This book offers a first look at transnational education corporations, new firms that operate international schools. The quiet rise of transnational education corporations - or TECs - has implications for education systems around the globe, as corporate interests gain a greater stake in the way schools operate. The story of their ascendance links government policies in one corner of the world with profound effects in others. In the past decade, TECs have burst onto the international schooling scene. Private firms, publicly listed firms, and private equity groups have transformed international education into an industry valued at over USD 30 billion. Nowhere has the impact been stronger and more sudden than in Asia. The top three international education firms with a presence in Asia run more than 20 schools in East and Southeast Asia with another six in India. Each educates tens of thousands of students around the globe and has an annual revenue of over USD 300 million. TECs offer a window onto the creation of new markets and the complex positions of governments in regulating social affairs. This book helps readers to understand who these firms are, what they do and how they have grown.

Audio and Visual Analytics in Marketing addresses questions around the application and use of audio/visual data analytics for business decision making in the post-digital economy. It does so by: (1) developing a framework for understanding the internal states of individuals based on audio/visual signals and incorporating works in the domain of audio/visual (A/V) data analytics into marketing research in order to identify future research opportunities; (2) providing an overview of methodologies that are commonly used in conducting research with A/V data; (3) providing a review of A/V analytics-based research in various business contexts; and (4) reviewing the business practices using A/V analytics and identifying the future trends in both research and business applications. The rest of the monograph is organized as follows: The authors first propose a framework for A/V data-based research in the business domain and discuss how A/V data analytics can be used to support business decision making in various contexts. They then provide an overview of the key techniques and tools used in A/V data analytics and discuss the procedures and key methodological questions. Finally, they discuss how the A/V analytics has been used in business practices and its trend and future development.