Search results

This article aims to draw insight from a variety of management disciplines to encourage a broader view of the economy as it relates to sustainable waste management (SWM) development.

The paper presents a framework to describe how strengths can be blended to support environmental sustainability (ES), highlighting the need for community cooperation between the informal and formal sectors of the economy.

Unique contributions for SWM can emerge from both economic sectors and, when leveraged, may drive community development within local municipalities.

The platform addresses the need for more flexible governmental policies that encourage waste management activities among formal and informal workers.

The paper brings forward typically disregarded ES waste management opportunities that reside within the informal sector, an often overlooked aspect of the broader economy.

Despite the trend, managing and maximizing the effectiveness of blended workforce is not well-understood. The purpose of this paper is to institutionalize a blended workforce model in the post-COVID era, that is, a movement from homogenous workforce to heterogenous workforce of full-time employees working in tandem with gig talents connected via digital platforms.

The evolution of gig economy is presented for contextualizing the development of prospective business models in the post-COVID era to establish clarity on the relationship between the employers and the blended workforce. To achieve this conceptual switch, a framework is proposed to support this type of workforce for creating a fair balance.

By drawing on the concepts of various talent management functions, propositions were made predicting that the alignment of the multilateral activities of the gig workers with permanent workforce will be leveraged in the future to address the needs of short-term specialized skill-sets and scalable operations while creating a fair balance through a flexible and agile workforce.

First, the paper explores how bridging the gap between the traditional and gig workforce can impact the key antecedents of a blended workforce ensuring a fair trial. Second, on an economical level, the COOKIE framework proposed in the paper is expected to play a crucial role in creating new job opportunities, boosting employee morale while minimizing costs and increasing productivity of the organizations.

This paper aims to enhance the impact of incorporated waqf institutions by blending their resources to promote responsible small businesses that are inclusive of human development, service to society and preservation of ecological environment and other species. This is expected to shift the paradigm of businesses from the current waste-oriented linear economy to ideally a zero-waste circular economy.

This is an analytical study building on the experience of European Venture Philanthropy Organizations (VPOs) that work with the primary objective of making impactful businesses successful, with capital protection and return on investment being of secondary concern. This paper suggests an incorporated institutional design that blends resources for promoting responsible businesses using a new hybrid financial mechanism, namely, equity-at-default (EaD) to replace collateral and foreclosure requirements with responsibility and compassion.

The research calls for changing the business paradigm from linear to circular, an incorporated institutional framework for venture waqf, purpose of the waqf to make impactful small businesses successful and designing a financial contract to loan in favor of responsible businesses that convert to equity stake for the waqf in case of default (EaD) replacing collateral and foreclosure requirements.

This is a theoretical study motivated by the success of VPOs but assigns a new role to waqf institutions. Furthermore, the incorporated nature of waqf is a new idea and EaD is a new mechanism. Being new, these ideas have the risk of not being implemented. However, the broader message that waqf shall promote businesses that are inclusive of ecological concerns is generally applicable.

The paper has a significant practical implication to transform the responsibility and consciousness of businesses. Waqf is fundamentally a compassionate institution, and it must enhance the responsibility of businesses to become more inclusive of the environment and other species. It should also become more compassionate toward businesses that are in distress and default. In this sense, the paper tries to internalize compassion in financial contracting that can potentially change the architecture of lending.

Altering businesses’ mindset from a waste-driven extractive linear economy to inclusive circular economy has a tremendous transformative role. This will have implications for enhancing business consciousness and responsibility. As poverty is a phenomenon of state of mind, changing the society’s state of thought in Muslim communities is expected to have basic positive implications. Entrepreneurs with a new mindset can have far-reaching positive impacts on the society.

The paper offers potentially innovative perspectives in four key areas and blends the different resources in an incorporated waqf that makes responsible entrepreneurs assume a partnership role in times of distress through EaD. Furthermore, the integration of compassion in financial contracting could have better implications for return on investment as well. The ideal state of an economy is where waste is turned into wealth and well-being is something that all policymakers must keep on the top of their agendas.

To expand understandings of conflict, this chapter offers a detailed assessment of how exchange is enacted within local heroin markets. Addressing drug dealing and heroin users’ buying drugs for their peers (i.e., brokering), this research expands how illegal drug markets are commonly understood. A generalized framework is presented that highlights patterns of exchange.

Findings come from a 36-month study of a demographically diverse sample of 38 heroin users in Cleveland, OH. Methods involved open-ended, semi-structured interviewing and participant observation, conducted by the author and a team of graduate students.

Instead of framing exchange as either an economic or social act, this chapter shows how trade in heroin markets is often both. Here Gudeman’s (2001) dialectic between market and community is embodied in inter-subjectivities of traders, promoting both trust and conflict. In this context, conflict is the result of perpetual ambiguity all market participants can experience.

Applying a blended notion of exchange as both social and economic offers new insight on conflict and expands its orientation beyond narratives of political economy. Here, in addition to the economics that often promote conflict, the social elements of exchange (e.g., reciprocity) are emphasized.

Research has understood conflicts in drug market operations through trader characteristics (e.g., poverty, race, class, privilege). This chapter emphasizes opportunities for conflict irrespective of individualized characteristics by outlining structural elements of exchange.

Apparently, scholarly attention is shifting to Society 5.0. The study of Industry 4.0 (I4.0), including its impacts on industrial productions and services, is saturated. However, there is a need for scientific investigations of the relatively new emerging concept of Society 5.0, especially regarding its relationship with I4.0. Given this necessity, the chapter conceptually examines Society 5.0 new normal and its antecedent – I4.0, with a value of the economically productive society in the post-coronavirus pandemic era. The chapter further elucidates the strategic role of emotional resilience and I4.0 collaborative partnership. Society 5.0 aims for a new society based on the notion of a human-centred economy and inclusivity. Consequently, new sets of innovative and artistic jobs will possibly emerge, driven by human competencies in collaboration with technology. In other words, Society 5.0 new normal is targeting a balanced or blended economic approach that favours a fit between society and industry and ensures that all citizens live a high-quality life by eliminating the delimiting effect of technology such as artificial intelligence (AI) on the physical space and wellbeing of the people. Hence, I4.0 collaborative partnership and emotional resilience are perceived as strategic and influential in achieving the feat of a Super Smart Society.

Purpose – To prepare for the increasingly important role women entrepreneurs are expected to play in the knowledge economy, it is imperative to understand, facilitate and manage women's training needs for full participation in the knowledge economy. The chapter introduces a skilling framework which integrates pedagogical, organisational and technological values to promote the uptake of knowledge economy skills.

Design/methodology/approach – An exploratory study approach was adopted underpinned by a social constructionist epistemology. The study fused a literature review on knowledge economy skills and women's learning needs with a desktop audit of opportunities available to women entrepreneurs to augment their knowledge economy skills.

Findings – Based on the two sets of data, the study found that a lack of attention has been paid to increasing female entrepreneurs' opportunities to develop to their full potential in the knowledge economy. Most training programmes fall short in delivering comprehensive digital and strategic skills required for women entrepreneurs' full participation in a knowledge society.

Research limitations/implications: Given the exploratory study approach, researchers are encouraged to adopt and test the proposed framework.

Practical implications – The interlinking of business and technology offers unique opportunities for women to engage in entrepreneurship and innovation. For policy makers this analysis provides insights on how to foster female entrepreneurship in the knowledge economy. For educators it provides a teaching and learning framework that encompasses evidence based content, gender-sensitive approaches to business skilling and collaborative learning environments.

Originality/Value of chapter – This framework helps lay a foundation for future research on the skilling of heterogeneous women entrepreneurs in the knowledge economy.

This paper aims to review the role of government initiatives for developing clean fuels in India, decarbonize the transport sector and maximize the use of renewable sources of energy. India’s socio-economic prosperity is dependent on modern energy. The authors examine the role of biofuel in India’s emerging fuel mix.

A 20-year timeframe between 2000 and 2021 was set to learn about the subject and find the existing gaps. Of the 40 research papers, the authors found using keywords and delimiting criteria in the database, the authors have shortlisted 21 papers, which provided the theoretical framework for the study. Additionally, the authors used the government database to develop future projections using compound annual growth rate and trend analysis.

The study findings suggest that India should strictly implement the Biofuel Policy to promote indigenous production of biofuel to enhance affordability and accessibility. With blending options available with biofuels and biogas, the country can replace the right proportion of fossil fuel use by 2050. It will not only decrease India’s import dependence but also will create new job opportunities, specifically in tribal and remote locations and promote green energy mix. With emerging options like electric vehicle and hydrogen, the transport sector could be decarbonized to a greater extent.

Indigenous cleaner fuel adoption and transport sector will generate additional employment and cut down fossil fuel import. Financial savings through reduced fossil fuel import will be directed toward social development.

The paper carries out critical analysis for the active use of modern green fuels in the present and coming days. Such unique analysis must help India to balance its energy basket.

In the previous chapters, we discussed the gig economy, knowledge economy, and its characteristics of each. The concept of knowledge workers is discussed in detail and their role in the knowledge economy and in creating knowledge. This chapter will explain how the knowledge economy and gig economy are connected and how the concept of knowledge workers and professional gig workers are connected. We will differentiate skilled gig workers from low-skilled workers and their role in economic development and productivity. Furthermore, we will explain their involvement in the organisation and how they can manage them and utilise their knowledge to increase productivity. The end of this chapter will discuss the platform economy concept and explain the platform economy's aspects in detail. This chapter emphasises how working globally is facilitated by digital transformation and IT infrastructure and how managing the professional workforce will create the opportunity to connect to a variety of job demands, particularly from developed countries.