of different human capitals management skills. The willingness responses scores were more than agree. 61.5% of them were discussed their business plan. Their dream plans were development of new food products, Quality planting materials, harmless method of cultivation and floricultural industry. Those were supported by government policies and other related organizations.

Keywords: agricultural undergraduates, entrepreneurial trends, likert scale Sri Lanka

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Authors: Bhawat Chiamjinnawat

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The agri-food market transformation has implied market growth for the fruit industry in Thailand. This article focuses on analysis of farmer competence and farm resources which affect market strategies used by fruit farmers in Chanthaburi province of Thailand. The survey data were collected through the use of face-to-face interviews with structured questionnaires. This study identified 14 drivers related to farmer competence and farm resources of which some had significant effect on the decision to use either high-value markets or traditional markets. The results suggest that farmers who used high-value markets were better educated and they had longer experience and larger sized business. Identifying the important factors that match with the market transformation provides policy with opportunities to support the fruit farmers to increase their market power. Policies that promote business expansion of agricultural cooperatives and knowledge sharing among farmers are recommended to reduce limitations due to limited knowledge, low experience, and small business sizes.

Keywords: farmer competence, farm resources, fruit industry, high-value markets, Thailand

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Authors: Riin Seema

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Guidance and counseling as a whole-school responsibility is a global trend. Counseling is a specific competence, that consist of cognitive, emotional, attitudinal, and behavioral components. To authors best knowledge, there are no self-assessment scales for teachers in the whole world to measure teachers’ counseling competency. In 2016 an Estonian scale on teachers counseling competence was developed during an Interdisciplinary Project at Tallinn University. The team consisted of 10 interdisciplinary students (psychology, nursery school, special and adult education) and their supervisor. In 2017 another international Interdisciplinary Project was carried out for adapting the scale in English for international students. Firstly, the Estonian scale was translated by 2 professional translators, and then a group of international Erasmus students (again from psychology, nursery school, special and adult education) selected the most suitable translation for the scale. The developed ‘Teacher’s Counselling Competence Self-Efficacy Scale’ measures teacher’s self-efficacy beliefs in their own competence to perform different counseling tasks (creating a counseling relationship, using different reflection techniques, etc.). The scale consists of 47 questions in a 5-point numeric scale. The scale is created based on counseling theory and scale development and validation theory. The scale has been used as a teaching and learning material for counseling courses by 174 Estonian and 10 international student teachers. After filling out the scale, the students also reflected on the scale and their own counseling competencies. The study showed that the scale is unidimensional and has an excellent Cronbach alpha coefficient. Student’s qualitative feedback on the scale has been very positive, as the scale supports their self-reflection. In conclusion, the developed ‘Teacher’s Counselling Competence Self-Efficacy Scale’ is a useful tool for supporting student teachers’ learning.

Keywords: competency, counseling, self-efficacy, teacher students

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Authors: Stella Chioma Nwizu, Emmanuel Nwangwu

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Entrepreneurship, Vocational, and Technical education is an education that prepares one for effective adaptation to the world of work. It equally makes individuals self-reliant, self-sufficient and contributes to the development of society. It is, therefore, imperative that this type of education should be a priority in the development of any nation and should be given the utmost political support because of its importance and increasing demand on a global scale. This paper qualitatively explores three research questions on the policy status of Entrepreneurial, Vocational, and Technical Education (EVTE) in Nigeria, challenges hindering the enhancement of Entrepreneurial skills, Vocational and Technical Education in Nigeria, and strategies for the way forward. The major sources of data are secondary, interview and observation. Findings revealed the need to revise the policy of ETVE to meet the needs of the changing world of work. Challenges identified include corruption, inadequate funding, inadequate equipment, unqualified TVET Teachers/Instructors, poor documentation, policy implementation, poor conditions of service, and poor supervision of TVET programmes. Finally, the study identified policy revision, improvement in budgetary allocation, collaboration, sensitization, Public-Private Partnership, and training and retraining of instructors as the way forward toward the amelioration of the issues raised.

Keywords: entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial skills, vocational and technical education, technical and vocational education and training, VTE policy

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