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This article asks how gender, ethnicity and other identities intersect and shape the employment experiences of social workers. During recent decades, governments have contracted social care to for-profit and nonprofit organizations (NPOs) globally as a part of the adaption of the neoliberal approach. Most employees in these organizations are women. However, there is a lack of knowledge about women working in social service NPOs and their unique working environments.

This article explores the experiences of women employed as social workers in social care NPOs in Israel regarding intersectionality. 27 in-depth interviews were conducted with women social workers working in social service NPOs. Participants reflected diversity in ethnicity, religion and full-time and part-time jobs. Thematic analysis was used.

The findings shed light on: (1) the contradiction social workers experienced between the stated values of the social care NPO and those values’ conduct, (2) intersectional discrimination among social workers from vulnerable populations and (3) the lack of gender-aware policies.

The need to raise awareness of the social care sector and governments to those contradictions and to promote diversity through gender-aware policies and practices.

The article suggests a conceptualization describing gender employment contradictions in social care NPOs, discusses how the angle of intersectionality expands the understanding of the complexities and pressures exerted on social workers from minority groups and emphasizes the need for social care NPOs to acknowledge and deal with these contradictions.

The authors investigate how COVID-19 has influenced the amount, type or topics of abuse that UK politicians receive when engaging with the public.

This work covers the first year of COVID-19 in the UK, from March 2020 to March 2021 and analyses Twitter abuse in replies to UK MPs. The authors collected and analysed 17.9 million reply tweets to the MPs. The authors present overall abuse levels during different key moments of the pandemic, analysing reactions to MPs by gender and the relationship between online abuse and topics such as Brexit, the government’s COVID-19 response and policies, and social issues.

The authors have found that abuse levels towards UK MPs were at an all-time high in December 2020. Women (particularly those from non-White backgrounds) receive unusual amounts of abuse, targeting their credibility and capacity to do their jobs. Similar to other large events like general elections and Brexit, COVID-19 has elevated abuse levels, at least temporarily.

Previous studies analysed abuse levels towards MPs in the run-up to the 2017 and 2019 UK General Elections and during the first four months of the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK. The authors compare previous findings with those of the first year of COVID-19, as the pandemic persisted, and Brexit was forthcoming. This research not only contributes to the longitudinal comparison of abuse trends against UK politicians but also presents new findings, corroborates, further clarifies and raises questions about the previous findings.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-07-2022-0392

This study evaluates how publicly available archival documents shaped online discussions about allegations that thousands of children were kidnapped during the 1950s in Israel, known as the Yemenite children’s affair. It examines if access to historical records leads to more informed and rational public discourse, especially on social media.

Using content analysis, this study examines Facebook posts from media outlets, politicians, NGOs and public groups between 2016 and 2021 to understand how the Israeli State Archives’ release of over 300,000 documents affected support of the kidnapping.

Despite extensive archival information debunking the kidnapping theory, public opinion and discourse largely continued to support it. This suggests a complex interaction between information availability, preexisting beliefs, echo chambers and group allegiances, suggesting that access to factual data alone may not effectively challenge established beliefs in online public settings.

Since data were collected only from Facebook, our conclusions cannot be generalized to other platforms. The study relies only on publicly accessible data and does not establish causality between exposure to information and shifts in opinion. Our findings show that disclosing archival information does not significantly benefit public political discourse on contentious topics but also point to the advantages of mediating information by politicians, NGOs and journalists.

As a unique case study, this research contributes to understanding the role of historical archives in digital-age public discourse. It highlights their potential and limitations in facilitating informed debate and deliberation, emphasizing the complexity of influencing established beliefs with factual data.

Family policy is an area where policy transfer has garnered a lot of attention lately. A growing body of research demonstrates policymakers' interest in and willingness to adopt foreign family policies. However, previous studies have tended to neglect the second mechanism of policy transfer: resistance. This manuscript aims to address this research gap by exploring both the willingness and resistance to policy transfer in Czech and Korean childcare and leave policies.

This study employs a qualitative research design, incorporating structured expert interviews instrumental in in-depth thematic analysis.

The analysis shows that policymakers in both countries demonstrated interest and willingness to transfer family policies, albeit employing different strategies and to varying extents. Moreover, the two countries exhibited significant differences in resistance to family policy transfer, with resistance in the Czech Republic being more frequent and effective. Resistance is directed towards both forced and voluntary transfers, although it isn't always against transfers that require a paradigm change. Policy transfer and non-transfer can concurrently be perceived as threats.

The study concludes that integrating both policy transfer and resistance in the analyses helps to shed light on cross-national differences in family policy change and contributes to a more nuanced portrayal of the world of policy transfer in this policy field.

This paper aims to examine the factors that contribute to the external debt growth in Ghana.

The study adopts the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model and the error correction model (ECM) to establish the short-run and long-run relationships between the dependent variable (external debt) and the independent variables (debt service, exchange rate, gross domestic product, government expenditure, import and trade openness), using a time series data spanning from 1990 to 2019.

The results indicate that debt service, GDP, government expenditure and trade openness have a positive and significant relationship with external debt, while import and exchange rates have a negative relationship with external debt in the long run. In the short run, debt service, import, exchange rate and trade openness have a positive and significant relationship with external debt, while GDP has a negative relationship with external debt.

The study found that variables such as government expenditure, debt service and import contribute significantly to the nation’s external debt stock. These findings suggest that policymakers should focus on prioritising and cutting down expenditure in their quest to curtail the debt menace facing the nation. Since existing debt service has the tendency of influencing debt stock, it is recommended that government should reduce borrowing in order avoid debt trap. Home-grown policies to reduce imports must also be encouraged. As these drivers of external debt are tackled head-on, Ghana can be rightly positioned to record lower levels of public debt and subsequently reap the benefits of economic growth.

The study adds to the public debt literature, specifically addressing the idiosyncratic determinants of external debt within the Ghanaian context.

Our study aims to evaluate the impact of infrastructure and public investment on private investment in machinery and equipment in Brazil from 1947 to 2017. The contribution of our article to the existing literature lies in providing a more comprehensive understanding of the presence or absence of the crowding effect in the Brazilian economy by leveraging an extensive historical database. Our central argument posits that the recent decline in private capital accumulation over the last few decades can be attributed to shifts in economic policies – moving from a developmentalist orientation to nondevelopmental guidance since the early 1990s, which is reflected in the diminished levels of public investment and infrastructure since the 1980s.

We conducted a series of econometric regressions utilizing the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model as our chosen econometric methodology.

Employing two different variables to measure public investment and infrastructure, our results – robust across various specifications – have substantiated the existence of a crowding-in effect in Brazil over the examined period. Thus, we have empirical evidence indicating that the state has influenced private capital accumulation in the Brazilian economy over the past decades.

Our article contributes to the existing literature by offering a more comprehensive understanding of the crowding effect in the Brazilian economy, utilizing an extensive historical database.

Parental advocacy is an emerging area of research and policy interest in Wales and across the UK. Although there is little research in the UK context to date, international research has indicated that parental advocacy can improve the relationship between parent and professional in the field of child protection social work. This paper aims to ascertain how the implementation of a parental advocacy programme supports parents to play a meaningful role in decision-making when children’s services are working with them and their families.

This study used interviews, surveys and focus groups to obtain qualitative data from 18 parents, seven parent advocates, two advocacy managers and four social workers, to explore the potential impact of parental advocacy on decision-making. The study identified challenges in implementing parental advocacy, particularly relating to awareness of the service. Participants also discussed experiences of the child protection system and how parents are supported by advocates.

Despite challenges surrounding implementation, initial findings were encouraging, and generated examples of how parental advocacy services have helped parents to understand children’s services and develop relationships of trust with social care professionals. In doing so, this study identified potential mechanisms that may be useful to support future service delivery.

This paper and research is novel as it explores parental advocacy within the Welsh context. Although there has been research conducted into parental advocacy, this has largely come from the USA. This research comes from the evaluation of an innovative and promising parental advocacy scheme in Wales.

The crux of this paper is to unveil efficient features and practical tools that can predict credit default.

Annual data of non-financial listed companies were taken from 2000 to 2020, along with 71 financial ratios. The dataset was bifurcated into three panels with three default assumptions. Logistic regression (LR) and k-nearest neighbor (KNN) binary classification algorithms were used to estimate credit default in this research.

The study’s findings revealed that features used in Model 3 (Case 3) were the efficient and best features comparatively. Results also showcased that KNN exposed higher accuracy than LR, which proves the supremacy of KNN on LR.

Using only two classifiers limits this research for a comprehensive comparison of results; this research was based on only financial data, which exhibits a sizeable room for including non-financial parameters in default estimation. Both limitations may be a direction for future research in this domain.

This study introduces efficient features and tools for credit default prediction using financial data, demonstrating KNN’s superior accuracy over LR and suggesting future research directions.

Given the rise of sport non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and sponsorships from cryptocurrency companies in the sport industry during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, this paper aims to critically frame the partnerships between cryptocurrency and sport by exploring the reception of fan tokens amongst supporters of three English Premier League clubs: Manchester City, Everton and Crystal Palace.

Drawing upon the emerging critical scholarship on cryptocurrency and the political economy of professional football, this study uses digital ethnography in an attempt to understand the major themes emanating from the online forum discussions amongst fans in response to the issuance of fan tokens by the aforementioned three clubs, among other types of partnerships with crypto companies.

The supporters’ critical deliberations revolved around the contradictions of fan tokens (as a means for supposed “fan engagement” or for financial speculation) and the utility of cryptocurrency for the public. These reactions in turn showcase a larger tension underlying the financially unstable professional football industry: the contest between the owners and the fan bases over the exchange value (for profit) and use value (for community) of the clubs.

This paper is one of the first studies to adopt a critical framework to examine the emerging partnerships between sports and cryptocurrency companies during the COVID-19 pandemic. It also provides one of the first in-depth analyses of the critical receptions of sport NFTs amongst sport fans. While contributing to the literature on fan activism/protest in the context of the commercialization and commodification of sport, the paper also raises new questions on the responsible use of cryptocurrency/NFT in sport.

The research aimed to explore the perceptions of aspiring future police officers studying at a university in relation to the actions to be taken with regards to typical posts on social media by a fictitious off and on-duty police officer. This in turn would inform future police workforce requirements.

Policing students who expressed their aspirations as future police officers were recruited. A total of 99 students studying the College of Policing licensed Professional Policing Degree at the University of South Wales, took part in Hydra Immersive Simulations to ascertain their perception of social media posts by a fictitious serving police officer. The students were asked to rate the appropriateness of the social media posts as groups, and as individuals.

The findings suggest that, whilst the majority of students identified misconduct issues in the social media posts, the response to how the fictitious police officer should be dealt with varied. In addition, it would appear that there may be a need for those involved in policing education to reinforce, in an ongoing basis, knowledge of the College of Policing Code of Ethics, misconduct rules, regulations and increase awareness of unacceptable social media posts.

The research was conducted with professional policing degree (PPD) students from one university.

It is important to reinforce The College of Policing Code of Ethics, expected professional standards and an understanding of what constitutes unacceptable social media posts throughout the education of aspiring police officers. As this has the potential, if recruited, to impact on the service.

Limited research has been conducted in relation to the College of Policing licensed higher education programme, the PPD, equipping aspiring police officers to successfully join the service and influence the cultural change.