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This paper aims to analyse extant literature on open data, distinguish and categorize the strands of public accountability research and use the results to provide better clarity in the concept of open data-driven public accountability.

Systematic review of 135 open data articles and 155 accountability articles from the e-government reference library. A multi-stage analysis results in 12 articles which are categorized using Bovens’ (2007) accountability theory of information, discussion and consequences. Conceptual development, using the literature analysis, forms the final section of the paper.

Research demonstrates that a range of open data topics has been advanced. However, just 12 articles exist that simultaneously address open data and accountability theory. Of the total 155 public accountability articles, the preponderant focus is on the information (N = 25) and discussion (N = 7) stages of the accountability process. Just one article focuses on the complete accountability process. To address this problem, the characterization of open (government) data-driven public accountability establishes conceptual crispness and clarity.

Public accountability theory on open government has become overshadowed by social and economic value perspectives. This paper clarifies and advances the open data-driven public accountability perspective. It takes stock of public accountability research, delimits the key issues and questions and highlights the next steps needed for developing scholarship.

This paper aims at contributing to the knowledge regarding the use of social software in corporate environments. It analyses, in an exploratory way, the perceptions of social software managers (specifically blogs and wikis) regarding the implementation processes and actual usage of this type of applications within their companies.

The paper follows a qualitative approach, with exploratory nature. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to collect social software manager's perceptions, and the resulting data were subjected to qualitative content analysis, from which several issues emerged and were analyzed.

According to managers' perceptions, social software applications are helping companies regarding, in particular, knowledge management, project management, and internal communication issues. On the other hand, it seems clear that companies (and managers) need to adopt participation incentives, establish usage rules, implement monitoring and evaluation instruments, and broaden the scope of usage beyond core business areas.

The analysis reflects the managers' perceptions expressed in semi-structured interviews made on a limited number of companies where most application users have technological academic formation or experience. Further research efforts should overcome these limitations by including a wide variety of companies (from other activity sectors), with a wider diversity of application user profiles. Also, input from application users should be taken into account in the analysis, as well as some quantitative indicators (regarding actual usage, for instance).

The paper contributes to the knowledge regarding the use of social software, namely blogs and wikis, in corporate environments, an area where further research is needed. The analysis and reported findings can be of value to managers responsible for social software implementation processes within corporations, helping them to reflect upon the issues that emerged.

Many governments are working toward a vision of government-wide transformation that strives to achieve an open, transparent and accountable government while providing responsive services. The purpose of this paper is to clarify the concept of transparency-by-design to advance open government.

The opening of data, the deployment of tools and instruments to engage the public, collaboration among public organizations and between governments and the public are important drivers for open government. The authors review transparency-by-design concepts.

To successfully achieve open government, fundamental changes in practice and new research on governments as open systems are needed. In particular, the creation of “transparency-by-design” is a key aspect in which transparency is a key system development requirement, and the systems ensure that data are disclosed to the public for creating transparency.

Although transparency-by-design is an intuitive concept, more research is needed in what constitutes information and communication technology-mediated transparency and how it can be realized.

Governments should embrace transparency-by-design to open more data sets and come closer to achieving open government.

Transparency-by-design is a new concept that has not given any attention yet in the literature.

This chapter presents a theoretical reflection on the possible impact of politicians' positive Word of Mouth (pWOM) on the tourists' risk perception and destination image of Portugal in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The reflection is based on the collection of remarks or comments made by international politicians collected using Google as the search engine and subsequent manual textual content analysis. The results show five recurring themes in the politicians' pWOM: general praise, pandemic numbers, politician positioning, health care and population attitude. The discussion includes a reflection on the outputs of the channels used for the dissemination of the messages and the importance of the politicians' countries of origin to a market strategy that highlights Portugal as a tourism destination.

We present a critical literature review debating Brazilian research on social and environmental accounting (SEA). The aim of this study is to understand the role of politics in the construction of hegemonies in SEA research in Brazil. In particular, we examine the role of hegemony in relation to the co-option of SEA literature and sustainability in the Brazilian context by the logic of development for economic growth in emerging economies. The methodological approach adopts a post-structural perspective that reflects Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory. The study employs a hermeneutical, rhetorical approach to understand and classify 352 Brazilian research articles on SEA. We employ Brown and Fraser’s (2006) categorizations of SEA literature to help in our analysis: the business case, the stakeholder–accountability approach, and the critical case. We argue that the business case is prominent in Brazilian studies. Second-stage analysis suggests that the major themes under discussion include measurement, consulting, and descriptive approach. We argue that these themes illustrate the degree of influence of the hegemonic politics relevant to emerging economics, as these themes predominantly concern economic growth and a capitalist context. This paper discusses trends and practices in the Brazilian literature on SEA and argues that the focus means that SEA avoids critical debates of the role of capitalist logics in an emerging economy concerning sustainability. We urge the Brazilian academy to understand the implications of its reifying agenda and engage, counter-hegemonically, in a social and political agenda beyond the hegemonic support of a particular set of capitalist interests.