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Social media sites facilitate electronic word of mouth (eWOM) communication among consumers of diverse cultures and ethnicities. Based on the theory of planned behaviour (TPB), the present research proposes a conceptual framework for minority consumers' engagement in eWOM associated with the mainstream culture. The model incorporates social capital and social interaction as key factors that affect cross-cultural eWOM communication between minority and mainstream consumers. This research also aims to explore the responses of minority consumers to eWOM communications originating with members of the majority group.

A structural equation modelling (SEM) procedure was applied to data collected from social media (Facebook) users (N = 539) from two minority communities: Israeli Arab and Israeli Ultra-Orthodox Jewish minorities.

The findings show that: (a) minority consumers' engagement with eWOM is indirectly related to social capital, (b) this relationship is mediated by minority consumers' attitudes and their subjective norms regarding eWOM engagement with dominant cultural groups, (c) social interaction of minorities with the dominant culture enhances the influence of social capital on eWOM engagement and (d) behavioural engagement with eWOM varies across cultural minorities, depending on the minority group’s unique cultural characteristics.

The findings have managerial implications for practitioners who use social media in their marketing and business activities, as they demonstrate that the effectiveness of eWOM communication is contingent on the cultural characteristics of the ethnic minority consumer groups being targeted by managers.

The present research contributes to the theory of consumer engagement by demonstrating that engagement is contingent on the intercultural social context in which eWOM is communicated.

The study investigates the information-related challenges as well as the practices adopted by early-career researchers during transitions between roles and institutions. Its primary goal is to delve into how information behaviors serve as scaffolding during significant life shifts. Moreover, the research aims to provide actionable insights based on this scaffolding concept for individuals navigating transitions.

This preliminary and exploratory study took a phenomenological approach to examine the role of information seeking and personal information management (PIM) behaviors during life transitions. In-depth semi-structured interviews were held with 15 early-career researchers from various disciplines, who were about to finish their PhDs or had recently graduated.

By employing information seeking and PIM practices, participants were able to address three main information challenges that arose during the transition process: the timing of information behavior, the nature of information and the social components of the transition. The use of networked and independent information seeking/validation practices enabled to establish a sustainable network of transition-related information, reducing uncertainty. PIM practices helped planning the transition, maintaining information over the long-term and gaining control over personal information.

This study underscores the significance of information behaviors, encompassing both information seeking and PIM, as scaffolding mechanisms during crucial life transitions. It offers essential insights that can guide the creation of impactful interventions and resources. Additionally, the research illuminates the pressing demand for more in-depth exploration in this domain.

With the technological innovation dominating higher education, the university libraries, as physical spaces, continue to play a crucial role in connecting students with knowledge. The emergence of the “Learning Commons” serves as a catalyst in the design of library spaces, renewing libraries’ roles and missions and making them popular to Millennials for new reasons. This study aims to record Greek librarians' views on the current situation in Greek academic libraries regarding physical space design, services provided and the existence of the “Learning Commons” model characteristics.

This study was conducted through an online survey structured questionnaire (closed-ended, five-point Likert scale, multiple-choice and statements questions). This study population comprised librarians working in 37 academic institutions and colleges. The collected data were subjected to descriptive statistical analysis. The research questions were answered using variables creation and the tests, t-test, ANOVA and Kruskal–Wallis. The groups of questions were tested for their reliability using the Cronbach's alpha coefficient.

In total, 186 librarians responded to this study. The responses revealed that participants were willing and ready to accept and support a different approach to academic library physical spaces use, according to the shared learning spaces model. However, this requires changes in the organization's vision, further growth and evolution. Although recently most Greek academic libraries have made significant progress in developing their services to function as information and digital hubs, they do not function as learning collaborative hubs, since the “Learning Commons” model is not reflected in their buildings.

The creation of new academic libraries according to the “common” model is a rapidly evolving issue that affects Greek libraries. This paper highlights the characteristics of libraries that should be adopted in the modern era, the new roles of academic librarians and the importance of an appropriate design of the physical space to achieve optimal learning outcomes. At the same time, this paper is one of the few that illustrates librarians', and not users', perceptions of these changes. This paper is a good research example, and the methodology for measuring this type of context could be used by other future research approaches in other countries.

This study aims to test the relationship between virtual knowledge sharing (VKS) and team effectiveness (TE) during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study also explores the moderating role of collaborative technologies.

This is a cross-sectional study conducted in the service sector of India. A purposive sample of 321 knowledge workers from National Capital Region of India was used. Questionnaires were distributed to knowledge workers working in a virtual environment. The hypotheses were tested with confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling (SEM) using partial least square-SEM.

The study reveals that, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, virtual knowledge sharing (VKS) positively affects team effectiveness (TE). Furthermore, the impact of VKS on TE is contingent upon the utilization of collaborative technologies.

The study contributes to the existing literature by exploring the impact of VKS on TE during the COVID-19 pandemic and the importance of collaborative technologies in facilitating virtual team collaboration, which has practical implications for organizations seeking to enhance TE in virtual environments.

The current study aims to investigate the factors that impact the feedback received on answers to questions in social Q&A communities and whether the expertise-required question influences the role of these factors on the feedback.

To understand the antecedents and consequences that influence the feedback received on answers to online community questions, the elaboration likelihood model (ELM) is applied in this study. The authors use web data crawling methods and a combination of quantitative analyses. The data for this study came from Zhihu; in total, 353,775 responses were obtained to 1,531 questions, ranging from 49 to 23,681 responses per question. Each answer received 0 to 113,892 likes and 0 to 6,250 comments.

The answers' cognitive and emotional components and the answerer's influence positively affect user feedback behavior. In addition, the expertise-required question moderates the effects of the answer's cognitive component and emotional component on the user feedback, moderating the effects of the answerer's influence on the user approval feedback.

This study builds upon a limited yet growing body of literature on a theme of great relevance to scholars, practitioners and social media users concerning the effects of the connotation of answers (i.e. their cognitive and emotional components) and the answerer's influence on user feedback (i.e. approval and collaborative feedback) in social Q&A communities. The authors further consider the moderating role of the domain expertise required by the question (expertise-required question). The ELM model is applied to explore the relationships between questions, answers and feedback. The findings of this study add a new perspective to the research on user feedback and have implications for the management of social Q&A communities.

The aim of this study is to investigate how the information needs satisfaction of visual art teachers affects their creativity. Visual art teachers’ information seeking behaviour and specifically the association of information needs satisfaction with creativity has been an understudied area, despite competent information seeking being considered essential for high quality practices of art teachers.

A questionnaire survey was developed addressing the information seeking behaviour of art teachers, informed by Wilson’s model (1981), including visual art teachers’ information needs, information resources, obstacles faced while seeking information and the perceived impact of information needs satisfaction on visual art teachers’ creativity.

The study included 298 visual art teachers in Greece. The results demonstrated that the key information needs of art teachers were mainly related to materials’ properties, techniques for creating artwork and artwork promotion methods. Online information sources were the preferred sources of art information, followed by colleagues, personal collections and visits to galleries and museums. Our study identified lack of time, lack of specialized libraries and copyright, as the main barriers to information seeking.

Information about art plays a substantial role in visual art education, while visual art teachers’ information needs satisfaction positively influences their creative endeavours. There is a need to further explore the digital information needs of visual art teachers.

Scholars have affirmed that a conceptualization of value co-creation in business relationships should reflect the nature and characteristics of interactional processes that occur in use. The advent of sales and marketing technologies, however, is changing the nature and dynamics of interactions. New trends in digitalization have played a significant role in emphasizing and facilitating the occurrence of business-to- business (B2B) collaborative or sharing economy. The B2B sharing economy and value co-creation are closely intertwined, as businesses harness the power of shared resources and collaboration to generate value in diverse ways. This study highlights the importance of going beyond value co-creation in studying B2B collaborative economy, unpacking the interconnected value processes that influence value co-creation. It also aims at showing the activities that characterize multiple joint value spheres among actors.

The study consists of 49 qualitative interviews with managers operating in different industries.

The paper shows that when considering digital B2B contexts, five joint value spheres in business relationships should be considered: a value co-creation, a value appropriation, a value communication, a value measurement and a value representation sphere. Each one is characterized by specific activities that are relevant from a managerial point of view.

This study highlights that value co-creation has often been over stressed when discussing business interactions, also with the advent of new technologies. Rather, this study offers a more comprehensive view of value co-creation that includes different value processes occurring in joint value spheres. These further processes are relevant because failure and success in business relationships within the B2B sharing economy are often dependent from activities outside the value co-creation process, which strongly affect it. Such knowledge will also open up new research venues and opportunities to better contribute to the practice of value management in business relationships.

This paper aims to examine the history of data leaks and investigative journalism, the techniques and technology that enable them and their influence in Australia and abroad. It explores the ethical and professional considerations of investigative journalists, how they approach privacy and information-sharing and how this differs from intelligence practice in government and industry. The paper assesses the strengths and limitations of Collaborative Investigative Reporting based on Information Leaks (CIRIL) as a kind of public-facing intelligence practice.

This study draws on academic literature, source material from investigations by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, and a survey of financial crime compliance professionals conducted in 2022.

The paper identifies three key causal factors that have enabled the rise of CIRIL even as traditional journalism has declined: the digital storage of information; increasing public interest in offshore finance and tax evasion; and “virtual newsrooms” enabled by internet communications. It concludes that the primary strength of CIRIL is its creation of complex global narratives to inform the public about corruption and tax evasion, while its key weakness is that the scale and breadth of the data released makes it difficult to focus on likely criminal activity. Results of a survey of industry and government professionals indicate that CIRIL is generally more effective as public information than as an investigative resource, owing to the volume, age and quality of information released. However, the trends enabling CIRIL are likely to continue, and this means that governments and financial institutions need to become more effective at using leaked information.

Over the past decade, large-scale, data-driven investigative journalism projects such as the Pandora Papers and the Russian Laundromat have had a significant public impact by exposing money laundering, financial crime and corruption. These projects share certain hallmarks: the use of human intelligence, often sourced from anonymous leaks; inventive fusion of this intelligence with data from open sources; and collaboration among a global collective of investigative journalists to build a narrative. These projects prioritise informing the public. They are also an important information source for government and private sector organisations working to investigate and disrupt financial crime.

This study aims to provide insight into Library and Information Science (LIS) research in India using scientometric approaches. Web of Science (WoS) and SCOPUS databases were used for data retrieval. The study examines productivity in terms of source types, gender distribution, document formats, authorship and other factors. In addition, this study sought to identify trends or patterns in the research preferences of LIS scientists through text analysis.

Data were downloaded from the WoS and Scopus databases over 22 years and analysed using VOSviewer, Orange, Biblioshiny and CRExplorer softwares.

The findings reveal that 5,692 out of the 9,384 documents in both databases underwent the final examination. In total, 466 different sources produced all of those papers. Author analysis revealed that 6,603 different authors authored 5,692 documents. There were 4,209 male and 1,063 female authors. Furthermore, India shares maximum collaborations with the USA and England. The spectrogram features nine significant peaks corresponding to Lotka’s, Bradford’s and similar laws. Text analysis revealed that Indian LIS researchers have consistently investigated open access and digital or open libraries.

The findings of this study will provide readers with a better understanding of India’s contribution to LIS. In addition, the study will help academics identify research gaps and undiscovered areas in the Indian context that require further investigation.

Not many studies highlight Indian research trends and international collaboration in LIS. This study highlights research trends, collaboration and gender productivity in LIS. The most cited references and trending topics were also identified using reference publication year spectroscopy and text analysis techniques.

Online health question-and-answer (Q&A) forums have developed a new business model whereby listeners (peer patients) can pay to read health information derived from consultations between askers (focal patients) and answerers (physicians). However, research exploring the mechanism behind peer patients' purchase decisions and the specific nature of the information driving these decisions has remained limited. This study aims to develop a theoretical model for understanding how peer patients make such decisions based on limited information, i.e. the first question displayed in each focal patient-physician interaction record, considering argument quality (interrogative form and information details) and source credibility (patient experience of focal patients), including the contingent role of urgency.

The model was tested by text mining 1,960 consultation records from a popular Chinese online health Q&A forum on the Yilu App. These records involved interactions between focal patients and physicians and were purchased by 447,718 peer patients seeking health-related information until this research.

Patient experience embedded in focal patients' questions plays a significant role in inducing peer patients to purchase previous consultation records featuring exchanges between focal patients and physicians; in particular, increasingly detailed information is associated with a reduced probability of making a purchase. When focal patients demonstrate a high level of urgency, the effect of information details is weakened, while the interrogative form is strengthened.

The originality of this study lies in its exploration of the monetization mechanism forming the trilateral relationship between askers (focal patients), answerers (physicians) and listeners (peer patients) in the business model “paying to view others' answers” in the online health Q&A forum and the moderating role of urgency in explaining the mechanism of how first questions influence peer patients' purchasing behavior.