Gamification, Learning, and the Acquisition of 21st Century Skills Amongst Malaysian Law Students

The diversification of pedagogic tools remains essential for a fruitful learning experience among the Gen Z students by embedding technology such as gamification in learning. Recent literature has discussed the acquisition of 21st century skills and the educational challenges generally faced by Asian students due to their cultural traits. Against this background, the findings of this study open reflections relating to the benefit of gamification in acquiring 21st century skills. The objective of this chapter is to identify whether gamification is a suitable pedagogic tool among Malaysian law students in order to support the acquisition of 21st century skills. The respondents are from Year 1 and Year 2 of a three-year Bachelor of Laws degree with the majority being Malaysian students. The data collected showed that gamification helps in the acquisition of 21st century skills. Evidently, it showed that gamification can be a suitable alternative pedagogic tool to support the students to learn skills such as critical thinking, creativity, innovation, leadership, or communication.

Managing innovation on the public frontline: three approaches to innovation leadership

Purpose For decades, there has been a call for the public sector to be more innovative, and there is widespread agreement that managers play a crucial role in meeting this goal. Most studies of innovation management focus on top-level managers, despite the fact that most innovation activities take place on the frontlines, deeply embedded in professional practice. Meanwhile, micro-level studies of innovation tend to focus on the agency of employees, which leaves a knowledge gap regarding the mobilizing role of frontline managers. This is unfortunate because frontline managers are in a unique position to advance the state of the art of their professions, in scaling public innovation and in implementing public reform.Design/methodology/approach To explore how frontline managers approach innovation, a case study has been constructed based on in-depth interviews with 20 purposely selected frontline managers, all working within the Danish public childcare sector.Findings The article explores how frontline managers perceive their role in public innovation and finds three distinct approaches to innovation leadership: a responsive, a strategic and a facilitating approach.Originality/value This paper contributes to the research on public management by applying existing research on leadership styles in order to discuss the implications of how frontline managers perceive their role in relation to public innovation.

Facing the Future of China’s Science and Technology Development

China’s scientific and technological strength is in a critical period of transition, from quantitative accumulation to a qualitative leap, and from point breakthroughs to system-wide capacity improvement. China has formulated the “Three-Step” strategic goal of scientific and technological innovation leadership. This chapter introduces eight socioeconomic foundations and strategic systems for supporting China’s science and technology innovation. These are sustainable energy and resources, advanced materials and intelligent green manufacturing, ubiquitous information network, ecologically high-value agriculture and bioindustry, universal healthcare, ecological and environmental conservation and development, space and ocean, and national and public security. China is committed to promoting the modernization of science and technology governance capabilities, improving the science and technology decision-making consultation mechanism, re-engineering the science and technology plan management system, optimizing scientific research projects and funding systems, promoting the open sharing of scientific and technological resources, and creating a deeply integrated open innovation environment.

Introduction

In conceiving the Oxford Handbook of China Innovation, the editors were motivated by the belief that it should provide comprehensive and authoritative views of the role of innovation in China’s rise. Accordingly, the Handbook consists of chapters written by some sixty experts from universities and research institutions, who provide an exposition of the state of the art in their fields, with criticism and suggestions for further research. These ideas cover a review of China’s development policies, the place of innovation within national priorities, the specific components of the national innovation system, and the resources required for effective innovation. It gives detailed attention to the many elements of the system that provide incentives and support and the factors contributing to a technologically sophisticated society. The issue of foreign influence is also addressed, along with open innovation, foreign direct investment, and sectoral differences. Several chapters include examples of the capabilities and strategies of Chinese corporations that have become world-class innovators. This introduction provides a short overview of each of the book’s seven sections and an outline of each chapter. The editors hope that readers will find that the volume enhances their understanding of China’s march toward technological and innovation leadership and provides a foundation for informed conjecture regarding the challenges ahead.

Investigating SMEs Performance: Innovation, Leadership, or Investment Driven?

The main objective of this study is to find out how much influence the leadership orientation and innovation strategies affect the level of SMEs investment, which has implications for improving firm performance. This research uses structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis tools to test hypotheses. While the data in this study were processed using AMOS software. However, before testing, a goodness-of-fits model test is used to determine whether the data used is following the SEM model. This study uses a data collection tool in the form of a questionnaire that is calculated for each variable; the study sample is Central Java and DI Yogyakarta SMEs. Empirically all the hypotheses in this study is supported, then this research can be concluded as follows, improving the performance of SMEs can be achieved through the implementation of the company's innovation strategy, the company's ability to invest and the company's foresight in conducting high leadership orientation. The better application of innovation strategy and the strength of SME entrepreneurs in their leadership orientation and their courage in increasing investment to increase the company's innovation capability, it will have implications for improving business performance.

THE IMPACT OF ENTREPRENEURS CHARACTERISTICS ON THE PERFORMANCE OF SMALL MEDIUM ENTERPRISES: THE CASE OF THE KINGDOM OF SAUDI ARABIA (KSA)

This study seeks to examine the effect of entrepreneurial competencies (innovation, leadership, networking and risk-taking) on the survival of SMEs in KSA. The literature review evaluates the relationship between each of the entrepreneurial competencies and their effect on survival of SMEs worldwide. We have opted to adopt a descriptive research design. The findings reveal that entrepreneurial competencies (innovation competency, leadership competency, networking competency and risk-taking competency) of the SME owners/managers (entrepreneurs) have a positive and significant effect on the survival of SMEs in KSA. The study recommends SMEs should embrace innovation competency as a means of enhancing survival and leadership competency which is the key aspect for both survival and performance. SMEs should also embrace networking competency as a way of gaining competitive advantage and widening customer base, adopting the calculated risk-taking strategies in their operations.

CMS at 13: a retrospective of the journey

Purpose To commemorate the 13th anniversary of the Chinese Management Studies (CMS) and suggest future research directions, this study aims to present an overview of the CMS through a systematic bibliometric analysis from 2007 to 2019. The analysis emphasizes the trend of themes, structure of publications and citations, the most cited publications, the most productive authors, universities, countries and regions. Design/methodology/approach The study uses the data extracted from the Scopus database to present an overview; besides, it also uses VOSviewer and Bibliometrix software packages to visualize the intellectual network of CMS. Findings This analysis is based on 486 publications between 2007 and 2019. Results show that there is a rising trend in the number of citations to CMS. The researchers from China were the most frequent contributors to the journal, whereas researchers from the USA, Taiwan, Singapore and Australia were well represented. In addition, the results show that innovation, leadership, human resource management and corporate social responsibility have been the most important research themes in the journal. Practical implications This study offers an objective view of the CMS publication structure. The study’s findings can help the journal readers obtain a quick snapshot of the leading trends occurring in the journal. Furthermore, this study provides future research directions for the journals by underscoring important themes. Originality/value As the journal’s first retrospective, this study not only educates and enriches CMS’ global readers and aspiring contributors but can also be useful to its editorial board, as it provides several inputs in the form of future research directions to guide the journal’s progress.

Innovation Leadership in the Digital Enterprise

In this chapter, the EIL (Effective Innovation Leadership) framework is tested empirically. First, peer-reviewed journals in the innovation management, leadership, and transformation discipline are analyzed. Second, a pre-test with 58 executives takes place. The response behavior of the participants varies depending on the company's degree of digital maturity. Third, 20 innovation leaders employed in mature digital companies answer the survey. The participants perceive their company as innovative and state that up to 89% of created innovations are digital. Values relevant to digital innovation leaders are innovation, responsibility, positivity, and transparency. Relevant strengths are creativity and learning. Both strongly correlate with a few efficacy items. Decisiveness correlates with innovation strategy. Entrepreneurship, self-regulation, and culture correlate with each other. Creativity connects the value of innovation and the practice of communication. The insights from this chapter contribute to building a reliable and valid factor-based effective digital innovation leadership questionnaire in the future.