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This paper adds to the literature on societal grand challenges by shifting the focus away from business firms and other formal organizations as key actors in addressing such challenges toward the inherent organizing capacity that lies in the use of language itself. More specifically, we focus on the organizing capacities of metaphor-based communication, seeking to ascertain which qualities of metaphors enable them to co-orient collective action toward tackling grand challenges. In addressing this question, we develop an analytical framework based on two qualities of metaphorical communication that can provide such co-orientation: a metaphor’s (a) vividness and (b) responsible actionability. We illustrate the usefulness of this framework by assessing selected metaphors used in the public discourse to make sense of and organize collective responses to the Covid-19 pandemic, including the flu metaphor/analogy, the war metaphor, and the combined metaphor of “the hammer and the dance.” Our paper contributes to extant research by providing a means to assess the co-orienting potential of metaphors in bridging varied interpretations. In so doing, our framework can pave the way toward more responsible use of metaphorical communication in tackling society’s grand challenges.

The growth of online communities and social media has led to a growing need for methods, concepts, and tools for researching online cultures. Particular attention should be paid to polarizing online discussion cultures and dynamics that increase inequality in online environments. Social media has enormous potential to create good, but in order to unlock its full potential, we also need to examine the mechanisms keeping these spaces monotonous, homogenous, and even hostile toward some groups. With this need in mind, I have developed the concept and theory of othering online discourse (OOD).

This chapter introduces and defines the concept of OOD and explains the key characteristics and different attributes of OOD in relation to other concepts that deal with disruptive and discriminatory behavior in online spaces. The attributes of OOD are demonstrated drawing on examples gathered from the Finnish Suomi24 (Finland24) forum.

Informed by social representation theory, the study aims to explore how marketing workers represent their activities on social media.

A naturalistic data set of 17,553 messages posted on Twitter by advertising workers was collected. A sample of over 1,000 unique messages from this data set, incorporating all external links and images, was analysed inductively using structured thematic analysis.

Advertising workers represent marketing work as a series of fun yet constrained activities involving relationships with clients and colleagues. They engage in cognitive polyphasia by evaluating these productive differences in both a positive and negative light.

The study marks a novel use of social representation theory and innovative social media analysis. Further research should explore these relations in greater depth by considering the networks that marketing workers create on social media and establish how, when and why marketing workers turn to social media in their everyday activities.

Marketing workers choose to represent aspects of their work to one another, using social media. Marketing managers should support such activities and consider social media as a way to understand the lives and experiences of marketing workers.

Marketing researchers have embraced digital media as a route to understanding consumers. This study demonstrates the value of analysing digital media to develop an understanding of marketing work. It sheds new light on the ways marketing workers create social relationships and enables marketing managers to understand and observe the social aspects of effective marketing.

With the context of changing global and local populations and, for example, their composition and distribution, this paper offers insight to food shopping in later life with a focus on Nottingham and Nottinghamshire in the East Midlands. The work is relevant and important due to the specific population makeup of this area and the challenges in achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a result of population changes/challenges.

The work takes an interdisciplinary view and draws on literature from both social policy and social care and business and marketing. Using this work as a grounding, and insights to primary research from a wider study in this area, the paper offers discussion and comment on:

• the importance of food and food shopping in later life;

• issues of, and concerns for, health, well-being, identity and community maintenance and resilience (as a direct result of the challenge to SDG achievement); and

• the role(s) and responsibility of business from a core business and wider business/corporate responsibility perspective as a reflection of the above and findings of the work.

the importance of food and food shopping in later life;

issues of, and concerns for, health, well-being, identity and community maintenance and resilience (as a direct result of the challenge to SDG achievement); and

the role(s) and responsibility of business from a core business and wider business/corporate responsibility perspective as a reflection of the above and findings of the work.

Using primary research undertaken by the authors, the paper supports findings from existing work from across social policy and care and business and management – related to the practicalities, challenges and the role of and approaches to food shopping in later life. It specifically offers insight to the efforts made by older food shoppers to maintain their independence and support their choices in a context of interdependence (e.g. within a family, community and environment). The importance social aspects of food shopping (as a counter to isolation and loneliness for example) are also identified and how, for example, the actions of business(es) may undermine the efforts (and resilience) of individuals and communities. “Better” understanding of food shoppers by business and other stakeholders is promoted.

Unique among European Union (EU) economic governance entities and multilateral banks, the European Investment Bank (EIB) possesses a dual nature, as an EU body and a bank. The EIB has been ever evolving to adapt to policy and market developments and to reflect the geo-economic landscape. In 2019, in association with the EU's Green Deal, the bank announced its metamorphosis into a “Climate Bank,” ending its fossil fuel lending after 2021. Additionaly, upon the outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and its attendant health and economy crisis, EU decision-makers have solicited the bank to support both urgent needs for tackling and countering the spread of the disease and the post-pandemic economic recovery. Nevertheless, devastated economic actors in need of assistance fall within many sectors, including some less green ones.

This article is grounded on agency theory for developing a generic stakeholder framework, which is then subsequently applied in investigating the EIB, in interaction with its main stakeholders.

This article investigates the EIB stakeholders in pursuing these two seemingly contradictory objectives of exclusively restricting its activity to green funding and expanding its action for achieving a broad impact in the real economy. By exploring this tension, the article argues that by prioritizing the post-COVID restart, the EIB risks to deviate from its strict green commitment.

The analysis of the EIB's divergent stakeholder stances demonstrates some ambivalence in future EIB activity in an effort to equipoise climate finance with a post-pandemic boost. The same ambivalence might equally occur with other major economic governance actors. The stakeholder framework developed and applied in the case of the EIB can be useful for studying also the stakeholder dynamics of other organizations.

The analysis demonstrates a tension between selective climate-related funding for “building back better” and the need for a wide broaching of countercyclical stimulus, with implications for economic and social actors alike.

The approach is novel, as it develops a new analytical framework for understanding stakeholder dynamics and tests it empirically on the EIB. This constitutes the first study of EIB stakeholder management.

Much of the current literature on integrating sustainability into HEIs is focussed on why HEIs should embrace sustainable development (SD) and what is still missing or hindering work and the integration of efforts. There is much less exploration of how SD has been interpreted at the individual HEI level and action taken as a result. This case study reflects on important elements of the journey Nottingham Trent University (NTU) in the UK has taken to integrate sustainability, focussing on key decisions and activity in 2009/10. In highlighting this, the authors seek to empower those looking to support and/or lead the embedding of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), separately or as part of an integrated effort, in their own institution. Today in 2019, NTU is a global leader in integrating ESD as part of a wider SD agenda. The work which this paper presents, to understand and establish a baseline of key elements of NTU's existing ESD activity and systems, was an important turning point. Activities undertaken to review and assess “where are we now?”, primarily through an institution-wide survey in 2009/10, led to important insights and supported dialogue, as well as the connection and underpinning of core administrative elements of the NTU SD framework and systems. Further recommendations are given in the final section of this paper on other drivers that can help to embed ESD within an HEI.

Presently the whole world has been experiencing a pandemic threat of coronavirus diesease 2019 (COVID-19) and at the same time facing unprecedented changes in everything including education. E-learning has evolved as the only alternative of knowledge transmission even in third world nations, and e-assessment has been playing an increasingly important role in this digital transformation of education. But how far and of what depth it has made its place among students' minds need to be studied to leverage its full potential to transform students' learning needs. This study reports an investigation made in this direction.

An online survey consisting of 40 questions in Google Forms was conducted to collect primary data on students' perception of e-assessment among 200 Indian students pursuing higher education from several geographical locations. The quantitative methodological approach was followed. The data were analyzed descriptively and inferentially.

The results were analyzed based on the model of acceptance and usage of e-assessment (MAUE), and findings revealed that students' overall perception toward e-assessment was of moderate level and this perception varies depending on their gender, academic level, nature of the stream of study and their economic condition. Of the eight domains investigated, students showed better perception in the perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, compatibility, subjective norms and self-efficacy domains, while they cut a sorry figure in domains like awareness, resource facilitation and information technology (IT) support. It became evident from their responses that COVID was instrumental in enhancing their interest in e-assessment.

The implication of this study lies in strengthening e-assessment by attending to the factors as noted in the MAUE in India and alike developing nations having huge space left for e-learning to reach a boom.

This is an empirical investigation conducted in India on the state of students' perception of the e-assessment in the backdrop of the COVID-19 outbreak. To do this work, the authors conducted online surveys, and the write-up of the findings focus on the survey data only.

This paper aims to clarify whether assurance on non-financial corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports impacts the perceptions and decisions of banks as capital providers. The authors investigate the effects of the type of assurance provider and the level of assurance provided on decisions by banks to grant credit, make their own personal investments or recommend share purchases to their customers. The study aims to expand the domain of assurance on CSR reports (CSRR) by taking up a call by Cohen and Simnett (2015), who ask for behavioral research on how non-financial report’s intended users interpret and react to assurance.

The paper is based on an experiment case on a fictitious company with a 2 × 2 + 1 between-subjects design. To overcome concerns regarding external validity and to prove results in a real-world setting, the authors selected German bank directors as subjects due to the extremely high relevance of banks to the German economy. The authors investigated the perceptions of 69 bank directors and analyzed the influence of CSR assurance on their decisions.

The findings suggest that assurance positively influences confidence in CSRR and that, consequently, bankers are more likely to make favorable decisions toward the reporting companies, such as approving applications for credit, investing themselves in the company or recommending the purchase of shares to their clients. These effects are stronger when an accounting firm provides the assurance and when the assurance level is reasonable rather than limited.

The arguments presented are, strictly speaking, limited to the case in the experiment and the views held by the bank directors at the time the authors sent out the questionnaires. Moreover, the cell sizes are quite small. Nevertheless, the authors were able to find highly significant results.

The main implication of the paper is that the purchase of CSRR assurance services has a positive effect on bank directors’ perceptions and decisions. They favor the provision of such services by accounting firms and they prefer a reasonable assurance level. Thus, it can be concluded that bank directors perceive quality differences between assurance providers, are able to recognize the difference between reasonable and limited assurance and that the related information is relevant for their decisions.

This paper fulfils an identified need to study the influence of CSRR assurance on decisions by bank directors. The observation of a high decisions-usefulness of CSRR assurance suggests that regulators should consider mandating some form of assurance on non-financial reports throughout the EU member states.

Household food insecurity and poor well-being have increased during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and resulting lockdown measures. Home food growing has been associated with improved food access and well-being, but it is unknown what role it plays during food supply crises and lockdown. It is also unclear how home food growing and social restrictions may affect opinions about growing food in urban areas (i.e. urban agriculture; UA).

A cross-sectional online survey was conducted during the UK national lockdown in March-April 2020 to measure home food growing, perceived food insecurity, well-being, and opinions of UA. The participants were 477 UK-based adults (369 female, mean age 39.57 years ± 13.36); 152 participants were engaged in home food growing prior to the pandemic. Responses were compared to data collected from a separate sample of participants before the pandemic (N=583) to explore potential shifts in opinions about UA.

Participants who engaged in home food growing had lower levels of food insecurity (U_­=19894.50, z=−3.649, p<0.001, r=−0.167) and higher well-being (U=19566.50, z=−3.666, p<0.001, r=−0.168) than those not engaged in home food growing. Perceived food insecurity partially mediated the relationship between home food growing and well-being; home food growing was associated with less food insecurity, which in turn was associated with better well-being. There were no differences in opinions of UA compared to the sample of participants from before the pandemic.

Home food growing may have had a protective effect over perceived food security and well-being in the early stages the pandemic. Opinions of UA were positive and unchanged compared to data collected pre-pandemic. Policies that support home food growing and access to suitable growing spaces and resources may be beneficial for food system resilience and well-being.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the determinants of financial inclusion among women-owned informal enterprises in India.

The study is based on a primary survey of 321 informal enterprises. The data has been collected through a structured questionnaire. A chi-square test has been used to examine the significant association between the characteristics of informal enterprises and their owners and financial inclusion. A logistic regression model has been developed to analyse the determinants of financial inclusion among women-owned informal enterprises.

A significant and negative association has been found between business duration and entrepreneurs’ experiences with financial inclusion. In addition, the chi-square test shows a significant association between resource capability, use of ICT by enterprises and financial inclusion. Further, logistics regression shows that duration of business, entrepreneurial experience, resource capability in terms of machinery and equipment use, and ICT are significant determinants of financial inclusion among women-owned informal enterprises.

There are several practical implications for national policymakers and other stakeholders, such as banks and international bodies working on financial inclusion. It is suggested that while designing the policy for financial inclusion among woman-owned informal enterprises, it should ensure that experience and older woman entrepreneurs are included in financial inclusion schemes.

There has been very few research on financial inclusion in woman-owned businesses. However, no research has been conducted on the financial inclusion of women-owned informal businesses. This study fills a gap by investigating the factors that influence financial inclusion in women-owned informal businesses.