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During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, ubiquitous social media has become a primary channel for information dissemination, social interactions and recreational activities. However, it remains unclear how social media usage influences nonpharmaceutical preventive behavior of individuals in response to the pandemic. This paper aims to explore the impacts of social media on COVID-19 preventive behaviors based on the theoretical lens of empowerment.

In this paper, survey data has been collected from 739 social media users in China to conduct structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis.

The results indicate that social media empowers individuals in terms of knowledge seeking, knowledge sharing, socializing and entertainment to promote preventive behaviors at the individual level by increasing each person's perception of collective efficacy and social cohesion. Meanwhile, social cohesion negatively impacts the relationship between collective efficacy and individual preventive behavior.

This study provides insights regarding the role of social media in crisis response and examines the role of collective beliefs in the influencing mechanism of social media. The results presented herein can be used to guide government agencies seeking to control the COVID-19 pandemic.

The purpose of this paper is to examine, theoretically and empirically, whether an employee training program can enhance the collective perception of empowerment of work units within an organization. The authors hypothesized that training participation relates to empowerment by enhancing the potency, meaningfulness, impact, and autonomy of the employees.

The authors collected data at two time points, before and after the training intervention. Over the two periods, the sample consisted of an average of 2,383 employees nested in 36 work units of a large multinational company.

The results indicated a positive relationship between training participation and increased levels of collective psychological empowerment, with differential effects on the dimensions of empowerment.

This study provides evidence of the positive relationship between training and empowerment, suggesting training effects across levels of analysis. The results indicated dimensions of empowerment that are more and such that are less prone to training. Such knowledge may help to inform organizations in developing training strategies. The authors provide recommendations for a respective training program.

This is one of the first studies to investigate the relationship between training participation of individual employees and shared empowerment perceptions within their work units, adding an important antecedent to the research on empowerment. In addition, the authors propose ways of how individual employees can affect shared perceptions among work-unit members. The study offers insights into the development of empowered work units, the vertical transfer of training across levels of analysis and implications for training programs.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on elderly people who have adopted Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and participated in ICT-based activities, and explore variables associated with their individual and collective empowerment by using data collected by a questionnaire survey.

A set of 14 questions was developed to measure older adults’ perceived psychological empowerment. A factor analysis was conducted to condense 14 individual variables into several large categories. Finally, a set of multiple regression analyses was employed to identify variables associated with the elderly’s individual and collective empowerment.

Three factors, including a sense of meaning; competence/self-determination; and collective empowerment were extracted from the 14 questions. Multiple regression models revealed that elderly empowerment is not a matter of social skills, ICT skills, or complementary skills, but is more likely to result from their being interested in ICT and ICT-based activities. Learning activities in ICT-based activities and participation frequency were found to be predictors of both meaning and competence/self-determination dimensions.

The major finding of this study concerns the development of a measure that assesses three factors of empowerment in older adults, i.e., sense of meaning, competence/self-determination, and collective empowerment. This study represents an initial step in establishing the measure, and therefore, further work is needed to establish its psychometric properties, particularly external validity.

This study is one of the first studies to focus on older people’s empowerment construct and its relation to ICT-based activities.

The purpose of this study is to develop an empirically informed framework to analyze women empowerment and entrepreneurship, contextualized within a collective society.

The authors conducted 15 in-depth semi-structured interviews with women entrepreneurs located in the United Arab Emirates to understand their entrepreneurial experiences and how they were empowered.

Findings suggest that the three aspects of power characterized as “positive” from within Rowlands’ distinctions (“power to”, “power with” and “power within”) dominate, as opposed to those emphasized in the literature (“power to” and “power over”). Findings include empowerment of the “me” (individual) also synergistically contributes to empowerment of the “we” (society), when considering empowerment within a collective society.

A psychology model was used as a basis to develop a Collective Empowerment Process Framework. This framework provides a fresh look at empowerment, allowing for explanations of how women in specific contexts experience empowerment and social change.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how transformational leadership may relate to corporate entrepreneurship by adopting a multilevel approach. The authors also theorized and tested the top-down and bottom-up intermediate process linking transformational leadership and corporate entrepreneurship.

Multisource data across different timeframes were collected from 129 managers and 244 employees from 55 units of 27 firms.

The results showed that transformational leadership and corporate entrepreneurship were positively related at the unit level. Furthermore, unit-level collective efficacy mediated the relationship between unit-level transformational leadership and unit-level corporate entrepreneurship. The authors also found that the firm-level empowerment climate moderated the indirect effect of unit-level collective efficacy on the relationship between unit transformational leadership and unit-level corporate entrepreneurship.

First, the goal of this study is to extend the single focus of transformational leadership on corporate entrepreneurship (e.g. Ling et al., 2008) and develop a more thoughtful approach on determining how transformational leaders influence corporate entrepreneurship across levels. This study responds to calls for research to look at the impact of unit-level transformational leaders, such as middle managers, across levels (Ren and Guo, 2011) and creates a multilevel framework in which transformational leaders at the unit level influence the appearance of corporate entrepreneurship at the unit level.

This chapter analyzes the role of grassroots organizations as natural helping systems for women’s empowerment in the rural areas of central Mexico. For almost three decades, productive projects have been the preferred strategy by the Mexican government in order to alleviate extreme poverty and promote women’s empowerment. Even if the impact of productive projects on women’s empowerment has been limited, grassroots organizations are created in order to have access to financial resources that have promoted the collective dimension of women’s empowerment. Through semi-structured interviews and participatory observation, this study retrieves the experience of women’s leadership, frustrated by changing public policy, local corruption, and political use of the social policy. In those difficult circumstances, grassroots organizations are fundamental tools for women’s well-being as they promote a specific understanding of empowerment, where family, community, and relatedness are values more important than competition and individualistic achievements.

Digital technology education of children needs to be reconsidered. The purpose of this paper is to focus on empowering the young generation as regards digital technology. Digital technology education should reap the benefits of recent developments brought in by extensive, ongoing digitalization and prepare the young generation to manage and master in their technology rich future. The recent COVID 19 pandemic has made this particularly relevant and visible in the society. The young generation should adopt a proactive and critical stance toward digital technology and consider how design and technology can be used for making the world a better place.

This commentary reviews literature on the complex concept of empowerment and suggests a model on the aspects to be considered when aiming at empowering the young generation as regards digital technology in the context of digital technology education.

A model is proposed that comprehensively addresses empowerment of children as regards digital technology both at individual and collective levels and in mainstream sense as a relational and motivational construct as well as in critical sense in terms of collective empowerment, social responsibility and liberation of the oppressed.

Radical renewal in the children's education is needed in the digital age. This model outlines aspects to be considered in such a transformation. The insights should be valuable for research communities addressing the topic of children's education in the digital age in general or the topic of children's digital technology education in particular.

The model should also be of help for practitioners, i.e. teachers and facilitators working in informal learning spaces for developing children's digital education in practice.

The commentary addresses significant societal issues. It is actually not only children who should be empowered to engage in making and shaping our digital futures, but people in general. The model provides novel and valuable insights on what aspects to consider in such a significant endeavor.

The model proposed is novel and clearly needed in the research addressing this topic.

Women establish about half of the world's population and constitute a significant part of the workforce. Women's empowerment is considered as an entry point for women's integration and inclusion into development. Economic independence is recognized as the key to women's empowerment. Economic independence provides women with autonomy in other aspects of their life. By organizing them into groups and providing financial freedom by enhancing the livelihood of women, cooperatives are playing an essential role in the empowerment of women. In the last two decades, self-help group (SHGs) has evolved as an informal form of cooperative and has played a very important role in women empowerment.

This paper is an attempt to explore the role of cooperatives in women empowerment. Firstly, an intensive search of literature was done to identify the role of cooperatives in bringing women empowerment in the Scopus database. This data were analysed to look at the trends in research using VOSviewer. Later, the findings of this study are supported by field observation.

The paper also develops a framework for women empowerment through cooperatives and reviews the field experiences to support the framework. The paper concludes that the theory of economic modernity holds true for women empowerment, as economic independence through cooperatives has helped women gain access to control over resources and led to women empowerment.

The paper develops a framework and supports the findings that economic independence is a key to women empowerment, and cooperatives are playing an important role in the same. It will help practitioners in framing the policies and interventions for women empowerment. The findings of the paper will be helpful in setting directions for research in this domain.

The paper is an original contribution as it has reviewed literature and used VOSviewer. Along with the review, it has supported the findings from qualitative observations from the field.

Previous studies have examined the empowerment of individual teachers, while neglecting the fact that such a phenomenon might grow within a team. Building on the crossover model and social exchange theory, the aim of this study is to explore whether team empowerment among school management teams (SMTs), is transmitted to the school level and affects schoolteachers' job satisfaction and thereby schoolteachers' organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Furthermore, we explored whether those relationships are moderated by team-member exchange (TMX) relationships.

Data were collected from 86 principals, 357 SMT members and 683 schoolteachers from 86 schools.

Results confirmed the mediating role of schoolteachers' job satisfaction, showing a positive relationship between SMT empowerment and schoolteachers' job satisfaction, and between job satisfaction and OCB. The moderation of TMX and the overall moderated mediation hypotheses were not supported.

The nature of data collected in the current study precludes any inference concerning the direction of casual links among the study constructs. Therefore, longitudinal studies could be designed, aimed at confirming the direction of links among the variables.

The findings reinforce the impact of schoolteachers' job satisfaction on achieving OCBs. Hence, SMT members carry the responsibility to cultivate satisfied schoolteachers through schools' support mechanisms and guidance in order to achieve schoolteachers' OCB.

The study identifies SMT empowerment as a key factor that may indirectly encourage schoolteachers to invest in OCBs through positive attitudes of schoolteachers' job satisfaction.

This chapter focuses on the intricacies of marginalized communities in Bangladesh. It provides an in-depth understanding of these communities, considering their sociocultural backgrounds and the challenges they face. This chapter introduces the empowerment paradigm, highlighting the importance of empowering marginalized groups as a catalyst for positive change. It further explores various strategies and initiatives designed to uplift these communities, emphasizing the pivotal role of family planning in this process. By examining the transformative impact of family planning on marginalized communities, this chapter underscores how it can lead to improved health, education, economic opportunities, gender equality, and overall community development in the Bangladeshi context.