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The purpose of this case study is to identify gaps in service for library instruction conducted at Texas A&M University Libraries by doing a qualitative needs assessment using student feedback.

Using Atlas.ti, student feedback comments taken from academic years 2004/2005 and 2005/2006 are coded in five fields: semester, classification, most useful, least useful, and comments. Major categories and subcategories are created for coding purposes and queries are run in that software program to identify needs and trends using the categories and subcategories.

The results demonstrate that a need for technology is high on the list of needs, however, surprisingly; it is instructor style and material that are found to be a slightly bigger need. Students want an engaging, enthusiastic, and basically pleasant instructor, more than their own computer workstation/laptop.

The large number of respondents' feedback is a limiting factor. A point of data saturation is reached. It would be more effective to breakdown the datasets into semesters instead of by years.

With the known results, it would be feasible to present these findings to the library faculty or librarians, with teaching responsibilities, in order to begin addressing improving instructor style. It is also encouraging to discover that students want the ability to follow along, which is an indicator that they want to be engaged and feel that having their own laptop, for example would aid with that.

This unique study looks at library instruction from a student's perspective instead of from a programmatic perspective. This uniqueness opened up the opportunity for continued research using student feedback forms data.

This paper proposes a maturity model (MM) for assessing disaster operations and identifying strategies for organisations to evolve their maturity stages.

This study applies a systematic literature review to identify state-of-the-art work related to maturity models for disaster operations. In addition, the study develops a case study to validate the proposed maturity model in a generic scenario and two real-life scenarios.

The analysis of 158 papers in the literature resulted in identifying 8 maturity models for disaster operations. Based on their structure, the authors proposed a new model with five maturity stages suitable for any of the four phases of the disaster life cycle (i.e. mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery). In addition, the research identified and presents 24 strategies for improving disaster operations according to each maturity stage transition. Finally, the research presents a case study that evaluates the disaster response operations from a Civil Defense organisation considering a response scenario disaster in general, a flood scenario, and the COVID-19 pandemic scenario.

This study provides the following three main contributions useful for academics and practitioners in the disaster operations area: a new maturity model for assessing disaster operations, a strategy guide for improving disaster operations based on a maturity evolution and an empirical study exploring the approximation between academia and professionals involved in real-life disaster operations management.

There are still many different theoretical approaches and practical interpretations about what an integrated report is. Starting from this premise, the overall purpose of this chapter is to critically analyze the relationship between integrated reporting (IR) and social/sustainability disclosure. Indeed, although some scholars considered IR as a tool to improve the sustainability approach of the companies allowing to disclose more relevant social information, others are more critical about the potentiality of IR to improve social disclosure. Therefore, the general research question is: Is there a natural link between IR and social disclosure (true love) or is the IR a practice to “normalize” the social disclosure and accounting (forced marriage)?

In the attempt to provide a preliminary answer to the research question, the chapter analyzes what is the approach of three categories: (1) academics; (2) soft-regulators; and (3) companies. From the methodological point of view, a mixed method of analysis has been adopted.

From the analysis of the three different points of view, IR can be considered as a “contested concept” because of the heterogeneous and sometimes conflicting interpretations and implementation that are done on this type of report. This leads to relevant theoretical and practical implications.

The author presents the meat of the most common species consumed in Europe and their role in nutrition. The work focuses on the meat of mammals and birds; it does not deal with the importance of protein sources from other taxonomic categories. European meat consumption habits and consumer preferences are presented, taking into account religious, cultural and geographical differences. It examines the possibility of influencing and changing consumer behavior based on consumer opinions. It separately examines the reasons for the less preference of meat or the complete rejection of meat consumption among consumers. This chapter also points out the demographic effects, lifestyle changes and the economic effects of income conditions. It presents examples of the role of government propaganda and the marketing activities of producers or processors in encouraging consumption.

The purpose of this paper is to present insights from the implementation of a dialogic social studies curriculum and its potential to support diverse learners. Policymakers and educators must attend to the learning needs of diverse/minoritized (Note: In this paper, the authors use minoritized and diverse interchangeably) students who have been marginalized in public education. A critical goal is to close racial, ethnic and socioeconomic achievement gaps by increasing, for example, students’ engagement with curriculum and instruction. In this paper, the authors bridge research on dialogic instruction and culturally relevant and responsive education with the goal of informing curricular design and instructional practice.

This conceptual paper discusses the utility of dialogic instruction in improving learning outcomes for minoritized student populations. While some researchers have examined the positive effects of dialogic instruction on underperforming students (e.g. Murphy et al., 2009; Pillinger and Vardy, 2022), few scholars have examined dialogic instruction through a culturally relevant and responsive lens. The authors argue that the application of this critical lens may improve learning outcomes for diverse learners who have been marginalized in public education systems.

The authors present illustrative vignettes and insights from a pilot study of a novel social studies curriculum. This curriculum applies a social justice lens by guiding students in the exploration of complex social issues that affect them. Given the diversity of their collaborating teachers’ classrooms (55% are racially minoritized students), the authors applied principles of culturally relevant and responsive education (e.g. Ford, 2010; Gay, 2000; Ladson-Billings, 1995) when designing and piloting the curriculum. Prior personal and professional experiences by the first author point to the potential of dialogic instruction to meaningfully support minoritized students’ learning.

This paper builds on two bodies of literature – dialogic instruction and culturally relevant and responsive education – to identify how an innovative social studies curriculum may improve learning for diverse student populations. It calls for the advancement of a research agenda that applies a culturally relevant and responsive lens to inform instructional practice. The authors begin this discussion with two vignettes.

This study examines how perceived institutional support, parental role models, and entrepreneurial self-efficacy, representing both macro-level and personal-level factors, collectively influence students' intentions to pursue entrepreneurship in Mexico and Uruguay.

This research utilized quantitative methodology, specifically survey techniques, to collect data from students attending private universities. The study achieved a valid sample size of 419 respondents. Various reliability and validity tests were conducted before structural equation modeling was employed to test the hypothesized relationships between variables.

The analysis revealed that perceived institutional support does not directly impact students' entrepreneurial intentions (EI). Instead, its effect is mediated through entrepreneurial self-efficacy and the presence of parental role models, both of which are strong predictors of EI. Additionally, the study identified a direct correlation between students' nationality, their academic programs, and their EI. Age and gender, however, did not significantly influence EI.

This study provides theoretical insights into understanding EI by combining macro-level and personal factors. This integrative method contributes to a more comprehensive approach of predicting EI within the context of Latin America.

The study suggests boosting investment to improve the quality of institutions, fostering an environment that supports entrepreneurship, and offering students opportunities to learn from successful role models.

This study was conducted in the context of two economies in Latin America. The novelty lies in combining perceived institutional factors and individual motivators to understand EI in Latin America. It uniquely emphasizes the significance of familial influences, particularly parental role models, in its analysis.

This paper aims to analyse the effects of events image from host communities’ perspective on the city’s overall image and the intention to recommend the events and the city as a tourism destination.

The research used a bivariate data analysis based on Spearman’s correlation and regression analysis to determine useful variables to predict the intention to recommend the city as a tourism destination. Data collection was face-to-face and online with a non-probabilistic sample of Viseu city residents, the second largest city in the central region of Portugal.

The findings had implications for researchers, governments and stakeholders. From the resident’s point of view, there is a high correlation between the overall city image and the intention to recommend it as a tourism destination. Event image and the intention to recommend the event participation affect the overall city image. Results point out the resident as natural promoters of events and their city if the local events have an appeal that generates their participation. Conclusions indicated that cities need to re-thinking tourism from the citizen’s perspective as staycation is a grown option.

Event image by host-city residents’ perceptions is an underdevelopment theme in the literature, although residents’ participation is essential to the success of most events. Local events can promote tourist citizenship and reinforce the positioning of tourism destinations, associating them with an image of desirable places to visit and live.

The objective of this research is to analyze the existing academic literature on institutional innovation in tourism to identify advances and knowledge gaps.

Through a systematic review methodology, 273 academic articles were identified in online databases such as Google Scholar, Taylor and Francis, Scopus and Web of Science; 31 articles met the inclusion criteria by presenting theoretical or empirical contributions in the field of institutional innovation in tourism. Subsequently, a qualitative content analysis was carried out based on its main contributions.

The results indicate that only few studies address this issue even though institutional innovation is the most complex of the tourism innovation typologies and necessary for improving adequate tourism development. The main contributions are synthesized into two central topics: territorial management and innovative behavior. The first includes studies with a broader perspective at the destination or region level, focusing on public policy, competitiveness and sustainability issues. The second focuses on innovation systems, innovation strategies and results such as social and environmental benefits. Future lines of research are identified to advance knowledge on this topic.

Institutional innovation is essential for destination and organizational management. However, this type of innovation remains the least explored in the tourism innovation literature. This paper aims to review the current knowledge on institutional innovation from both macro and micro perspectives. To achieve this, the discussion focuses on territorial management and innovative behavior, aligning with the principles of sociological institutionalism to understand how institutional innovation processes and outcomes emerge.