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This research note illuminates the ascent of so-called “learning pods”, a concept and phenomenon with close connections to civil society that rose to prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic. We begin by characterizing and positioning learning pods in the diverse U.S. K-12 educational landscape. Next, participation in, and intent to form/join, learning pods are depicted by reporting on secondary data from a population poll among a national sample of U.S. adults since the start of the 2020 academic school year to December 2021. The second half of the research note discusses how learning pods can help garner useful insights to existing nonprofit research and theory.

Civil courage refers to the behavior where people actively intervene to protect a victim in a concrete situation of injustice despite the risk of becoming a victim themselves. To act with civil courage, one requires competencies that relate to prosocial values as well as the physical and social ability to act. In this context, this brief reports the opinions of 2,046 respondents--representatives of Germany with respect to age, gender, and region--on what, according to them, are the best contexts for learning civil courage. "At home and/or from family" as well as "through volunteering" are considered the most suitable contexts to learn civil courage. In contrast, television, social media, and the internet are considered the least supportive contexts.

We investigate whether the perceived ethicalness of police actions changes when police follow an AI-robot's advice. We assess whether perceived ethicalness of police violence is higher when police follow robot advice to arrest a passer-by, compared to no robot advice to arrest the passer-by. Using neutralization theory, we test how blame-shifting occurs. When police violently arrest an innocent passer-by, the violence is neutralized when the decision was made following the AI-robot. Perceived ethicalness of police violence is higher when the passer-by is a terrorist, and police violence against a passer-by is neutralized through 'denial of victim' and 'denial of injury'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research note illuminates the ascent of so-called "learning pods", a concept and phenomenon with close connections to civil society that rose to prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic. We begin by characterizing and positioning learning pods in the diverse U.S. K-12 educational landscape. Next, participation in, and intent to form/join, learning pods are depicted by reporting on secondary data from a population poll among a national sample of U.S. adults since the start of the 2020 academic school year to December 2021. The second half of the research note discusses how learning pods can help garner useful insights to existing nonprofit research and theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public sector professions are highly gender‐dominant (e.g., police officers, teachers) and determined not only by professionals but also by gender roles. According to the role congruity theory, these social roles result in perceived (in)congruities between the jobholders' gender and gender‐dominant professions. This research investigates this intersection for several professions. Throughout three large‐scale surveys (conducted in Austria), we first document the gender dominance of various public sector professions, and further analyze the effects from (in)congruities in gender‐dominant professions. The findings are two‐fold: First, for police officers, firefighters, politicians, nurses, and teachers, (in)congruities of job‐holder's gender with gender dominance of the profession result in positive (negative) ascriptions of job‐related traits. However, (in)congruity effects are not confirmed for other gender‐dominant professions outside the public sector. Second, no (in)congruity effects are found for perceived professionalism. Findings are important for policy makers, as well as recruiters and employers who aim to reduce gender‐related disadvantages within public sector employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although absenteeism is a key concern in most western societies, research on reducing absenteeism in public sector organizations is scarce, particularly regarding the impact of organizational relationships. By building on the concept of workplace social capital (WSC) and using a large longitudinal cohort of Danish municipal employees, this study shows that three types of WSC (bridging, direct-leader-linking, and top-level-linking WSC) reduce absenteeism, while there is no significant effect of bonding WSC. Our empirical results further suggest that the relationships with the immediate leader and the top management (direct-leader-linking and top-level-linking WSC) are most important for employees' absenteeism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past 20 years, as the study of transparency has evolved into a burgeoning multidisciplinary field, nonprofit scholars have developed an impressive body of research on the antecedents and outcomes of the transparency of nonprofit organizations (NPOs). From both theoretical and practical purposes, it is necessary to develop an overall picture of such antecedents and outcomes, to allow scholars and NPOs to understand why, when, and how transparency should be implemented. Current studies provide a fragmented view, focused on specific elements of NPO transparency; with a systematic literature review of 76 articles, this article offers both an integrative framework of the antecedents and outcomes of NPO transparency and an agenda for research, based on a critical analysis of the integrative framework. Four relevant research orientations emerge: (1) direction of NPO transparency, (2) distinguishing actual from perceived transparency, (3) the dark side of NPO transparency, and (4) NPO transparency contingency factors. Research along these four orientations could add nuance to existing knowledge of transparency and provide key insights with regard to why, when, and how transparency works. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on privacy calculus theory, we derive hypotheses on the role of perceived usefulness and privacy risks of artificial intelligence (AI) in public services. In a representative vignette experiment (n = 1,048), we asked citizens whether they would download a mobile app to interact in an AI-driven public service. Despite general concerns about privacy, we find that citizens are not susceptible to the amount of personal information they must share, nor to a more anthropomorphic interface. Our results confirm the privacy paradox, which we frame in the literature on the government's role to safeguard ethical principles, including citizens' privacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]