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The overarching goal of the research is to understand strategies that can support utility and access to high-quality teacher professional development (PD). This study aims to examine the design and delivery of an online asynchronous course for science teachers using the edX massively online open course (MOOC) platform. The conceptual framework considers three areas of research: high-quality PD characteristics for K12 teachers, the development of social capital and known challenges in MOOC and computer-supported collaborative learning and participation.

This is an empirical mixed-methods study that details the design of the PD course and implementation strategies that instantiate the conceptual framework. The authors collected three data sources from 41 teachers who completed the course. These included post course satisfaction surveys, teacher semi structured interviews and discussion board contributions.

Survey findings revealed high satisfaction among teachers in the areas of overall course design, module construction and delivery and usability of materials in teaching. Interview findings showed positive perceptions of the social capital framing in developing tie quality, trust, depth of interactions and access to expertise. Analyses of discussion board contributions also demonstrated high degrees of information exchange resulting from prompts intentionally constructed to foster collaboration.

This study offers a set of strategies to build networked teacher PD communities in asynchronous online PD platforms and shows promising evidence of addressing quality and access issues.

Designing experiences to build teachers’ social capital shows promising potential to support high quality PD that may, in turn, raise the quality of science education for students and classrooms both locally in the US and globally.

The conceptual framework provides a novel approach to theorizing and operationalizing best practices for teacher PD and online participation.

This study aims to explore the ways and contexts in which fintech firms are being developed, operated in the market and responds to competitive pressures and technological changes through isomorphism and decoupling mechanism.

How can new technology platform business successfully distinguish themselves from competitors while also ensuring that they are seen as legitimate and appropriate? This paper draws on a case study of fintech start-ups in Indonesia.

This study shows that managing market pressures for distinctiveness (customer-appealing) versus business pressures for profits (investor returns) drives firms’ quest for optimal distinctiveness. It is evident that fintech firms increase their control by consolidating themselves through their industrial association and by forming a close relationship with regulators. However, to escape the iron cage of the field, they increasingly control the coupling of profitability and compliance.

Through a qualitative-inductive approach, this study provides insights into technological development of platform business in the context of financial services and responsive movement towards cashless society.

As transition countries shift to a mixed welfare system, the accountability of non-government organizations (NGOs) becomes critical to quality services. Yet, poor financial and managerial practices of some NGOs in China have led to distrust from citizens. The purpose of this paper is to use a democratic accountability framework to examine citizen participation in NGOs as an approach to understand an angle of this distrust. Does the Chinese language academic literature about NGO accountability engage with concepts of participation in NGO governance, management and service use?

The method was content analysis of a search of words and concepts relating to NGOs, participation and accountability in the available Chinese language literature on NGO accountability through the newly developed search engine Wenjin Search of the National Library of China.

The analysis found that most Chinese literature only emphasizes problems of accountability, causes and regulatory solutions. When the literature includes participation, it refers to it as a platform for civil society, rather than a process of accountability within an NGO.

Searching by keywords in one search engine may not be exhaustive. The results probably reflect most of the current research of Chinese scholars, considering the depth of the search engine.

Formal NGOs are relatively new in the Chinese political landscape; and government regulations are largely administrative and unenforced. At conceptual and political levels, the absence of discussion about other forms of accountability ignores questions about public dissatisfaction with NGO performance and the public’s willingness to contribute to NGO effectiveness, and civic engagement.

An implication is that until Chinese NGO research also incorporates democratic accountability concepts, it will continue to ignore the internal and external drivers from citizens for NGO change. Transition country NGOs that encourage participation have the potential to engender greater accountability in the organization, community and in state relations.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of the digital culture on football supporters through analysis of official and unofficial websites and media reports. At first glance it would appear that technology has brought about greater opportunities to communicate, to share views which previously could not be widely published, and to organise against the commercial power of the large football clubs. However, surveillance, censorship and control continue to impact on supporters to restrict and ultimately prevent the ideal speech situation that is necessary to empower fans and promote greater participation in their clubs. Current media manipulation and corporate interests restrict and alienate fans who often have more of a historically constituted (over generations) sense of ownership and culture within their local clubs.

A critical social theory approach is adopted to examine structures and processes related to communication between fans, the media, football clubs and the public. Habermas' theory is draw upon using the concepts of “colonization of the Lifeworld” and “communicative action” to inform a theme and discourse analysis of official and independent football club websites and media reports. How corporate interests (the system) are manipulating public opinion and freedom to speak openly within an overall goal of profit maximization for club owners and the large media corporations are explored.

Although steps to enable free communication have been made we are still a long way off supporters having a powerful enough voice to organise against the commercial power of the large football clubs and media conglomerates. The ideal speech situation remains elusive and the hegemonic state remains unchallenged. Football supporters are increasingly constructed as “consumers” and the ultimate power remains in mass media and broadcast rather than personal “narrowcast”.

This paper extends debate on the impact of the developing “digital culture” focusing on football supporters, a specific and prevalent community within British society. It raises issues for further research in this area.

This study aims to explore the emotional experiences of children in selected orphanages.

The study was executed in three orphanages in Accra, Tema and Aburi through the use of semi-structured interviews and observations.

In total, 15 respondents reported some emotional experiences such as loneliness, entrapment, deprivation, rejection and helplessness.

The number of children living in orphanages has increased in recent times. Previous studies have examined psychological risk and protective factors among children orphaned as a result of HIV/AIDS and also compared orphan children to non-orphans. Notwithstanding this, little is known about the emotional experiences of children living in orphanages in Ghana.

This paper aims to identify platform-centric versus multiparty service failure on sharing economy platforms via topic modeling analysis of consumers’ negative online reviews. The authors also sought to understand consumers’ reactions to these experiences by detecting negative discrete emotions. The authors then contrasted consumers’ responses to platform-centric and multiparty service failure through the theoretical lens of failure controllability.

The authors used a large-scale data set containing more than 81,000 negative app reviews on eight representative hospitality and tourism sharing economy platforms. Topic modeling coupled with emotion detection algorithms revealed 11 themes reflecting diverse forms of platform-centric versus multiparty service failure and their associations with negative discrete emotions based on regression analysis.

The 11 themes reflecting diverse forms of platform-centric versus multiparty service failure were as follows: app glitch, customer service, locating and pooling, account issues, transaction, offer redemption, interface challenges, intermediary inaction, service lateness and cancellation, incorrect order and fee structure. The analysis suggests that platform-centric service failure is more likely than multiparty service failure to elicit negative discrete emotions.

The research enriches the understanding of platform-related service failure beyond dyadic service interaction. In particular, the authors bring to light two forms of platform-related service failure that warrant scholarly attention: platform-centric versus multiparty service failure. By uncovering the distinct negative emotional associations of platform-centric versus multiparty service failure, the research adds novel empirical evidence to the service failure literature and the relevant attribution theory. Findings offer long-term implications for the sustainable development of sharing economies and platform businesses in contemporary hospitality.