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This study aims to present the evaluation of a competency-based online professional development training program, PhD Progression, tied to a digital badge system, created to support PhD students across fields.

This study took place at Boston University, a large, nonprofit, Carnegie Classified R1 research-intensive institution located in the northeastern region of the USA. Through internal campus collaborations, the authors developed a PhD core capacities framework. Building from this framework, the authors designed the first learning level of the program and ran a pilot study with PhD students from various fields and at different stages of their PhD. Using surveys and focus groups, the authors collected both quantitative and qualitative data to evaluate this program.

The quantitative and qualitative data show that the majority of the PhD student participants found the contents of the competency-based training program useful, appropriate for building skills and knowledge and therefore relevant for both their degree progress and their future job. Gaining digital badges significantly increased their motivation to complete training modules.

This type of resource is scalable to other institutions that wish to provide self-paced professional development support to their PhD students while rewarding them for investing time in building professional skills and enabling them to showcase these skills to potential employers.

This study demonstrates, for the first time, that tying a digital badging system to a competency-based professional development program significantly motivates PhD students to set professional development goals and invest time in building skills.

On the basis of the Collective Intelligence Genome framework, which was developed to describe private, for profit ventures, this study aims to review the recent public sector initiatives launched by the American federal government and the European Union. The study's goal is to examine if, and how, the Genome construct would apply to not for profit.

This paper builds on an existing classification methodology for collective intelligence initiatives and extends it to pubic sector initiatives.

The findings suggest that, although the framework offers a generally good fit, it does not fully address all the factors at play and the paper proposes expanding the gene pool. In addition, it confirms that Collective Intelligence initiatives do indeed co‐create value and conform to the emerging services dominant logic concept.

With the growing success of profit motivated internet‐based collaborative ventures, including Innocentive, VenCorps, Threadless and many others, governments have taken notice and engaged. Recent public sector initiatives, including Open.gov, Peer 2 Patent, innovation.ED.gov among others, have begun to leverage collaborative internet media through similar means. These initiatives not only engage a broader community in the co‐creation of value, but also foster what has been termed as Collective Intelligence. This paper details one of the first forays into what might be termed sense making within the public sector usage of Collective Intelligence using the Genome framework and, as such, provides researchers and practitioners with a means of assessing value, potential impact and making comparisons.

This systematic review aims to comprehensively explore the existing literature on the use of corporate communication within the realm of social media.

A total of 136 peer-reviewed journal articles are explored and analysed using both performance and bibliometric analysis.

This review identifies five main findings: (1) trends in corporate social media research that highlight the growth trajectory of research on social media use for corporate disclosure, (2) geographical coverage of studies indicating the concentration of research in certain regions, such as the USA, followed by China and the UK, with notable gaps in others, such as developing countries, (3) theoretical frameworks employed demonstrate that various theoretical frameworks are utilized, although a significant portion of the studies do not specify any theoretical underpinning, (4) social media platforms studied, confirming Twitter to be the most studied channel followed by Facebook and (5) thematic analysis of articles on disclosure type that categorized the articles using bibliometric analysis into five themes of disclosure: general disclosure, corporate social responsibility-related information, financial information, CEO announcements and strategic news communication. A subsequent cross-theme analysis classifies disclosure determinants and consequences of corporate social media usage.

Through a comprehensive and systematic analysis of existing research, this review offers novel insights into the current state of corporate communication on social media. It consolidates current knowledge, highlights under-explored areas in the existing literature and proposes new directions and potential avenues for future research.