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This article examines if there is evidence of racial or gender bias in email reference services in American public and academic libraries.

Using a two-by-two study design and an unobtrusive data collection, the authors conducted two studies in which the authors sent 1,960 email requests to 505 academic and public libraries. Requests in both studies differed in the perceived identity of the user as indicated by their name, and the counterbalanced method was utilized to control for intervening variables. Based on content analysis of the responses, the authors examined the statistical significance of the differences by race, gender and race by gender.

Overall, the authors found equitable service to users regardless of their race and gender; at times, however, there was evidence of favorable service to the White female in academic and public libraries and to the Black male in academic libraries.

There is little research into potential bias in email reference services in both academic and public libraries in the United States of America. Yet, following the rise of the Black Lives Matter Movement in 2020, there has been an increased focus on racial equality in library services and the American Library Association (ALA) Code of Ethics was modified accordingly. The authors' study makes significant contributions to the increasing body of research on racial and gender equality in online library services.

This study aims to investigate the effects of attribution of responsibility (AOR) for layoffs on the components of ethical decision-making. Internal, external and no-fault AOR were examined using the model of moral intensity to determine if placement of blame for the layoff influences ethical awareness, judgment and intent.

Surveys were collected from 397 students. The survey provided a scenario about a layoff situation involving an African-American woman and a Caucasian woman. Respondents then answered questions about moral intensity, moral judgment and moral intent concerning the layoff and identified the reasons they believed the layoff occurred. We tested our hypotheses using multiple regression analysis.

Subjects were more likely to make a moral judgment about the situation when layoffs were blamed on the company’s actions (external AOR) and less likely to make a moral judgment when the layoff decision was blamed on employee performance (internal AOR) or on economic factors beyond anyone’s control (no-fault AOR). Results also indicate that layoffs blamed on employee performance negatively moderate the relationship between moral judgment and moral intent.

Previous studies of layoff ethics have not examined the influence of AOR for layoffs using the model of moral intensity. Thus, this paper extends the current understanding of these concepts in ethical decision-making.

Building on past studies of library privacy policies, this review looks at how privacy information is shared at universities and colleges in the state of Florida. Beyond the question of whether a library-specific privacy policy exists, this review evaluates what is covered in the policies – whether topics such as how student data is stored, retained, de-identified and disposed of are broached in the statements, and whether specific data sets covering instruction, reference and surveillance are mentioned. The purpose of this study is to open the door to directed exploration into student awareness of privacy policies and spark conversation about positionality of libraries regarding privacy.

This review was done using a cross-sectional study design through observation of public-facing library privacy policies of higher education institutions in Florida.

Findings include that the majority of Florida academic libraries do not have a public-facing privacy policy. Only 15 out of the 70 schools reviewed had one. A large portion of those came from doctoral universities with associate’s colleges having none, and baccalaureate/associate’s colleges having only two. The policies that were in place tended to be institution-centered rather than patron-centered. Most categories of listed data collected were in the area of collections, website or computer usage.

The value of this review is that it adds to the literature studying privacy policies in academic libraries. Going forward, this research could address statewide practice in privacy policies as well as helping to lay pathways for working with students and other library patrons to gauge their interests and concerns about privacy.

This chapter examines the role extracurricular activities have in developing higher education (HE) student’s entrepreneurial competencies and capabilities. Specifically, this chapter examines: What type of students participate in extracurricular activities? Why do students choose to participate? and What activities offer for entrepreneurial competency and capability development. An electronic survey (e-survey) collected pre- and post-data from two groups: Group A – students participating in extracurricular enterprise and entrepreneurship (EEEx) activities (n = 119); and Group B – students engaged in non-enterprise-related extracurricular activities (n = 72). Findings indicated that students in both groups were motivated to engage in extracurricular activities to enhance their skills, fulfil personal interests and enhance their employability. Utilising Morris, Webb, Fu, and Singhal’s (2013) entrepreneurial competencies list as a model, there were found to increase in all but one competency (creativity) for Group A, yet for the control group, most competencies decreased. Independent sample T-tests demonstrated that there was no significant difference in the final ratings of entrepreneurial capability between Group A and Group B, however, the degree of improvement for perceived entrepreneurial capability, pre-to-post, for those participating in enterprise activities was substantially higher than the control group. Finally, students participating in EEEx activities were more likely female, studying a programme within the Business School, and in the second or final stage of their programme. This chapter demonstrates the value that EEEx activities provide in a competency context for students and tasks educators with considering how to develop and signpost specific entrepreneurial competencies and capabilities.

Play and playful literacies shape essential spaces for belonging, connection, transformation and joy: from embodied immersions into fantasy worlds, to the creation of interest-led groups overflowing with varied knowledges and identities, and the disruption of societal hierarchies through roleplayed restorying. Yet, theorizations delineating playful possibilities – while plentiful and varied – are often rigidly constructed in relation to neoliberally/biopolitically motivated notions of value, use and productivity. Imbued with forms of modern power, play’s full flourishing has been regulated and quelled, particularly within the realm of education. This study, a literature review, seeks to defy this fatuous notion of a frivolous play.

Drawing from research within the fields of literacy and educational studies, the author centers playful methods commonly trivialized in contemporary discourse, including in global out-of-school spaces (e.g. gaming clubs, improvisational theater groups), with popular culture texts (e.g. picture books, digital fanfiction) and for older youth and adults.

This exploration of play’s potential across lifespans, formal/informal learning ecologies and worldwide contexts foregrounds its intrinsic nature and essential entwining with socio-culturally/materially mediated forms of knowledge and communication.

With a unique focus on the playful literacies emerging across ages, spaces and places, this review advocates a turn toward the imaginative, messy, uncontrollable worlds of play in future research and practice.

Since the development of the COVID-19 vaccinations, questions surrounding race have been prominent in the literature on vaccine uptake. Early in the vaccine rollout, public health officials were concerned with the relatively lower rates of uptake among certain racial/ethnic minority groups. We suggest that this may also be patterned by racial/ethnic residential segregation, which previous work has demonstrated to be an important factor for both health and access to health care.

In this study, we examine county-level vaccination rates, racial/ethnic composition, and residential segregation across the U.S. We compile data from several sources, including the American Community Survey (ACS) and Centers for Disease Control (CDC) measured at the county level.

We find that just looking at the associations between racial/ethnic composition and vaccination rates, both percent Black and percent White are significant and negative, meaning that higher percentages of these groups in a county are associated with lower vaccination rates, whereas the opposite is the case for percent Latino. When we factor in segregation, as measured by the index of dissimilarity, the patterns change somewhat. Dissimilarity itself was not significant in the models across all groups, but when interacted with race/ethnic composition, it moderates the association. For both percent Black and percent White, the interaction with the Black-White dissimilarity index is significant and negative, meaning that it deepens the negative association between composition and the vaccination rate.

The analysis is only limited to county-level measures of racial/ethnic composition and vaccination rates, so we are unable to see at the individual-level who is getting vaccinated.

We find that segregation moderates the association between racial/ethnic composition and vaccination rates, suggesting that local race relations in a county helps contextualize the compositional effects of race/ethnicity.

An applied study using convenience data was conducted to compare the experiences of neurodivergent adults undergoing workplace coaching before and during the pandemic.

The naturally occurring opportunity permitted a comparison of face-to-face and remote coaching in three cohorts, pre-pandemic (100% face-to-face), forced-remote (100% remote) and choice (remote or face-to-face; 85% selected remote). A total of 409 participants self-reported performance before and 12 weeks after completing an average of 11-h coaching.

Significant differences between before and after scores for performance, with large effect sizes, were reported for all three cohorts across six dependent variables: memory, time management, organisational skills, stress management, understanding neurodiversity and concentration. There was no significant difference between the cohorts in terms of the magnitude of the effect. There were significant differences between the cohorts in terms of which topics were chosen as foci for the coaching, with executive functions related topics becoming less popular in the choice cohort.

The authors abductively reasoned the results to suggest a positive relationship between personalised environments and cognitive demands for this client group. They call for further, theoretically grounded research exploring the role of coaching and environment in understanding the work performance of neurodivergent adults at work.

The study contributes to the emerging knowledge on the different experiences of in-person and video-mediated coaching. The focus on neurodivergent employees, which are heretofore less well researched within the workplace, provides essential data to support practitioners in maximising opportunity for a marginalised group.

Sales organizations embrace technological innovation. However, salespeople’s willingness to use new technology influences a firm’s return on investment, representing a significant concern for the organization. These concerns highlight tensions regarding the tradeoffs associated with technology implementations. The purpose of this study is to offer insights that help reduce the complexities of sales technology (ST) by exploring the changing dynamics of contemporary business relationships.

This paper synthesizes the ST literature using the service ecosystem perspective to propose the sales techno-ecosystem (STE) framework, providing new insights into organizational decision-making related to the ongoing digital transformation of sales tasks.

This synthesis of the ST literature with the service ecosystem seeks to clarify the impact of technology within the evolving nature of buyer–seller relationships by providing four unique perspectives.

Perspective 1 reviews the sales-service ecosystem framework and develops the theoretical underpinnings and relevant terminologies. Perspective 2 summarizes critical aspects of the ST literature and provides foundations for future research in the STE. Perspective 3 offers a more granular view, explicating roles and contexts prevalent in buyer–seller–technology interactions. Perspective 4 provides a set of tenets and advances research questions related to each tenet.

The culmination of these four perspectives is the introduction of five key tenants designed to help guide strategy and research.

The paper advances Hartmann et al. (2018) service ecosystem paradigm by explicating critical aspects of its ST domain to generate insights for theory and practice.

This chapter provides an overview of entrepreneurship clubs. It charts the development of these organisations, as a form of extracurricular activity. It introduces different forms of entrepreneurship clubs, such as Junior Achievement (JA) and Enactus, and explains how they grew from 1919 to the present. It also illustrates the differences between self-organised clubs, organised programs using clubs as a learning method, structured societies and nationally organised cooperative societies. The second part introduces research on student clubs in entrepreneurship education. It explores the benefits of clubs. It shows that clubs assist student learning, enable the acquisition of practical skills and improve college attendance, employment opportunities and career attainment. We argue that entrepreneurship clubs have improved student learning outcomes in entrepreneurship and simulated entrepreneurial learning, while impacting student self-efficacy and intentionality as well as improving employability and social learning. The final part of the chapter provides advice and tips for educators advising student-run entrepreneurship clubs. Ultimately, the chapter explains how student clubs have developed, why they are important for student learning and how advisors can support them.