Search results

The aim of this study was to measure the level of challenges faced by novice teachers in South Africa. Findings suggest a need for professional development courses to upskill teachers with effective pedagogies that can incorporate the social and emotional components into teaching and learning.

This study applied a descriptive research methodology by administering a questionnaire to 143 novice teachers. The data analysis technique was the Rasch model.

The findings indicated high item and person reliability, with a good item fit and polarity values that are compatible with the Rasch model. The three major challenges identified are uninvolved parents, discipline problems and a lack of guidance and counselling. These challenges can be related to social and emotional learning (SEL) components.

The study used quantitative methods and discovered the challenges that novice teachers face. If the research uses a combination of qualitative methods, it will be possible to better identify the specific causes of the above three challenges of novice teachers.

Due to the complex nature of South African society, many novice teachers are overwhelmed by the challenges they face when entering the profession. These challenges are often embedded in societal risk factors, which complicate the transition from student teacher to novice teacher. The major challenges identified in this study can be related to SEL components, as the challenges are closely linked to the psychological and social backgrounds of the students. Teachers in this study indicated that they found it difficult to deal with these challenges at the beginning of their careers.

By identifying the challenges facing new teachers in South Africa, they will be better prepared for their work in schools. Therefore, they will improve the above situation to continue developing professionally.

The findings indicated high item and person reliability, with a good item fit and polarity values that are compatible with the Rasch model. Teachers in this study indicated that they found it difficult to deal with these challenges in the beginning of their careers. Professional development courses are suggested to help teachers deal with issues such as discipline, uninvolved parents and guidance and counselling effectively. Higher education programmes should also include these topics in their curricula for student teachers. A greater emphasis on training teachers in their pastoral roles is suggested.

The research objective is rooted in the principle of providing new insights and a collective perspective regarded as Supply Chain Quality Management 4.0 (SCQM4.0), an integration of all three concepts – Industrie 4.0, quality management and supply chain management.

A thorough review of historical developments and existing integration trends among Industrie 4.0, quality and supply chain approaches along with future research directions outlined in the main literature, was conducted. This work establishes a knowledge base on research topics, issues of integration and synergies with a concentration on the potential for deeper integration with supply chain operations.

This article not only introduced the term SCQM4.0 and proposed a definition for it, but also contributed a novel conceptual SCQM4.0 framework and evolutionary perspective through the SCQM4.0 maturation model. Stemming from the gaps, opportunities and benefits identified in the literature, the conceptual SCQM4.0 framework builds on the high potential of the SCQM4.0 constructs to achieve successful governance and implementation. Under the SCQM4.0 maturity framework, it provides a clear evolutionary path underpinned by the SCQM4.0 constructs.

In the effort toward a successful SCQM4.0 implementation, the proposed SCQM4.0 maturity frameworks will be a “road map” for businesses to develop fully and actively in supply chain operations, bringing quality products and services for the company. Industry practitioners are encouraged to perform gap analysis and direct the implementation of the strategy to establish an excellent SCQM4.0.

This is one of the pioneering studies integrating all three concepts (Industrie 4.0, quality management and supply chain management), connecting the link and discovering more synergies to support the future development of more holistic management models. SCQM4.0 is expected to expand on the strengths, synergies and established relationships between technologies 4.0, quality and supply chain, contributing toward a pioneering and quality supply chain.

This research aims to specialise in the investigation of risk management for service-oriented manufacturing supply chains via two stages, highlighting its differences from manufacturing. The research article is commenced by executing an encyclopedic review of earlier research to ascertain the distinctive traits of service-oriented manufacturing supply chains and identify prevalent risks. Secondly, an empirical study in the construction field, amongst the industry hardest struck in the mist of the COVID-19 epidemic, is conducted to thoroughly inspect the resonant effect of these risks on service-oriented manufacturing supply chain performance.

In this study, to validate the resonant effect mechanism, a thorough assessment is undertaken by juxtaposing theoretical model to a newly constructed comparative model that encompasses the single effects of risks on supply chain performance.

63% variance of service-oriented manufacturing supply chain performance was showcased by the resonant effect model, compared with 46.3% in the comparative model. Moreover, each risk exerts a more glaringly significant impact on supply chain performance, asserting the mechanism of the resonant influence. Another noteworthy result involves the demand risk possessing a low effect on supply chain performance, thus emphasising the superiority of service-oriented manufacturing supply chains.

Future research endeavours should hinge on the optimal “resonant” model explosion, thereby foreseeing and alleviating worst-case scenarios to guarantee the robustness and resilience of supply chain networks.

Indubitably, reducing the intensity of the resonant effect revolves around lowering the coefficient of “a,” thereby restricting/eliminating the link among risks. Therefore, the suggested resonant impact model might thus serve as “a road map”. In light of the aforementioned considerations, it is advisable that supply chain executives employ supply chain management tactics namely avoidance, prediction, and postponement, but only after meticulous consideration the costs and benefits of adopting such strategies.

The service-oriented manufacturing supply chain features and advantages have been analysed and explained throughout the article. The data gathered during the COVID-19 pandemic is a captivating and topical point of this paper.

This paper aims to identify and assess global risks in the supply chain performance.

First, global risks are identified and classified according to three criteria: content, probability and context. A set of supply chain performance indicators are then defined by the theory of resource-based view and balanced scorecard. Structural equation modeling is adopted to access risks in the global supply chain.

This article contributes to the supply chain risk management literature by providing a detailed operationalization of global supply chain risk constructs, e.g. natural disasters, war and terrorism, fire accidents, economic and political instability, social and cultural grievances, decease. Empirical results reveal that the supply chain is predominantly regarded as being vulnerable as the proposed model of risks can explain up to 12.6% variance of supplier performance, 25.2% innovation and learning, 23% internal business, 40.6% customer service and 32.4% finance.

These risks are relevant contextual variables in strategic supply chain decisions. Supply chain managers should keep in mind acceptable cost/benefit tradeoffs in their firms' mitigation efforts associated with major contingency risks. This research advocates the allocation of scarce resources to adopt the supply chain strategies of avoidance, speculative and postponement.

The application of the strategic content/process/context to explain global supply chain performance is an interesting approach. Moreover, globalization trends and the COVID-19 perspectives are considered to be the main reasons for increasing such complex factors. Data on validating research models collected during the COVID-19 pandemic reflect the topicality of this study.

The present study is performed to identify the propagation mechanism of the ripple effect as well as examine the simultaneous impact of risks on supply chain (SC) performance.

A theoretical framework with many hypotheses regarding the relationships between SC risk types and performance is established. The data are collected from a large-scale survey supported by a project of the Japanese government to promote sustainable socioeconomic development for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) region, with the participation of 207 firms. Structural equation modeling (SEM) is used to test the hypotheses of the theoretical framework.

It is indicated that human-made risk causes operational risk, while natural risk causes both supply risk and operational risk. Furthermore, the impacts of human-made risk and natural risk on performance are amplified through operational risk.

This study is one of the first attempts that identifies the propagation mechanism of the ripple effect and examines the simultaneous impact of risks on performance in construction SCs.

Although many studies on risk management in construction SCs have been carried out, they mainly focus on risk identification or quantification of risk impact. It is observed that research on the ripple effect of disruptions has been very scarce.

This study aims to investigate specific professional competencies of teachers to implement education for sustainable development (ESD) in the contexts of Vietnam.

The authors carried out a Delphi study with eight ESD experts in Vietnam to collect their expertise viewpoints regarding teachers’ ESD professional competencies.

In total, 13 competencies related to three dimensions (content knowledge/cognitive, pedagogical and pedagogical content knowledge, motivation and volition) were highlighted by ESD experts.

The proposed teachers’ competencies were based on the ideas of a small group of experts, and the results need to be tested, refined and confirmed by further work. Besides, in this study, we have not defined the levels of achievement for each competency as well as developed assessment tools.

The specific professional competencies for teachers can be considered as a foundation for developing educational offers focusing on promoting the specific teachers’ professional competencies in basic ESD training.

Studies on educators’ professional competencies for ESD mostly were conducted in western countries. However, competencies do not exist independently; instead, they should be considered in specific contexts of teaching, school, culture and society. This research is among one of the first studies that contextualizes teachers’ competencies in a non-western context.

Employability has long been a concern of scholars because of its complicated nature and changes in the requirements in labor markets to meet the new requirements of the Industrial Revolution 4.0 and globalization. However, there has not yet been much systematic investigation of the existing literature tracing the trends, changes and developments in employability research. This paper aims to fill this void by analyzing data obtained from the Scopus dataset from 1972 to 2019.

A total of 1,703 Scopus-indexed articles were filtered from 7,885 documents. The results reflect a rapidly emerging literature on employability, given the worldwide interest in this topic. Using descriptive statistics and bibliometric analyses, the review identified trends in employability research, whose impact has been sustained for several decades.

With science mapping, the conceptual structure of scientific disciplines was visualized, highlighting three main schools of thought including employers’ requirements and higher education institutions’ preparation; the antecedents of employability; and the role of work-integrated learning in enhancing employability.

The paper calls for more integrative research focusing on personal agency with the development of career paths inside organizations as well as for a more focus on a multilevel perspective exploring both individuals' and organizations’ perceptions.

With the advancement of technology, microlearning has emerged as a promising method to improve the efficacy of teaching and learning. This study aims to investigate the document types, volume, growth trajectory, geographic contribution, coauthor relationships, prominent authors, research groups, influential documents and publication outlets in the microlearning literature.

We adapt the PRISMA guidelines to assess the eligibility of 297 Scopus-indexed documents from 2002 to 2021. Each was manually labeled by educational level. Descriptive statistics and science mapping were conducted to highlight relevant objects and their patterns in the knowledge base.

This study confirms the increasing trend of microlearning publications over the last two decades, with conference papers dominating the microlearning literature (178 documents, 59.86%). Despite global contributions, a concentrated effort from scholars in 15 countries (22.39%) yielded 68.8% of all documents, while the remaining papers were dispersed across 52 other nations (77.61%). Another significant finding is that most documents pertain to three educational level categories: lifelong learning, higher education and all educational levels. In addition, this research highlights six key themes in the microlearning domain, encompassing (1) Design and evaluation of mobile learning, (2) Microlearning adaptation in MOOCs, (3) Language teaching and learning, (4) Workflow of a microlearning system, (5) Microlearning content design, (6) Health competence and health behaviors. Other aspects analyzed in this study include the most prominent authors, research groups, documents and references.

The finding represents all topics at various educational levels to offer a comprehensive view of the knowledge base.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of innovation on the performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Vietnam.

The paper uses data from the surveys on SMEs in Vietnam conducted by the Development Economics Research Group at the University of Copenhagen, the United Nations University’s World Institute for Development Economics Research, Central Institute for Economic Management and Institute of Labor Science and Social Affairs, and applies least squared regressions and 2SLS regressions to examine the effect of innovation on the performance of SMEs.

The authors find that SMEs with innovation tend to perform better than SMEs without innovation. The authors further show that the positive effect of innovation on firm performance mainly comes from the effect of improvement of existing products, an important type of innovation in SMEs. This result is persistent when the authors use propensity matching score and 2SLS regression with instrumental variable approaches. Overall, the results show the important role of innovation in enhancing the firm performance of SMEs, which sheds light on the literature on the controversial relation between innovation and SMEs performance in the world.

The major limitation of the paper is the lack of data. Although the database used in the paper is widely used to analyze SMEs in Vietnam, it covers about 2,500 firms in only nine provinces/cities in Vietnam.

Policymakers should enact relevant policies to support SMEs with innovation activities, thereby increasing firm performance and their competitiveness. For instance, encouragement policies or financial incentives (tax reduction or subsidies) for innovative firms should be implemented and/or fostered.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper to examine the effect of different types of innovation on the performance of SMEs in Vietnam.