How blended learning can be used to stop the convenient excuse of not innovating because of large classes and resource constraints

Abstract

Peer-review DeclarationThe publisher (AOSIS) endorses the South African 'National Scholarly Book Publishers Forum Best Practice for Peer-Review of Scholarly Books'. The book proposal form was evaluated by our Social Sciences, Humanities, Education and Business Management editorial board. The manuscript underwent an evaluation to compare the level of originality with other published works and was subjected to rigorous two-step peer-review before publication by two technical expert reviewers who did not include the volume editors and were independent of the volume editors, with the identities of the reviewers not revealed to the editors or authors. The reviewers were independent of the publisher, editors and authors. The publisher shared feedback on the similarity report and the reviewers' inputs with the manuscript's volume editors to improve the manuscript. Where the reviewers recommended revisions and improvements, the volume editors and authors responded adequately to such recommendations. The reviewers commented positively on the scholarly merits of the manuscript and recommended that the book be published.v Research justificationThis book intends to advance and enhance knowledge on the future of commerce education in South Africa and to allow relevant scholars from South African commerce faculties the opportunity to share their original scholarly research on how to best position commerce education in South Africa. The aim is to share the relevant research as widely as possible to optimally serve the interests of both academics and students, as well as to address the dynamic changes taking place in the world of work.Since 2010, the global business environment has changed significantly, a trend that has accelerated since the outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and beyond. Internationally, business schools have already rethought or are in the process of rethinking and restructuring their programme offerings, curricula, modes of delivery and research foci to adapt to the changing global business environment. Even though international research on this subject field has accelerated over the past two to three years, very limited research has been carried out on the topic of how and where South African commerce faculties should position themselves. Despite individual and more narrowly focused research by South African scholars on management, accounting and economic education, comprehensive research on how we as a collective should strengthen and position our programmes in this rapidly changing global and business environment is still in short supply. Although South African commerce faculties have gradually started to adapt to these changes, the progress has been slow, ad hoc and uncoordinated. This book aims to fill this gap by sharing original scholarly research on relevant topics from a range of institutions with a wider audience. This book's contribution lies in covering a wide range of innovative topics under several broad themes. These broad themes include the rationale on why it is impo...