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Growing interest in the use of digital technologies and a Putnam-inspired debate about youth engagement has drawn researchers from outside of the study of social movements into research on the topic. This interest in youth protest participation has, in turn, developed into a substantial area of research of its own. While offering important research contributions, we argue that these areas of scholarship are often not well grounded in classic social movement theory and research, instead focusing on new media and/or the relationship between activism and other forms of youth engagement. This chapter seeks to correct this by drawing on interviews with 40 high school and college students from a moderately sized southwestern city to examine whether traditional paths to youth activism (i.e., family, friends, and institutions) have changed or eroded as online technology use and extra-institutional engagement among youth has risen. We find that youth continue to be mobilized by supportive family, friends, and institutional opportunities, and that the students who were least engaged are missing these vital support networks. Thus, it is not so much that the process driving youth activism has changed, but that some youth are not receiving support that has been traditionally necessary to spur activism. This offers an important reminder for scholars studying youth and digital activism and youth participation more broadly that existing theory and research about traditional pathways to activism needs to be evaluated in contemporary research.

Inclusive leadership education espouses a generalized set of values that it hopes to impart to students, what Foucault (1978) would call discourse. However, students may choose to embrace, resist, alter, or challenge particular aspects of a class’s discourse. Qualitative analysis compared multicultural leadership course students’ pre-test and post-test responses to a question that asked them to define inclusion. Four changes in narratives emerged: some students 1) exhibited heightened awareness of difference, 2) transitioned away from egocentrism in leadership thinking, 3) expressed more comfort with thinking about inclusion as an abstract concept, and 4) challenged the charge to define inclusion.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate similar and different wayfinding strategies used by novice and expert patrons at an academic library.

The study employed a usability study approach. In total, 12 people, places, or things were identified as important for students to be able to locate within an academic library. Students from one of three groups (high school, freshmen, and seniors) were randomly assigned a scenario requiring them to find the indicated person, place, or thing. Student researchers video recorded participants and took field notes during the wayfinding activity and conducted an interview about participant’s experience following the exercise.

Total and average time needed to locate the person, place, or thing indicated in the scenario were determined for each group. In addition, wayfinding tools (signs, maps, help desks, technology, and experience) used by participants were identified.

The research compares novice and expert wayfinding strategies. It is unique in its use of student researchers as part of a sociology class project, to collect and analyze the data.

While the spatial dimensions of augmented reality (AR) have received significant attention in the marketing literature, to date, there has been less consideration of its temporal dimensions. This paper aims to theorise digital timework through AR to understand a new form of consumption experience that offers short-lived, immersive forms of mundane, marketer-led escape from everyday life.

The authors draw upon Casey’s phenomenological work to explore the emergence of new dynamics of temporalisation through digitised play. An illustrative case study using AR shows how consumers use this temporalisation to find stability and comfort through projecting backwards (remembering) and forwards (imagining) in their lives.

The proliferation of novel digital technologies and platforms has radically transformed consumption experiences as the boundaries between the physical and the virtual, fantasy and reality and play and work have become increasingly blurred. The findings show how temporary escape is carved out within digital space and time, where controlled imaginings provide consumers with an illusion of control over their lives as they re-establish cohesion in a ruptured sense of time.

The authors consider the more critical implications of the offloading capacity of AR, which they show does not prevent cognitive processes such as imagination and remembering but rather puts limits on them. The authors show that these more short-lived, everyday types of digitised escape do not allow for an escape from the structures of everyday life within the market, as much of the previous literature suggests.

The authors argue that corporations need to reflect upon the potential threats of immersive technologies such as AR in harming consumer escapism and take these into serious consideration as part of their strategic experiential design strategies to avoid leading to detrimental effects upon consumer well-being. More nuanced conceptualisations are required to unpack the antecedents of limiting people’s imagination and potentially limiting the fully fledged escape that consumers might desire.

Prior work has conceptualised AR as offloading the need for imagination by making the absent present. The authors critically unpack the implications of this for a more fluid understanding of the temporal logics and limits of consumer escapism.

The purpose of this paper is to explore user engagement (UE) within the Metaverse (MV) environment, emphasising the crucial role of immersive experiences (IEs). This study aims to understand how IEs influence UE and the mediating effects of hedonic value (HV) and utilitarian value (UV) on this relationship. Additionally, the authors examine the moderating impacts of user perceptions (UPs) such as headset comfort, simulation sickness, prior knowledge and ease of use on the utilisation of the MV. This study seeks to elucidate the dynamics of virtual travel at a pre-experience stage, enhancing the comprehension of how digital platforms can revolutionise UE in travel and tourism.

This study used a triangulation methodology to provide a thorough investigation into the factors influencing UE in the MV. A systematic literature review (SLR) was conducted to frame the research context and identify relevant variables. To gather empirical data, 25 interviews were performed with active MV users, supplemented by a survey distributed to 118 participants. The data collected was analysed using structural equation modelling (SEM) to test the hypothesised relationships between IEs, UPs, HV and UV and their combined effect on UE within the MV.

The findings from the SEM indicate that engaging in the MV leads to a positive IE, which significantly enhances UE. Additionally, it was discovered that HV and UV play a mediating role in strengthening the link between IEs and UE. Furthermore, UPs, including headset comfort, simulation sickness, prior knowledge and ease of use, are significant moderators in the relationship between IEs and MV usage. These insights provide a nuanced understanding of the variables that contribute to and enhance UE in virtual environments.

This research contributes original insights into the burgeoning field of digital tourism by focusing on the MV, a rapidly evolving platform. It addresses the gap in the existing literature by delineating the complex interplay between IEs, UPs and value constructs within the MV. By using a mixed-method approach and advanced statistical analysis, this study provides a comprehensive model of UE specific to virtual travel platforms. The findings are particularly valuable for developers and marketers in the hospitality and tourism sectors seeking to capitalise on digital transformation and enhance UE through immersive technologies.

The size, characteristics and structure of boards of directors have been claimed to be an important influence on the performance of large firms, but have been less examined in small firms. For larger firms the role of boards acts more as a substitute for the development of internal staff and management skills, indicating that for large firms directors chiefly support the control role of CEOs. The importance of seeing boards, external consultants and internal management skills as substitutes is demonstrated, and is shown to have a non‐linear relation with firm size. However, a key finding of the paper is that there is little evidence of a strong association of board size, board qualifications, or board structure with firm performance, measured by profitability, employment growth or propensity to innovate.

Little is known about how assistive technology standards have been implemented in preservice teacher preparation. This chapter provides a review of the literature concerning the importance of evidence-based practice and the research base supporting assistive technology in order to set the context for reporting the results of a comprehensive national study of the status of assistive technology state standards for teachers in all of the 50 states (plus Washington, DC). This chapter includes the findings of the study, the research that the study was based upon, and a review of relevant research in the fields of assistive technology, educational technology, and evidence-based practice. Only six states reported having AT standards and six states reported having AT competencies. Three states reported having both standards and competencies, yielding nine unique states (out of 51) with AT standards and/or AT competencies. Regression analyses to determine the relationship between the study variables and national reading and math performance of students with disabilities were inconclusive. The implications of the study findings and recommendations for future research are presented.

Employee absence has been widely acknowledged in recent years to be a growing problem for organisations, including local government organisations. This paper investigates linkages between organisational commitment, absence management policies and absenteeism in local government from three perspectives – those of human resource practitioners, line managers and employees – through a series of semi‐structured interviews and focus group discussions. The conclusion is reached that much employee absence in this sector can be attributed to the adoption of a “compliance”, or transactional approach, to employee commitment by both management and employees, and the absence of shared values between the employees and the organisation (internalised commitment). The implications which this holds for the management of employee absence are also examined.

With technological progress, retail companies must understand how to make virtual channels and environments more interactive to enhance user engagement. In this study, we apply the stimulus-organism-response (SOR) paradigm and the Customer Engagement Theory to investigate the impact of various types of customer engagement on the connection amid interactivity and continuous metaverse-empowered marketing channel usage.

The analysis was conducted using PLS-SEM on data collected via a representative sampling approach from 300 respondents on prolific online (the UK was fed as the country with the sample representing people with AR/VR gear).

It has been found that cognitive, emotional and social engagement positively and significantly mediates the relation between the variables studied. Personalization had a significantly negative moderating influence on the association between cognitive engagement and continuous use.

Besides extending existing research in the area of metaverse-empowered channels, the study’s findings provide important guidelines for retail companies to enhance customer engagement in virtual environments effectively.

To explore the mediating role of altruism in the relationship between self‐sacrifice and transformational leadership, and to look at the effect of all three on followers' collective identity and perceptions of unit performance.

For Study 1, survey responses were collected from 127 managers in India. They answered questions on their leader's self‐sacrifice, altruism, and transformational leadership, and on their own collective identity and perceptions of unit performance. Study 2 used a scenario experiment and 161 students to manipulate self‐sacrifice and altruism and measure their effects on transformational leadership, collective identity and perceived unit performance.

It is possible to distinguish between self‐sacrifice and altruism empirically. Altruism mediates the relationship between self‐sacrifice and transformational leadership. Transformational leadership is positively related to followers' collective identity and perceived unit performance.

Common source bias may have affected the findings. Use of student sample in Study 2 limits the generalizability of findings.

Other‐orientedness (altruism) of a manager enhances transformational leadership, which in turn leads to higher collective identity and perceived unit performance. Self‐sacrifice could be a good starting point in this chain of events.

Studies have shown that self‐sacrifice enhances transformational leadership. This paper highlights the mediating process through altruism. This is the first empirical study to look at the relationship between altruism and transformational leadership. This is also the first study to look at self‐sacrifice and altruism simultaneously.