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The purpose of this paper is to summarise corporate social responsibility (CSR) development issues by organising critical CSR promoting and hindering factors, and to evaluate CSR development problems in Lithuania according to organised factors, legal context and previously implemented empirical investigations in new EU member states and Lithuania.

Analysis and generalisation of various literature sources were applied to organise critical CSR promoting and hindering factors. In order to evaluate the CSR development problems in Lithuania, legal documents and collateral analysis of empirical CSR research in new EU member states and Lithuania methods were applied.

The antithesis between economic and social firms' objectives has existed for a long time, but the current modern world's construct refuted this concept in economic terms and has highlighted social, ethical and environmental values, taking into account definite quality options for everyone – the public sector, NGOs and society – with great expectations to act in a socially responsible way. The priorities of CSR, as emphasised by the European Union (EU), are relevant not only to old EU member states, but also to new ones. The research results show that despite the Lithuanian CSR development vision and goals, the main problems relate to the lack of understanding of CSR and a systematic CSR implementation approach.

The study is based on previously implemented empirical investigations in new EU member states with particular attention to CSR promoting and hindering factors and deeper insight into Lithuanian CSR development issues, which provide a starting point for further CSR research in the area of transitional economies.

The paper summarises empirical investigations implemented in new EU member states during the last few years and brings a broader understanding of CSR development problems in transitional economies.

The paper attempts to stimulate discussion about CSR promoting and hindering factors in new EU member states with particular insight into Lithuanian problems.

In recent years, the concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has gained recognition and importance in both business and political settings. While considerable research has been conducted on CSR in developed countries, the extant literature on CSR in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is scant and CSR is seen in terms of philanthropy. This paper aims to examine CSR from a broader perspective and in particular to identify the factors that hinder and promote CSR activities in SSA using the Smit (2009) CSR Value Chain Model.

This paper is based on data obtained from a survey conducted by GTZ (now GIZ) on factors promoting and hindering CSR in SSA. The study surveyed 85 companies from six countries, namely; South Africa, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique and Namibia. The study essentially examined the internal and external CSR environments of the companies in the participating countries.

The study revealed that there are nine key promoting and hindering factors of CSR for businesses in SSA. These include: leadership and governance, policy framework, project management, monitoring, evaluation and reporting, stakeholder engagement, staff engagement, government, funding and beneficiation. The study recommends a systemic and context-sensitive approach that relies on the potential of organisations and communities to design and implement their own solution within global frameworks in order to further develop CSR in the region.

There are a number of limitations in this study. First, this study did not include any informants from the responding organisations’ stakeholder groups, but relied mainly on information obtained from single respondents from organisations. Further research should include responses from other stakeholder groups.

To promote or achieve the successful implementation of CSR and broaden its scope within the region beyond its current focus on philanthropy, managers must build bridges with their stakeholders through both formal and informal dialogues and engagement practices. Additionally, firms may enhance and maximise both social and economic value created when managers link their CSR activities to areas that improve firms’ long-term competitive potential by collectively and systematically applying their distinctive strengths to such activities in accordance with the value chain model.

The finding in this study is novel and adds an important contribution to the developing CSR literature in the SSA region.

This article's purpose is to report the findings and implications of a study that explored factors promoting and hindering international doctoral students' academic engagement.

An empirical study sought data through a questionnaire from international students registered for doctoral study at the University of Helsinki. Open‐ended and Likert‐scale survey data were qualitatively and quantitatively analysed.

The students commented most frequently (41 per cent) on the scholarly community as a factor in promoting their studies. Departmental issues had the largest proportion of hindering factors overall (34 per cent). Promoting factors related to the supervision they received and private domain factors were positively related to students' satisfaction with their studies. Considering dropping out was significantly associated with hindering factors related to their supervision and to departmental issues. Also, peers and colleagues were not significantly associated with students' satisfaction with their studies or with their contemplating dropping out.

The article addresses key issues that will be of interest and benefit to universities who wish to retain and attract overseas research students. In particular, it discusses the importance of wider scholarly communities in providing international doctoral students with a favourable study experience which may be enhanced by performing departmental tasks as an important part of enculturation within supportive scholarly communities.

This paper offers a novel way of understanding early career researcher development, as illustrated by doctoral students' academic experiences. It also taps into the under‐ examined area of international doctoral students' study experiences.

This article reports the findings of a systematic review of the factors promoting and obstacles hindering joint working at the NHS/social services interface. The review provides robust, research‐based evidence about different models of joint working across the interface at the strategic, commissioning and operational levels and describes the factors known to have an impact on the success of joint working.

Many studies have underlined data use for school improvement. However, these are mainly based on developed countries; studies on data use are still lacking on developing countries. The purpose of this paper is to investigate data use in Indonesian primary schools. This study is based on a conceptual framework focusing on kinds of data, purposes of data use and factors promoting or hindering data use in schools.

The authors employed a mixed-method research design, with a total of 194 teachers and 28 heads of schools from 60 schools participating in the survey. Based on the survey analysis, six schools were purposively sampled for a multiple-case study approach.

The results show that Indonesian primary schools have similar kinds of data available and most data are used for accountability purposes only. These findings might be explained by the government trying to counter-balance the schools’ autonomy, so that the focus of data use seems to be more on accountability than on school development and instructional purposes. The results also reveal that the factors had a different influence for each data use purpose: high data use schools provided insight into promoting factors, while the low data user schools provided an understanding of hindering factors.

This study makes a scientific contribution by offering understanding of data use in a different context. Indonesia has become decentralized in most state functions, including education. Therefore, this study can be used as a guideline for future studies of data use in other developing countries context in supporting the decentralization of educational systems.

The purpose of this paper is to gain a better understanding of how national board administrators, more precisely, officials at the Finnish National Board of Education (FNBE) have perceived the primary influencing factors, or “regulators”, of the national core curriculum reform and the success of the implementation. The alignment between the identified regulators was also explored.

Altogether, 23 FNBE officials participated in this mixed methods study.

The results showed that the officials perceived the core curriculum reform as a systemic entity: the reform was implemented using a top-down and bottom-up strategy, and several regulators were identified at different levels of the education system. The officials also viewed the implementation as successful, and identified more promoting than hindering factors in it. However, they emphasised regulators at the administrative level, whereas regulators at the district or national levels were less often identified. They also highlighted the importance of orchestrating collaboration in comparison with the other regulators.

The results imply that in addition to considering separate determinants of reform success, it is important to pay attention to sufficient alignment between the regulators at different levels of the education system in order to better understand and promote the implementation of a large-scale reform.

This study provides new knowledge on national board administrators’ perspectives on what regulates the implementation of a large-scale curriculum reform.

This study aims to examine how the COVID-19 pandemic affected telework initiatives in Japanese companies and investigate the factors that affect telework based on the technology, organization and environment (TOE) model, through the analysis of published documents.

Document analysis was adopted. Documents were collected from English news articles in the Nikkei Asian Review and Nikkei Asia which cover Japan's economy, industries and markets. The results of surveys by the Persol Research Institute and Tokyo Chamber of Commerce and Industry were also provided to discuss factors promoting and hindering telework. Content analysis was adopted to analyse the documents.

COVID-19 had an unavoidable impact on the implementation of telework that the government had previously failed to instigate. Japanese listed companies tend to implement telework, whereas small- and medium-sized companies are struggling. The ratio of telework has been low even after the declaration of the state of emergency because there exist organizational, technological and environmental barriers to telework in Japan.

This study contributes to discussions on work style reform by focusing on the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on telework. This research also gives new insight into operationalization of telework in organizations not only in Japan but also in other countries known for low rates of telework and inflexible work styles such as Korea.

Over the past decades numerous policies, programmes and interventions have been undertaken to increase students’ participation in physical activity in school. Research shows that intervention effects are mostly related to the way in which the program or policy is implemented, nevertheless, few studies have focused on the implementation process. Thus, this paper aims to explore and identify key implementation successes and barriers as perceived by principals, project leaders, teachers and students.

A case study of eight schools participating in the Norwegian project “Physical activity and healthy school meals” was conducted, applying a qualitative approach.

Findings show that all schools managed to ensure extra time for physical activity, varying from 20 to 45 minutes per day. None managed, however, to fulfil the recommendation of 60 minutes daily. Factors promoting the implementation were related to formalisation and anchoring in terms of policy plans and establishment of a project group, while factors hindering the implementation were related to lack of competence and confidence among teachers and lack of allocated time from school leaders.

National, regional and school level structural conditions, in terms of time allocation and competence building, seem to be important targets for interventions aiming at facilitating daily physical activities in schools. More specific, governmental allocation of targeted schedule time seems also to be important.

The identification of factors influencing implementation efforts aiming at enhancing physical activity can help practitioners to address such barriers and thus contribute to better implementation of physical activities in schools

This chapter presents an analysis of evidence-informed teaching practice in the context of Chilean formal education. The concept of evidence-informed practice (EIP) is tackled from the use of data from standardized assessments of learning by agents of the educational system in Chile, analyzing the relationship between the use of standardized assessments and the institutional characteristics of the educational system.

First, the Chilean educational system is characterized according to its regulation and cohesion, utilizing the Hood's matrix (2000). With the current predominance of accountability regulation with high stakes, the Chilean system presents a high degree of regulation and low cohesion. Then, the main uses of assessments in Chile are described based on the available evidence, with emphasis on the National Assessment System (SIMCE) a high-stakes assessment and an alternative assessment system (SEPA) of low stakes. Thirdly, the institutional theory is applied to analyze the factors that facilitate and obstruct EIP in schools. Finally, the chapter concludes by providing some implications for educational policy and practice.

The Ethiopian educational system has witnessed considerable structural and curricular changes aimed to address access, equity and relevance. At the same time, there are serious concerns about educational quality as a consequence of these changes. Data use can be an important approach for changing the planning, execution, monitoring and evaluation of activities having the purpose of improving teaching and learning. The purpose of this paper is, therefore, to investigate data use in primary education in Ethiopia.

Using a mixed methods approach, surveys and semi-structured interviews were conducted to collect data from a cluster random sample of eight primary schools representing four different levels of effectiveness in implementing a mandated school improvement program in Ethiopia.

The availability of wider ranges of input, process, outcome and context data per se does not ensure actual use. A complex combination of data, user and organizational factors influences data use in schools, with organizational factors appearing to be most influential. Unrealistic accountability pressures and lack of targeted supervision support seemed to cause unintended data use, such as abuse of data.

Schools need more systematic professional development in data use, with explicit attention to school leadership. Moreover, it is important to make educational inspection processes more responsive to the demands of the school improvement process by adding aspects of the school improvement tradition, such as data-based decision making.

This study contributes to understanding of the nature, characteristics and processes of data use in a developing country context, in which competing accountability mandates often shape policy and practice.