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Strategic decision importance has rarely been investigated as a decision-specific characteristic in the strategic decision-making process (SDMP) literature taking into consideration information management while taking important strategic decisions. Here, the ability of decision importance to predict decision effectiveness as an outcome of SDMPs in higher education institutions (HEIs) is examined in the context of Bahrain.

A conceptual model is developed relating decision importance to decision effectiveness indirectly via the SDMP characteristics intuition, rationality and decentralization. Data from a cross-sectional questionnaire completed by leaders of HEIs and academics involved in strategic decision-making in Bahrain are used to test the model and hypotheses via correlation analysis. The paper also considers a literature review of the use of information management while taking a strategic decision.

Decision importance is shown to positively influence decision effectiveness in Bahraini HEIs mediated by rationality and by decentralization in decision-making, although negative effects of decentralization are also demonstrated. However, decision importance does not influence decision effectiveness mediated by intuition.

Due to the small sample size, the results cannot be generalized to contexts beyond HEIs in Bahrain. Additional SDMP characteristics of significance in the context of HEIs could be future investigated, for instance, political behaviour and lateral communication, are not included in the model. Future research exploring the latter two aspects could provide deeper insight into the findings.

The findings of this paper could be considered by HEIs senior management and members of the governing body while strategic decision-making, which could be at different levels, including strategic planning or assessing a strategic decision in terms of effectiveness. This paper will also provide insight one the use of information while considering strategic decision-making.

A model leading for effective strategic decision-making could be used by leaders of HEIs and regulators including licensing bodies and QA agencies to set standards for HEIs for sustainable performance and quality education in line with United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and Initiative. Strategic decision-making will have an impact on the overall performance of HEIs and serve all relevant stakeholder’s including parents, students, employers and industry.

Little research conducted in relation to strategic decision-making in the Gulf Cooperation Council therefore, this research will add original findings and the outcome of this study will lead to future research related to SDMP and the use of information management in the overall strategic decision-making.

Given the systemic nature of climate change, there are many interdependencies between its primary components and feedback loops, emphasising the need to simultaneously consider the stock market implications of physical and transitional climate-related risks. More importantly, carbon emissions are expected to be reduced through various transition pathways. However, transitional climate risks have been validated as capable of predicting stock market behaviour, hence the motivation for the role of technology shocks.

We use a GARCH-MIDAS model to examine the relationship between climate change and stock return volatility since it enables data analysis at various frequencies within the same framework. We employ a novel dataset to track technology shocks, and the study spans decades of data from 1880 to 2018.

We find that the relationship between climate change and stock return volatility is episodic and varies with different degrees of intensity of high-temperature anomalies and technology shocks. Our results suggest that policy actions should include investing in climate technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and encouraging investment in eco-friendly assets.

There has been little or no consideration for the probable complementary effects of physical and transition climate-related risks on stock markets. Hence, the novelty in the context of this study is the hypothesis that transitional risks, if explored from the point of view of technological innovations, can moderate the stock market’s vulnerability to physical climate risks.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the evolution of interconnectedness of European insurers among themselves, as well as with other non-financial firms, for the period 2000–2021 and to analyze the stock return movements around the costliest catastrophic events (hurricanes) in the past two decades.

This paper follows the “simple” approach of Patro et al.(2013) and examines the daily stock return correlations of the largest 30 insurers and the largest 30 non-financial firms headquartered in Europe. In addition, the study uses event study methodology to examine stock return movements around the costliest hurricanes.

We find that the European insurance sector has become highly interconnected during the past two decades; however, its increasing connectedness with non-financial firms is limited to a few firms. In addition, we find weak evidence of the destabilizing effects of catastrophic events on European insurers and non-financial firms; however, the potential for cat risk contagion effects exists as the insurance industry becomes heavily interconnected.

The extant literature is largely concerned with the contribution of the insurance sector to the systemic risk of the financial sector. We focus on a specific region (Europe) and analyze the evolution of interconnectedness of the largest insurers within the insurance sector as well as with the largest non-financial firms encapsulating important crisis periods. In addition, we relate to the literature that examines the market reactions around catastrophic events to test the relevance of traditional insurance activities in instigating potential contagion shocks.

The objective of this study is to explore the level of understanding and actions taken by the people of Gurugram (erstwhile Gurgaon) to mitigate the impact of climate change, given its critical importance as a global issue.

Using a qualitative approach, primary data were collected through in-depth interviews by means of semi-structured interview methods.

The findings indicate that while people are aware of climate change, the information is deficient for them to translate their knowledge into effective action. Some of the major challenges identified are lack of appropriate understanding, resources, education, motivation and government initiatives, as well as the old habits, peer influence, feeling of incapability and limited media exposure. To bridge the intention-action gap, it is recommended that people should be empowered to act desirably. There is a change need for awareness and education on ways to mitigate the effects of climate change. The study has implications for researchers, environmentalists, policymakers, non-government organizations and local residents of Gurugram.

This study provides unique insights into the understanding of climate change by the general public and challenges faced in taking pro-environment actions. It emphasizes the urgent need to create awareness and educate individuals about ways to mitigate the impact of climate change.

The American National Red Cross is in many ways the iconic symbol for disaster response and recovery. The organization, founded in 1881, has a long track record for coming to the aid of those in need in the wake of wars, natural disasters, and other crises. However, in the wake of recent disasters, the Red Cross has been criticized for underperforming. By combining the literature on bureaucracy in Austrian economics and the literature on monocentricity in the work of Vincent Ostrom and Elinor Ostrom, we provide an analysis of the Red Cross that helps explain the organization’s evolution over time and that also yields implications for disaster management more broadly. Specifically, the Red Cross is a bureaucracy that has become increasingly centralized and rigid as it has become further enmeshed with governmental responsibilities.

Will Florida’s agriculture adapt to climate change? Climate disruptions to agriculture and natural resources in Florida are projected to increase in the future. These impacts will be increasingly negative because critical thresholds are being exceeded. This chapter discusses how Florida’s agriculture and natural resources may be affected by climate change in the coming decades.

Agriculture will be affected by invasive alien species, sea-level-rise flooding, and storm surges. A warmer, drier climate will place agriculture in competition with other users for limited water resources. A serious concern for agriculture is that rising sea level will cause coastal groundwater to become more saline and groundwater levels to rise. The loss of coastal wetlands increases the risk of catastrophic damage due to extreme weather events. Degradation of soil and water assets due to increasing extremes in precipitation will challenge both rainfed and irrigated agriculture without the implementation of innovative conservation methods. High night-time temperatures can reduce grain yields and animal-sourced production. Climate change also increases the vulnerability of forests to ecosystem changes due to decreased soil moisture and increased evapotranspiration. The practical implications are that increased innovation will be needed to ensure the adaptation of agriculture and the associated socioeconomic system can keep pace with climate change. Given the difficulties in predicting our future climate, we must develop new risk-transfer innovations that will facilitate damage recovery. Changes in agricultural yields and food prices could have important implications for food security.

Austrian insights on the limits of central planning, the pervasiveness of knowledge problems, and the importance of the entrepreneur in coordinating social change have yielded substantive contributions to the literature on how individuals and communities respond to both natural and unnatural, or manmade, disasters. Austrian economists have examined the political economy of natural disasters, disaster relief and recovery efforts, the economic effects of extended wars, post-conflict societal reconstitution, and the effectiveness of humanitarian aid. This literature advances two main findings: (1) that centralized governments are likely to be ineffective at providing the goods and services that are necessary for community recovery and (2) that decentralized efforts are better suited to address the needs of society, to discover the best course of action for producing and distributing these goods and services, and to adapt to changing needs, circumstances, and technology. This paper examines the Austrian theories utilized to examine disasters, provides a summary of the recent research on both natural and unnatural disasters, and proposes areas for future research.

It is a well-known fact that economic development and rise in the volume of trade due to globalization have led to more production which has further led to the increase in the emission of carbon dioxide in the environment. Under the backdrop, the aim of this chapter is to examine the relationships among per capita CO₂ emissions as the proxy for exploitation of the environment with international trade and per capita GDP in India. It analyzed cointegration and short-run causal relationships between the variables based on a time series data set for the period of 1979–2018. The data found to be stationary at first integration; hence the researchers ran cointegration. The study found that the carbon emissions are an outcome of economic growth and more and more trade with the foreign countries.

Climate change is a massive multidimensional shift. Temperature shifts, in particular, have important implications for urbanization, agriculture, health, productivity, and poverty, among other things. While much research has documented rising mean temperature levels, the authors also examine range-based measures of daily temperature volatility. Specifically, using data for select US cities over the past half-century, the authors compare the evolving time series dynamics of the average daily temperature (AVG) and the diurnal temperature range (DTR; the difference between the daily maximum and minimum temperatures). The authors characterize trend and seasonality in these two series using linear models with time-varying coefficients. These straightforward yet flexible approximations provide evidence of evolving DTR seasonality and stable AVG seasonality.

The unorganised manufacturing sector contributes one third share of overall manufacturing employment and one fifth share of gross value added of the manufacturing sector. Despite its important role in large-scale employment generation, this sector is neglected by the researchers as well as by the policy makers as compared to the focus given on the organised manufacturing sector. The issues of energy intensity, environment emissions and growth of unorganised manufacturing enterprises (UMEs) remain unexplored. The present chapter attempts to estimate the CO₂ emission and emission intensity (EI) across UMEs on the basis of NSSO Unit Level data of 62nd, 67th and 73rd rounds. It also analyses the growth of UMEs in relation to CO₂ emission and EI. The nature of the sector is very much dispersed. Our study reveals that a portion of unorganised enterprises did not use any energy in their production activities and used manually operated instruments like – handlooms, weaving machines, hand-operated oil and rice mills, etc. The main energy inputs of UMEs are electricity and fuel & lubricants. The CO₂ emission is relatively less in UMEs compared to organised manufacturing enterprises. Across the unorganised manufacturing industries, the higher CO₂ emission are observed in manufacturing of food product industry and other non-metallic mineral industry. The study found that CO₂ EI of UMEs depends on firm-level characteristics like perennial nature, establishment type, urban location and expanding growth status. However, capital intensive UMEs are more polluting.