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We explore how NGO’s local entrepreneurial initiatives to empower women entrepreneurs can compensate for weak state policies for women in a context of male-dominated socio-cultural norms.

We use the case of a local entrepreneurial initiative launched in the Atlas region of Morocco, the Empowering Women in the Atlas Initiative (EWA). We collected data through 51 semi-structured interviews of women entrepreneurs in three cooperatives which exploit the natural resources of their region to establish a social venture. Our data are longitudinal as they were collected at two time periods: before and after the initiative.

The findings of this study suggest that local entrepreneurial initiatives can have a significant impact on rural women entrepreneurs’ empowerment. The improved perception of empowerment has not only helped them develop capacities to leverage the business opportunities linked to the natural resources of their region, but it has also increased their status and role within their family and community.

We make recommendations for policymakers to encourage this type of initiative to compensate for the absence of supporting policies geared toward women.

Our study is one of the first to look at empowerment as a policy instrument to develop women entrepreneurial activities in rural areas of developing countries. Our paper uses a unique hierarchical perspective and a multidimensional framework for analyzing social cooperative ventures and rural women entrepreneurs’ empowerment. Our paper unravels interesting insights for women entrepreneurs’ narration strategies.

With the rapid diffusion of the metaverse into all aspects of businesses and the education industry, scholars have predominantly focused on examining its projected benefits and harms, yet have overlooked to empirically explore its unpredictable nature, which offers an exciting realm of unexplored challenges and opportunities.

This research adopts a qualitative research design in the form of 24 interviews from a single EdTech to investigate the possibility of unexpected developments resulting from the integration of the metaverse into its solutions.

Three noteworthy observations have emerged from the analysis: technological obsolescence, resource allocation imbalance, and monoculturalism.

This research pioneers an empirical exploration of the latent outcomes stemming from metaverse adoption within EdTechs, while also introducing a novel theoretical framework termed “meta-governance,” which extends the Edu-Metaverse ecosystem.

The exponential growth of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, coupled with advanced algorithms and increased computational capacity, has facilitated their widespread adoption in various industries. Among these, the financial technology (FinTech) sector has been significantly impacted by AI-based decision-making systems. Nevertheless, a knowledge gap remains regarding the intricate mechanisms behind the micro-decision-making process employed by AI algorithms. This paper aims to discuss the aforementioned issue.

This research utilized a sequential mixed-methods research approach and obtained data through 18 interviews conducted with a single FinTech firm in France, as well as 148 e-surveys administered to participants employed at different FinTechs located throughout Europe.

Three main themes (ambidexterity, data sovereignty and model explainability) emerge as underpinnings for effective AI micro decision-making in FinTechs.

This research aims to minimize ambiguity by putting forth a proposition for a model that functions as an “infrastructural” layer, providing a more comprehensive illumination of the micro-decisions made by AI.

This research pioneers as the very first empirical exploration delving into the essential factors that underpin effective AI micro-decisions in FinTechs.