Marketing and education: directions of distance learning development

Technological changes that come with industrial revolution have largely affected businesses, as well as society. With the current technological shift and Fourth Industrial Revolution, many questions arise regarding the impacts and effects on current ways businesses operate. This study presents a retrospective analysis and overview of previous industrial revolutions. The aim of the retrospective analysis is to identify common characteristics that may lead to lessons learned for the forthcoming Fourth Industrial Revolution and thus complement the current debate on technological change. All previous industrial revolutions have led to change in business environments and new challenges for managers and owners. The findings show that all previous revolutions have led to increase in the number of service jobs created. The key approach of successful countries during the times of industrial revolution has included education as the source of new skills and knowledge necessary for adaption. Countries that were able to produce high skilled people could not only invent, but also adapt to new technologies sooner than others. Similarly, these approaches included introduction of new managerial practices in order to be able to utilize new technologies and new skilled workers effectively. The research article processes secondary data together with literature review on this topic.

Innovative marketing has given rise to practitioners’ and scholars’ attention in the 21st-century market. Given this, social media marketing has become the order of the day when accessing modern tools for marketing communication. However, the adoption of this innovation comes with its associated challenges, particularly, from a developing country perspective. Against this background, this study sought to examine the inhibitors characterized in the application of social media channels as an innovative tool for advertising and communication among SMEs (small and medium enterprises) in Ghana. For study results to be achieved, a quantitative research approach with a questionnaire of 650 was distributed among managerial staff of the fashion industry in the central part of Ghana of which 512 respondents were duly received and correctly filled for data processing and analysis. Results from the partial least square structural equation method (PLS-SEM), showed that despite the importance of innovation, lack of managerial skills/marketing expertise, perceived cost, regular systems/links upgrade, and financial constraints are significant inhibiting factors affecting the application of social media as advertising and communication tools among SMEs in developing economy. Interestingly, the findings further showed that ’company’s size’ as well as ’availability of social media channel/tool’ significantly control for the outcome variable (internet/social media) as a marketing communication tool.

Acknowledgment
This work is supported by Tomas Bata University in Zlin through; IGA/FaME/2019/002: The role of the institutional environment in fostering entrepreneurship, and further supported by IGA/FaME/2020/002 and IGA/FaME/2019/008. The authors are thankful to Prof. Jaroslav Belás, Prof. Boris Popesko, and Prof. Miloslava Chovancová for their guidance towards developing this manuscript.

Higher education needs to respond to ever changing demands and expectations of present and future potential students. In order to amplify access to educational materials for students who endeavor to learn, various methodologies are used with the help of technology. Education is redefined and democratized by enabling anyone to learn from the world’s experts by a click of a mouse. Higher education institutions are venturing to gain better understanding of the phenomenon of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and its paradigm shift towards open global education. This study endeavors to study how MOOCs can be seamlessly integrated into the present scenario of traditional and learning environment. The commercialization with marketing of MOOCs in KSA’s higher education sector is also discussed. Finally, this study recommends adaptive home grown organic introduction of blended learning with the MOOC platform. With the advent of internet technology, students are now able to access diversified and latest courses which are participatory, collaborative with digital skills, well distributed, engaging and self-paced. This concept enables them to attain lifelong learning and brings scalability at a virtual zero cost to the students. The overall impact of technology on the learning management system will be explored. An attempt is made to introduce and accelerate learning and teaching strategies and tools to enhance student employability with their present usage of technology. The objective of the study is to comprehend the readiness level of learners by incorporating open learning platform, build an innovation model, which involves stakeholders with a holistic perspective that will enable a congenial learning management system, how the deanship of information technology and distance learning change course from a support-based deanship to a strategic-based deanship.