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Throughout the world, women encounter strong patriarchal values that promote the virtue of women's chastity. Within numerous conservative societies, such as certain regions of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the intactness of the hymen in a young woman is viewed as emblematic of her dignity, righteousness, and pride. Participants in our investigations highlighted that hymen rupture stigma remains prevalent in many parts of Pakistan, often leading to social consequences or disapproval of women who want to participate in sports. Additionally, participants disclosed that some women had internalized the hymen rupture stigma, and families might reinforce it. This chapter contributes to the limited scholarship concerning how social norms, hymen rupture stigma, and family values influence Muslim women's participation or lack of participation in sports in Pakistan.

For decades, the fast population growth worldwide was interrelated with the adopted rapid lifestyle behavior that relies on the extensive use of fossil fuels. This primary energy source has caused various urban and environmental impacts, such as global warming, air pollution, and so forth. Consequently, the identified circumstance issues have caused many health, social, and economic hindering effects for global citizens. It poses an existential threat to humanity and the global earth's ecosystem. The alarming levels of urban pollution emissions are putting enormous challenges to the related stakeholders (governments, businesses, investors, automakers, and citizens) to admit the need to decarbonize the global economy and reach sustainable development goals (SDGs) for cleaner and smarter cities across borders. As such, a vital part of a smart city is the transport sector. The road transport sector, precisely, is one of the primary consumers of fossil fuels that contribute to high carbon dioxide emissions. Accordingly, it is essential to adopt novel and sustainable urban transport solutions and promote the achievement of the SDG's eleventh goal for sustainable cities and communities. This chapter provides insight into the present global energy situation with particular attention to the road transport sector. Indeed, it highlights different emerging technologies for a sustainable and smart urban mobility future that will mitigate the environmental situation thanks to the development of drive and internet telecommunication technologies. Furthermore, we aim in this chapter to study the international progress of the transition project using the Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental, and Legal (PESTEL) analysis methodology. This study is to pinpoint opportunities for project development and the challenges that set back its evolution.

This article reconstructs the conditions under which displaced persons are integrated into their workplaces with their hosts. It identifies the characteristics of this pathway and provides guidance on the support that should be provided to these people. This support is part of social responsibility. Theories on professional integration/labour market integration (LMI) have been categorised and then arranged in a logical order to determine the stages of this integration. Theories on professional integration support for refugees were also reviewed and examined in relation to this categorisation. Six stages characterise professional integration: getting a job, its sustainability and its wage adequacy, its security and sustainability, career continuity and employability, the fact of being a full and equal participant and being an integrated part of the workforce and the meaningfulness of that job. The level of professional integration marks the quality of this integration. Each level encompasses the previous levels. Displaced persons should be supported throughout their careers to go beyond technical and behavioural skills and take a more holistic view of their tasks to find meaning in their work. While most research focuses on getting a job as a characteristic of occupational integration, this study found five other characteristics that were ordered. It also links vocational integration with social responsibility and provides guidance on how to help displaced people reach the final stage of this integration.

Women working in public relations (PR) in the 1990s developed the power of metamodern pragmatism to avoid being constrained in this decade of contradictions.

This was a time of promise for female empowerment and careers. The PR industry in Britain had quadrupled in size, yet increased feminisation and professionalisation did not resolve gender inequity. Indeed, alongside the existence of ‘old boys clubs’ and hedonistic macho agencies in the industry, the 1990s offered a lad's mag culture and an AbFab image of PR.

An original collaborative historical ‘Café Delphi’ method was developed using three themes (sex, sexuality and sexism) to explore women's careers and contributions in the expanding and increasingly powerful field of PR in the United Kingdom during the 1990s. It built on feminist critique of the industry and paradoxical portrayals of women resulting from significant changes in media, popular culture and a pluralistic marketplace.

Individual and collective experiences of women working in PR at the time reveal the power of attitudes to affect their ability to achieve equality and empowerment. Women navigated tensions between the benefits of accelerated pluralism and the patriarchal resistance in the workplace through performative choices and a deep sense of pragmatism.

While most West European nations were formed around pre-existing entities that could be called “countries” before the modern age, this was not the case in the Middle East. Some entities, like Egypt, did have a clear political and cultural identity before colonialism, others, like Algeria, did not. This chapter discusses the four states of the Maghreb: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya, through the perspective of “country creation” going into and coming out of colonial rule. We can see here two “models” of fairly similar types of historical development, one showing a gradual process through a protectorate period to relatively stable modern nations, another through violent conquest and direct colonization ending in violent liberation and military and wealthy but fragile states. The article asks whether these models for the history of country creation and the presence or absence of pre-colonial identities can help explain the modern history and nature of these states in the Arab Spring and the years thereafter. Then, a more tentative attempt is made to apply these models to two countries of the Arab east, Syria and Iraq. While local variations ensure that no model can be transferred directly, it can show the importance of studying the historical factors that go into the transition from geographical region to a country with people that can form the basis of a nation.

In an era where sustainability and digital transformation are becoming indispensable pillars of successful business operations, this chapter explores the potent synergy between these two paradigms. As businesses strive to align their operations with Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) goals, digital transformation emerges as a powerful enabler. This chapter delves into how digital technologies are not only revolutionizing traditional business models but are also paving the way toward more sustainable practices. From data-driven decision-making to improved resource management, this chapter discusses the diverse ways in which digital transformation contributes to sustainability. It also offers an in-depth analysis of real-world case studies, illustrating how businesses have successfully integrated digital transformation in their pursuit of sustainability. Recognizing the potential roadblocks, this chapter also addresses the challenges businesses may face in this journey, including cybersecurity risks, data privacy issues, and the need for technological literacy. It further presents strategies to navigate these challenges and underscores the importance of preparedness in managing potential risks. Finally, this chapter ventures into the future of digital transformation, evaluating current trends and predictions, and their potential impact on sustainable business practices.

This chapter presents the outcome of an empirical study titled ‘Knowledge Sharing and Transfer (KST) that Really Works: An exploration of KST in Sub-Saharan South African Public Sector Institutions’. Enablers of KST were explored through the lens of lived experiences of managers working at Gautrain Management Agency (GMA), a rail transport public sector operator in South Africa. Qualitative data were collected from 15 managers and analysed using Thematic and Trans Positional Cognition Approach (TPCA) qualitative analytical tools. Four themes, essential originating antecedent factors, complementary people enabling factors, organisational enabling factors and effective KST implementing factors emerged. Rahman’s KST model was adopted as a theoretical framework and used to better understand the study findings. The current study affirms two elements within the theoretical framework, namely, complementary people enabling factors and organisational enabling factors, while the remaining two, essential originating antecedent factors and effective KST implementing factors, were not affirmed. This study contributes a new KST framework that helps business managers understand KST from the South African public sector practitioners’ perspectives, which represents this study’s contribution to the business performance measurement body of knowledge and practice.