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Introduction: The idea of sustainability has become increasingly popular across many industries. To meet the demands of the present without compromising the capacity of future generations to meet their requirements, sustainable organisations prioritise integrating environmental, social, and economic aspects into their operations.

Purpose: To analyse the inter-relationship between sustainable organisations, high-potential employees (HPEs), and blended learning (BL) effectiveness. Organisations can gain a competitive edge, spur innovation, and contribute to a more sustainable and inclusive future by incorporating sustainability into their operations and offering sustainable workspaces.

Design/methodology/approach: This research approach offers a thorough understanding of the connections between sustainable organisations, HPEs, and workspaces by combining a literature review of 77 research papers, case studies, and surveys.

Findings: The dedication to sustainability draws high-potential workers and environmentally aware customers who favour supporting socially conscientious businesses.

Practical implications: The study provides valuable implications and suggestions for businesses looking to improve their sustainability and recruit top talent. These proposals should include the techniques for integrating sustainability into organisational culture, employee engagement programmes, talent recruiting and retention tactics, and designing environmentally friendly workspaces.

Originality/value: This research approach offers a thorough understanding of the connections between sustainable organisations, HPEs, and workspaces by combining literature reviews, case studies, surveys, interviews, and data analysis.

The changing roles of the United Nations (UN) and national institutions have made addressing climate change a critical concern for many multinational enterprises’ (MNEs) survival and growth. This chapter discusses how such institutions, which vary in their nature and characteristics, shape firm strategies for climate change adaptation. Exploring different versions of institutional theory, the chapter demonstrates how and why institutional characteristics affect typical patterns of firm ownership, governance, and capabilities. These, in turn, influence companies’ internationalisation and climate-change strategies. Climate change poses challenges to how we understand firms’ strategic decisions from both an international business (IB) (HQ–subsidiary relations) and global value chains (GVC) (buyer–supplier relations) perspective. However, climate change also provides opportunities for companies to gain competitive advantages – if firms can reconfigure and adapt faster than their competitors. Existing IB and GVC research tends to downplay the importance of climate change strategies and the ways in which coherent or dysfunctional institutions affect firms’ reconfiguration and adaptation strategies in a globally dispersed network of value creation. This chapter presents a perspective on the institutional conditions that affect firms’ climate change strategies regarding ownership, location, and internalisation (OLI), and GVCs, with ‘investment’ and ‘emerging standards’ playing a significant role. The authors illustrate the discussion using several examples from the Global South (i.e. Bangladesh) and the Global North (i.e. Denmark, Sweden, and Germany) with a special emphasis on the garment industry. The aim is to encourage future research to examine how a ‘business systems’, or varieties of capitalism, institutional perspective can complement the analysis of sustainability and climate change strategies in IB and GVC studies.

Purpose: This chapter aims to enlighten the stakeholders on the role and contribution and the issues and challenges of large-scale industries in the wake of the globally unified economies.

Need for the study: Large-scale industries are one of the pillars of any nation and can exercise an immense impact on the numerous facets of the economy of any country. Their role and contribution can benefit all the stakeholders, especially in today’s integrated and interdependent world economies. Hence, there is an absolute need to highlight the issues and challenges and suggest measures to overcome them to promote a resilient global economy.

Methodology: The study gathered data from secondary sources like textbooks, articles, and the internet.

Findings: The findings of the study state that large-scale industries are enormous contributors to employment creation, development of the economy, growth of revenue, research and development (R&D) and innovation, export promotion, and infrastructure. The significant challenges include regulatory compliance, workforce management, economic volatility, political instability, supply chain management, environmental compliance, and technology and infrastructure.

Protectionism, deregulation, public–private partnership, privatisation, and environmental regulation are significant government decisions that affect large-scale industries. The study identifies tax incentives, easy access to financing, and domestic and international trade policies to safeguard large-scale industries’ interests.

Practical implications: Large-scale industries contribute towards the growth of global economic resilience in terms of employment generation, technological advancements, and innovation, fostering international trade in today’s interconnected world.

It's no longer a secret that a hassle-free life and better human development index are only possible in smart cities with appropriate and efficient deployment of artificial intelligence (AI)-based technologies where the best results of data analysis are being used. Technology is becoming more productive using circular economy while employing all the dimensions of AI where integration of results is being incorporated as an outcome of data analysis received from different segments i.e., Traffic Management, Public Safety, and Movement, Security and surveillance, Waste Management Systems, or the Energy Management, etc. This chapter specifically talks about areas where AI is facing challenges in the implementation and administration of smart cities while covering the intrinsic challenges faced in specialized domains such as Public Sanitation, Virtual Parking Management, Traffic Congestion, Security Surveillance, and many more discussed as case study relating to the functioning of the circular economy. In the last, we have summarized the impact of AI on the CE and its future scope where AI can play a better role in increased productivity, increased efficiency, robust safety and finally economic benefit for long-term stable economic stability, development and inclusive growth.

This study examines the complex array of impediments and potential advantages of the internet of things (IoT) associated with the shift towards enabling circular economy practices (CEP), motivated by the pressing necessity to address climate change and promote environmental sustainability. Based on an extensive review of scholarly sources, this study scrutinizes the technological, economic and societal challenges that ought to be addressed to attain a net-zero economy. Most outstandingly, it emphasizes the environmentally sustainable merits, potential for economic growth and improvements in societal well-being that can arise from this transition. It further depicts selected case studies to demonstrate sustainable empirical evidence and avails policy recommendations. The paradigm is to assist governments and other stakeholders in effectively managing human-associated challenges to attain increased sustainable value maximally. Finally, this highlights the utmost significance of tackling these challenges and capitalizing on opportunities to facilitate a sustainable, net-zero future that guarantees worldwide prosperity and ecological welfare.

This case concerns a family business in relation to renewable energy, property investment, construction services, civil engineering and mechanical and electrical engineering services. The family business was established by two founders who have subsequently appointed their children to handle the management side of the company. The case illustrates the importance of grooming founders' children with technical knowledge and skills in relation to the business area of specialisation. The case also reflects that an autocratic style of management by the founder can form a fragile organisation. When the founder becomes ill, trouble looms as everyone becomes lost when it comes to business direction particularly in times of unprecedented pandemic. This case shows what can happen when there is lack of communication, reasoning and succession planning can do to a family business.

Due to excessive carbon dioxide emissions, the world is facing environmental devastation. Energy and environmental innovations are considered to be critical tools in combating the growing CO₂ emissions. Developing these innovations requires extremely high investments in research and development processes, where knowledge is generated as one of the important outputs. This knowledge serves as a basis for innovation development and raising awareness among all relevant stakeholders about excessive environmental degradation. One of the significant sources of knowledge is scientific publications. Therefore, the aim of this research is to examine whether increased CO₂ emissions stimulate the scientific community to publish a greater number of papers, as well as whether the knowledge contained in these publications is utilized in reducing CO₂ emissions. The sample consists of G7 member countries. The time frame of the research is 1996–2019. The dynamic properties of the vector autoregression (VAR) models were summarized using impulse response function and variance decomposition forecast error. In most G7 countries, it has been determined that an increase in scientific production in environmental science and energy leads to a reduction in CO₂ emissions. On the other hand, increased CO₂ emissions affect higher scientific productivity in environmental science and energy only in Canada.