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Children’s emerging conceptions about literacy and its functions are influenced by their experiences with a wide range of written and oral literacies, including the use of digital technology, in their homes and communities. Now that mobile technologies have become intuitive to use, relatively inexpensive, small and easy to move around and networked, they have provided an entry point for transformations in the creation and sharing of texts – they are changing the way young children ‘do’ literacy. In this chapter, the authors discuss the ways that children learn about multimodal texts; how mobile technology can facilitate the reading, creation and sharing of multimodal texts in preschool and primary classrooms; the literacy skills necessary for reading multimodal texts, and; strategies for planning instruction into which multimodal texts and mobile devices are integrated. Examples of how children may engage in multimodal reading and writing in and out of the classroom are also provided.

Professional development interventions (PDIs) are crucial for equipping teachers to use data effectively. Relying on previous studies reporting on such interventions, this paper aims to identify and synthesise the goals, dimensions and conditions of PDIs for data use. This paper also examines the evidence of the effect of such interventions on student outcomes.

In this study, the authors employ a systematic literature review and meta-analysis to analyse teacher PDIs for data use.

The results suggest that conceptual, practical and continual goals are identified in data use PDIs. Supported by conceptual, practical or normative tools, facilitators employ a variety of techniques in facilitating teachers’ data use through data teams or professional learning communities. The facilitation techniques include assessing needs, using models or modelling, observing performance, providing feedback, providing built-in time for reflection and brokering. Further, the results highlight the influence of several conditions that contribute to the success of the interventions. Finally, the meta-analysis shows a significant positive effect of the interventions on student outcomes, with an effect size of 0.17.

The authors' proposed framework should be empirically tested and validated through field studies in various contexts. Since the authors focussed on studies reporting data use PDIs for instructional purposes as well as providing the descriptions of the PDIs, the number of included studies was only 27 and represented only four countries. Of the 27, 10 studies were used for the meta-analysis and the results may be subject to publication bias. Seemingly, the result may be related to the authors' inclusion/exclusion criteria that only included peer-reviewed journal articles and excluded non-peer-reviewed studies such as theses or dissertations. This criterion potentially neglected some relevant studies.

Policymakers interested in developing a data use PDI should take into account the various goals of data use PDIs, depending on policymakers' interests. Building teachers’ understanding of data use can be addressed by the practical goals. This can be conducted within a short period of time through training or courses, either in-person or online. This is appropriate for an initiation strategy for data use within schools. However, targeting specific skills and dispositional attributes around data use should adopt practical and continual goals. These types of goals require a PDI with a sustained duration embedded in teachers’ classroom practices; therefore, political and practical support is necessary.

The authors argue that the review findings contribute to knowledge and insights by presenting data use PDIs that support teacher learning, implementation and sustainability of data use practices.

This article provides a proposed framework for studying teacher PDIs for data use and sheds light on several goals, a variety of facilitation strategies and conditions and the effect of the interventions on student outcomes.

To examine the business case for corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the South African context.

A cross-sectional correlation research design involving quantitative and qualitative data.

The findings lend general support for the utility of business case oriented CSR strategic applications in the South African business context.

The small samples using accountancy students and high CSR performing companies restricted the generalizability of the findings. Also, the links between respondents’ propensity to purchase and actual purchasing behavior remained undetermined.

The chapter provides an empirically validated model measuring associations between individual perceptions of actual and expected CSP configurations with predilections to purchase products from a sample of high profile CSR multinational South African companies.

The results suggest the model’s cogency and lend general support to the utility of the business case strategy in the South African business context by showing associations between CSR company profiles and respondents’ intentions to purchase their goods and services.

The importance of CSR in providing social benefits in South African communities is reinforced by its strategic importance in offering business benefits to companies that invest in its implementation.

Development and empirical verification of a novel conceptual model in the South African business context.

The study reported in this chapter was designed to investigate how managers representing public relations (PR), human resources (HR), and corporate social responsibility (CSR) departments use their organizations’ CSR initiatives to attract, engage, and retain job-seeking Millennials. To direct attention to a region that has been plagued with employee attraction and retention issues, this study focused this phenomenon as experienced by organizations located in the state of Michigan. Findings identify ways PR, HR, and CSR departments work together to infuse work cultures with CSR thinking. Four main themes and 14 subthemes emerged among interview data – suggesting that employee recruitment activities should evolve to more fully consider CSR in terms of employee value propositions, organizational culture, and empowering and developing employees.

A prolific stream of research has demonstrated the unique potential of sports sponsorship to contribute to corporate image and to influence audiences around the world. Meanwhile, the concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has increasingly been identified in the literature for its potential to deliver a degree of competitive advantage. This paper builds on both these theoretical fields to develop a conceptual framework linking the effectiveness of sports sponsorship with the sponsors' CSR commitment to both employees and consumers.

Introduction The conventional method for the ex ante determination of the effectiveness of a proposed application of management science is, wherever possible, in cost benefit terms. This article argues that such a measure is inadequate and that several other factors need to be taken into account before a comparison between approaches may be made. In particular, the next section identifies three further basic structural factors controlling effectiveness in a particular organisational situation and hypothesises the general functional relationship. Each of these three factors is analysed to determine its make‐up and ways of changing it so as to contribute favourably to effectiveness.

This paper seeks to examine the growth, purpose and effectiveness of financial modelling, and classify financial models according to four basic characteristics examining advantages and disadvantages in each case. Consideration is given to the organisational impact of financial modelling and organisational requirements for the successful utilisation of these techniques.

This article describes the contrast between the clearly expressed and optimistic intentions of section 17 of the Children Act 1989, namely to produce a genuine service continuum that will promote and safeguard the welfare of children, and the reality of the post‐1989 implementation process. It shows how, over decades, perennial challenges have consistently skewed the balance between proactive family support services and reactive crisis‐driven responses in favour of the latter. Drawing on government‐commissioned evaluations, including two on out‐of‐home care and family centres respectively, the authors conclude that the Act has failed to change this balance for the better. Primary factors in this include inadequate funding and the risk‐averse responses of policy‐makers and politicians.