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Professional learning networks (PLNs) involve teachers’ collaboration with others outside of their school to improve teaching and learning. PLNs can facilitate teachers’ professional growth and school improvement. This study aims to explore the drivers for participation within PLNs, the enactment process and the impact of PLN participation on teachers, students and schools in Greece.

A descriptive phenomenological study was conducted to explore the lived experience of primary school teachers participating in PLNs.

The findings showed that individuals who were open to change were driving innovation to address a need or a lack in their daily practice that was not satisfied within their usual community of practice. The key element of the participation was peer collaboration with openness of communication without attendant accountability pressures. The change was mainly identified in teacher skills and the school climate. An individual could bring change only if the school is already open to change. In some cases, resistance to change in schools was identified before enactment or during enactment. The transformation of teachers’ and leaders’ stances is discussed, enabling the opportunity to maximise school improvement.

The study examines PLNs as European Union-funded initiatives that are developed by teachers in centralised education systems under the phenomenological research paradigm. It explores the PLNs in a different setting compared to the existing conceptual theory of change for PLNs.

Educators have had good reason to be concerned with social justice in a context where diversity has become more pronounced in both our schools and communities, with widening divisions between the advantaged and the disadvantaged. Internationally, increasing emphasis has been placed on utilizing the role of school leadership to address issues of social justice and equality, within a scenario where comparative studies of the performance of educational systems dominate the policy imagination globally, thus leading to increased pressure on school systems. This chapter presents a problematization of the social justice concept within education as presented in the literature, while setting out to critique this concept as an educational goal, as well as the role educational leadership is expected to play in the promotion of equity and social justice discourses through the lens of Actor-Network Theory (ANT). This theoretical chapter has implications for theory, policy, and practice.

While the potential for digital innovation (DI) to transform organizational practices is widely acknowledged in the information systems (IS) literature, there is very limited understanding on the socio-political nature of institutional interactions that determine DI and affect organizational practices in social cash organizations. Drawing on the neo-institutionalist vision, the purpose of the study is to examine the unique set of institutional exchanges that influence the transition to digital social cash payments that give rise to new institutional arrangements in social cash organizations.

The paper draws on an in-depth case study of a government social cash organization in Pakistan. Qualitative data were collected using 30 semi-structured interviews from key organizational members and stakeholders.

The results suggest that DI is determined by the novel intersections between the coercive (techno-economic, regulatory), normative (socio-organizational), mimetic (international) and covert power (political) forces. Hence, DI is not a technologically deterministic output, but rather a complex socio-political process enacted through dialogue, negotiation and conflict between institutional actors. Technology is socially embedded through the process of institutionalization that is coupled by the deinstitutionalization of established organizational practices for progressive transformation.

The research has implications for government social cash organizations especially in the Global South. Empirically, the authors gained rare access to, and support from a government-backed social cash organization in Pakistan (an understudied country in the Global South), which made the data and the consequent analyses even invaluable. This made the empirical contribution within this geographical setting even more worthy, since this case study has received little attention from indigenous scholars in the past. The empirical findings showcased a unique set of contextual factors that were subject to BISP and interpreted through an account of socio-cultural sensitivities.

The paper provides practical implications for policymakers and practitioners, emphasizing the need to address institutional challenges, including covert power, during the implementation of digitalization projects in the public sector. The paper has certain potential for inspiring future e-government related (or public sector focused) studies. The paper may guide both private and government policy-makers and practitioners in presenting how to overcome certain institutional challenges while planning and implementing large scale multi-stakeholder digitization projects in similar country contexts. So while there is scope of linking the digitization of public sector organizations to anti-corruption measures in other Global South countries, the paper may not be that straightforward with the private sector involvement.

The paper offers rich social insights on the institutional interchanges that occur between the social actors for the innovation of technology. Especially, the paper highlights the social-embeddedness nature of technology that underpins the institutionalization of new organizational practices. These have implications on how DI is viewed as a socio-political process of change.

This study contributes to neo-institutional theory by theorizing covert power as a political force that complements the neo-institutional framework. This force is subtle but also resistive for some political actors as the force shifts the equilibrium of power between different institutional actors. Furthermore, the paper presents the social and practical implications that guide policymakers and practitioners by taking into consideration the unique institutional challenges, such as covert power, while implementing large scale digital projects in the social cash sector.

Business analytics (BA) is a new frontier of technology development and has enormous potential for value creation. Information systems research shows ample evidence of its positive business impacts and organizational performance. However, there is limited understanding of how decision-makers or users of BA outcomes actually engage with data analysts in the process of data-driven insight generation and how they improve their understanding of business environments using BA outcomes. To aid this engagement and understanding, this study investigates the interaction between decision-makers and data analysts when they attempt to uncover data capacities and business needs and acquire business insights from BA tools.

This study employs an interpretive field study with thematic analysis. The authors conducted interviews with 31 participants who all relied on BA in their daily decisions. The study participants were engaged in different BA roles, including data analysts and decision-makers. They validated the applicability and usefulness of our findings through a focus group with eight practitioners, including decision-makers and data analysts from the same companies.

This study proposes a process model of data-driven sensemaking and sensegiving based on Weick’s sensemaking framework. The findings exhibit that decision-makers are engaged in sensemaking by identifying areas of focus, determining BA scope, evaluating generated insights and turning BA into action. The findings also show that data analysts engage in sensemaking by consolidating data, data understanding, preparing preliminary outcomes and generating actionable reports. This study shows how sensemaking processes and sensegiving activities work together over time through immediate enactment, selection and decision cycles.

This study is a first attempt to understand interactions in the context of BA using the perspective of sensemaking and sensegiving.

Blended learning (BL) is becoming more popular as a method of welcoming a progressively diverse range of students while adding value to the learning environment through the integration of online teaching resources. However, BL's approach of combining online instruction with conventional classroom strategies has received attention and expressed reservations over the years. While several research works have been conducted and draw attention to the global challenges of the BL mode of delivering instruction in BL's entirety, there is still no full idea of the challenges and prospects that exist regarding teacher educators' usage of the approach in higher education institutions (HEIs) in the context of developing countries. As a result, this study investigates the prospects and challenges of BL implementation in HEIs from the perspective of educators.

Drawing from the technology acceptance model (TAM), qualitative research methods and semi-structured interviews were used to gather insights from 10 educators. The data were analyzed using a thematic data analysis technique to arrive at the outcome of the study.

The findings reveal that educators deeply comprehend the BL approach and perceive the approach's effectiveness in delivering instruction and student learning. Conversely, educators' challenges are inadequate technology resources, poor internet connections, inadequate professional development training and a dearth of incentives. The study has implications for theory, research, policy enactment and practice regarding the improvement of the BL agenda in HEIs.

The explanatory framework presented here is the qualitative approach to the study of themes regarding the perceptions, prospects and challenges educators experience in their use of the BL approach in teaching and learning in the HEIs.

The importance of mental wellbeing and the need for organizations to address it is increasing in the post-pandemic context. Although Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly being adopted in HRM functions, its adoption and utility for enabling mental wellbeing is limited. Building on the Open System Theory (OST) and adopting the technology-in-practice lens, the authors examined the roles of human and technology agencies in enabling mental wellbeing.

The study was conducted in two stages; in Stage 1, the authors adopted a case methodology approach to examine the feasibility of a technology company's offerings to assess mental wellbeing. In Stage 2, the authors followed the grounded theory approach and interviewed 22 key stakeholders and HR leaders of diverse organizations. The authors used Gioia's approach to analyze the data.

The study demonstrates the interdependence and inseparability of human activity, technological capability and structured context. Specifically, the authors observe that AI adoption is pushing the boundaries of how organizations could support employees' mental health and wellbeing. These technological advancements and adoption are likely to facilitate the evolution of agentic practices, routines and structures.

This study carries two important implications. While the advent of cutting-edge technologies appears to affect employees' mental wellbeing, the study findings indicate the assistive role of technology in supporting mental wellbeing and facilitating changes in organizational practices. Second, the ontology of technology-in-practice shows how human–machine agencies gain newer relevance from the interactions that unite them. Specifically, per OST, technology (from an external context) can potentially change how mental wellbeing practices in organizations are managed. The authors extend the existing literature by suggesting that both human agents and internal contexts effectively limit the potential of technology agents to change existing structures significantly.

The authors address the need for more research on the technology-management interface, and the boundaries of technology-enabled wellbeing at work. While AI-HRM scholarship has primarily relied on micro-level psychological theories to examine impact and outcomes, the authors borrow from the macro-level theories, such as the OST and the technology-in-practice to explain how AI is shifting the boundaries of human and machine agencies for enabling mental wellbeing.

By focusing on the contextual conditions of South African digital entrepreneurs and the affordances of digital technologies, we understand how connective affordances of digital technologies enable a collective approach to digital entrepreneurship.

We do so through an interpretive field study of South African digital entrepreneurs operating in resource-constrained settings.

The findings highlight how entrepreneurs appropriate digital technologies in collectives to achieve connective actions and cooperate and compete simultaneously, giving rise to what we call coopetitive affordance, reflecting a fresh perspective on coopetition in increasingly digital and resource-constrained realities.

This paper extends the connective affordance perspective by illustrating how the concept of coopetitive affordance brings to light how contextual conditions create a humanitarian bond between entrepreneurs and a digital bond created by their appropriation of digital technologies in collectives.

This paper aims to advance recent literature on the performativity of accounting by examining how project accounting affects a project organization’s ability to deliver a relevant project outcome, such as a product or a building, for a receiving client organization.

The paper draws on a longitudinal case study of a 41.4-billion-kroner (5.5-billion-euro) Danish project of constructing 16 new public hospitals. Its objective was to reduce the average unit costs and improve the quality of patient care. Each hospital construction was managed by a separate project organization and handed over to a separate receiving hospital organization. The project organizations applied a common approach to project accounting. The paper relies on Michel Callon’s concepts of performativity and sociotechnical agencement – approaching project accounting as an arrangement of devices.

The paper shows that the project-accounting agencement simultaneously supported and undermined the project organizations’ ability to deliver hospitals relevant to the receiving hospital organizations. The agencement performed hospital designs, disciplined project actors and guided decision-making, thus supporting the overall work of the project organizations. It also, however, compelled the project organizations to compromise on hospital designs when unexpected events occurred. These compromises led to the delivery of hospitals, which largely prevented the receiving hospital organizations from achieving the project’s objective.

This paper advances our limited understanding of the dynamic and complex relationship between project accounting and the relevance of project outcomes. It introduces the concept of a “contronymity device” to capture the way project accounting simultaneously produces two opposing consequences, both supporting and undermining the enactment of a particular reality. The paper lastly enriches our understanding of how project-accounting devices impact hospital organizations’ operating cost structures and challenge patient care capabilities.

This paper investigates the intricate process of integrating historically excluded social groups into long-established routines. Drawing on a dialectical perspective, the research explores how persistence and change emerge through the interplay of opposing forces, shedding light on the dynamics of integrating new participants while ensuring stability in established routines. The empirical focus is on an Armed Forces’ ground combat training (GCT) course, examining the integration of the first female officers after the formal ban on their participation in close-combat roles was lifted. The findings reveal a nuanced evolution of routine adaptation and truce reformation, characterized by three dialectical cycles: tentative truces, experimental truces, and enactment truces. These cycles involve negotiations between continuity and reformation, accommodation and resistance, and modification and preservation, uncovering a dialectical dance where organizational actors invest intense effort in maintaining the status quo while accommodating ambiguity and settling tensions. The findings extend our understanding of routine dynamics by illuminating the performative aspect of truce-making, highlighting the effortful processes involved in accommodating new participants. This paper establishes a connection between routines and dialectics, providing novel avenues for exploring complex organizational challenges and emphasizing micro-strategies employed by routine participants to address differences in practice. It also contributes to the field of organizational inclusion by offering a dialectical understanding of integration, showcasing the intricate dynamics involved in integrating historically excluded groups into established routines.

As social infrastructures, public libraries are increasingly recognised as providing more than access to books and information; librarians’ work is importantly centred around practices of care. However, the ways in which they provide care is poorly researched, let alone conceptualised. This paper explores how this important part of librarians’ daily work is practiced through the lens of infrastructuring.

The paper first theoretically discusses the concepts of social infrastructuring, care and tinkering. Then, it turns to ethnographic research conducted in the public library networks of three European cities: Vienna (Austria), Rotterdam (the Netherlands) and Malmö (Sweden). The paper comprises empirical materials from all three countries and unpacks 16 librarians’ daily working routines of care through participant observations.

The empirical analysis resulted in three modes of social infrastructuring in public libraries: (1) maintaining, (2) building connections and (3) drawing boundaries. Practices of care are prominent in each of these infrastructuring modes: librarians infrastructure the library with and via their care practices. Whilst care practices are difficult to quantify and verbalise, they are valuable for library patrons. By using the concept of tinkering, the article conceptualises librarians’ infrastructuring enactments as crucial community-building aspects of libraries.

By focusing on the enactment of social infrastructuring, the paper goes beyond a descriptive approach to understanding public libraries as important social infrastructures. Rather, the paper unpacks how libraries come into being as infrastructuring agencies by highlighting what librarians do and say. Our international study articulates the importance of care practices in public libraries across different national contexts.