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We conducted the Universal Accreditation Board (UAB) practice analysis to examine perceptions of US public relations practitioners and educators regarding the essential competencies for entry-level and mid-career professionals. This is a trend analysis survey that is conducted every five years to assess changes in required competencies.

The survey was distributed via email to organizations affiliated with the UAB. Two variations of the survey were available to differentiate between practitioners and educators. The study was conducted from February through March of 2024.

We found practitioners’ expectations for others exceeded their own actual performance levels. This may be attributed to social comparison bias. We have provided recommendations for updating the Accreditation in Public Relations (APR) and certificate exams based on our findings. For example, we recommend senior professionals adopt a nurturing leadership style when mentoring young professionals. The study also revealed that educators overestimated generative artificial intelligence (AI) use in the workplace, as practitioners exhibited a slower rate of adoption of AI. The literature and theories that guided the paper were AI use, the history of accreditation in public relations and the diffusion of innovation theory.

This research paper provides insights related to the diffusion of AI competencies in the workplace. Additionally, this research adds to public relations literature by revealing the gap in expectations of senior professionals for beginning and mid-career professionals and their own job performance.

Performance management systems (PMSs) must remain dynamic and maintain the ability to withstand the high degrees of complexity brought about by digital technologies (DTs). Academics and practitioners have explored DTs and PMSs separately. This study aims to bridge the academic and practitioner discourse surrounding PMSs and DTs to promote knowledge diffusion and collaboration.

The authors adopted a mixed method approach, combining quantitative and qualitative content analysis, which were validated through semi-structured interviews with academics and practitioners. The authors first conducted a content analysis of the academic literature contained in the Scopus database and the practitioners' literature featured in the Nexis Uni database.

The combined academic-practitioners’ body of knowledge underscores the risk and environmental dimension, as well as the theoretical frameworks employed to explore digitally empowered PMSs. These findings were corroborated by 17 confirmatory interviews conducted with scholars and practitioners.

Due to its scope, the research is limited to publications listed on Scopus and Nexis Uni. Additionally, its qualitative and interpretative nature presents some generalizability issues.

This study connects the intentions of scholars and practitioners concerning PMSs and DTs to promote collaborative efforts and knowledge diffusion. Moreover, considering the broader spectrum of insights, this manuscript postulates new avenues of research that address the key issues and concerns of both academics and practitioners. Finally, this article showcases PMs- and DT-appropriate theoretical frameworks that can inform practitioners’ discourse and work.

This study aims to investigate the digital information needs and seeking behaviour of legal practitioners practising at the Lahore High Court in the Punjab province of Pakistan.

This study adopts a quantitative approach based on an e-questionnaire survey to collect data from legal practitioners following a comprehensive census. Among the 9,933 registered legal practitioners, a random sample size of 370 respondents was determined, of whom 302 responded to the survey, resulting in a response rate of 81.6%.

Legal practitioners prefer the Pakistan Law Site and law journals as primary sources of information acquisition, with a distinct inclination towards digital formats over traditional print. These resources are primarily used for court case preparation, significantly enhancing the research capabilities of legal practitioners and ensuring they remain current in their field. However, several challenges were identified, including time constraints, limited access to digital resources and inadequate availability of legal resources in digital format. These challenges emphasize the critical need for enhancing the digital infrastructure of law libraries.

The study calls for law libraries to adopt technological advancements and underscores the necessity of improving digital infrastructure to better serve the evolving information needs of legal practitioners.

This study underscores the preferred information sources and formats of legal practitioners for seeking information, their purpose for using law resources and the impact of digital media on their information-seeking behaviour. In addition, this study reveals the challenges they face in seeking them.

The Internet of Things (IoT) offers substantial potential for improving efficiency and effectiveness in various applications, notably within the domain of smart construction. Despite its growing adoption within the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry, its utilization remains limited. Despite efforts made by policymakers, the shift from traditional construction practices to smart construction poses significant challenges. Consequently, this study aims to explore, compare, and prioritize the determinants that impact the acceptance of the IoT among construction practitioners.

Based on the integrated model of Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT2), Task-Technology Fit (TTF), and perceived risk. A cross-sectional survey was administered to 309 construction practitioners in China, and the collected data were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM) to test the proposed hypotheses.

The findings indicate that TTF, performance expectancy, effort expectancy, hedonic motivation, facilitating conditions, and perceived risk exert significant influence on construction practitioners’ intention to adopt IoT. Conversely, social influence and habit exhibit no significant impact. Notably, the results unveil the moderating influence of gender on key relationships – specifically, performance expectancy, hedonic motivation, and habit – in relation to the behavioral intention to adopt IoT among construction practitioners. In general, the model explains 71% of the variance in the behavioral intention to adopt IoT, indicating that the independent constructs influenced 71% of practitioners’ intentions to use IoT.

These findings provide both theoretical support and empirical evidence, offering valuable insights for stakeholders aiming to gain a deeper understanding of the critical factors influencing practitioners’ intention to adopt IoT. This knowledge equips them to formulate programs and strategies for promoting effective IoT implementation within the AEC field.

This study contributes to the existing literature by affirming antecedents and uncovering moderators in IoT adoption. It enhances the existing theoretical frameworks by integrating UTAUT2, TTF, and perceived risk, thereby making a substantial contribution to the advancement of technology adoption research in the AEC sector.

The aim of this study is to investigate how educational researchers work together with practitioners in practical research projects.

Mixed-method.

Our findings suggest that researchers recognize their own limitations as well as those of practitioners and policy makers and learn from collaboration, but that they lack ideas on what activities they can undertake to overcome limitations. Furthermore, educational researchers emphasize the importance of continuous and systematic organized exchange with educational practitioners. We discuss the needs and challenges of educational researchers interacting with educational practitioners during their research.

We believe that sustainable research and practice partnerships (RPPs) provide a more effective platform for collaboration between researchers and practitioners. This is because long-term engagement in cross-boundary work within these partnerships promotes the development of new knowledge, routines and methods, thereby improving educational practice. Unfortunately, there are few RPPs in Germany (the context of the researchers interviewed). Consequently, it is critical that funding policies, particularly outside the United States, provide greater support for RPPs and the necessary resources for these partnerships. Even if funding for RPPs is not always possible, our research suggests that short-term collaborative agreements in research-practice projects are preferable to relying on informal transfer channels.

This research investigates the feasibility, benefits and challenges of environmental sustainability reporting by Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs).

The authors develop an abridged SME environmental sustainability reporting framework based on the environmental aspects of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Standards for Sustainability Reporting. The authors collect the views of 203 SME accounting practitioners on our proposed reporting framework using a survey questionnaire.

The authors find that the greatest perceived benefit for firms adopting environmental sustainability reporting is that it leads to an improvement in company image. Lack of knowledge, resources and data capturing tools impede implementation of environmental sustainability reporting for both SMEs and accounting practitioners. While SMEs are not yet required to implement environmental sustainability reporting, the research discusses implications for policy makers and practitioners for adopting environmental sustainability reporting in the SME context.

The main limitation of this study is that environmental sustainability reporting for SMEs is in its infancy. A longitudinal survey, or re-examining this survey over time, could be beneficial to assess the long-term benefits and costs of implementing sustainability reporting.

The findings of this study have practical implications for the future development of SME environmental sustainability reporting in the EU and for regulators considering sustainability reporting regulations with a specific focus on SMEs.

The study reconstructs the GRI environmental guidelines into a framework for SMEs and provides empirical evidence on the accountant’s sustainability reporting role.

From May 2024, Victoria (Australia) will mandatorily raise the minimum house energy rating standards from 6 to 7 stars. However, the latest data shows that only 5.73% of new Victorian houses were designed beyond 7-star. While previous literature indicates the issue’s link to the compliance behaviour of building practitioners in the design phase, the underlying behavioural determinants are rarely explored. This study thus preliminarily examines building practitioners’ compliance behaviour with 7-star Australian house energy ratings and beyond.

Using a widely-applied method to initially examine an under-explored phenomenon, eight expert interviews were conducted with building practitioners, a state-level industry regulator and a leading national building energy policy researcher. The study triangulated the data with government-led research reports.

The experts indicate that most building practitioners involved in mainstream volume projects do not go for 7 stars, mainly due to perceived compliance costs and reliance on standardized designs. In contrast, those who work on custom projects are more willing to go beyond 7-star mostly due to the moral norms for a low-carbon environment. The experts further agree that four behavioural determinants (attitudes towards compliance, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control and personal norms) co-shape building practitioners’ compliance behaviour. Interventions targeting these behavioural determinants are recommended for achieving 7 stars and beyond.

This study demonstrates the behavioural determinants that influence building practitioners’ compliance decisions, and offers insight regarding how far they will go to meet 7 stars. It can facilitate the transition to 7 stars by informing policymakers of customized interventions to trigger behaviour change.

Early research on overqualification suggested that overqualification is primarily associated with negative attitudes and behavior. As a consequence, hiring practitioners were advised against hiring overqualified job applicants. However, recent studies have revealed that there are several potential positive consequences of overqualification. Given this change in perspective on overqualification, we examine how hiring practitioners nowadays look at overqualified job applicants, and what their considerations are for hiring an overqualified job applicant or not.

We have interviewed 33 hiring practitioners to examine their attitudes and considerations toward hiring overqualified job applicants.

Results show that hiring practitioners are aware of potential positive as well as negative consequences of overqualification and consider a variety of factors to assess how beneficial hiring an overqualified candidate will be. These factors fall under three categories: Individual considerations, interpersonal considerations and contextual considerations.

We show that overqualification is not a stigma anymore and that the decision to hire an overqualified job applicant or not depends on a mixture of factors that are carefully considered. Two of these three considerations transcend the individual level (i.e. the overqualified person), whereas most research and theories on the consequences of overqualification do not go beyond the individual level. As such, our findings call for more theory and research on interpersonal and contextual factors shaping the consequences of overqualification.

There is a growing mismatch between the skill demands of the industry and the offerings of academia. One way of reducing this mismatch is by improving collaborations between practitioners and instructors using web-networking platforms. However, it is important to understand practitioners’ considerations while collaborating with instructors. Therefore, this study identified these considerations in order to infer inputs for the design of the graphical user interface (GUI) of a web-based platform for connecting instructors and practitioners.

A mixed method was adopted through a survey and focus group. A survey was used to capture practitioners’ considerations while collaborating with instructors for student development, and a focus group helped uncover an in-depth understanding of the study phenomena. The data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics and thematic analysis.

The results show the willingness of practitioners to collaborate with instructors for student development, the ways by which practitioners are willing to meet instructors' course-support needs and their considerations in deciding to do so. Slight differences were observed between the results of the survey and the focus group regarding the ranking of the practitioners’ considerations. The study highlighted demographic differences in practitioners’ considerations when deciding on meeting instructors' course-support needs. The results provide a basis to deduce the GUI inputs of web-networking platforms for connecting instructors and practitioners.

This study revealed practitioners’ design needs and GUI inputs to facilitate the design of web-networking platforms for connecting instructors and practitioners. This study also contributes to user interface design principles, theories on individual differences and practitioners’ involvement in student professional development.

Human resource analytics (HRA) is an HR activity that companies and academics increasingly pay attention to. Existing literature conceptualises HRA mostly from an objectivist perspective, which limits understanding of actual HRA activities in the complex organisational environment. This paper therefore draws on the practice-based approach, using a novel framework to conceptualise HRA-as-practice.

The authors conducted a systematic literature review of 100 academic and practitioner-oriented publications to analyse existing HRA literature in relation to practice theory, using the “HRA-as-practice” frame.

The authors identify the main practices involved in HRA, by whom and how these practices are enacted, and reveal three topics in nomological network of HRA-as-practice: HRA technology, HRA outcomes and HRA hindrances and facilitators, which the authors suggest might actualize enactment of HRA practices.

The authors offer HR function and HR professionals a basic ground to evaluate HRA as a highly contextual activity that can potentially generate business value and increase HR impact when seen as a complex interaction between HRA practices, HRA practitioners and HRA praxis. The findings also help HR practitioners understand multiple factors that influence the practice of HRA.

This systematic review differs from the previous reviews in two ways. First, it analyses both academic and practitioner-oriented publications. Second, it provides a novel theoretical contribution by conceptualising HRA-as-practice and comprehensively compiling scattered topics and themes related to HRA.