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This chapter seeks to understand the intersection between eGovernment, social media, and digital inequalities by examining the disparate flow of information during the COVID-19 pandemic. Developed economies are increasingly transitioning to digital interfaces for information dissemination and provision of services. The authors explore the potential of, and challenges facing eGovernment by looking at the use of social media during the COVID-19 pandemic. This chapter employs a case study approach to probe the dynamics of government-initiated efforts at information dissemination through the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) website and social media account on Twitter. The analysis in this chapter uses NodeXL to examine communication roles played by government and non-governmental actors within this slice of the Twittersphere centered around CDC@gov. As the findings demonstrate, non-governmental actors played key roles in the dissemination of public health messaging. The authors analyze these data with an eye to the potential of social media for public health communication and extrapolate that understanding to the use of digital access and social media for the provision of accurate, official information in other circumstances. While the COVID-19 pandemic was a global health crisis, individuals and households face individual or local crises every day. This angle of vision allows the chapter to conclude with recommendations pertaining to government-led information dissemination for the public good during crisis and non-crisis situations alike. In the concluding section, the authors probe the degree to which eGovernment can also address digital inequalities including connectivity, device, and literacy gaps. The authors offer solutions needed for eGovernment initiatives in light of challenges posed by digital inequalities to ensure that digital information sharing and services are accessible to all.

Today, appearance is an integral aspect of a politician's image and personality and therefore his or her brand (Budesheim & DePaola, 1994; Sanghvi & Hodges, 2015; Smith & French, 2009). While appearance is critical to political marketing, most of the research focusing on appearance in politics is experimental in nature (Lenz & Lawson, 2011; Olivola & Todorov, 2010; Todorov et al., 2005). This study investigates the importance of appearance for marketing politicians through a qualitative interpretivist framework that offers implications for theory. Moreover, this chapter offers a specific focus on the importance of appearance for female politicians.

Research shows women face greater scrutiny on their appearance (Carlin & Winfrey, 2009; Sanghvi, 2018). This chapter examines myriad of issues women in politics face based on their appearance. It also examines how women have successfully managed the issue of appearance at local, state and national levels. Thus, this study delivers a multifaceted view of the topic and facilitates the understanding of how appearance management enters into the political marketing process.

This paper proposes a new conception of school systems arising out of the collision of three forces: (1) a longstanding press to rationalize the technical work of schools in the service of educational excellence; (2) a growing democratic press to equitably engage community members in the process of defining educational excellence; which together are (3) heightening legacy uncertainties that pervade educational organizations. It then draws on paradox theory to explore how leaders might navigate the growing uncertainties that are central to the work of organizing for excellence and equity.

Integrating scholarship related to organizational institutionalism, paradox theory, learning sciences, social justice leadership and educational system building, this paper examines the changing organization of schools, the growing uncertainty facing educators and the implications for leaders and preparation programs.

This paper introduces two perspectives on how to navigate the growing uncertainty facing educators and educational leaders: one that centers on mitigating uncertainty, the other that prioritizes leveraging uncertainty. Both perspectives have affordances and limitations when considering the twin goals of educational excellence and equitable involvement in decision-making, and leaders should thus view uncertainty as a paradox—an interdependent, persistent, contradiction—that can never be fully resolved, but can be managed. A paradox perspective makes visible the complex work of effectively moving between mitigating and leveraging uncertainty, especially in a field where the latter garners more support and legitimacy.

This paper synthesizes recent educational and organizational scholarship to develop a new conception of educational organizations and a corresponding approach to educational leadership capable of navigating the growing complexity and uncertainty that pervades school systems.

The study aims to ratify skills necessary to bridge the gap between the existing models and emerging needs of a technology-enabled workspace; especially in the Indian context.

This paper extends the ongoing debate on a relevant employability framework suitable both for higher education institutes and corporates. To remain resilient to future catastrophes similar to the ongoing pandemic, the relevancy of established employability skills to suit the changing scenario needs to be established.

The partial least squares (PLS) technique has been used to present a framework confirming the importance of digital competencies, business fundamentals and behavioral skills. In-depth discussions with specialists ratified the proposed framework and recommended potential changes in curriculum and pedagogy.

This study validates an explicit and comprehensive employability skill framework and useful recommendations in teaching strategies, which may provide a broad skill base for graduates to prepare for the volatile business environment in the long run.

The study has been able to put forth significant employability skills as deemed significant by the three stakeholders. This will provide guidance to higher educational institutions (HEIs) to come up with a broad skill-base for the fresh graduates and prepare them for the volatile business environment and encourage life-long learning to remain productive in the long run.

The study is unique as it incorporates the perceived importance of the competencies assumed by each stakeholder, namely, employers, faculty and management graduates, which was unfortunately lacking in earlier researches.

Reactance theory is applied to investigate consumer responses to “buy local” campaigns initiated by government to counteract the effects of an economic crisis, using the COVID-19 pandemic as an illustrative context.

A conceptual model is developed, aimed at revealing the extent to which “buy local” campaigns – explicitly justified by the need to fight an economic crisis – are likely to lead to (a) compliance (i.e. support for local products/retailers) or (b) freedom restoration (i.e. support for foreign products/retailers). The model is subsequently tested on samples of German (N = 265) and Italian (N = 268) consumers.

“Buy local” campaigns are likely to generate reactance amongst consumers and such reactance can lead to both non-compliance and, albeit less so, freedom restoration outcomes. At the same time, consumer ethnocentrism acts as a countervailing influence by attenuating the effects of generated reactance and its undesirable outcomes.

Psychological reactance theory offers a novel perspective for conceptually approaching the likely responses of consumers towards “buy local” campaigns and the empirical findings support the use of the theory in this context.

Policymakers seeking to encourage consumers to support the local economy during times of an economic crisis need to be aware that “buy local” campaigns may, against their intended communication goals, result in non-compliance as well as consumer responses in the opposite direction. Thus, the reactance-generating potential of such campaigns needs to be explicitly considered at the planning/implementation stage.

The findings confirm the relevance of reactance theory as a conceptual lens for studying the effects of “buy local” campaigns and have important implications for domestic/foreign firms as well as for policy makers seeking to encourage consumers to support the local economy during times of an economic crisis.

The purpose of the current study was to examine university students' knowledge, confidence and experience of popular graduate employer selection tests.

A cross-sectional self-report survey was administered to gather a sufficient number of quantitative responses from undergraduate students. A total of 241 students completed the survey with most of them being psychology students from Swansea University. Four key variables were examined: (1) students' experience, (2) confidence and (3) knowledge of selection tests and (4) their desire for more information about selection tests as part of their degree. An audit of selection tests used by the Times Top 100 graduate employers was also conducted.

Students tended to misjudge how often selection tests were used by employers, and generally lacked experience with these tests. Students' confidence in completing each test varied as a function of the selection test; however, prior experience with these tests positively predicted confidence. Additionally, over 70% of students reported a desire for further information about selection tests as part of their degree.

These novel findings suggest that students could benefit from further information about selection tests as part of their degree programme which would be of benefit to both students and universities.

These findings are, to the authors knowledge, the first to explicitly assess second- and third-year undergraduate students' knowledge, experience and confidence with popular graduate employer selection tests and demonstrate that students would like more information about these tests on their programme.

This study analyzed the relationships among sub-factors of mindfulness and two anti-consumption lifestyles caused by personal and social/environmental concerns. This study also investigated the pursuit of authenticity mediating this relationship.

A survey based on self-administered questionnaires and structural equation modeling was used to analyze the collected data via Statistical Product Service Solutions (SPSS) 23 and Analysis of MOment Structure (AMOS) 23. Multiple mediation analysis was adopted to investigate the mediating role of authenticity dimensions via SPSS PROCESS macro.

The relationship between mindfulness and anti-consumption behavior was generally positive. Except for describing and non-judgment, most facets of mindfulness were positively related to anti-consumption patterns. Only the indirect effect of authentic living (AL) was significant in the impact of mindfulness on anti-consumption behavior.

To the authors' knowledge, this study is the first to examine the link between mindfulness and anti-consumption and potential mechanism of anti-consumption – authenticity seeking, extending knowledge about mindfulness and providing insights for environmentalists, public decision-makers, marketers and consumers.

The purpose of this study is to validate the psychometric properties of the Self-Perceived Employability Scale in the context of the United Arab Emirates (UAE-SPE) and to verify the model fit of the UAE-SPE and University Commitment Scale (UC) (Rothwell et al., 2008) for undergraduate students.

A cross-sectional survey study was carried out to collect the data using a web-based survey tool (Qualtrics) at a public university in the UAE. The sample was 646 undergraduate students.

As a result of the factor analysis, the study validated three factors of SPE for undergraduate students in the UAE that explain their perceptions of their university reputation, their field of study, the state of the UAE labour market and confidence in their skills. Confirmatory factor analysis verified good model fit indices of UAE-SPE and the UC scale. In addition, the study found a statistically significant positive relationship between the UC scale and the three factors of UAE-SPE.

Currently, there is a scarcity of published research on self-perceived employability amongst undergraduate students in higher education institutions in the UAE and the Arab region. This article not only contributes to research on this topic but also validates two scales, allowing cross-cultural comparisons of SPE and UC of undergraduate students in the Arab region and worldwide.

While current scholarship on innovation typically examines its antecedents, the purpose of this paper is to provide a more complete account by advocating for social impacts as a critical component of the sociological study of innovation.

This study adopts a conceptual approach to illustrate the ways in which innovation may generate unequitable outcomes. The authors illustrate the purpose of the paper by discussing strategically selected examples that are intended to reflect prominent themes and topics in the relevant literature.

The analysis suggests that while innovation yields many positive benefits, pervasive narratives about its virtues can be overstated when, in fact, innovation may generate adverse effects for particular social groups by reproducing or exacerbating inequality. The authors provide a more complete account of innovation by naming social impacts as a critical component of its sociological study and discussing examples that illustrate how innovation can produce disadvantageous effects by race, gender and social class. The authors move forward the discussion of social impacts by elaborating conditions in which innovation is likely to reproduce the status quo as well as ameliorate negative impacts.

While many studies have explained the conditions that foster innovation, this study pushes the boundaries of the study of innovation – a timely topic for practitioners and scholars in the fields of not only sociology, but management, education and public policy. Accordingly, we move forward the discussion of the social impacts of innovation by identifying the ways in which innovation is likely to reproduce structural inequalities.