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The purpose of this study is to examine how factual information and misinformation are being shared on Twitter by identifying types of social media users who initiate the information diffusion process.

This study used a mixed methodology approach to analyze tweets with COVID-19-related hashtags. First, a social network analysis was conducted to identify social media users who initiate the information diffusion process, followed by a quantitative content analysis of tweets by users with more than 5K retweets to identify what COVID-19 claims, factual information, misinformation and disinformation was shared on Twitter.

Results found very little misinformation and disinformation distributed widely. While health experts and journalists shared factual COVID-19-related information, they were not receiving optimum engagement. Tweets by citizens focusing on personal experience or opinions received more retweets and likes compared to any other sender type. Similarly, celebrities received more replies than any other sender type.

This study helps medical experts and government agencies understand the type of COVID-19 content and communication being shared on social media for population health purposes.

This study offers insight into how social media users engage with COVID-19-related information on Twitter and offers a typology of categories of information shared about the pandemic.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-03-2021-0143/.

The guest‐editors of the first Special Issue on E‐Collaboration provide an introduction to the issue. E‐collaboration is broadly defined as collaboration among individuals engaged in a common task using electronic technologies. A brief history of the evolution of e‐collaboration technologies is offered along with a discussion of research in the area. The paper concludes with a brief review of the contributions to the Special Issue and a look at one important future challenge for e‐collaboration researchers, the challenge of theoretical summarization.

This is a study of academic staff occupying formal administrative positions within the university framework of Nigeria. The intention of the study was to see whether there were significant managerial job differences between academic leaders and conventional industrial leaders. The important difference between the two roles related to time spent in the office (25.7 per cent for academics and 51 per cent for those managers in industry).

The aim of this paper is to gain insights into the gap that persists between management accounting education (MAE) and practice.

MAE is examined from four perspectives of the balanced scorecard (BSC), in terms of what is being taught at tertiary level: customer satisfaction, learning and growth, internal business and financial. A survey questionnaire was sent to management accountants selected randomly from a list of practicing management accountants identified by the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants in South Africa.

The study finds support for allegations that a gap exists between MAE and practice and indicates that to address this gap, a holistic focus using the four perspectives of the BSC would be useful to investigate the gap.

Previous studies in relation to the gap in management education have focused on the lack of skills provided by tertiary education. As one of the few studies to focus on the overall performance of MAE, this study identifies that the gap is not limited to the provision of adequate skills. The findings show that the gap is significant in terms of customer perspective but is not significant in relation to the internal business, learning and growth and financial perspectives of the BSC. The study provides deeper insights into the gap and will help tertiary education providers to improve their performance.

As one of the few studies on gaps between MAE and practice, the study provides insights to the potential gaps. The findings serve as a basis for further empirical and theoretical enquiries.

The study contributes to the management accounting literature by focusing on the gap in MAE using a BSC approach. Rather than single out the lack of skills provided by MAE as a reason for the gap, this paper provides information on the four areas of the BSC as ways to identify the gap.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the content, purpose and effectiveness of the handover of information between care home staff beginning and completing a shift.

This was an exploratory study drawing on ethnographic methods. A total of 27 interviews with a range of care home staff, including managers, registered nurses, senior care workers and care workers were undertaken in five care homes selected to give a good contrast in terms of size, ownership, shift patterns and type of handover.

Most handovers were short – lasting 15 min or so – and were held in the office or secluded area in which staff could talk privately. They lasted longer in one home in which the incoming and outgoing shifts physically visited each resident’s room and the communal spaces. Staff felt that handovers were important for the efficient running of the home as well as to alert everyone to changes in a resident’s health or important events, such as a hospital appointment. In one home, handheld devices enabled staff to follow a resident’s care plan and update what was happening in real time.

This was a small scale study based on data from a limited number of care homes.

The increasing popularity of 12 h shifts means that many homes only hold two short handovers early in the morning and in the evening when the night staff arrive. There appears to be a trend to reduce the number of staff paid to attend handover. Despite this, handovers remain an important component of the routine of a care home. The information contained in handover relates to the running of the care home, as well as residents’ wellbeing, suggesting that, while their content overlaps with written records in the home, they are not superfluous.

Although the literature on handovers in hospitals is extensive, this appears to be the first published study of handover practices in care homes.

Through the lens afforded by two theories drawn from the discipline of social psychology, the purpose of this paper is to explain the evident continuing abuse of adults at risk living in care homes by the staff who should be looking after them.

By considering existing theories and research into the reasons why vulnerable adults are abused the paper proposes the relevance of other extant theories on the degradation of moral restraint and dehumanisation of victims, and on the social psychology of intergroup relations, to the perpetration of abuse.

The paper demonstrates how theories that explain the psychology of human behaviour in certain circumstances may be usefully applied to the inveterate social problem of the abuse of vulnerable adults living in care homes.

The paper offers the opportunity for the reader to consider how these theories of social psychology may be applied to explain and guide remedies to the persistent levels of abuse in English care homes, abuse that continues despite government oversight of care provided to adults who may be at risk by virtue of the activities of the statutory regulator and health and social care commissioners, and the interventions of safeguarding personnel.

This is a conceptual paper from which future research and theorising may arise to better understand the most fundamental causes of the abuse of older people in care homes in order to develop feasible and effective measures to overcome it.

The purpose of this paper is to present findings from a research project designed to determine the qualifications held by those staff who had perpetrated abuse in private sector care and nursing homes for older people during a 12-month period.

A self-completion, postal questionnaire was issued to the safeguarding teams of all local authorities in England with adult social care responsibilities to determine the qualifications held by staff who were proven to have perpetrated abuse in these facilities.

Though findings with respect to qualified nurses who had perpetrated abuse when considered in isolation were inconclusive in numerical terms, the proportion of all nursing and care staff who had perpetrated abuse, and who held either a professional or vocational qualification was high.

Responses to the postal questionnaire represented 21.8 per cent of local authorities with social services responsibilities, yet the data secured suggests that care providing staff who have received recognised training are disproportionately represented among those proven to have perpetrated abuse.

Findings indicate that recognised training for those who provide care in care and nursing homes is of limited efficacy in the prevention of abuse.

The purpose of this paper is to present findings from face-to-face interviews undertaken with 16 care and nursing home managers employed in homes situated in two English local authorities. The research sought to explore managers’ perceptions of the role of contract monitoring in the prevention of abuse.

Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with 16 care and nursing home managers.

Though personnel employed by the local authority who conducted contract monitoring were generally thought of positively by care home managers on a personal level, their effectiveness was perceived to be limited as a result of their lack of experience and knowledge of providing care, and the methods that they were required to use.

Though the research draws upon the experiences of only 16 care and nursing home managers in two local authorities, data suggest that current contract monitoring activity is of limited utility in determining the true nature of care and the presence of abuse.

Unusually, the paper explores care and nursing home managers’ perceptions of contract monitoring processes in terms of how they perceive their effectiveness in preventing abuse.

Research ethics committees (RECs) and ethical standards govern research. To conduct research involving participants, researchers must first gain a favourable opinion on their protocol from a REC. This paper aims to promote researcher reflexivity and openness about applying agreed ethical protocols in practice.

Using examples from qualitative fieldwork in two care home studies, the authors critically reflect on the issues encountered when applying ethics committee agreed protocols in real-world situations.

Three areas of research practice are reflected on given as follows: recruitment and consent; approach to observations; and research processes, shared spaces and access to data. The interface between researcher and participant did not always mirror textbook scenarios. Ultimately, this left researchers accountable for taking ethically acceptable actions while conducting research.

Drawing on research experiences in care homes, the authors consider the reliance on the researcher to be authentic and morally driven over and above formal ethical approvals. The authors conclude that the researcher is the bridging agent between ethical protocols and ethical practice in the field. As such, researchers need to be open and reflexive about their practices in fieldwork.

The purpose of this paper is to present some of the findings from an empirical, mixed methods research project that reveal the importance of the personal value frameworks held by individual staff in the prevention of abuse of older people in private sector care homes.

Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with a sample of 36 care home personnel, including proprietors, care managers and care staff.

A significant number of respondents identified the importance of personal value frameworks among staff providing care as a potential contributory factor in the prevention of abuse of older people.

Though the research draws upon the experiences of only 36 care home personnel through interviews, data suggest that the personal evaluations of staff towards those in their care is a significant contributory factor to the occurrence of abuse.

The research has identified individual staff value frameworks as a causal factor in the occurrence of abuse. The research also confirms that the perceptions of “values” among respondents directly involved in the provision of care are at odds with common understanding of “values” often cited elsewhere in connection with staff recruitment and training as a means of preventing the occurrence of abuse.