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This paper aims to present part of the work of an ongoing research project that is looking at socio‐ cultural and technological developments from a mobile technology convergence view; in order to show how culturally aware convergence developments in mobile technology can be adopted and employed for the betterment of society.

The paper presents a scenario for a mobile technology enabled learning environment in support of the conventional learning approach with a focus on enabling parental involvement and contribution to the daily learning objectives of their children and hence enhancing a quality learning experience. It further critically discusses issues of interface design – at both the device and application levels – that will have an impact on the quality of e‐learning, with a focus on mobile technology.

The paper shows how interface design can positively enhance the quality defining characteristics of learning in an e‐learning environment. Ways of achieving these characteristics of learning through effective e‐learning are reported. This is done by addressing requirements for quality‐learning through effective interface‐design considerations, towards meeting the overall quality requirements of learning that should be intrinsic to a holistic e‐learning environment. The value of human computer interaction and the critical factors of promoting productive interaction are addressed.

There are several factors affecting quality of e‐learning as a tool and approach to flexible and independent learning. The advent and use of mobile technology has been investigated in this work from a socio‐cultural and technological perspectives in two continents. The limitations lie in the depth of investigations and how far the findings can be applied to the diversity of learners.

As the effects of cultures and the rapid technological advancements take toll on teaching and learning the findings reported in this paper have far reaching implications for learners from different cultures and also for attempts at bridging existing digital divide.

The approach adopted in the research is unique by virtue of new findings and ideas presented. The paper highlights the opportunities for mobile devices and technology to play a role in the development of communities through technology aided learning (e‐learning), with a focus on e‐learning systems and technology requirements for delivering a quality learning experience.

This paper aims to introduce a “people‐in‐practice” perspective which brings together previous theorisations of information literacy landscapes and practice. This perspective provides the framework to analyse the complex practice of information literacy from a sociocultural perspective. This perspective represents a shift in focus towards information literacy as a socially enacted practice, and away from the information skills approach that has dominated information literacy research and education.

The empirical data that informs this work is drawn from a series of studies that have been conducted by the author in the workplace and in everyday settings since 2004. Findings from these studies have contributed to the development of the people‐in‐practice perspective that is presented in this article.

Drawing from the author's empirical studies and from literature reporting socio‐cultural research into information literacy, a people‐in‐practice perspective is described.

The value of this paper lies in the attempt to marry together the author's previous work resulting in the introduction of a people‐in‐practice perspective. This perspective draws from socio‐cultural and practice theory.

The purpose of this study is to identify research perspectives/clusters in the field of urban tourism (city tourism) in narrow sense and tourism cities (cities and tourism) in the broader sense to examine the complex relationship through the optics of science mapping. This paper believes that the existing qualitative assessments of this field can be experimentally verified and visualized.

First, the key conceptual dilemmas of research perspectives in urban tourism are highlighted. Based on the Web of Science (WOS) Core Collection and the VOSviewer (computer program for visualizing bibliometric networks), the data will be analyzed. Clustering is used to evaluate information retrieval (inclusivity or selectivity of the search query), publication patterns (journal articles), author keywords, terminology and to identify the respective cities and author collaborations between countries.

Terminological specificities and their contextuality (authors’ preferences) are elaborated, as the topic is studied by authors from different disciplinary fields. Compared to other specific tourisms, urban tourism includes geographic terms (variations of city names) and terms with different connotations (travelers, visitors). Recent Spanish (also Portuguese) linguistic/geographic contexts are noticeable and a strong presence of WOS Emerging Sources Citation Index papers. Research perspectives are represented in the network of clusters of connected terms. If the search is based on a narrower sense of strict urban tourism, then tourism-business topics predominate. If tourism and cities are less closely linked, socio-cultural and environmental-spatial perspectives emerge, as does tourism/cities vulnerability (climate change and health issues).

The construction of a search syntax for the purpose of retrieval is always marked by compromises, given different terminological usages. A narrow search query will miss many relevant documents. On the other hand, if the query is too general, it returns less relevant documents. To this end, this paper tested queries on three different levels of inclusivity or selectivity. More consistent use of terms would benefit authors in the field of urban tourism when searching for references (information retrieval) and, as a consequence, would allow better integration of the field.

This study provides a practical method for evaluating cities and tourism in combining the expertise of an information scientist and a sociologist. It points out numerous caveats in information retrieval. It offers an overview of publishing just prior to the outbreak of Covid-19, thus providing an opportunity for further comparative studies.

This study is the first to examine urban tourism using such a method and can serve as a complement to the existing systematization of qualitative approaches. The findings are consistent with numerous qualitative assessments of weak the research interconnection between the specifics of cities and tourism in terms of broader socio-spatial processes. However, the study suggests that such research linkage is increasing, which is noticeable in relation to issues of social sustainability (e.g. overtourism, Airbnb and touristification).

This study aims to investigate the trends in existing studies in the field of ethnic entrepreneurship in the context of growing markets in terms of definitions, theories, themes, methodologies and settings.

This study used bibliometric analysis and used Publish or Perish software with Google Scholar as the database. A total of 183 articles published in 122 journals from 1988 to 2018 were selected. This study used systematic data to reveal trends in growing markets and qualitative inductive analysis to define relevant themes within the topic.

The results show that ethnic entrepreneurship is defined as involving immigrants from developing countries. From a theoretical point of view, socio-cultural theories, socio-economic theories and combinations of both have been used to explain the phenomenon. Six research themes have been developed indicating potential explorative and exploitative research themes. This study identified the dominance of the qualitative approach in ethnic entrepreneurship research and found that the typical research subjects are Asian immigrants, especially Chinese, in developed countries. The articles reviewed were mainly conducted in developed countries (68.85%) and a lesser portion in developing countries (13.66%), particularly Asian countries.

This study provides future directions for research on ethnic entrepreneurship, such as gender studies of ethnic entrepreneurs and factors affecting the opening of new businesses in new locations.

This study reveals trends in the ethnic entrepreneurship field based on the country in which the study was conducted, the definition of ethnic entrepreneurship, the theories, the research themes, the methodologies, the research setting and the ethnicity studied. It also used the framework of input–process–output to establish a generic road map of the ethnic entrepreneurship research area.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate dimensions of employee silence in Indian work context with regard to the supervisors and how job satisfaction mediates the relationship between silence and turnover intention. The study also explores the relevance of superior-subordinate relationship and self-image maintenance perspectives in Indian socio-cultural context to explain and understand the phenomenon of silence in India.

Qualitative (n=55) and quantitative data (n=334, n=314 and n=116) were collected from employees working in private, public and multinational organizations located in northern part of India. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were performed to explore and validate the dimensions of silence behavior among Indian managers and structural equation analysis was carried out to see the meditating role of job satisfaction in the relationship of silence and turnover intention.

Results have indicated the existence of four major dimensions of silence in India namely; fear of retaliation, internal motivation, self-competence and self-image as the possible causes of silence. Further job satisfaction has mediated the effect of silence on turnover intention. This study showed the positive impact of silence on satisfaction which is contrary to the western studies. These results have supported the theoretical arguments developed in this paper in the Indian work context.

The results are useful in understanding the dynamics of silence in Indian organizations as employees might use silence in a strategic manner to regulate their satisfaction and in maintaining their membership with the organization.

The present study is among the first attempts to empirically examine the causes and consequences of employee silence in the high power distance and collectivistic cultural context.

The paper focuses on the management of the innovation process. It provides a more comprehensive approach for the analysis of the mutual relationships among creativity, knowledge and innovation (CKI), thus going beyond the one-to-one basis of analysis prevailing in literature. Given the varied set of stakeholders concerned with innovation process outcomes, the need for adopting different perspectives emerges (i.e. macroeconomic, institutional, socio-cultural and corporate). A framework, including a set of indicators grouped by perspective is proposed in order to help capture several outputs of innovation processes.

This is a qualitative research paper based on the literature review and the development of theoretical remarks. The multiple-case study approach corroborates the theoretical analysis.

The model aims to provide an operating tool for the management of innovation processes. It helps to assess the impact of innovation plans and operating actions at any level. The model may support decision making and control tasks in operating contexts, providing a strategic tool for governments and managers. This paper may encourage academicians to refine the CKI perspective and improve the model's capacity to predict and assess the impacts of innovation processes.

The framework may help when analyzing a CKI interaction system. It allows understanding of the dynamics between creativity vs knowledge resource policies (creativity-based approach vs knowledge-based approach) and innovation goals. The model also serves to deepen the circular nature of CKI interactions and their outcomes.

Historically, the school effectiveness and improvement movement has focussed its attention on “within school” factors associated with effectiveness and improvement and on the individual school as the primary unit of analysis for improvement and scrutiny purposes. More recently, research has focussed on school-to-school collaboration and engagement with a broader range of services and providers has highlighted the need for more adaptive and nuanced forms of collaboration and partnership. The purpose of this paper is to explore this complex landscape from the perspective of educational reform of the middle tier in Scotland.

This paper draws on perspectives associated with socio-cultural theory, its application to public service settings and insights gained from research and evaluation outcomes over a five-year period.

This paper focusses on the establishment of Regional Improvement Collaboratives in Scotland; an example of an attempt to generate system-wide change and a shift from the hierarchical cultures characterised by bureaucratic organisations to more egalitarian cultures characterised by mutualistic, laterally networked organisations. It highlights the importance of structure and cultural change, identity and agency, leadership capacity, outward perspectives, primacy of learning and teaching and variations and complexities in creating a more networked and collaborative education system. It offers cautions concerning potential unintended consequences in the quest to develop a “self-improving” or “learning system”.

This paper highlights the importance of maintaining and building social cohesion between different stakeholders within educational systems in order to support the implementation of educational reform.

This is the first documentation and reflective analysis for an ambitious reform agenda for the middle tier in Scotland. Its value lies in the lessons and considerations it offers to other systems embarking on reforms that endeavour to build more cohesive and agile education systems, without opening them up to neo-liberal approaches to education.

This paper seeks to identify and develop an exploratory framework for conceptualising how teachers might use the affordances of Web 2.0 technologies to support their own professional learning.

The paper draws on a large corpus of literature and recent research evidence to identify the principal elements and features of professional learning and the underlying affordances of Web 2.0 technologies and applications. It generates an exploratory conceptual framework based on the emerging findings from this review using a socio‐cultural theoretical perspective. The framework is explored through three individual illustrations which are drawn from a much larger case study which the author is undertaking within a newly established Academy in the North of England.

The findings indicate that there is potential value in exploring professional learning with Web 2.0 technologies in the ways described. The framework offers an exploratory instrument to examine how professional learning for teachers could be supported with Web 2.0 technologies in ways that might have significant benefits over traditional methods of continuing professional development (CPD).

The potential value and affordances of Web 2.0 technologies for teachers' professional learning are largely unexplored and under‐theorised, and this work seeks to establish a framework for further discussion and empirical exploration.

Self-regulation is defined as strategic, metacognitive behavior, motivation and cognition aimed at a goal (Zimmmerman and Schunk, 2011). Co-regulation, arguably more aligned with norms in communal cultures, is the process of learners sharing “a common problem-solving plane” through which self-regulatory strategies are learned (Hadwin and Oshaige, 2011, p.247). This paper aims to investigate the impact of co-regulation on self-regulation and math achievement for culturally diverse students.

This empirical study used structural equation modeling framework to estimate the effects of co-regulation on self-regulation and math achievement, as measured by the statewide-standardized test. Surveys measuring students’ use of co-regulatory and self-regulatory strategies and standardized math test scores were collected from 625 seventh- and eighth-grade students in a suburban district outside a southeastern urban center in the 2011-2012 academic year.

Results indicated that co-regulation is positively and significantly related to self-regulation strategy use among students in the sample. Self-regulation and co-regulation were positively related to math achievement. Data suggest the modeled relationship of co-regulation, self-regulation and achievement may vary by ethnic group.

A large body of literature documents the impact of self-regulation on student achievement, although there is less focus on students of color. This work expands that body of literature by examining co-regulation as a predictor of self-regulation and its mediated effects on student achievement for students of color.