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The study explores diverse and critical understandings of “international” in a higher education curriculum context, situated in a curriculum review of a postgraduate taught programme entitled “International Education” at a university located in England. Our study problematises and decentres some dominant, normalised notions of “international”, exploring critical possibilities of engaging with the term for higher education internationalisation.

We examined a set of programme curriculum documents and conducted a survey exploring teaching staff’s uses and interpretations of “international” in their design and delivery of course units. Through a thematic analysis of the dataset, we identify what “international” might mean or how it may be missing across the curriculum.

Our findings suggest a locally-developed conceptualisation of “international” beyond the normalised interpretation of “international” as the inclusion or comparison of multiple nations, and different, other countries around the global world. More diverse, critical understandings of the term have been considered, including international as intercultural, competences, ethics, languages and methods. The study provides an example approach to reflective scholarship that programmes can undergo in order to develop clarity, depth and purposefulness into internationalisation as enacted in a local curriculum context.

The study provides a first step towards establishing clearer guidelines on internationalising the curriculum by higher education institutions and individual programmes in order to challenge a superficial engagement of “international” within internationalisation. It exemplifies a starting point for making purposeful steps away from normalised notions and assumptions of international education and facilitates development towards its critical, ethically-grounded opportunities.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate what factors can affect individuals’ knowledge sharing on social media from the perspectives of personality traits and social capital.

A theoretical model was developed with reference to the personality traits theory and the social capital theory. Accordingly, a questionnaire was designed to collect the individuals’ ideas on knowledge sharing on social media and further test the model. The questionnaire was then distributed to two LINE groups. Finally, the collected data were analyzed using the partial least squares (PLS) approach.

Personality traits not only directly affect knowledge sharing, but also indirectly influence it via social capital. Of all personality traits, agreeableness, openness and extraversion directly and indirectly influence knowledge sharing.

Knowledge sharing is undertaken by individuals and social groups. It starts with individuals and then diffuses to other members of a group.

Group managers have to identify the members who are friendly, open-minded or extroverted and encourage them to act as the bellwethers for knowledge sharing under an effective regulatory regime, through which intra-group knowledge sharing can be promoted.

This study introduces a new model to explore knowledge sharing on social media from individual and social perspectives. It illustrates what will affect individuals’ knowledge sharing on social media.

Building on the intergroup relations perspective on the social identity theory, the authors examine whether firms' environmental, social and governance (ESG) varies when local firms have non-local CEOs. Additionally, the authors examine which contextual factors may strengthen or weaken the effectiveness of ESG in helping non-local CEOs garner trust, legitimacy and resources support from local stakeholders.

Pooled OLS regressions, based on unbalanced panel data and controlling for year and industry fixed effects, were estimated using a sample composed of 836 Chinese A-share listed firms that have Bloomberg ESG disclosure scores data from 2006 to 2019.

Results suggest that companies with non-local CEOs, who are perceived as outgroup members by the local stakeholders, would lead to a higher level of ESG performance to overcome the intergroup bias they face. In addition, results also show that companies with a lower level of previous ESG decoupling and having more slack will mitigate the relationship between non-local CEOs and ESG performance. Conversely, firm visibility at a high level will promote the positive relationship between non-local CEOs and ESG performance.

This study offers theoretical insights that extend the focus of intragroup relation to outgroup identity, by introducing an intergroup relations lens to explore how outgroup (or nonprototypical) leaders utilize ESG to counter intergroup bias they suffer. Moreover, this study also extends current literature focusing on non-local CEOs and ESG performance.

Promoting customer–company identification (CCI) has become a crucial relationship marketing strategy for service firms. The purpose of this study is to examine how customers’ perceptions of service quality and corporate social responsibility (CSR) affect CCI over time. More importantly, a comparative analysis is conducted to compare the long-term effectiveness of service quality versus CSR in forming CCI.

A conceptual framework is developed and then empirically examined using latent growth curve modeling. The study data were collected from restaurant customers in Taiwan in four waves of 213 repeated measures.

The results of this study show that customers’ perceptions of both service quality and CSR affect CCI. Particularly, the results of this study indicate that compared with service quality, customers’ perceived CSR has a stronger effect in the promotion of CCI over time.

This study offers a new insight for service marketing practitioners who are planning and implementing strategies for enhancing CCI. The findings suggest that relationship investments are more effective over the long term when service firms shift their investment priority over time from achieving high service quality to increasing consumers’ belief in the firm’s commitment to CSR.

Though previous research has explored the various drivers of CCI, longitudinal examinations are surprisingly scarce in this context. Using latent growth curve modeling, this study examines how CCI antecedents influence changes in CCI over time. More importantly, this study reveals that CSR has a stronger long-term impact on CCI than service quality.

Enhancing consumer-company identification (CCI) is a useful means by which to build deeper, more committed relationships with consumers. The purpose of this paper is to examine how consumers’ perceptions about the company (service quality and corporate social responsibility) and construal of the self (independent self-construal and interdependent self-construal) affect their identification with a service firm. This study also investigates how consumers’ involvement with the service firm moderates the relationships between CCI and four specific drivers.

A conceptual model is developed and empirically tested through two field-based studies (restaurant services and financial services) and one follow-up laboratory experiment.

The results of this research show that service quality, corporate social responsibility and interdependent self-construal positively affect CCI and that independent self-construal has a negative effect on CCI. In particular, the greater the involvement of the consumer with the service firm, the more positive the effects of service quality and corporate social responsibility are on CCI.

This research provides new insight into services marketing management by suggesting that service firms can enhance CCI and, consequently, consumer loyalty by adopting different strategies for specific consumer segments.

This is the first empirical study to simultaneously incorporate both company characteristics and consumer personal factors into a framework, and provide an integrative understanding of what factors determine consumers’ identification with a service firm.

This paper mainly focuses on how to induce all members to represent members' true preferences for supply and demand matching of E-commerce platform in order to generate stable matching schemes with more social welfare of Multi-agent Matching Platform (MMP) and individually stable advantages than traditional methods.

An MMP is designed. Meanwhile, a true preference inducing method, Lower-Bid Ranking (LBR), is proposed to reduce the number of false preferences, which is helpful to solve the problem that too much false preferences leads to low efficiency of platform operation and supply and demand matching. Then, a systematic model of LBR-based Stable Matching (SM-LBR) is proposed.

To obtain an ideal transaction partner, the adequate preference ordering and modifying according to market environment is needed for everyone, and the platform should give full play to the platforms' information advantages and process historical transaction and cooperation data. Meanwhile, the appropriate supply and demand matching is beneficial to improve the efficiency and quality of platform operation, and the design of matching guidance mechanism is essential.

The numerical experiments show that, the proposed model (SM-LBR) can induce members to represent the model's true preferences for stable matching and generate effective matchings with more social welfare of MMP and individually stable advantages than traditional methods, which may provide necessary method and model reference for the research of stable matching and E-commerce platform operation.

Advances in technology have led to continuous innovations in teaching and learning methods. Ubiquitous-learning (u-learning) practices are still in the development stages. The current lack of effective learning strategy tools means that students often experience difficulty focusing on the learning objectives. Little research has been done on the educational benefits of integrating augmented reality (AR) technology running on tablet PCs (TPCs), either in the classroom or in a u-learning environment. Still, classroom instruction using TPCs has been shown to be attractive to students and able to effectively increase their motivation to learn. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This paper uses a TPC game (an app called SkyView) to help young students understand the theory and practically implement the astronomy concepts of prograde and retrograde motion. The study design is based on the use of AR technology, and the authors divide students into “tablet PC application” (experimental group) and “astrolabe” (control group) games. The authors investigate whether the experimental group surpasses the control group in terms of learning motivation, flow experience (FE), self-efficacy regarding technology, self-efficacy regarding science, positive feelings about the learning experience, and satisfaction with the learning approach (SL).

The findings show that students in the experimental group performed better in regards to learning achievement. In general, the improved FE helped students enjoy the learning activity to the point that they did not notice the passage of time. In regards to SL, the findings show that the students in the experimental group had an increased willingness to use the TPC to learn.

There is a lack of research investigating the effects of the FE with tangible and AR technology in learning environments. The results of this study show the responses and performance of elementary students who participated in such a learning experience, in terms of their feelings regarding the method and tools, and in terms of their motivation, willingness to learn, and actual learning achievement.

The phosphorus and zinc contained in zinc dialkyl dithiophosphate (ZDDP) caused severe environment pollution and catalyst poison. Thus, the phosphorus-free additive, such as borate esters, has become one of studying hot topics in the area of oil additive. However, the stability of hydrolysis greatly limited the use of borate esters. The purpose of this paper is to improve the stability of hydrolysis by synthesizing a new kind of N-containing heterocyclic borate ester (MTTDB) as a lubricant additive.

The tribological properties of novel borate ester (MTTDB) as an additive in the base oil were studied by a four-ball machine. The element composition and chemical state of the tribofilm were investigated by scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive spectrometer and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy.

The results showed that the base oil lubricated by MTTDB exhibited high hydrolytic stability, good anti-wear property and excellent extreme pressure performance. When 2.5 per cent MTTDB was added into the 100N base oil, the smallest wear scar diameter (0.46 mm) was obtained. Furthermore, the decomposed borate ester, organic sulfide adsorbed on the worn surface was detected, and S element reacted with the steel surface and generated FeSO4, both of which contributed to the formation of the tribofilm.

Based on N-containing heterocyclic compounds, for instance, thiadiazole derivatives, introducing nitrogen and sulfur elements into borate ester, a new kind of N-containing heterocyclic borate ester (MTTDB) exhibited excellent property in hydrolysis stability, friction-reducing, anti-wear and extreme pressure. This synthesized method would be helpful for the borate ester used as additive in engine oil, gear oil and other industrial lubricants.

This paper aims to investigate whether the effects of children's current learning are related to their learning efficiency and behavior when they are exposed to two different gaming media.

In this paper the authors used a quasi-experimental design to determine whether game-based learning can be improved by using mobile devices equipped with augmented reality (AR).

The control group using the card game was careful to find the correct answer, with the intention of “obtaining the maximum score with the highest rate of correctness,” whereas the experimental group using the AR board game played aggressively by “obtaining the maximum score with the highest number.”

Although integrating an AR board game into the curriculum is an effective approach, the need to implement such a game in response to different learning attitudes and behaviors of students should be addressed.

Depending on the learning situation, different teaching methods and aids can be used to help students effectively learn. The recommendations based on this experiment can broaden the teaching field and allow for a wider range of experimental studies.

Learning behavior was observed, and user attention was interpreted using MindWave Mobile.

Customer satisfaction (CS) and customer-company identification (CCI) are two important relational constructs and play a complementary role in the service-profit chain. Drawing from the theory of relationship dynamics, the purpose of this paper is to define CS velocity and CCI velocity as the rate and direction of change in CS and CCI, respectively. A comparison of the relative effects of CCI velocity and CS velocity on customer loyalty is done through a latent growth curve modeling approach.

A conceptual model is developed and empirically tested based on four waves of a longitudinal survey of 213 restaurant customers.

The results show that both CCI velocity and CS velocity have positive effects on customer loyalty. More importantly, the effects of CCI velocity on customer loyalty over time are stronger than those of CS velocity. The moderation analysis further shows that the higher the frequency of visits to the service firm, the stronger the effects of relationship velocity on customer loyalty.

The results provide new insights for service marketing managers by suggesting that, to benefit the long-term effectiveness of relationship investments, service firms should shift the priority from increasing CS to engendering CCI.

This paper contributes to the theory of relationship dynamics by conceptualizing new constructs of CS velocity and CCI velocity and by empirically comparing their relative effects on customer loyalty over time.