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Feng found that political institutions (operationalized in terms of political repression, political instability and policy uncertainty) do matter for economic growth by constraining individuals’ decisions in their marketplace (Feng, 2003, p. 296). Political stability is also an important element among the World Governance Indicators developed by Kaufmann et al. as part of the World Bank project to assess good governance in 1996. Economic well-being is also dependent on political stability and consistency in governance policy. Loss of economic and political confidence is therefore accepted as a factor affecting economic well-being of a society. How far these hypotheses are supported or negated by evidence from Northeast region of India that has witnessed insurgency for six decades now is the object of enquiry in this chapter. Alongside pure economic indicators such as Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) and FDI, this article looks at the play of political factors like stability of governments in the representative democratic paradigm sanctioned by the Constitution of India in the Northeastern states of India during the decade 2006–2016.

This case discusses Bank Islam Brunei Darussalam’s (BIBD) social responsibility initiative. Social marketers are committed to people’s health and well-being; they are not profit-oriented and are seeking a larger market share than commercial marketers. One such example is “Community for Brunei” the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiative by BIBD. It is an online marketplace designed to help small businesses, highlighting different social and philanthropic causes that are important to Bruneians’ nurturing identity. BIBD assists the country’s small, medium, and micro entrepreneurs to actively and competitively expand their businesses through the Brunei community. It aims to help ease and transform the marketplace for struggling entrepreneurs during the pandemic. The Brunei Community Platform uses technology to bring communities together and provide an online ecosystem with integrated digital payment gateways as part of their efforts to encourage a digital society driven by a cashless economy. Other than a digital marketplace, the Community for Brunei has evolved into a social charitable platform conducting charity drives in collaboration with other non-government organizations as well as a donation platform enabling the community to donate and give back to the nation in difficult times such as the COVID-19 pandemic. As part of BIBD’s overall commitment to maintain the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, events related to Community for Brunei also guards urban areas to ensure its safety, resilience and sustainability. BIBD’s CSR projects also promotes sustainability in consumption and clean production patterns, and takes urgent action by responding to climate change and its impact. The key takeaways of BIBD’s digital platform Community for Brunei is not only to accept but to fully embrace digitization of today’s businesses to not only continue thriving in this very restricted and scarcely resourced environment but to also open up opportunities to enter their goods and services into the global market. It has also become a community-driven and socially responsible platform providing a place for the society to give back to the community.

Being born as a woman and trying to establish oneself in a patriarchal male-dominated society has never been easy. Irrespective of boundaries and geographical context the glass ceiling has always been there, only the degree of its resistance may have varied. The cleavage of inequality is visible in all areas of life and the education sector has not remained untouched. Even today, there lies an imbalance between gender in the educational organizations both as enrolled students, faculty members, or staff. In many countries, women have been able to overcome the bias, with ample support from the policy-makers who ensures reservation and equal representation of both. There have been less fortunate ones in countries that are yet to play their part on gender equity and equal representation owing to socio-economic or cultural issues. Afghanistan has witnessed a raging war for the last 40 odd years which has affected the country’s wellbeing and more so of women. Restricted mobility, imposition of laws to stop educating women, security threats, and untimely ending of the life of women who strive to achieve their position has pushed the plight of women behind by hundreds of years. Regressive culture has stopped women from accessing education resulting in deep-rooted inequalities and the disadvantageous position of women in society, exposing their vulnerabilities.

This study uses a combination of qualitative interviews and an autoethnographical data to gain insights into the challenges faced by women in higher education institutions in Afghanistan. It also examines the roles such women are playing in their various professions. Thirteen women shared their experiences and how they were empowered through education to realize their potentials. The data were analyzed using thematic analysis to reveal their interpretation about leadership and education as an agency for social upward mobility among Afghan women. The study was done before the fall of Kabul on August 15, 2021, situation has considerably changed since then with most of the post-redundant and non-existent or not open for women.

Building a culture of safety in transportation is not dissimilar from building a culture of safety in health. Public health is widely known for protecting the public from diseases through milk pasteurization and chlorination of drinking water, and from injuries by implementing environmental and occupational safeguards and fostering behavioral change. Lifestyle and environmental changes that have contributed to the reductions in smoking and heart disease can also help change driving, walking and cycling behaviors, and environments. Stimulating a culture of safety on the road means providing safe and accessible transportation for all. The vision for a culture of traffic safety is to change the public’s attitude about the unacceptable toll from traffic injuries and to implement a systems approach to traffic injury prevention as a means for improving public health and public safety. Framing the motor vehicle injury problem in this way provides an opportunity for partnerships between highway safety and public health to improve the culture of safety.

This chapter examines the role of gender training in the context of gender mainstreaming in Vietnam to illuminate how gender shapes and is shaped through development practice. Through thick description of a week-long gender training designed to mainstream gender into a rural development project, the author examines the role gender and development practitioners play as teacher–trainers in moving gender-mainstreaming policies beyond national development planning and rhetoric to affect local and cultural change. As they teach their students how to “think gender” they transform abstract gender equality policy commitments to fit the needs of different local constituents, who are themselves embedded in a complexity of gender, class, ethnic, age, and urban–rural power relations. In the process, training becomes a key political space, place and process where development subjects are produced, and gender expertise is negotiated. It is where teacher–trainers and their students actively negotiate the meaning of gender, equality, and development. It is a place where power and knowledge are constructed (and contested), and where trainers and trainees make visible their own political commitments and intentions as “insiders” and “outsiders” to the development process. As a result, training serves as an important site of engagement and contestation over the cultural and political meaning of gender mainstreaming, gender equality, and development in Vietnam, and as such has become an important space for feminist activism.

The objective of this study is to investigate how country risk, different political actions from the government and bureaucratic behavior influence the activities in industry supply chains (SCs) in emerging markets. The main objective of this study is to investigate the influence of these external stakeholders’ elements to the demand-side and supply-side drivers and barriers for improving competitiveness of Ready-Made Garment (RMG) industry in the way of analyzing supply chain. Considering the phenomenon of recent change in the RMG business environment and the competitiveness issues this study uses the principles of stakeholder and resource dependence theory and aims to find out some factors which influence to make an efficient supply chain for improving competitiveness. The RMG industry of Bangladesh is the case application of this study. Following a positivist paradigm, this study adopts a two phase sequential mixed-method research design consisting of qualitative and quantitative approaches. A tentative research model is developed first based on extensive literature review. Qualitative field study is then carried out to fine tune the initial research model. Findings from the qualitative method are also used to develop measures and instruments for the next phase of quantitative method. A survey is carried out with sample of top and middle level executives of different garment companies of Dhaka city in Bangladesh and the collected quantitative data are analyzed by partial least square-based structural equation modeling. The findings support eight hypotheses. From the analysis the external stakeholders’ elements like bureaucratic behavior and country risk have significant influence to the barriers. From the internal stakeholders’ point of view the manufacturers’ and buyers’ drivers have significant influence on the competitiveness. Therefore, stakeholders need to take proper action to reduce the barriers and increase the drivers, as the drivers have positive influence to improve competitiveness.

This study has both theoretical and practical contributions. This study represents an important contribution to the theory by integrating two theoretical perceptions to identify factors of the RMG industry’s SC that affect the competitiveness of the RMG industry. This research study contributes to the understanding of both external and internal stakeholders of national and international perspectives in the RMG (textile and clothing) business. It combines the insights of stakeholder and resource dependence theories along with the concept of the SC in improving effectiveness. In a practical sense, this study certainly contributes to the Bangladeshi RMG industry. In accordance with the desire of the RMG manufacturers, the research has shown that some influential constructs of the RMG industry’s SC affect the competitiveness of the RMG industry. The outcome of the study is useful for various stakeholders of the Bangladeshi RMG industry sector ranging from the government to various private organizations. The applications of this study are extendable through further adaptation in other industries and various geographic contexts.

Stephanie McPhail's description above of the difficult living conditions of the judges in Mongolia in 1995 underscores their vulnerability to corrupt practices and their negative perception by the public. Judicial salaries during that year were comparable to those of civil servants but lower than those of lawyers in private practice and ranged from US$33 to US$51 per month (Quah, 2003a, p. 43). More importantly, the living conditions of judges were difficult, especially in the countryside, where one-third of the judges did not own an apartment, and were forced to live in their offices. Consequently, McPhail (1995, p. 45) concluded that the “relatively low salaries and mediocre working conditions” of the judges were “an impediment to attracting highly qualified candidates to the profession.”

The growing power of China's economy with its ‘One Belt One Road’ initiative for building a new globalised world is generally believed to have an impact on global economic development and sustainability.

The current Chairman and President of the People's Republic of China Mr. Jinping Xi proposed the ‘One Belt One Road’ initiative in 2013 during his official visit to Kazakhstan and Indonesia. This was a Chinese initiative to create the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) and the Maritime Silk Road (MSR) to promote a new model for international cooperation and development. In recent years, more and more countries from Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Africa have agreed to join the initiative and have established their regional plans for economic development and sustainability.

This chapter provides a critical review of China's ‘One Belt and One Road’ initiative for creating higher growth and economic development through infrastructure connectivity, increased trade and investment. It discusses the challenges of the ‘One Belt One Road’ initiative and reports on the risks associated with the development of this regional cooperation. It summarises arguments for a common approach to infrastructure development and regional cooperation by supranational institutions.

It concludes that the growing positive support for China's ‘One Belt One Road’ initiative and its development as one of the largest infrastructure and investment projects in history would bring significant benefits to the global economy.