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Why is the Indian fruit‐eating bat like a human being? asks Caroline Austin. Because they are both incapable of synthesising vitamin C! The disability is the result of some long‐past mutation in evolution which has resulted in the loss of activity of an enzyme which catalyses the final step in the biosynthesis of vitamin C. Clearly, vitamin C must be supplied in the diet to compensate for this loss, but how much should we take? In recent years there has been a great deal of controversy on this topic

The purpose of this paper is to report findings from research conducted to study the everyday work of information professionals, specifically records managers. This paper is a part of the “Research on the Work of 21st Century Information Professionals” study.

Researchers used the tailored design approach to create and increase response rate of our survey. Survey research methodology facilitated the development, pilot and launch of a survey instrument with a 20-question module specific to records management work.

The authors discovered the frequency of 11 tasks in records managers’ daily work, as well as how important each of 11 competencies are to their success on the job. Professional development topics and format, job satisfaction, strategies for gaining compliance, desired skills for new hires and curricular recommendations are also presented.

The survey generated 334 responses from records management professionals. This sample was based on graduate alumni, targeted professional groups and snowball strategy. Implications from this study include educating doctoral students to study information work and identifying particular areas for strengthening graduate curricula and professional training.

The authors obtained direct insight on what records managers do in their daily work that will inform curricular decision-making.

The study explores an interest in daily work activities through multiple quantifiable data measures to offer nuanced insight on the relationships between different aspects of records management work.

Developing technological innovations in healthcare is made complex and difficult due to effects upon the practices of professional, managerial and other stakeholders. Drawing upon the concept of boundary object, this paper explores the challenges of achieving effective collaboration in the development and use of a novel healthcare innovation in the English healthcare system.

A case study is presented of the development and implementation of a smart phone application (app) for use by rheumatoid arthritis patients. Over a two-year period (2015–2017), qualitative data from recorded clinical consultations (n = 17), semi-structured interviews (n = 63) and two focus groups (n = 13) were obtained from participants involved in the app's development and use (clinicians, patients, researchers, practitioners, IT specialists and managers).

The case focuses on the use of the app and its outputs as a system of inter-connected boundary objects. The analysis highlights the challenges overcome in the innovation's development and how knowledge sharing between patients and clinicians was enhanced, altering the nature of the clinical consultation. It also shows how conditions surrounding the innovation both enabled its development and inhibited its wider scale-up.

By recognizing that technological artefacts can simultaneously enable and inhibit collaboration, this paper highlights the need to overcome tensions between the transformative capability of such healthcare innovations and the inhibiting effects simultaneously created on change at a wider system level.

This paper aims to investigate whether and how cross-sector partnerships (a growing yet controversial phenomenon) contribute to both non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and multinational companies (MNCs) political powers.

The method consists of a single case study on a partnership involving a large MNC and a small NGO, in the delivery of lighting and cooking devices to BoP (bottom of the pyramid) populations.

Thanks to economic compromises and structural arrangements, both partners succeed to take advantage of the partnership to strengthen their respective (local and transnational) political power and to serve deprived populations’ needs.

This paper contributes to the political corporate social responsibility (CSR) literature by presenting cross-sector partnerships as a potential means to reconcile the “brother enemies” and increase both firms’ and nonprofit organizations’ political roles.

The results help both NGOs and MNCs in understanding the political stakes of cross-sector partnerships and in envisioning mechanisms to handle those collaborations so as to deepen their respective goals and build public goods.

While most of the literature focuses on the strategic rationales, this paper provides political rationales for cross-sector partnerships linking MNCs and NGOs.

To examine the weblogs written by members of UK legislatures and to determine whether such weblogs address commonly cited criticisms of MPs' web sites and serve to bridge the gap between representative and constituent.

Examination of the literature on MPs' web sites to draw up a list of common criticisms. Construction of evaluation criteria to analyse the blogs in terms of content, currency, design, interactivity and evidence of personality both as a snapshot and over a longer period.

That weblogs are, on the whole, kept up to date and show promising levels of activity. Blogs enable constituents to see with what their MPs have been involved (on both the local and the Parliamentary stages) and to see what areas of policy particularly interest their MP. Personality of the MPs is apparent on most of the blogs, which are less party‐oriented than many MPs' web sites. Although the gap between representatives and constituents may have been bridged to an extent, blogging is still largely a top‐down form of communication – even though people do submit relevant and pertinent comments to the blogs, proper two‐way debate is rarely seen and comments are not always acknowledged or answered.

Based on a small number of blogs covering the UK only.

Provides simple evaluation criteria that could be applied to blogs in other areas.

Provides a useful first structured analysis of weblogs written by elected representatives, on which further work can be undertaken once the sample size has increased and existing blogs are more established.

The provision of information and advice for older people arranging their own care is a policy objective. The purpose of this paper is to explore the range and scope of web-based information about care coordination activities for older people in the non-statutory sector in England.

Non-statutory organisations were identified through a structured internet search. Services were screened to identify those providing at least one care coordination activity. A postal survey of services was conducted in 2014 and results compared with the initial findings of the web search.

Almost 300 services were identified, most of which were provided by three organisations: Age UK; Alzheimer’s Society; and the British Red Cross. Brokerage was the most frequently reported care coordination activity; the majority of services focussed on help to stay at home; and carers and older people (including those with dementia) were the target groups most often identified. Comparison of the two information sources revealed a significant agreement between two care coordination’s activities: compiling support plans and monitoring and review.

Findings are based on a purposive sample of organisations and therefore care must be exercised in generalising from them.

This study is one of the first to systematically explore the nature and extent of information about care coordination activities provided by the non-statutory sector in England. It was conducted when policy advocated both an increased role for the non-statutory sector and an increase in self-directed support.

The text of the Dame Caroline Haslett Memorial Lecture for 1984 given to the Royal Arts Society, covering recent developments in science and engineering education and training opportunities for women, with particular emphasis on the achievements of 1984, the year designated Women Into Science and Engineering (WISE).

This study aims to share the development of new conceptual tools, which merge theories of critical whiteness studies (CWS), epistemic injustice and abolitionist teaching, applying them to the discourse of pre- and in-service teachers across the predominantly white institutions (PWIs) as they discuss antiracist teaching through the book Stamped and a series of online discussions.

This qualitative, collaborative practitioner inquiry derived data from video-recorded, online discussions, interviews and weekly research meetings. Critical discourse analysis revealed theoretical gaps and prompted the integration of additional theories, resulting in new conceptual tools, which are applied here to both “in the moment” exchanges between participants and individuals’ reflections in interviews.

Applying new conceptual tools to discussions of whiteness and race revealed how epistemic harm, microresistance and epistemic justice emerge in talk along with the importance of cultivating critical vigilance among antiracist educators.

This study elucidates how merging the conceptual frameworks of CWS, epistemic injustice and abolitionist teaching provides new tools for interrogating antiracism relative to whiteness in participants’ and researchers’ experiences. It challenges teacher educators, particularly at PWIs, to recognize how epistemic harm may be inflicted on students of color when centering whiteness in teacher education.

This paper aims to investigate the motivations of social entrepreneurs in East Africa to create a social enterprise and their identified links to successful social entrepreneurship in East Africa.

The authors employed a qualitative method by performing thematic analysis on a set of interviews on social entrepreneurs from East Africa who are Ashoka fellows.

The findings suggest that intense personal experiences linked to past-life events as well as a high achievement orientation towards improving livelihoods and creating impact serve as key triggers for social entrepreneurship. Successful entrepreneurship focusses on system change at national and local levels. Their success is also seen when the social entrepreneurs have achieved their mission and are no longer needed; thus, they become irrelevant. The paper discusses the implications of these findings on the model used for sustainable social entrepreneurship in East Africa.

Based on an exploratory research on Ashoka fellows, the study adds insight to their motivations and success which can be used in a wider scale study of the same.

The authors advance the scarce empirical research on East African social entrepreneurs, link success factors of social entrepreneurship to a recent framework on motivation to engage in social entrepreneurship and stimulate further research in the area. The study contributes to the literature on social entrepreneurship by linking success factors of social entrepreneurship to a recent framework on motivation to engage in social entrepreneurship.