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Despite being a relatively new phenomenon, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have started to be employed not just within the Higher Education system, but also within a corporate context for recruiting, the training of new employees, Human Resource Development (HRD), marketing, and even brand awareness (Grossman, 2013; Iversity, 2015; Radford et.al., 2015; Sreeleakha & Manikandan, 2015).
The evolution of information and communication technologies (hereinafter ICT) has led to fast paced developments and changes for online learning education/training (Fasihuddin, Skinner & Athauda, 2013). In today’s globalized world, knowledge-based economy with dynamic progress places competitiveness as a relevant element for many countries and sectors. Both competition and information sharing are the drivers of the knowledge-based economy (Zhang, 2003).
In fact, more than 100 elements are considered as determinants of productivity, fundamental for improving competitiveness. These factors are grouped by the World Economic Forum in the Global Competitiveness Report into 12 pillars: institutions, infrastructure, macroeconomic environment, health and primary education, higher education and training, goods market efficiency, labour market efficiency, financial market development, technological readiness, market size, business sophistication, and innovation. According to the stage of development of the economy, each one of these factors are more or less relevant.
Under the recent evolution of business and ICT, technological readiness, business sophistication and innovation are crucial for the economic development (Schwab, 2015). By technological readiness, the agility to adopt existing technologies for improving the productivity is meant, especially regarding the capacity to fully leverage ICTs in the activities and production processes. This way, efficiency is improved and innovation is enhanced. Having access to advanced products and blueprints and the ability to absorb and use them is crucial for the firms aiming to be successful.
Higher education and training are generally highly relevant, but business sophistication and innovation are playing a very important role, especially in the case of countries that already have exhausted, to a large extent, the more basic sources of productivity improvements as the first 10 pillars considered in the Global Competitiveness Report (Schwab, 2015).
Fostering Innovation
The quality of business networks is extremely relevant as opportunities for innovation in processes and products are easier to be created when companies and suppliers are taking advantage of efficient networks. Under these circumstances, entry barriers in the market are reduced allowing this way the entrance of new firms.
Innovation is a particularly important aspect, because it is about approaching the frontiers of knowledge. Nowadays, firms aiming to maintain a competitive edge and move toward even higher value-added activities must design and develop cuttin