At a time when higher education is being pushed not only to increase efficiencies to provide greater value and to innovate to meet new global challenges, processes of accountability and accreditation to demonstrate quality may be leading to conformance and a one-size-fits-all model of what institutions and programs should be. Further, in the…

Equating the unequal is misleading, and this happens consistently in comparing rankings from different university ranking systems, as the NUT saga shows. This article illustrates the problem by analyzing the 2011 rankings of the top 100 universities in the AWUR, QSWUR and THEWUR ranking results. It also discusses the reasons why the rankings…

During the past few years, "soft power" has been widely discussed and studied in China. Higher education, one of the largest components of national soft power, has begun to play an active and important role. In this article, we review the literature on the soft power of colleges and universities and describe ways to enhance it; we also…

This article argues for the idea of different moments in Vygotsky's work while highlighting combinations of ideas and concepts that were particularly emphasized in distinct moments of his work. After Vygotsky's death, these moments were not considered a theoretical system in development, either in former Soviet psychology or in Western…

This paper replies to points raised by the editors of the "ABS Guide", Huw Morris, Charles Harvey, Aidan Kelly and Michael Rowlinson (2011) "Accounting Education: an international journal", 20(6), pp. 561-573) in response to a paper published in a previous issue of "Accounting Education" (Hussain, S. (2011)…

A common theme within the literature on higher education is the congested nature of the graduate labour market. Researchers have highlighted the lengths to which many students now go, in response to this congestion, to "distinguish themselves" from other graduates: paying increased attention to university status; engaging in a range of…

Background: Maintaining the independence of contract government program evaluation presents significant contracting challenges. The ideal outcome for an agency is often both the impression of an independent evaluation "and" a glowing report. In this, independent evaluation is like financial statement audits: firm management wants both a public…

At a time when 87% of employers believe that our colleges must raise the quality of students' educations in order for the United States to remain competitive globally, and four in five Americans say they believe all graduates should have to take the key courses outlined in the study, few colleges require a real liberal arts education. "What…

From ongoing practices and rhetorics of globalization have emerged a new set of actors, logics and relations between and beyond institutions of higher education and research. As universities across the world continue to grapple with fundamental changes in resource structures and institutional missions, the "rolling back" of state support…

The English Enlightenment philosopher John Locke (1632-1704) is one of the most prominent figures in the development of liberal Anglo-American political thought. Locke's writings had a significant influence on the American Revolution and founding principles of the United States in fundamental ways. The author argues that Locke's influence is…

The scope of this article is two-fold. First, it looks at business research in general, in various countries, as a task that the dean wants to have faculty members pursue, to attain goals such as accreditation and ranking with organizations such as the "AACSB," "Equis," the "Financial Times," and "US News &…

In this article, we explore the question of how celebrity operates in young people's everyday lives, thus contributing to the urgent need to address celebrity's social function. Drawing on data from three studies in England on young people's perspectives on their educational and work futures, we show how celebrity operates as a classed and…

In Asia, we are witnessing an era where the pendulum of power is swaying towards the East with the rising economic strength of China and India. Singapore is at the "crossroads" between the East and West of these most populous nations on earth. Although Singapore may appear the most Westernised country in Asia, she is nevertheless a…

In the 21st century world-class universities will need to be much more focused on innovation, rather than on stability and standardization. An innovative organization is different from a stable one. It requires different skills from its participants, and it functions in a different way from a stable organization. A focus on innovation will…

The current financial context constitutes a challenge to European Higher Education Institutions in the sense that they must look to increasing their budgets with new activities. This context has led governments and European universities to promote not only the traditional private funding sources (such as transfer of knowledge or tuition fees), but…