Internationalization of Higher Education: A Stakeholder Approach

<span lang="EN-IN">Internationalization in higher education has been catching up as a trend receiving attention more recently than before. Academia, institutions, scholars, parents, host nations, and home countries all constitute a vicious circle of stakeholders who play a role in internationalization. Each of them has something to take and something to give, and all of them stand to benefit from it. Internationalization is achieved through various means. By opening up their border for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in higher education, countries navigate their opportunities to connect with foreign universities. However, this is limited by political decisions. Moreover, all of what constitutes a learning environment cannot be cloned and eventually miss out on the real experience that you get there. The alternative is to further the educational ‘migration’, cost and affordability notwithstanding. In both the former and the latter, the stakeholders are key instruments in the process. Therefore, any attempt to study internationalization should take into account a stakeholder perspective to examine the advantages and benefits which might accrue to them, more so the constraints and disadvantages. This would necessitate a systemic analysis of both types of supporting systems that favour internationalization. This paper aims to narrate a stakeholder perspective. An attempt is made to examine the key stakeholder issues and critical constituent elements that need to be addressed to facilitate internationalization. Internationalization as a global ranking parameter for educational institutions and its relation with gross enrolment ratio (GER) is also discussed.</span>

Neo-globalization Revisited: The Contours of a New Global Economic Order

<p>Disruption induces disequilibrium. Today’s global economy is the case in point. Powerful sources of disruption are undermining classic premises of global economic equilibrium and, in the process, changing the contours of the world economy. Long cherished globalization premises of free market, open economy, small government, private initiative, and deregulation are being challenged. Sources of this challenge are numerous. There are government and corporate debt, extreme individualism, high industry concentration, slanted income and wealth distribution, self-serving industry practices, and above all self-centered trade policies.</p><p>What has gone wrong and is there a way out of this dark environment is the focus of this article. The article addresses the need and premises of a Neo-globalization. It addressed, as a point of start, the failures of the existing paradigm and moves on to address premises for a Neo-globalization.</p>

Connection between Saving, Investment and Economic Growth of India

This paper scrutinizes the relationship between gross domestic saving, gross capital formation and economic growth in India during a period from 1992 to 2018. The results of cointegration analysis reveal that there is a long-run relationship between selected variables; however, the observations from the results of the Granger causality test indicate a positive relationship between saving, investment and economic growth in India. The findings explicate that saving and investment directed growth is coming from the private sector.

The Moderating Effect of Gender on Audit Committee Attributes and Earnings Management

There exist a number of studies that have been conducted on the influence of audit committee attributes on earnings management but no attention has been given to the moderating effect of gender on audit committee attributes and earnings management. The main objective of this study was to examine the moderating effect of gender on the impact of audit committee attributes on earnings management of listed Agricultural companies in Nigeria for a period of six years (2012-2017). The study used ex-post facto and correlational research designs. The population of the study was the five (5) Agricultural companies in Nigeria listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange as of 31st December 2017 and all the companies were used as a sample of the study. The study used a panel of multiple regression techniques for data analysis. It was found that gender has a strong and significant influence on the impact of audit committee attributes on earnings management of listed Agricultural companies in Nigeria. It was recommended that the audit committee of companies in Nigeria should comprise of at least 40% of women. Regulatory bodies concerned in Nigeria like Securities and Exchange Commission, Nigerian Stock Exchange and Financial Reporting Council should clearly state the composition of audit committee members and increase the number to ten where women should form 40% of the members of the committee and a woman with financial knowledge should be made the chairperson of the committee since women have shown a significant level of commitment to their responsibilities and contribute in reducing earnings manipulation.

Global Ranking and Its Implications in Higher Education

Higher Education Institutions try to enhance their competitiveness so as to become distinguished centers of learning and research. Various agencies conduct rankings of institutions independent of each other using different criteria. Although the purpose of ranking is to encourage healthy competition and distinguish the best institution in the interest of the learners to choose, the differences in criteria have cast a lot of confusion in building a parity. Academic performance and allied factors, as well as research, publication, and allied factors, are common to all. Some ranking agencies take into consideration industry-institution collaborations, international outlook, alumni, overall reputation, and even financial stability. This paper aims to attempt a comparison of the ranking methodology adopted by selected prominent Global University Ranking Agencies all over the world and throw light on the positive and negative outcomes of the global ranking. Based on in-depth analysis and critical comments on the limitations of these ranking systems, a generic model for balanced global university ranking is also proposed. Given the fact that nations differ, cultures differ, and the context of higher education itself differ across nations, the study illuminates the fallacy and dangers of segregating all institutions under the same mould.

Digital Entrepreneurship vis-à-vis Managing Customers’ Data: Available Ways & Means to Protect the Online Presence of the Businesses

<p class="normal">The modern day businesses are having an inevitable online presence to ensure to grab every possible opportunity to do business. Even the businesses who do transact purely offline are also having their online presence by having their business websites. And those businesses which have an entire gamut of their services or digital products to offer only via online channels have to ensure near to perfect online set-ups to stay in the businesses. Online businesses receive thousands of gigabytes of data from their users or customers on a daily basis altogether. This data contains specific information about the geographics of the users, their financial information, KYCs, their investment and other key profile based data. What will happen if that enormous data lands in the hands of some unscrupulous people? The user and customers' data will get compromised affecting them negatively. Many of the users may incur financial losses due to that mishandling of digital data. And last but not the least, the digital businesses will have all the possible dents of bad reputation leading to even boycott of their businesses by the users on a massive scale. All this is sufficient to shatter the dreams of the digital entrepreneurship. This paper seeks to point out how the digital entrepreneurs can better identify key data of their users and customers, how they can keep safe custody of that data and how to manage and protect the confidentiality of the users and customers.</p>

Corruption and Its Effects on Sustainable Economic Performance

<p>The study examines corruption and its effects on achieving sustainable economic performance in Africa with a data set from 2002-2017. The Hausman Test for determining the appropriate model selection between Random and Fixed effects was employed with the fixed effects model of estimation chosen to be the appropriate method of estimation indicating that the degree of relationship and significant between corruption and sustainable economic performance in negative. The R² explains that 95% of variations in sustainable economic performance in the estimation of prime independent variables. Aside corruption having a negative and insignificant impact on sustainable economic performance, an increase in human development and labour resulted in a positive and significant relations on sustainable economic performance, with the rest of the explanatory variables having a poor and negative affiliation with sustainable economic performance. The above therefore follows the empirical, conventional and theoretical perspective that corruption declines growth and sustainability both domestically and globally.</p>

Board Characteristics and Intellectual Capital Performance: A Comparison of Service vs. Manufacturing Firms in India

<p><strong>Purpose: </strong>This study aims at analysing the board characteristics of select manufacturing and service firms in India. It attempts to explore whether these characteristics influence Intellectual capital (IC) efficiency of service sector firms or manufacturing firms.</p><p><strong>Design: </strong>The study uses panel data and multiple regression to examine the firms’ performance. The period of study is three years from 2015-16 to 2017-18; thirty firms each from manufacturing and service sector is taken for study.</p><p><strong>Findings: </strong>The empirical evidence is quite interesting. The board characteristics of both groups have varied differences. It can also be observed clearly that the impact of board characteristics on IC performance is more in the service sector than in the manufacturing sector.</p><p><strong>Research limitations/implications: </strong>the study focusses only on select firms from manufacturing and service sector as a preliminary study. The study can be expanded to cover sectors and industries.</p><div><p><strong>Originality and value: </strong>There are several research studies that try to explore the impact of corporate governance on the financial performance of firms. However, there are none which looks into their impact on the intangible performance of firms.</p></div>

From Planned to Transformative Urbanization: Analyzing India’s Policies of Urban Rejuvenation

<p>This paper examines India’s urban challenges, successive policies of urban development and their impact on the much needed urban transformation. It examines successive policies, plans, and approaches to meet the ever rising urban challenges from the first Five Year Plan till the end of planning era and also underscores the highlights of urban planning through the entire five-year plan period. In the process, it investigates whether the ubiquitous urban deficit in India is actually due to the so-called 'reluctant urbanization' and whether the current policy of creating hundred smart cities can lead to urban transformation in India. This paper is based on the analysis of the available secondary data from various sources. By critically examining the available secondary data this paper explores whether India’s urban deficit is a result of poor planning or lack of long term vision and strategy to meet the emerging urban challenges. This paper also critically looks into the emerging ICT-driven paradigms and design of the ‘smart cities’ as models of urban transformation and juxtaposes them to India's own vision of creating hundred smart cities to ensure urban transformation. The paper concludes that any urban transformation should be socially inclusive, economically viable and environmentally sustainable. Technology should not be the end rather the means for bringing urban transformation and building smart cities.</p>

The Place of Politics in Social Protection Program: Focus on Infant and Maternal Health Care Delivery in Akure, Nigeria

<p>The study examines the place of politics in infant and maternal health care delivery in Akure. To achieve this, the following objectives were made: assess the magnitude of infant birth and death as well as maternal death in the study area from 2003-2017, identify the causes of infant and maternal death in Akure, examine the relationship between politics and infant and maternal health care through policies and programmes instituted by various administrations and identify challenges facing infant and maternal health care delivery in Akure. To successfully capture these objectives, two governments owned hospitals (Mother and Child Hospital and Ondo State Specialist Hospital Akure) were selected for the administration of questionnaires. In all, eighty (80) women that have made use of the hospitals during pregnancy and child care stage were randomly and purposefully selected from the record file of the hospitals for the purpose of questionnaire administration. Likewise, the Chief Medical Directors of the two hospitals were interviewed. Data obtained were collated and presented using the descriptive statistical method. Findings revealed the policies, programmes, and accomplishments of successive governments of Ondo State from 2003-2017. The study recommends that successive government at all levels irrespective of political or party affiliation should make infant and maternal health care free most especially to the poor and the vulnerable group in the society.</p>