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This paper aims to provide an introductory overview and selected annotated bibliography of recent resources on library instruction and information literacy across all library types.

It introduces and annotates English-language periodical articles, monographs, dissertations and other materials on library instruction and information literacy published in 2014.

It provides information about each source, discusses the characteristics of current scholarship and highlights sources that contain unique or significant scholarly contributions.

The information may be used by librarians and interested parties as a quick reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy.

In this study, the effects are investigated of brand and product storytelling on customer assessments of perceived attitude, quality, experience, recommendation and purchase intention based on narrative transportation theory within the domain of winery e-commerce.

In the research, two distinct constructs are introduced for brand and product storytelling, and multivariate analysis of variance is applied to analyze data collected from 391 respondents from the UK.

It is indicated in the study that embedding storytelling into elements, such as age verification screens on e-commerce sites, notably improves evaluations for both brands and products. Product storytelling broadly boosts customer appraisals in every evaluated aspect, while brand storytelling shows effectiveness in more limited cases. This suggests that narratives focused on products may have a wider appeal in enhancing the online customer experience.

This research underscores the strategic significance of balancing the focus between brand and product in crafting storytelling narratives for e-commerce contexts. It offers new insights into tailoring storytelling to meet individual consumer needs online, enriching the existing body of literature on storytelling’s application in digital commerce. Importantly, the study provides actionable guidance for wineries and other businesses aiming to enhance their online customer engagement through targeted narrative strategies.

This study aims to address a significant and previously unanswered question for both academics and practitioners: how do organizations learn to apply Blockchain technology to support modern slavery (MS) supply chain capabilities? Specifically, this study examines whether employees’ digital dexterity (EDD) and strategic investment in Blockchain technology (SIBT) can support three MS supply chain capabilities: internal MS capability (IMSC), MS capability with customers (MSCC) and MS capability with suppliers (MSCS).

This study uses resource accumulation and deployment perspective to explain how EDD promotes SIBT, which then drives the development of MS supply chain capabilities. Survey data collected from the Chinese manufacturing industry were used to test the proposed theoretical framework and hypotheses through structural equation modelling and moderated regression analysis.

EDD has a positive relationship with SIBT. SIBT has a positive relationship with IMSC. IMSC fully mediates the relationships between SIBT and MS capability with customers and suppliers.

By conceptualizing MS supply chain capabilities as a multi-dimensional construct for the first time, this study discovers the significant mediating roles of IMSC. The empirical findings also clarify digital dexterity of employees that drives investment in Blockchain technology to foster MS supply chain capabilities as resource accumulation and deployment processes.

This paper aims to report findings for the following question, “What is the nature of high school students’ identity exploration as a result of exploring the role-possible selves of an environmental scientist and urban planner in a play-based course?” Projective reflection (PR) is served as a theoretical and methodological framework for facilitating learning as identity exploration in play-based environments.

From 2016-2017, 54 high school freshmen students engaged in virtual city planning, an iteratively refined course that provided systematic and personally relevant opportunities for play, curricular, reflection and discussion activities in Philadelphia Land Science, a virtual learning environment (VLE) and in an associated curriculum enacted in a science museum classroom. Participants’ identity exploration was anchored in targeted role-possible selves in science, technology, engineering and mathematics: environmental science and urban planning through in-game and in-class activities. This role-playing was made intentional by scaffolding students’ reflection on what they wanted to be in the future while thinking of their current selves and exploring novel role-possible selves.

In-game logged data and in-class student data were examined using quantitative ethnography (QE) techniques such as epistemic network analysis. Whole-group statistical significance and an illustrative case study revealed visual and interpretive patterns of change in students’ identity exploration. The change was reflected in their knowledge, interest and valuing, self-organization and self-control and self-perception and self-definition (KIVSSSS) in relation to the roles explored from the start of the intervention (starting self), during (exploring role-possible selves) and the end (new self). The paper concludes with directions to advance research on leveraging role-playing as a mechanism for fostering identity exploration in play-based digital and non-digital environments.

This paper leveraged VLEs such as games as forms of play-based environments that can present players with opportunities for self-transformation (Foster, 2014) and enculturation (Gee 2003; Shaffer, 2006) to support learner agency and participation in a constantly changing society (Thomas and Brown 2011). The authors introduce and apply novel theoretical and methodological approaches to the design and assessment of play-based environments and address pertinent gaps in the emergent area of learning and identity in VLEs

To empirically test for an impact on profit performance when activity-based costing (ABC) is used in companies with customer service and low-price strategies. We also investigate whether the profit impact of ABC usage is affected by higher-quality information systems.

Survey.

We find a positive impact on profit performance when ABC is used by companies with customer service as a strategic priority but not when ABC is used by companies with lower emphasis on customer service. For companies emphasizing low-price strategies, we find a positive impact on profit performance, especially when ABC is used together with high-quality information systems.

This study develops a method of measuring strategic priorities of a firm. It divides firms into strategy groups based on their degree of emphasis on three strategic priorities: low price, flexibility, and customer service.

Identifies certain contexts when ABC is especially beneficial.

If the use of ABC information leads to better strategic and operational decisions, firm performance should improve. However, prior research on the impact of ABC on firm performance has found little to no connection and usually only when it is used with other practices. This is the first study to find an impact on profit performance for firms with customer service and low-price strategies and high-quality information systems.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate professional quality of life of mental health nursing staff working within an adolescent psychiatric intensive care unit (PICU) setting. Professional quality of life is important, as there is a correlation between staff wellbeing and the quality of healthcare services delivered, particularly within mental health settings. Mental health nursing staff in adolescent PICU services deal with a wide range of physically and emotionally demanding challenges when providing care, yet the potential impact of this demanding work upon staff in this context has not been explored.

The study used a longitudinal non-experimental design with a purposive sample. Quantitative data were collected from a total of 17 registered mental health nurses and healthcare assistants (HCAs) working in an adolescent PICU in the North of England. Repeated measures were administered at three consecutive intervals, three months apart, using a validated self-report measure, the Professional Quality of Life Scale V (ProQOL V, Stamm, 2010). Data were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistical analysis using benchmark data from the ProQOL V instrument for comparison.

Analysis of results compared to ProQOL V benchmark data showed significantly higher than expected levels of compassion satisfaction, and lower than expected levels of burnout and secondary traumatic stress for adolescent PICU nursing staff within the study. There were no significant differences between qualified nurses and HCAs. Potential explanations and practice implications of these findings are discussed.

This is the first published study to investigate professional quality of life within the mental health nursing population working in adolescent PICU, providing empirical insights into a previously unexplored mental health context.

The aim of this paper is to illustrate how differing policy instruments linked to foreign direct investment (FDI) into China may have very different impacts. The paper looks at: patterns of FDI across China and other key, emerging nations; FDI patterns across the three declared, developmental regions of the People's Republic of China (PRC); and the effectiveness of four of the PRC Government's policy measures aimed at promoting FDI, and highlights the unexpectedly differing outcomes which can emerge from those incentives.

The initial patterns draw on published data of the relevant countries and of the China's three designated development regions. The problem of differing, and unexpected, impacts is examined by means of four mini‐cases, drawing on previously published work and featuring a number of locations.

China is near the top of the list of FDI recipients, but its relative success compared with other developing economies is more modest. FDI into China is heavily skewed in favour of the richest east region, the poor west being the weakest attractor. The mini‐cases show how the same policy can have very different and sometimes unintended outcomes in different areas. A recurring theme is the existence of common, systemic problems for investors, which may be seen as “grit” in China's economic system.

The PRC Government should reflect on what its investment policies may actually deliver as well as their initial intent and to seek to ensure consistent implementation across the country.

The originality of the work lies in the interpretation of existing information: the location of “hidden truths”.

In an effort to diversify the nation’s teaching force, the U.S. Department of Education has initiated programs to increase teachers of color in U.S. schools, particularly Black male teachers in subject areas like mathematics. In that Black male mathematics teachers continue to be under researched, particularly in urban school contexts, it was critical that their cases were (1) documented and analyzed in an effort to better understand their experiences and practices, and (2) utilized to inform teacher recruitment efforts. In this chapter, we present the case of Floyd Lee, a Black male mathematics teacher who participated in an NSF-funded research study of Black Algebra 1 teachers teaching in an urban school district. We present experiences that appear to influence his practice and consider how his case, and other cases like Floyd’s, might inform efforts to increase the number of Black male mathematics teachers in U.S. schools.