Purpose: Framed by social cognition theory, this study examines the impact of environmental factors (e.g. social norms) on students' entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ES) and entrepreneurial intention (EI). Design/methodology/approach: We obtained responses to a survey from 811 senior secondary students in Hong Kong. We then employed structural equation modeling (SEM) to test the proposed hypothesis. We removed non-significant parameters in testing the model and obtained the final SEM. Findings: Among these students, those who were male or spoke English at home showed stronger social norms of entrepreneurship and greater entrepreneurial SE, which was linked to greater EI. Among students perceiving stronger social norms of entrepreneurship, those who lived in private housing or spoke English at school showed greater entrepreneurial intention. Originality/value: The study provides a new social cognitive perspective for examining EI that emphasizes learning and development through the interaction of environmental and cognitive factors. It supplements previous research by demonstrating the significant influence of social norms and the conditional role of parental influence, adding complexity to our understanding of how these factors' interplay. Copyright ©2025 Emerald Publishing Limited.

With the increasing interest in entrepreneurship education within engineering education, there are questions on what engineering entrepreneurship education should include. As engineering entrepreneurship education aims to foster entrepreneurial individuals who will contribute to knowledge-based societies and economic growth, student perspectives are crucial. This study assessed first and final year engineering students' perceptions on entrepreneurship education in a university in Hong Kong, identifying important competencies as learning outcomes and motivating and deterring factors for students to pursue entrepreneurship as a career. Findings offer implications for curriculum design and educational practices, particularly on formally offering entrepreneurship education in the engineering discipline, involving competencies development in educational practices and developing opportunities addressing students' factors of motivation and deterrence. Copyright © 2022 Routledge.

Purpose>This paper aims to examine how Hong Kong universities have responded to a newly included assessment element of socio-economic impact in a government-implemented research evaluation system – Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) 2020 – within the context of tightening audits and forceful knowledge economy objectives.Design/methodology/approach>This paper reports an institutional case study of the institutional-level response to the RAE 2020 impact requirement at a top-ranked comprehensive university in Hong Kong. A qualitative inquiry approach was adopted. The data sources mainly include university documents related to the RAE 2020 socio-economic impact policy, interview data with nine RAE-eligible academics at the case university, documents on the RAE exercises issued by the University Grants Committee (UGC) and field notes taken during the RAE information sessions.Findings>The institutionalisation process of the RAE socio-economic impact agenda could be considered as establishing an indicator-oriented reward and recognition regime for knowledge transfer and knowledge exchange (KT/KE). Overall, two major institutional strategies were identified in operating the RAE 2020 impact agenda at the case university: (1) launching various policy initiatives: driven by the RAE-defined socio-economic impact; (2) incorporating socio-economic impact into faculty evaluation: premised upon the 16 KT performance indicators laid down by the UGC.Originality/value>This article adds to the theoretical debate on the local reproduction of the global in studies of neoliberalism in higher education by describing a Hong Kong case study, supported by empirical data, of an actual university's responses to the newly included impact requirement in RAE 2020. More specifically, this study reveals that (1) the policy for socio-economic impact might be designed in a neutral or even benevolent manner, but has taken on a neoliberal and managerial dimension in its actual implementation; and (2) the

The number of Chinese children living in poverty has risen steadily in Hong Kong, China. However, little is known on the longitudinal effects of family socioeconomic status (SES) on cognitive-linguistic skills, word reading and writing in children from low-SES backgrounds. This study examines differences in cognitive-linguistic skills and word reading and writing across kindergarteners from the low- and middle-SES groups. It also investigates the direct link between SES and children's concurrent Chinese literacy skills and how cognitive-linguistic skills mediate the longitudinal associations between SES and word reading and writing. One hundred and nine children were assessed at Kindergarten K2 (Time 1) and reassessed at Kindergarten K3 (Time 2). Children were administered the measures of vocabulary knowledge, phonological awareness, morphological awareness, executive functioning, Chinese word reading, and Chinese word dictation at both time points. Results revealed that low-SES children performed less well on Chinese word reading and dictation than their middle-SES peers at both time points. Moreover, hierarchical regression and mediation analyses suggested that SES had a direct relation with Chinese word reading at Time 1 after controlling for age and cognitive-linguistic skills, and an indirect link with Chinese word dictation at Time 2 which was fully mediated by phonological awareness and vocabulary knowledge at Time 1. The results highlight that SES may exert an impact on children's early Chinese reading and writing and suggest the benefit of improving phonological awareness and vocabulary knowledge of low-SES children. Copyright ©Springer Netherlands.

The Great Gatsby curve shows societies with higher levels of economic inequality to exhibit lower levels of intergenerational mobility, with such mobility influenced by educational opportunities. Hong Kong features one of the world’s largest degrees of economic inequality, but has also witnessed a substantial expansion in tertiary education in the past two decades. This paper investigates the change in intergenerational earnings mobility and returns to education in Hong Kong over time. Data were drawn from the 1996, 2006 and 2016 Hong Kong Population By-Censuses. Instrumental variables regression was performed to estimate the change in the average level of such mobility, and instrumental variables quantile regression to estimate the change in the non-linear pattern of intergenerational mobility and returns to education. The findings show the average level of intergenerational mobility has been improved, with intergenerational elasticity decreasing from 0.37 in 1996 to 0.26 in 2006 and 0.23 in 2016. However, intergenerational economic transmission among high-earners remains persistently strong. Examination of the non-linear pattern shows that it is the reproduction of wealth rather than the reproduction of poverty that has led to intergenerational persistence in Hong Kong. A similar pattern was observed in 1996, 2006 and 2016. Returns to non-degree tertiary education were similar across the earnings distribution in 1996 and 2016 but more valuable for low-earners in 2006. Degree-level tertiary education is persistently more valuable for high- than low-earners, which exacerbated earnings inequality in 1996, 2006 and 2016.
[Copyright of Social Indicators Research is the property of Springer Netherlands. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11205-018-1968-2]