• Energy Research

In the spring of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic induced a rapid shift to online education. University instructors promptly reinvented their teaching methods and developed digital lessons. Cooperative learning has been demonstrated to surpass lecture-based learning (LBL) regarding students’ learning processes; therefore, the question arises as to whether the perks of cooperative learning still hold when switching to online education. This study examines whether the benefits of team-based learning (TBL) regarding good teaching (i.e., perceived teaching quality), satisfaction, and performance persist when switching from face-to-face to online education. A quasi-experiment in an undergraduate advanced accounting course compared a non-COVID-19-affected semester to a COVID-19-affected semester. In both semesters, students could choose between a TBL and a LBL path for tutorial sessions. Quantitative survey data (N = 455) indicate TBL outperforms LBL, even when switching to online tools. Good teaching was perceived as even better in the COVID-19-affected semester, and even more so by students in the team-based setting, compared to the lecture-based setting. Students’ course satisfaction and performance were unaffected by the switch to online education. This paper shows that TBL still benefits students, even in a blended environment.

Several well-known studies have remarked on the low financial literacy (FL) levels in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), which represent a problem in an economic context of change and uncertainty. This fact gives us the opportunity to evaluate the current state of literature related to FL in the region. The main list of identified keywords allowed the PRISMA methodology to guide the systematic literature review and analysis procedure. During 2016–2022, the FL search yielded around 4500 FL manuscripts worldwide, but only 65 articles were related to the scope of our analysis (which involved looking at LAC countries). Being the first review from an LAC country about all LAC countries, the findings highlight a lack of FL research focus on regional needs, gender gaps affecting women, and conceptual frameworks used to develop efficient educational program interventions. Most studies in this review build on the OECD definition of FL, but the financial attitude dimension often seems to be omitted from the analyses. These findings open the discussion about efficient policy design concerning FL development in LAC.

The objective of this study was to gain more insight into the value of business planning for starters and to better understand the role of the external accountant in the planning stage. In particular, survey research was conducted to capture both the quality of the business plan and its effectiveness as perceived by the starter. To unravel the underlying reasons behind the development of a business plan, the framework of the self-determination theory (SDT) was used and adapted to this context. SDT proposes a continuum that distinguishes four types of motivation, ranging from external motivation (i.e., developing a business plan because of a legal obligation) to intrinsic motivation (i.e., developing a business plan because of a personal interest). The results, based on 283 surveys of Belgian starters, showed a relationship between the type of motivation and the quality of the business plan. Entrepreneurs with high introjected or high identified motivation seem to develop a high-quality business plan. This high-quality business plan enables entrepreneurs to increase their effectiveness. Furthermore, entrepreneurs who consulted an accountant during the business planning stage perceived the quality of their business plan as higher than entrepreneurs who did not get advice from an accountant. These findings presuppose an important challenge for external accountants, as their business advice supports entrepreneurs in anticipating “the unexpected”, which subsequently empowers them to monitor their business effectively.

Due to the lack of a tool assessing the effectiveness of Financial Education Programs (FEP) imparted by the financial institutions (FI) in Ecuador by mandate, this research proposes and validates a scale to evaluate the Financial Literacy (FL) level of 314 participants (15–50 years old) after attending an FEP. The final 18-item FL scale, compounded with Financial Attitude, Financial Knowledge, and Financial Behavior dimensions, is reliable and robust according to the Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analysis. The average score for FL is 76 out of 100 points. The youngest scored the lowest, and the FI employees the highest. This contribution fulfills a needed FL scale to accurately measure the efforts of FI spreading the FE. It serves as a stepping stone for further research reconfirming its validity and applying the proposed FI’s FL scale as a pre–post FL evaluation.

This paper investigates how different social and environmental reporting (SER) practices arise in the context of the emerging sustainability logic. Based on interview evidence gathered in 14 Belgian listed companies with various SER practices, ranging from non-disclosure to substantive reporting, we observe that the degree of development of symbolic and material insensitivity to the prevailing profit-maximizing logic determines the format of the SER practice. More specifically, we find that the presence of either symbolic or material resistance to the emerging sustainability logic can explain the complete absence of SER.