DIGITAL POVERTY FIGURES SUGGEST NEED FOR REVIEW OF COURSE DESIGN
SCHOOL The Open University Business School, UK
t is estimated that between 13 and 19 million people over the age of 16 experience digital poverty in the UK
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alone, according to a 2023 report. In higher education, this could take the form of not being able to submit an essay because their household’s only device is “being used by three siblings for school” or because their “mobile data ran out mid-lecture”. That’s according to an article in The Conversation by Matthew Hinton and Jacqueline Baxter from the Open University Business School (OUBS). Hinton and Baxter highlight how digital poverty is more likely to affect those from lower socioeconomic and underrepresented backgrounds. The upshot is that today’s push towards technology and the use of video streaming and real-time collaboration tools may leave some students out in the cold unless institutions take action. The OUBS academics then reference their recent work on the subject, published as a chapter in the 2025 book, Creativity and Critique in Digital Learning and Teaching . In it, they detail challenges that students facing digital poverty encounter in accessing online learning resources, participating in virtual classrooms and engaging in remote academic activities. They also detail potential solutions, emphasising the importance of policy interventions and institutional support. “Institutions are not powerless here. Lending laptops and wifi hotspots, offering hardship grants and integrating digital literacy training into curricula are measures that make a real difference to students,” they concluded. EB
NEW RESEARCH FINDS WOMEN COMPETE JUST AS FIERCELY AS MEN FOR TOP JOBS
to sacrifice from a position’s fixed salary to secure the role. The findings reveal that women behave just as competitively as men, if not more aggressively in some cases. In addition, most of the high bids for top positions at firms where there is no large salary difference between the junior and senior roles came from women. In the past, studies have attributed the shortage of women in top positions to them being inherently less competitive than men. This study challenges that assumption and demonstrates that the shortage of women in senior roles is not explained by a weaker drive to compete. “Gender differences in senior leadership suggest organisational barriers rather than a lack of ambition among women,” commented report author Andrej Angelovski, associate professor of economics at XJTLU’s International Business School Suzhou. CD
SCHOOL International Business School Suzhou, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU), China
behavioural economics study has found no overall gender gap in
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competitiveness and in instances where a gap does appear, it is women who push hardest for the highest positions. The study took an auction- style approach and measured competitiveness by the extent to which people are willing to make sacrifices to attain their ideal job role. The auction asked participants to bid for jobs with different positions and salaries. Participants submitted bids in experimental currency units, with each bid representing the maximum resources (ie effort, training, time) they were willing
8 Business Impact • ISSUE 5 • 2026
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