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This paper explores flexible working practices (FWPs) and takes a critical view that argues a need to consider not only access to digital technological resources but also the vast array of factors that constrain one’s ability to use technology for its intended benefits, as constituting the digital divide post-COVID-19 lockdown.

Using a critical evaluation of the extant literature, we engage in a conceptual undertaking to develop theoretical propositions that form the basis for future empirical undertakings. To theoretically ground the arguments raised, we deploy the ontological lens of actor-network theory to illuminate the socio-technical dimensions of the digital divide in light of FWPs.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the need to adopt socially distanced work practices has become a reality for many organisations. We find that the adoption of FWPs, enabled by digital technologies, simultaneously signals hidden inequalities. We also develop a conceptual framework which depicts user responses in different technology environments that can either be limiting or enabling for individuals’ work productivity.

With regards to the digital divide, attention has often focused on access to digital technologies, as the term “digital divide” portrays. The implication is that the array of factors and resources that individuals are heterogeneously networked to, which also constitute the digital divide, is often taken for granted. We take a different ontological view that brings to the fore other factors at play within an individual’s network of relations.

本文擬探索彈性工作安排,並以批判性的觀點、去論證當我們探討2019冠狀病毒病封鎖解除後的數字鴻溝究竟是由什麼組成時,我們必須考慮數字技術資源的使用權限,以及關注各個有關的因素,因這些因素限制了我們從應用技術獲得預期效益的能力。

我們對現存文獻作批判性的評價,藉此參與一項概念性的工作,以便能建立可以成為將來實證性工作基礎的理論命題;為使提出的論點能得到理論上的依據,我們使用行動者網絡理論的本體論鏡頭,去闡明鑒於彈性工作安排的數字鴻溝的各個社會技術維度。

由於2019冠狀病毒病大爆發的關係,許多機構和組織都因實際情況而需採用保持社交距離的工作安排。我們發現、當我們採用有賴數字技術的發展而成行的彈性工作安排時,我們同時也會使不為人知的不平等狀況浮現出來;我們也注意到、不同的技術環境會限制個人的工作生產力,又或相反地助其建立工作生產力;就此,我們建立了一個可以描繪就這些不同的技術環境、用戶會如何回應的概念框架。

就數字鴻溝而言,人們的關注總放在數字技術使用權限的差異上,就如數字鴻溝這個術語所塑造的形象一樣。這種關注可能帶來的影響是即使有不同的因素和資源、即使個人會以各種形式與不同的因素和資源聯繫起來,而這些因素和資源構成了數字鴻溝,人們卻把這些因素和資源視為理所當然。我們採用不同的本體論觀點,希望藉此使個人關係網絡內起著作用的其它因素能突顯出來、免被忽視。

This paper aims to provide readers with a comprehensive overview of the current state of the millennial literature, highlighting the significance and challenges of millennial professionals, their reported high turnover and the various recommendations designed to engage and retain them.

An integrated review approach was applied to synthesise contemporary peer-reviewed articles, supplemented by legacy and grey literature and relevant book chapters, to comprehensively explore and construct a cohesive overview of the current research on the millennial workforce.

Within the wealth of available information, examining the various studies on millennial turnover reveals diverse theories, evidence and opportunities for advancement, underscoring the necessity for more robust empirical studies. The investigation identified three overarching retention strategy themes: (1) intergenerational conflict management, (2) workplace adaptations and (3) solutions rooted in a protean career orientation. In alignment with protean career concepts, coaching shows promise as an underexplored option.

This article holds practical significance by offering researchers a comprehensive and cohesive overview of the millennial literature. Additionally, it gives organisations a novel perspective on the crucial role coaching can play in engaging and retaining millennial employees.

The increased focus on retaining millennial workers in recent decades has spurred a proliferation of articles and books on this subject. However, this body of research remains fragmented, lacking an overview that provides a clear picture of its current state. This review aims to bridge this gap.

This study aims to analyze to what extent distance education is feasible and efficient with the limited technological infrastructure in Egypt. The study answers this question from the perspective of households' preparedness level regarding possessing information and communication technologies (ICTs). In addition, it assesses whether the pattern of students' ICT ownership is influenced by disability- and socioeconomic-based inequality in education and whether the pattern of ICT ownership exacerbates such biases.

A three-stage probit model with double sample selection (PMDSS) was applied to estimate the factors likely to influence ICT possession, considering the selection process for school enrollment and education continuation. The authors utilized nationally representative data from the Egypt Labor Market Panel Survey 2018.

About 40% of students aged 12–25 did not have ICTs. Most socioeconomically poor households, particularly those living in Upper Egypt, were the least likely to obtain ICTs and rely on distance education. In addition, female students, particularly those with disabilities, had the lowest chance of benefitting from distance learning.

The persistent structural deprivation of school enrollment and educational progression has led to the positive selection of well-off children in education, which is extended to ICT possession and internet use. Without addressing these structural biases, the study suggests that distance education will likely exacerbate educational inequalities.

The study analyzed the extent to which Egyptian families were prepared in 2018 regarding ICT possessions for distance education for their children, particularly those with disabilities. Furthermore, it investigated whether access to distance learning was influenced by disability- and socioeconomic-based inequalities in education.

The present study is intended to assess the risk factors associated with digital buying. Also aims to design and develop an instrument to assess the digital buyers risk factor score (DBRFS) in light of pandemic.

Present investigation uses a quantitative approach to achieve the stated objectives. The survey instrument for the purpose of assessing risk factors associated with digital buying was developed in two phases. The present study adopts theory of planned behaviour (TPB), built based on the theory of reasoned action (TRA). The data were collected and analysed considering 500 valid responses, sampling unit being digital buyers using social media platforms in tyre-II city of India. The data collection was undertaken between June 2021 and August 2021. The instrument is designed and validated using exploratory factor analysis (EFA) followed by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).

The present research identified six perceived risk factors that are associated with digital buying; contractual risk, social risk, psychological risk, perceived quality risk, financial risk and time risk. The DBRFS of male is 3.7585, while female is 3.7137. Thus, risk taking by the male and female is at par. For the age group 15–30, DBRFS is 3.6761, while age group 31–45 noted as 3.7889 and for the 46–50 age groups it is measured as 3.9649.

The marketers are expected to have the knowledge about how people responds to the pandemic. The outcome of the research helps to understand consumer behaviour but disentangling consumer’s “black box” is challenging especially during global distress. The present study outcome helps the digital shopkeepers to respond positively to meet the needs of digital buying.

The scale development and to quantify the DBRFS. A deeper understanding of about digital consumers during pandemics will help digital shopkeepers to connect issues related digital buying.

The debate on digitalization in the public relations (PR) literature has fragmented considerably over the past decade because of its focus on upcoming media-technological innovations, required professional skills and management concepts. Yet the field has difficulties in developing an integrative perspective on the implications of digitalization as a broader socio-technological transformation with a balanced consideration of prospects and risks.

This paper proposes an integrative perspective that focuses more on the enduring imaginaries of how digitalization can transform society for better or worse. It traces the historical roots of five imaginaries of digitalization, which have already emerged over the past century yet have experienced a significant revival and popularization in the current debate. Based on these five imaginaries, the authors performed a narrative literature review of the digitalization debate in 10 leading PR journals from 2010 to 2022.

The five imaginaries allow for a systematization of the fragmented digitalization debate in the field, reconstructing recurrent narratives, prospects and risks.

The originality of this contribution lies in its reconstructive approach, tracing societal imaginaries of digitalization and their impact on the current disciplinary debate. This approach provides context for a balanced assessment of and engagement with upcoming, increasingly fragmented digital advancements in PR research and practice.

The research aims to provide a longitudinal case study to understand how digital transformation can be embedded in municipal reporting frameworks. The central role of such technology becomes increasingly evident as citizens demand greater transparency and engagement between them and governing institutions.

Utilising a longitudinal case study methodology, the research focusses on Turin’s Integrated Popular Financial Report (IPFR) as a lens through which to evaluate the broader implications of digital transformation on governmental transparency and operational efficiency.

Digital tools, notably sentiment analysis, offer promising avenues for enhancing governmental efficacy and citizenry participation. However, persistent challenges highlight the inadequacy of traditional, inflexible reporting structures to cater to dynamic informational demands.

Embracing digital tools is an imperative for contemporary public administrators, promoting streamlined communication and dismantling bureaucratic obstructions, all while catering to the evolving demands of an informed citizenry.

Different from previous studies that primarily emphasised technology’s role within budgeting, this research uniquely positions itself by spotlighting the transformative implications of digital tools during the reporting phase. It champions the profound value of fostering bottom-up dialogues, heralding a paradigmatic shift towards co-creative public management dynamics.

To know the digital competence of rural teachers to carry out the tutoring process with members of the educational community through digital resources (teacher-student, teacher-families and teacher-teaching team). As specific objectives, gender, teaching specialties, interaction between gender*teaching speciality, and significant predictors were analysed.

The research was quantitative, with a non-experimental, cross-sectional, descriptive and inferential design.

The results showed an explorer-expert teacher, where the generalist teachers had a superior competence compared to the rest of the specialties. Gender and teaching speciality were significant predictors in the communication that the teacher has with all the agents involved, while the interaction of both predictors was only significant between the teacher-teaching team and teacher-families.

Another issue worth considering relates to the development of the classification tree for the use of digital resources in tutorial action. Due to lack of space, the proposal has focused on gender and particular subjects, but it would be interesting to focus on the dimensions of the instrument with regard to tutorial action with the different agents (students, teaching staff and families).

After reviewing the literature, the authors can conclude that very little quantitative research is focused on the level of self-perception of digital competence of teachers in rural schools. Furthermore, the teaching speciality of teachers has up until now hardly been taken into account as a variable that can determine the levels of digital competence. Not many studies have analysed the use of digital resources to communicate with the different members of the educational community.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on university students' employability skills and give insights into preparation for future crises that may happen.

Employing an interpretative phenomenological approach with the frame of social cognitive theory, the current study examined the changes in environmental, behavioral and personal elements of human functioning for employability skills being affected by the conditions during the pandemic.

Findings based on ten in-depth semi-structured interviews with students at universities in Vietnam highlighted that the global pandemic performed as both challenge and an opportunity for employability skills development, yet the extent to which the students can benefit from the new studying conditions attributed to each individual's initiatives in taking advantages of resources and acting against difficulties.

Whether the pandemic became a hindrance or a motivation for students' employability skills to develop and whether students effectively utilized an agency to overcome challenges and improved their skills after the pandemic have not yet been investigated. This study added to the body of literature regarding self-regulated learners by demonstrating agency in the learning process as well as how to manage careers and improve employability skills by making use of resources in disconnected settings.

This study is motivated to provide a theoretically informed, data-driven assessment of the consequences associated with the participation of non-human bots in social accountability movements; specifically, the anti-inequality/anti-corporate #OccupyWallStreet conversation stream on Twitter.

A latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) topic modeling approach as well as XGBoost machine learning algorithms are applied to a dataset of 9.2 million #OccupyWallStreet tweets in order to analyze not only how the speech patterns of bots differ from other participants but also how bot participation impacts the trajectory of the aggregate social accountability conversation stream. The authors consider two research questions: (1) do bots speak differently than non-bots and (2) does bot participation influence the conversation stream.

The results indicate that bots do speak differently than non-bots and that bots exert both weak form and strong form influence. Bots also steadily become more prevalent. At the same time, the results show that bots also learn from and adapt their speaking patterns to emphasize the topics that are important to non-bots and that non-bots continue to speak about their initial topics.

These findings help improve understanding of the consequences of bot participation within social media-based democratic dialogic processes. The analyses also raise important questions about the increasing importance of apparently nonhuman actors within different spheres of social life.

The current study is the first, to the authors’ knowledge, that uses a theoretically informed Big Data approach to simultaneously consider the micro details and aggregate consequences of bot participation within social media-based dialogic social accountability processes.

This article provides an overview and analysis of 50 years of European policies, actions, and challenges to align its higher education and research, as well as lessons learned from this for similar initiatives elsewhere.

The study builds on a comprehensive overview and study of policy documents and scholarly literature to identify by decade the main policies and actions and the related challenges towards a European Higher Education and Research Area.

The findings make clear the key rationales, challenges, shifts and lessons to be learned from 50-year European policies for the alignment of higher education.

Its value lies in the historical overview and analysis of current initiatives, in particular the European Universities Initiative (EUI), to provide a historical and geographical context, which might give insight for similar initiatives elsewhere.