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The unemployment rate in South Africa (SA) has reached levels that require urgent intervention from all training institutions responsible for developing employment skills and preparing students for industry. While the South African Government has launched initiatives such as the National Development Plan and the Skills Development Act to facilitate employment, Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) have Cooperative Education programs such as Work-Integrated Learning (WIL) to facilitate student placements within industry, to enhance and promote student exposure, and introduce them to academic programs within the career placement context. The SA government also initiated the National Skills Authority, Sectorial Education and Training Authorities, and the National Skills Fund to collaborate on partnerships with industry and HEIs. The initiatives of the SA Ministry of Higher Education include placement of students in industry. Universities have prioritized placement of students as a critical measure of their success. The realization of industry is to select individuals for placement based on practical experience, not just academic qualifications. Factors such as decolonization of WIL have become part of the academic landscape for HEIs and other training institutions that require more sensitivity when considering the operating environment for industry. HEIs would also benefit from career planning and job analysis in their cooperative education programs. The job-analysis phase should follow the career development phase, which is a core part of WIL that needs to diversify cooperative education policies. HEIs need to upgrade, modernize, and adapt curricula to SA conditions for industry.

Although there is great potential for diversity, library and information science (LIS) is a relatively homogenous profession. Increasing the presence of librarians of color may help to improve diversity within LIS. However, recruiting ethnic minorities into LIS has proven to be difficult despite various initiative including scholarships, fellowships, and locally focused programs. The central questions explored in this research can be divided into two parts: (1) Why do ethnic minorities choose librarianship as a profession? (2) What would motivate members of minority groups to join a profession in which they cannot see themselves?

The research was conducted through semi-structured, qualitative interviews of 32 ethnic minority students from one of four ethnic minority groups (African American, Asian American, Hispanic/Latino, and Native American) currently enrolled in an LIS graduate program. Eleven themes emerged from the data: libraries, librarians, library work experience, LIS graduate program, career plans and goals, education and family, support, mentors, ethnicity and community, acculturation, and views of diversity.

The findings seem to support many assumptions regarding expectations and career goals. The findings related to libraries, librarians, mentors, and support illustrate that many recruitment initiatives are starting in the right place. However, the most noteworthy findings were those that centered on identity, acculturation, and diversity because they dealt with issues that are not often considered or discussed by many in the profession outside of ethnic minority organizations.

While in common English-language parlance speaking of “online celebrities” encourages the conflation of new forms of famousness with existing discourses on mass media stardom and fandom, the Mandarin Chinese term wanghong, a shorthand term for wangluo hongren (literally “person popular on the internet”), frames the enticing shores of online celebrity through the peculiar lexical domain of a grassroots popularity. The figure of the wanghong has in recent years accompanied the development of social media platforms in China, becoming a profitable profession, an inspirational role model, a morally condemnable by-product of internet economies, and in general a widely debated social phenomenon among local users. Drawing on interviews with more and less successful local online celebrities and discussions with their audiences, this chapter offers an up-to-date portrayal of the various forms of wanghong currently vying for attention on Chinese social media platforms, illustrating how popularity is crafted along with narratives of professionalism and economic aspirations intimately connected to the sociotechnical contexts of contemporary China.

Social comparison literature has long established that drawing comparisons facilitates competitive motivation. Yet, the literature has neglected how the actor may simultaneously become the target of comparison, which can likewise increase competitive motivation. Therefore, competitive motivation increases not only because coacting competitors draw social comparisons but also because they are simultaneously the target of other's social comparison. In this chapter, we build a dual process framework to explain how comparing and being compared each facilitate competitive motivation. We also posit that these processes – comparing and being compared, respectively – are bidirectional and reciprocal, as each process can incite the other. Finally, we discuss the circumstances under which comparing and being compared combine additively versus interactively to drive competitive motivation. Our theoretical framework brings together the disparate literatures on social comparison and evaluation apprehension under one unified theory of competitive motivation, and proposes new directions for competition research.

In this chapter, the problem of facial palsy has been addressed. Facial palsy is a term used for disruption of facial muscles and could result in temporary or permanent damage of the facial nerve. Patients suffering from facial palsy have issues in doing normal day-to-day activities like eating, drinking, talking, and face psychosocial distress because of their physical appearance. To diagnose and treat facial palsy, the first step is to determine the level of facial paralysis that has affected the patient. This is the most important and challenging step. The research done here proposes how quantitative technology can be used to automate the process of diagnosing the degree of facial paralysis in a fast and efficient way.

This chapter maps out and provides a rapid assessment of, the successes and shortcomings of key national interventions on youth employment in South Africa. It focuses on programmes intended for young people aged 15–34 years of age, considering the specific needs of 15–24 year olds as compared 25–34 year olds and the particular needs of young women, youth with different educational qualifications, youth from the rural areas, youth with disabilities as well as youth from varied socio-economic backgrounds and social issues. The conceptual framework underpinning this chapter informs the way in which the data has been categorised and analysed. The framework is underpinned by a core assumption, that, while unemployment is a national challenge in South Africa, there are particular challenges that specifically affect youth. This requires a youth employment strategy that addresses the needs of different cohorts of young people and specifically addresses the myriad of ways in which young people transition into the labour market. The chapter further proposes that we need to understand that enabling successful Labour Market Transitions necessitate a strategy that can overcome ‘failures’ with respect to both supply and demand as well as ‘failures’ of alignment between supply and demand.

This chapter examines the underlying concerns people have for relative status within their group (i.e., intragroup status) and their group's relative status to that of other groups (i.e., intergroup status). I adopt a deductive approach using arguments and evidence in the cross-cultural research and literature. I begin by reviewing the basic findings in social psychology and organizational behavior literatures, which suggest that both intragroup status and intergroup status will have positive impact on important group outcomes such as people's evaluation of, and commitment to, the group. Moreover, consistent with the notion of the fishpond phenomenon, past findings also suggest that those with high-intragroup status and low-intergroup status show more group-oriented reactions than those with low-intragroup status and high-intergroup status (i.e., people prefer to be a big fish in a small pond than a small fish in a big pond). Next, I provide both psychological and structural reasoning to argue that the fishpond phenomenon will be less likely to emerge in collectivistic than individualistic cultures. I close by considering the implications from the cross-cultural analysis to the broader conceptual understanding of mechanisms underlying people's concerns for intragroup status vs. intergroup status in work groups and organizations.

Purpose: COVID-19 pandemic is among the most important events of the 21st Century. Its global character and the multi-dimensional fallouts it has on communities worldwide further increase the importance of the pandemic. During the period of more than one year since the declaration of the pandemic, the communities failed to provide a lasting solution other than the face masks, social distance, and hygiene. Failure to fight the pandemic with considerable success subsequently raised the topic of revising the policymakers’ previous predictions at the start of the pandemic based on incomplete information. So, the calendar put forward for the pandemic went forward day by day, and the authorities who failed to adopt a prudent approach were obliged to pay increasingly higher costs for their mistakes. In the chapter, the financial and economic effects of the pandemic in selected countries are examined. While examining the policies followed in these countries, in terms of fiscal stimulus packages and monetary expansion packages, it is aimed to shed light on the pandemic experience in the Turkish economy and to develop policy recommendations. Thus the persistence of the pandemic pushes all countries to update their current policies and seek new methods. This chapter aims to examine developed and emerging economies in the covid-19 era that have implemented policies to struggle with the pandemic and whose policy framework can be accessed.

Methodology: To do this we carried out a literature review of the Economic and Fiscal Effects of COVID-19 Pandemic during 2020 and early 2021.

Findings: Countries like the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany are believed to have taken strong measures to minimize the damages on the economy due to the pandemic, while other countries like Russia, India, and Brazil are deemed to have mounded new policies within the framework of their internal dynamics. One should also note that, in addition to the individual efforts of each European country, the European Union has also played a decisive role in the policies of its member states for crisis management institutionally.

Decision-making in human resources management is done at both the micro and macro level of organizations. Unfortunately, the decisions at each level are often executed without consideration of the other, and current theory reflects this issue. In response to a call for integration of micro- and macro-level processes by Huselid and Becker (2011), we review the extant literature on strategic human resources and high-performance work systems to provide recommendations for both research and practice. We aimed to contribute to the literature by proposing the incorporation of the situation awareness literature into the high-performance work systems framework to encourage the alignment of human resources efforts. In addition, we provide practical recommendations for integrating situation awareness and strategic decision-making. We discuss a process for the employment of situation awareness in organizations that might not only streamline human resources management but also result in more effective decisions. Additional considerations include implications for teams, boundary conditions (e.g., individual differences), and measurement.