Suchergebnisse

Investigating rankings in the field of business education, we aim to examine field structuration process to understand how categories build symbolic value in an institutional field. We selected twenty reputed business schools from Pakistan and the United Kingdom (UK) through purposive sampling method. Adopting the concept of data triangulation, we gathered empirical evidences through interviews with business school marketing managers, academic experts in the field of marketing and reputation, and with industry experts. This data was further supplemented by variety of secondary sources such as internal student surveys, annual reports, newsletters and industry reports to perform a thematic analysis adopted in this study. Thematic analysis helped us to develop a model of institutional work and field level change by emphasizing on the key role categorization systems (rankings) in shaping perceptions of symbolic value (reputation). Our findings suggest, categorization tools create a contest at different levels. Consequently, it redefines the perception about value in the field. The current study may be useful for academia and Higher Education policy-makers by providing them with a theoretical understanding of categorization systems such as university rankings and the changing perception of value in the field.

Enterprise education and training play a pivotal role in bridging workforce skills and improving the performance of small businesses. Considering the significant role of small businesses, this study attempts to investigate how small manufacturing units improve their performance using training methods. Therefore, for this study mixed-method approach was adopted to find the relationship between both variables. In the first part of the methodology, face to face, and semi-structured interviews were conducted with business owners and managers. Furthermore, survey questionnaires were carried out to find the relationship between both variables. For a mixed-method approach, 26 owners/managers were interviewed, and 136 respondents were identified from food and furniture manufacturing units with several employees who comes on the definition of small firms. The results of the study confirm in small firms positively impacted the individual performance and overall non-financial turnover of employees. The study concludes with future recommendations for academicians and policymakers.

The current study aims to examine how and why actors contest the business education field through rankings. Inspired by the field structuration process and field level change, we argue that categorization systems, in this case, rankings, construct boundaries of the business education field and redefine authority and elites for the field. Ten highly ranked Pakistani business schools were selected through a purposive sampling method. For the thematic analysis adopted in the current study, we collected empirical evidence mainly through interviews with the directors of accreditation and ranking bodies, deans, and marketing directors of business schools. The interview data was also supplemented by secondary data such as internal student surveys, business school's annual reports, and other relevant sources of data. The current study showed institutional work in the business education field. Through categorization systems, actors use their authority to challenge the existing social order and define the uncontested space of the business education field in developing countries. Actors then populate the uncontested space with new members thus legitimizing new rules and standards for the field and promoting new elites for the field thus creating new social order.