This paper identifies and analyzes factors that influence international student selection of universities and the role that education marketing plays in the process. The research for the paper was inspired by work done by Canterbury on education marketing, published in the Journal of Marketing for Higher Education. The study empirically tests key constructs in service marketing. According to Canterbury it is time that higher education marketing theoreticians and practitioners alike looked beyond our similarities to other applications of service marketing to understand how some of our markets and our services might differ. To this end, the current study examines the views of international students undertaking their studies in two universities, one on the east coast and the other on the west coast of Australia. It reports the findings of international students' choice factors in selecting an Australian university environment.

ABSTRACT

Micro-finance institutions are critical to Africa's quest for solutions to the continent's development challenge. The area of their greatest potential impact, rural Africa, is not only home to the bulk of the continent's population, but also the vast majority of Africa's poor. This paper not only defines MFIs with examples from Zambia, South Africa, Mali and Zimbabwe, it also establishes a clear link between MFIs and both poverty eradication and the empowerment and equality of women, two of the major Millennium Development Goals. The paper concludes with some policy recommendations and a set of "best practices" for the future success of MFIs on the continent, including the need to ensure flexibility and careful government regulation and supervision of MFIs.

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The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the playing field and overall operations for organizations in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the world at large. In this chapter, the authors explore the biggest human resource (HR)-related challenges that firms in the UAE have faced as a result of COVID-19. The chapter outlines the skills and competencies required by professionals to overcome the challenges they have experienced. This groundbreaking chapter also undertakes an analysis of the extent to which COVID-19 and the lockdown have influenced the ability of human resource departments to achieve their key strategic objectives. It has been found that skills are among the most important competencies that professionals must possess today to keep pace with recent developments and in order to navigate the “new normal.” The chapter concludes with a review of the competitive survival strategies that UAE organizations are applying in order to remain sustainable during and post COVID-19.