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This paper presents a thematic review of app-enabled learning in the context of recent developments in mobile technology and m-learning. Three key themes are presented that reflect the issues that teachers, school leaders and systems have grappled with in recent years.

Drawing on findings from a range of case studies and literature reviews, the present time is examined as an opportunity to explore more pedagogically informed uses of mobile devices, and “app smashing” is suggested as an approach that moves the learner beyond the underlying limitations of constraining the learning to individual apps.

Findings include the benefits and limitations of mobile devices for learning in current education institutions. The paper also highlights several contexts where “app smashing” has been achieved and identifies the implications for educators across all educational contexts moving forward.

While educators and learners alike continue to wrestle with understanding and meaningfully using a growing number of tools, platforms and ecosystems, more recent paradigms such as cloud computing now point to “device agnosticism” and “convergence” as the new normal (Garner et al., 2005; Prince, 2011).

At the same time, there is the emergence of what Rideout et al. (2013) refer to as the “app gap”, in which “lower-income children (ages 0-8) have more than 50 per cent less experience using mobile devices than higher-income children in the same age group” (p. 10). Combined with the problems of app overload, the lack of institutional support, insufficient guidance and unclear policy, there remain some pressing issues that need to be addressed.

By designing the learning task as independent of the technology, the teacher is arguably better equipped to carefully and purposefully select apps as cognitive steppingstones within the learning task, resulting in tasks that more consistently challenge students to develop a wide range of digital skills. As Berson et al. (2012) note, through the use of carefully selected apps, students “learn a new form of literacy as they move between apps and engage in both personalized and collaborative learning experiences” (p. 89).

The paper sheds light on the areas where mobile devices are most likely to benefit learning in the coming years.

Mobile computing is an emerging trend. Building on motivational theories, brand attachment and mobile application literature, this paper tests a conceptual model with the aim to provide insights into antecedents and outcomes of consumer brand attachment in a mobile app context.

A model is developed in which antecedents and outcomes of brand attachment in a branded mobile app context are examined. Data collected from 228 mobile app users were analyzed using PLS-SEM.

The results confirm that hedonic motivation is positively associated with brand attachment. Nevertheless, the effects of utilitarian motivation and social motivation on brand attachment are not supported. As anticipated, brand attachment is positively associated with three outcomes, including continuance intention, purchase intention and word-of-mouth communication.

The paper extends the Mobile Application Stickiness paradigm by including brand characteristics, which had not previously been explored. Also, in terms of attachment in a mobile context, only affection has been explored; this study includes connection and passion to investigate how those components enhance desired outcomes.

This paper aims to investigate the mechanisms for transforming construction professionals’ intentions into use of social media (SM) for knowledge sharing (KS). The objectives are to: identify the common types of SM platforms used by the construction professionals for KS; identify the key problems influencing transformation of the construction professionals’ intentions into use of SM for KS; identify the factors mitigating the problems; and provide recommendations for enhancing construction professionals’ use of SM for KS.

The data was collected through semi-structured interviews with Australian construction professionals and analysed using grounded theory (GT). The outcomes of the analyses formed a framework for the enhancement of SM use for KS.

The findings show that private SM followed by enterprise SM are more appealing to the construction professionals for KS compared to public SM; and uncertainties about users’ privacy/confidentiality and the quality of the shared knowledge adversely affect the transformation of the construction professionals’ intentions into use of SM for KS. Three types of trust are identified as the mitigators of the identified problems. A framework is proffered to enhance SM use for KS by construction professionals.

This paper contributes to the construction literature by developing a GT to explain the factors which impact the transformation of the construction professionals’ intentions into use of SM for KS. Additionally, the practical contribution of this study is the provision of framework constituting recommendations for the enhancement of SM use for KS.

This paper analyses the impact of digitalization in the marketing of geographic indication (GI) products. Specifically, the objective is to provide a systemic and comprehensive view of marketing issues and challenges arising from evolving digitalization in the agriculture sector.

The authors employed an explorative cognitive mapping technique on a sample of key informants among Italian companies and a consortium of registered food, spirits and wine products.

This study describes the key concepts dominant in the discourse of informants concerning digitalization and its influence on the GI market. Three clusters and two loops were also identified to explain the relationship among key concepts, which stress changes regarding the relationship with the consumer, product experience and innovation, and the integration between physical and virtual space.

This is the first attempt to apply cognitive maps to GIs. However, the study does have limitations: it was conducted on a small number of producers and was restricted to only Italy. Another limitation is that interviews were conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The results suggest important practical implications that stress the need for learning and increased digital competences for the efficient embedding of digital technologies in all business areas, increase product value and innovation, and the need for governance in support of digital transformation.

This work creates the new and valuable literature on food marketing and, specifically, on a changing market environment resulting from digitalization, by providing a holistic overview of digitalization in reference to the marketing of GIs.

The recent emergence of Chinese digital platform firms, whose size rivals that of the US platform giants, has attracted much popular interest. Given the size and increasing technical sophistication of these firms, there has been increasing interest in whether they have developed sufficient capacities and resources to become global-class competitors for the reigning US platform giants. The authors assembled a database of all overseas operations of the Chinese platform firms. Nine of them have foreign operations, with Tencent and Alibaba being the most important offshore investors. The authors describe the globalization patterns of these firms and analyze the strengths and obstacles to their globalization. Their globalization has proceeded on a number of vectors: first, these firms, with a few exceptions, when they have global strategies, have largely invested in firms with useful technology or content. One common strategy has been to follow Chinese customers abroad. Second, Chinese firms have made equity investments in a number of foreign Internet firms. And yet, in nearly all foreign markets, Chinese websites and apps still trail the US firms in market share and salience. Finally, Chinese investments are concentrated in proximate countries. Chinese platform firms, while having some state-of-the-art technologies, have a far smaller foreign presence than their US competitors do. Finally, the authors consider the implications of their research for discussions of whether emerging nation multinational firms require new theories for explaining their globalization.

The use of “special events” as an attractor for destinations in the smart tourism paradigm has been suggested as one element of an effective destination strategy. This study aims to create new understandings of this potentiality by exploring an event from a participant perspective in smart tourism contexts by creating a model integrating factors impacting the smart event experience.

The authors conducted five online focus groups by using Facebook secret groups to engage spectators of an international sports event. Discussions focussed on the digital event experience with particular reference to the event app. A subsequent interpretative phenomenological analysis facilitated the examination of how people make sense of this digital phenomenon and the impact on the overall event experience.

The findings demonstrate an increasing demand for real-time event integrative information, with more immersive and augmented experiences often sought by users. This has significant implications for the management of the digital event experience for all event stakeholders.

This study is limited in its analysis of the smart event experience because of the use of a purposive sample from the International NW200 Event in Northern Ireland, which may limit the generalisability of research findings.

The study therefore, meets a critical gap in existent literature by providing the first event experience model in a smart tourism context and presenting the interlocking elements through the 4P’s (people, processes, personalisation and places) and 7R’s (rituals, realms, realities, renewal, review, relational and resourcing) of digital event experience.

Social network analysis (SNA) may be useful in the exploration of the potential intersection between organizations, human relations (HR), public relations (PR), and corporate social responsibility (CSR) or sustainability issues. In an age of PR, social media have an important function, as reflected in the employee engagement movement. Visualization through mapping of Twitter data allows researchers to identify centers of social influence in which content travels through key accounts during sharing. Computer-mediated communication (CMC) concepts of identity, interaction, and community offer potential for future research.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a selected bibliography of recent resources on library instruction and information literacy.

Introduces and annotates English-language periodical articles, monographs and other materials on library instruction and information literacy published in 2013.

Provides information about each source, discusses the characteristics of current scholarship and describes sources that contain unique scholarly contributions and quality reproductions.

The information may be used by librarians and interested parties as a quick reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy.