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This study aims to understand in what way municipal mediators can function as a cooperation network, promoting better social and economic inclusion of Roma community.

To fulfil this objective, a qualitative approach was adopted, holding semi-structured interviews with various partners involved in an inter-organisational cooperation network: the DiverCity project. This project aims to combat the discrimination of Roma community living in the local authority.

The empirical evidence obtained shows that the most important factors for the successful social and economic inclusion of Roma community are networking and the trust created between the parties involved. Communication, flexibility and common goals are other essential relational factors for the social and economic inclusion of the Roma community in this cooperation network.

This study shows how trust and networking are fundamental for the social and economic inclusion of Roma community. When minorities and the majority community are in harmony and consider factors such as trust and communication, social inclusion is found to be the case. From networking and the trust established between partners, this study shows how municipal mediators can facilitate inclusion of Roma community.

As there is little research on the role of municipal mediators in social inclusion, this study is particularly important and innovative by proposing a model for project development aiming for the inclusion of minority groups such as Roma community.

This paper aims to explore how social procurement (SP)-related capabilities might be developed within public authorities.

The paper utilizes qualitative research, based upon an inductive research design. This leads to a model to inform future research and practice.

Within the context of a “disconnected and nascent institutional field of practice” (Loosemore et al., 2023), the research generated rich data illustrating how certain English public authorities have developed relatively mature SP capabilities and applied them within the procurement process. The former included the appointment of “champions”; the founding of groups/units; training using webinars, online resources and case studies; “toolkits”, including policy documents, process guidance and measurement tools and networking. The latter included consultation with social value recipients and close engagement with both internal stakeholders and suppliers. The research also revealed the internal political skills of “champions”, as SP challenges incumbent logics regarding procurement objectives and practices.

First, the paper provides a potential roadmap for organisational capability development. Second, the research makes clear that public authorities should not seek to reinvent the capability wheel. Engagement with peers, advisory bodies, established “toolkits”, etc. is imperative, with much expertise publicly available. Third, it also suggests that smaller public authorities might seek to act as part of a consortium rather than go it alone, given the investment required for effective SP. Fourth, the research showed that practitioners need to understand SP as not simply a development challenge but also a political one.

The paper contributes to the literature by analysing SP from the largely overlooked resource-based perspective, by providing rich data on buy-side practice, by usefully adding to the literature's emerging “practice theme” and by offering guidance to buy-side managers within public authorities.

This study aims to explore the factors that affect online knowledge sharing among the scientific performance of academics at the University of Mosul, Republic of Iraq.

Data were collected by using a random sample by means of an electronic questionnaire distributed to 211 academics at the University of Mosul via online platforms. Structural equation modeling was used to test hypotheses using AMOS 24 software.

The results showed that collaboration, perceived flexibility and willingness to share had a significant effect on online knowledge sharing behavior and that which in turn had an effect on the academic performance of respondents, while the results showed no influence of knowledge self-efficacy and communication on the behavior of online knowledge sharing.

In this research, the effects of five factors on online knowledge sharing behavior were studied, in addition to the effect of the latter on academic performance. The research did not study the effect of the participants’ personal characteristics on the behavior of knowledge sharing online, which could be an area of future investigation. The study was limited to online knowledge sharing for academics working in public universities, and the authors suggest conducting a future study from the perspective of medical staff working in hospitals and its impact on their performance.

Based on the findings of the current study, this study suggests that the academic staff at the University of Mosul and similar universities pay attention to scientific cooperation between researchers and teaching staff, by creating online groups to carry out joint research projects that contribute to sharing knowledge among participants through social media in general and scientific platforms in particular. Establishing a scientific research portal could serve this well for example.

Most previous studies have focused on areas related to knowledge sharing in higher education institutions from the traditional perspective and therefore studies that examine the factors affecting online knowledge sharing among academics are limited, so this study fills this gap. This paper focuses on identifying the scientific benefits for academics through knowledge exchange and the use of electronic platforms at the University of Mosul. The study is expected to contribute to enhance the exchange of knowledge online between academics in similar universities in Asia and Africa due to the convergence of cultures and the nature of the work of these universities, as well as the possibility of generalization due to the research’s use of the deductive method.