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This paper aims to report the results of implementation of blogging within a LinkedIn discussion group in an international marketing course for a multicultural group of students focusing on the students’ perceptions of the subject-related blogging.

This study adopts a qualitative approach; data have been collected through online observations of the students’ activity in a LinkedIn discussion group and structured interviews with volunteers after the completion of the course.

The results indicate the students’ positive attitudes towards blogging in LinkedIn. Blogging perceptibly contributed to the students’ acquisition of knowledge in the subject area, development of multicultural awareness and writing skills and improvement of critical thinking. In most cases, this type of activity had an impact on the development of the students’ creativity and personal expression. Some patterns are only identified for subgroups of students with a certain cultural background (Chinese, Asian, German-speaking and European students).

The results of this qualitative study are specific for a particular setting (a small international class of students) and a certain type of assignment (in terms of its structure and instructor involvement).

This study contributes to the growing body of literature on using social media-based assignments in business education by generating a better understanding of how participants in a multicultural group perceive the process of experiential learning while blogging in a LinkedIn discussion group.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the evolution of HM government’s gang strategy from 2011 to the present. It considers why an initial emphasis upon the “troubled family” as the progenitor of gang violence has given way to more tightly focussed modes of intervention in which concerns about gang violence are conflated with other policy concerns.

The paper draws on a range of policy documents over the relevant period to demonstrate a shift in rhetoric and focus and assesses this trajectory against the evidence base suggested by other relevant literature.

The argument contained in the paper attributes this shift in focus to a combination of the insights provided by new research, dwindling budgets and the reformulation of the original policy objectives in terms of recent policy priorities.

It is suggested that in times of austerity, policy initiatives are reformulated to fit available resources but changes are presented as an improvement on what went before.

The paper uses secondary sources to develop and original analysis and argument.

This chapter reviews developments concerning central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). It introduces, analyzes, and discusses the potential implications of CBDCs on the existing cryptoassets landscape. The chapter also provides an overview of the different approaches to adopting and implementing this new form of money. Additionally, it compares traditional cryptocurrencies, privately issued stablecoins, fiat currencies, and CBDCs. Although vastly divergent opinions exist on digital money’s purpose, benefits, and use cases, CBDCs can provide opportunities for innovation and experimentation at a central bank and systemic level. CBDCs may pave the way for democratizing access to unbundled financial services while rethinking the overall purpose of money, monetary systems, and global business.

In Canada, companies are focusing on corporate governance as an ethical response to accounting scandals and the resulting crisis of confidence. Although, many aspects of corporate governance remain free from strict regulation, we examine the voluntary changes in the disclosures of the largest Canadian companies. We attempt to understand, through disclosure theory, discourse analysis, and structuration theory, the quality of these corporate governance disclosures. We recognize that much of the disclosure is opportunistic as companies state that they have not only complied with the non-compulsory Canadian guidelines, but have also met and exceeded the requirements of U.S. regulators. This is an important finding that supports the notion that Canadian companies do not need rules and regulations. Instead, a culture of governance is developing at the boards of large companies that encourages voluntary change. Whether this is enough to prevent future accounting scandals is a question for future research.

The paper reports an investigation into the marketing and performance consequences of organisations operating in regulated, deregulated and open market environments in Zimbabwe’s developing economy. The findings suggest that organisations do not respond to environmental changes by adapting their marketing effort, hence the environment is a poor predictor of marketing effort. Organisational strategy has a far greater impact on marketing effort than the environment. However, the environment is an important predictor of organisational performance and has significant interaction with business strategy in influencing organisational performance hence it is a quasi‐moderator. Our result suggests that in regulated environments there may be “ideal‐type” strategies for effectiveness and across all environments the concept of equifinality is not supported. There is evidence to suggest that more adaptable strategy types outperform their less adaptive competitors. These results extend a popular typology to developing economies and allow some findings to be generalisable across countries at different stages of economic development.

This article analyses the determinants of participation in higher education in Germany, with a particular focus on the role of expectations regarding the cost and the return of higher education. The results show that the enrolment probability is mainly influenced by social origin, even though it also depends on cost and return expectations. In particular, a high unemployment risk and a high expected wage premium seem to increase the enrolment probability, while a higher propensity of non‐ or part‐time employment decreases it. Moreover, extending the coverage of public financial support seems to be more efficient in increasing enrolments than raising the amount granted per beneficiary.