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Purpose: This study examines the effect of uncertainties on the hospitality industry from different perspectives across the globe. The hospitality industry faces several contemporary issues and challenges that have the potential to impact its growth and development. This study aims to analyse the current problems and uncertainties in the hospitality sector.

Need for the Study: The hospitality industry plays a significant role in the global economy with various services, including accommodation, food and beverage, events, and tourism. However, the sector faces several contemporary issues and challenges that have the potential to impact its growth and development. This study provides an overview of the most significant problems and challenges facing the hospitality industry today.

Methodology: A systematic literature review was conducted to identify and synthesise relevant studies on the effect of uncertainties issues on the hospitality industry. A systematic search of the Web of Science and Scopus databases was conducted to determine relevant studies published between 2010 and 2021. Studies were screened and selected based on pre-defined inclusion and exclusion criteria. A thematic analysis was performed to categorise the uncertainties and issues in the hospitality industry.

Findings: The study identified several uncertainties and issues facing the hospitality industry, including the pandemic uncertainties, financial crisis, whether positive and negative impacts, terrorism attacks on hotels and tourist places, uncertainties in government policies, situational risks like uncertainties, ambiguity, cultural differences, changes in tourist preferences and changing habits of the tourist.

Rapid technological change in the transport sector is leading to a growing range of potential and actual ‘business models’ deployable for the movement of goods and people. Two key uncertainties arise from this proliferation: first, concerning which ones can be economically viable, and, second, whether they can be both simultaneously economically viable and contribute to the imperatives of more sustainable mobility. The present chapter reviews and appraises the emergence of these new business models, drawing on both literature review and empirical research with entrepreneurs involved in the new mobility sector. Specifically, the potential of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (UN, n.d.) as a device to structure and frame the debate about what constitutes a valuable contribution to sustainable mobility is considered. A framework is developed which captures how mobility and transport have dependencies with the SDGs. From this analysis, key sustainability concepts are derived which have either a subsistence function (maintaining the basics of human life) or an enhancement function (enabling citizens to realise their potential whilst reducing impacts on the planet). Five different innovations involving mobility sector business entrepreneurship are then characterised using this framework to exemplify its ability to deconstruct and test claims that ‘smart mobility’ is also good for sustainability as well as good for business. It is concluded that the framework could contribute to a wider architecture of sustainability interrogation. It could promote discourse around a wide range of actors, posing questions and surfacing tensions and contingencies effectively, whilst providing a holistic, strategic assessment to inform more targeted, scientific evaluations of sustainability metrics.

China’s foreign aid efforts in Africa remain contentious. Chinese foreign aid tends to be different from “traditional” development assistance in that it frequently involves firms as the implementing agents of projects. Firms bring unique resources to public–private partnerships (PPPs) formed with government agencies, but their possible self-interested nature also gives rise to concerns over their development impact. Yet, on a larger scale, little is known about the characteristics of Chinese PPPs in foreign aid. Using project-level data available for 1,308 Chinese aid projects in 50 countries across Africa, the author characterizes the projects undertaken by firms and government agencies in a PPP and contrasts them to those executed by Chinese government agencies without firm involvement. This exploratory data analysis suggests that important differences apply, as Chinese PPPs tend to target different sustainable development goals (SDGs), work on the basis of distinct aid conditions, and implement projects that tend to be larger than those that are solely run by government agencies. Such observations raise important questions of an ethical, theoretical, and international nature, and warrant further research. The author develops a research agenda that aims at issues particularly important for business ethics scholars, organization theorists, and international business scholarship.

Multinational enterprises (MNEs) own and control technological resources and capabilities that make them critical actors in accelerating the transition toward net zero. Even beyond the energy sector, stakeholders are putting increasing pressure on MNEs to reduce the carbon intensity of their operations, that is, to improve their carbon performance. While there is unambiguous evidence that national climate policy is a critical catalyst for long-term carbon performance improvements, there is limited research on how MNEs’ carbon strategies react to climate policies. This chapter reviews the concepts, drivers, and strategies connected to carbon performance in the broader sustainability and management literature to clarify potential complementarities to international business (IB). The authors then highlight how MNEs will face increasing institutional complexity along two dimensions: (1) the structural diversity of institutional environments and (2) institutional dynamism, primarily reflected by public policy. The proposed conceptual framework maps these two dimensions to national and subnational levels, and the authors present two data sources that allow the quantitative analysis of country differences in the diversity and dynamism of national climate policy. The authors conclude that there are ample opportunities for IB researchers to explore MNEs’ strategic reactions to climate policy and to inform policymakers about the consequences of national climate policy in the global economy.

The current study aims to analyze the role of International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) in sustainability issues and its impact on the attitude of practitioners (auditors) in industrial companies. The current study relies on the analytical method, one of the tools of the inductive approach, by examining the literature of researchers, international and local organizations, publications, series, alerts, and topics dealt with by the IFAC, as well as reviewing studies, theoretical and applied research, periodicals, books, and statistics. And specialized publications for this subject, which is related to other sciences – such as – environmental science, economic, and political sciences. The study reached many results, the most important of which are: (1) The first half of the current decade has seen high interest from the IFAC, has led to the issuance of International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB) international standard on assurance engagements 3410, (GHG) Statements. (2) Sustainability has become important to a growing number of enterprises, and may have a significant influence, in certain cases, the financial statements, also became the sustainability of the topics under increasing attention from users of financial statements. Thus, the financial statements will need a practitioner to take into consideration sustainability issues and a private greenhouse gas when auditing the financial statements. This study is distinguished by analyzing the role of the IFAC and the IAASB for the period from 1998 to 2023 regarding sustainability issues.

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in economic and financial hardships on firms, forcing them to make tough decisions regarding their social and ethical behavior. The purpose of this study is to examine whether the COVID-19 pandemic affected the corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance and disclosures of the US S&P 500 firms. In particular, this study examined the relationship between both CSR performance and COVID-19 and the relationship between CSR disclosures and COVID-19 along with the dimensions of environmental, social, and governance. Using t-tests and panel data analysis for the years 2018 through 2021, we found that CSR performance and CSR disclosure increased after the start of the pandemic for total CSR and for the dimensions of environmental, social, and governance. We also found that CSR performance was impacted by a larger change than CSR disclosures for all dimensions of CSR. This study is one of the first to examine the impact of COVID-19 on CSR and helps stakeholders understand the role that it played on firm decisions. The results further illustrate the importance that firms’ managements place on CSR performance and disclosures, even during a time of significant challenge and uncertainty.

This study investigates how firms’ awareness of sustainability affects the revision of their internationalization strategy. Adopting a resource-based view (RBV) approach, the authors argue that sustainable-oriented firms have a higher propensity to de-internationalize (i.e., to go back to their home country) when confronted with the need to relocate foreign manufacturing subsidiaries, as the shortening of value chains would allow the reduction of transportation emissions and enhanced corporate image as green-oriented entities. Furthermore, the authors explore the role exerted by a stringent regulatory setting in the home country on the likelihood of de-internationalization. The empirical test conducted on a sample of relocations performed across European nations in 2002–2014 reveals that multinational enterprises (MNEs) – regardless of their sustainability orientation – have a higher probability to de-internationalize when their home countries have strict institutional contexts in place.

Early studies projected potential societal, economic and environmental benefits by the widespread deployment of Autonomous and Connected Transport (ACT) promising a significant reduction of transport costs and improvement in road safety. An effective way of assessing ACT impact is via simulations, where results are largely affected by the scenarios defining the ACT development. However, modelled scenarios are very diverse due to the huge uncertainty in ACT development and deployment. This chapter aims to shed light on the different ACT simulation scenarios and sustainability aspects that should be considered while developing or reporting the simulation results. To this end, this chapter discusses the various simulation approaches, what the required (or the typically utilised) pipelines are, and how some components are more important or less important than in ‘classic’ modelling and simulation approaches. Special focus is dedicated to the uncertainty related to ACT operational parameters and how these will impact transport modelling. To address said uncertainty, an analysis of current approaches to scenario building is provided, as the chapter guides the reader through different methodologies and clusters them in relation to the desired indicators. Finally, the chapter identifies and proposes Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that are useful when applying simulation tools to assess ACT scenarios. These KPIs can be used for simulation scenario development to test particular sustainability aspects of ACT deployment and relevant policies.