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The study responds to the calls for multilevel approaches in entrepreneurship research and seeks to answer whether the relationships between personal values and entrepreneurship remain stable across different economic conditions, using the unemployment rate as a moderator. It pays attention to the solo self-employed and women, as these groups are particularly vulnerable when crises occur.

We use Schwartz's theory of human values, which has been understudied in entrepreneurship and follow a correlational research design with micro and macro variables. Multilevel logistic regression is applied to the data from the large sample of 151,032 individuals participating in six waves of the European Social Survey. Solo self-employed are distinguished from those employing others, and analyses are run separately for men and women to understand gender differences.

The findings show that self-direction and achievement are positively, and benevolence and security negatively related to entrepreneurship. The high unemployment rate lowers the positive relationships with self-direction and achievement and mitigates the negative relationship with security, but only for the solo self-employed and not for employers. Results mostly hold for both genders.

The study suggests that security-related values should not be omitted from entrepreneurship research focused on entrepreneurs' values. It also emphasizes the need to distinguish between various subgroups of entrepreneurs and their motivation, which is important for efficient active labor market policies.

The study utilizes multilevel analyses that account for individual- and country-level influences on entrepreneurial activity. It contributes to understanding how economic context influences value salience and supports the applicability of Schwartz's theory of human values in entrepreneurship.

Within the last two decades, entrepreneurship education has become institutionalized in Germany. It is offered as a stand-alone program or as part of a business degree, combining academic knowledge, practical skills, and personal development to enhance the entrepreneurial success of university graduates. While entrepreneurship education has experienced similar growth worldwide, its emergence in Germany is closely tied to the country’s political and economic developments. The significance of entrepreneurship education for a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem and contemporary economic policy has been instrumental in advancing its academic recognition. This chapter provides a historical analysis of the academization of entrepreneurship in Germany. It explores the recursive and often idiosyncratic processes involving state and financial institutions, companies, and universities that have created, respecified, and mutually reinforced a subdiscipline and field of study. Academic entrepreneurship knowledge successively not only became relevant for starting a business but also for employment within the entrepreneurial infrastructure and beyond. This chapter follows a chronological order, highlighting three key stages in the academization of entrepreneurship education. First, the academic, financial, and political roots (I) of entrepreneurship up until the 1970s. Second, it explores the transformation (II) of entrepreneurship into a viable policy alternative and the challenges faced in establishing complementary research and education in higher education institutions during the 1980s. Finally, it sketches the institutionalization (III) of entrepreneurship as a central driver of government economic policy, allowing for the late bloom of entrepreneurship education and research at universities around the turn of the millennium.

The paper provides a detailed historical account of Douglass C. North's early intellectual contributions and analytical developments in pursuing a Grand Theory for why some countries are rich and others poor.

The author approaches the discussion using a theoretical and historical reconstruction based on published and unpublished materials.

The systematic, continuous and profound attempt to answer the Smithian social coordination problem shaped North's journey from being a young serious Marxist to becoming one of the founders of New Institutional Economics. In the process, he was converted in the early 1950s into a rigid neoclassical economist, being one of the leaders in promoting New Economic History. The success of the cliometric revolution exposed the frailties of the movement itself, namely, the limitations of neoclassical economic theory to explain economic growth and social change. Incorporating transaction costs, the institutional framework in which property rights and contracts are measured, defined and enforced assumes a prominent role in explaining economic performance.

In the early 1970s, North adopted a naive theory of institutions and property rights still grounded in neoclassical assumptions. Institutional and organizational analysis is modeled as a social maximizing efficient equilibrium outcome. However, the increasing tension between the neoclassical theoretical apparatus and its failure to account for contrasting political and institutional structures, diverging economic paths and social change propelled the modification of its assumptions and progressive conceptual innovation. In the later 1970s and early 1980s, North abandoned the efficiency view and gradually became more critical of the objective rationality postulate. In this intellectual movement, North's avant-garde research program contributed significantly to the creation of New Institutional Economics.

How can large international financial firms go green in authentic ways? What enhances ‘Net Zero action’? Changes in global banks, fund managers, and insurance firms are at the heart of green finance. External change pressures – combined with problematic firm predispositions – exacerbate barriers to change and promote scepticism about authentic Net Zero change. Field research reveals main elements, connections, and interactions of this question by considering financial firms as complex socio-technical systems (Mitleton-Kelly, 2003). An interdisciplinary/holistic narrative approach (De Bakker et al., 2019) is adopted to design a conceptual framework that can support a green ‘behavioural theory of the financial firm’ (green BTFF). The BTFF presents an international version (Peng, 2001) of the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm (Barney, 1991; Hart, 1995; Teece et al., 1997).

The approach of this chapter is aimed at closing knowledge gaps and realign values in financial markets and society. By raising awareness about organised hypocrisy and facades (Brunsson, 1993; Cho et al., 2015; Schoeneborn et al., 2020) in financial firms the chapter aims at overcoming the gap between ‘talking’ and ‘walking’ in the financial sector. The chapter defines testable firm-level hypotheses for ‘Green Finance’ (Poterba, 2021) as well as – by implication – tests for ‘greenwashing’.

This paper aims to propose a novel model that addresses the limitations of current practices, through considering quantitative and qualitative criteria in the decision-making process for equipment replacement.

Literature review and consultation with professionals in the heavy construction industry was conducted to identify the criteria influencing the replacement of construction machines. A questionnaire survey using analytic hierarchy process and multi-attribute utility theory was used to rank these criteria and establish their utility scores. Sensitivity analysis was performed to assess how adjustments in the weights of main criteria would impact equipment replacement decisions.

The identified criteria were classified into three categories: economic, technical and socioenvironmental, encompassing a total of 15 criteria. The findings indicated that salvage value/meeting payback period/maximizing profitability held the highest importance in the replacement process, followed by considerations like high repair and maintenance cost; working condition and economic conditions. Safety and social benefits scored the least among all criteria and categories.

This study focuses on earth-moving equipment and involves experts from the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. The model introduces a novel methodology to aid decision-makers, particularly contractors and project managers, in determining when to replace heavy construction equipment, which results in resource efficiency and time saving.

The model integrates expertise and knowledge from experts to establish criteria for replacing construction equipment. This research aims to improve the functionality of the decision-making process regarding the acquisition or replacement of equipment throughout its lifespan.

The purpose of this study is to investigate and compare the dynamic leverage policies of Islamic and conventional banks within selected Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) countries. The study specifically focuses on the concepts of leverage procyclicality and prospect theory.

To achieve the research objectives, the study uses data from three distinct periods: Crisis I (2007–2009), Crisis II (2011–2012) and Crisis III (2020). The analysis uses dynamic panel-data regression, using the generalized method of moments (GMM) technique.

The research findings indicate that both Islamic and conventional banks demonstrate leverage procyclicality. Interestingly, Islamic banks exhibit weaker leverage procyclicality during normal conditions but display stronger procyclicality during crises compared to their conventional counterparts. The application of prospect theory reveals that both bank types exhibit risk-taking or risk-averse behavior through leverage under certain financial and market performance measures as the first-level domain of the gain-vs-loss condition. Furthermore, during crises (as the second-level domain of the normal-vs-crisis condition), both Islamic and conventional banks experience heightened leverage. Notably, Islamic banks, owing to their lower risk exposure and greater shock resilience, demonstrate lesser risk-taking behavior through leverage than conventional banks, both during periods of underperformance and worsening conditions amid crises. These findings validate the extension of prospect theory's applicability in a two-level domain perspective. The dynamic nature of leverage policy, being procyclical and adhering to prospect theory, also varies following different crises specifically.

The study's limitations include the unequal crisis periods (Crises I, II and III), leading to an imbalanced examination of their effects, certain financial and market performance metrics that fail to corroborate the expected hypotheses and the limited generalizability of findings beyond the selected OIC countries.

Understanding the intricate dynamics and behavioral aspects of leverage policy for both Islamic and conventional banks, particularly during crisis scenarios, proves crucial for reviewing banking regulations, making informed financial decisions and managing risks effectively.

This study enriches the current knowledge by presenting two key points. First, it highlights the dynamic nature of leverage procyclicality in Islamic banks, showing a change from weaker procyclicality in normal conditions to stronger procyclicality during crises compared to conventional banks. Second, it expands the application of prospect theory by introducing a dual-level domain context. Examining the comparative leverage policies of Islamic and conventional banks during different crises within OIC countries provides novel insights into leverage procyclicality and behavioral responses.

This chapter explores other theoretical explanations to the commonly observed phenomenon of negatively skewed performance outcomes and inverse risk-return relationships in empirical firm data. The analysis conducted in many prior studies have implicated direct causal dependencies between performance and risk, or vice versa, with the possibility of simultaneous two-way relationships that are harder to discern. It is also shown how spurious artifacts deriving from the arithmetic links between mean and variance associate left-skewed distributions with negative mean variance correlations. However, the heterogeneous display of response capabilities among firms that compete in the same industry contexts may provide an alternative explanation for the observed performance characteristics. This is expressed as strategic responsiveness where performance outcomes with high negative skewness and excess kurtosis derive from heterogeneous adaptive processes among firms as they respond to a dynamic environment with different degrees of success. We test these results in different simulated competitive contexts disrupted by major unexpected events and find robust results across different environmental scenarios. The analysis looks at two different response processes, one modeled as conventional adaptive planning following an annual budget cycle, and another modeled as interactive updating where executives have frequent informative budget discussions with operating managers in the firm. The computational simulations show that interactive updating generates outcomes with higher returns and lower performance risk for moderate learning levels and restructuring costs. However, the resulting performance distributions are not as left-skewed as those observed in the empirical data that show higher resemblance to the adaptive planning outcomes.

This study assesses the perception of academics and practitioners of ramifications that may have impacted audit evidence quality during COVID-19 in Egypt.

A questionnaire was collected and designed regarding the factors affecting the quality of audit evidence during the COVID-19 pandemic using a five-point Likert scale, and detailed descriptive statistics and regression analyses were conducted.

The study finds that there is no significant association between social distancing (SD), changing in the economic environment (CEE), time constraint (TC) and stress on audit personnel (SAP) as repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic with the quality of audit evidence (QAE). The disruption in operational results (DOR), changes in the internal control (CIC) and the stress on client personnel (SCP) significantly affect the quality of audit evidence. Moreover, there is a significant difference between Big and non-Big Four audit firms in terms of changes in economic conditions, internal controls, disruption of operational results and time-constraint variables. The latter has significantly affected the audit evidence quality for both academics and professionals.

Due to the implementation of SD and work-from-home policies, audit firms are highly recommended to invest more in digital programs and to be more adaptable to work-from-home, which policy and enhances the effectiveness and flexibility of communication between auditors and their clients.

This paper is one of the foremost papers that provides empirical evidence for the antecedents or variables that may affect audit quality evidence due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

This study aims to address the critical need for innovative financing solutions in the global housing sector, focusing specifically on Malaysia’s distinct housing finance system encompassing both conventional and Islamic loans. The primary objective is to develop a transformative housing finance model that addresses affordability challenges and reshapes the Malaysian housing landscape.

The study presents an alternate housing finance model for Malaysia, integrating lower monthly payments and reduced household debt. Key variables include house price appreciation rates, interest rates, initial guarantee fees and loan-to-value ratios. Inspired by the Help to Buy (HTB) scheme, the model aligns with proven global initiatives for enhanced affordability, balancing payment amounts, loan interest rates and acceptable price thresholds.

The study’s findings promise to address affordability disparities and reshape Malaysia’s housing finance landscape. The emphasis is on introducing a structured repayment plan that offers a sustainable path to homeownership, particularly for low-income families. Incorporating the future value adaptation concept, inspired by reverse mortgages and Islamic finance, enhances adaptability, ensuring long-term sustainability despite economic shifts.

The proposed model promotes widespread access to homeownership, offering practical solutions for policymakers to improve affordability, prompting adaptable risk management strategies for financial institutions and empowering potential homebuyers with increased flexibility.

The study introduces a transformative housing finance model for Malaysia, merging elements from reverse mortgages, Islamic finance and the HTB scheme, offering potential applicability to similar systems globally.

This chapter explores a pathway towards achieving a sustainable and inclusive future through the implementation of systems innovation, systems leadership and systems change. The author highlights the importance of understanding complex systems and identifies several models that can be employed to drive systems change, including the iceberg model and multi-level perspective. The author stresses the significance of systems leadership and innovation in creating a sustainable and inclusive future. This means that leaders and managers need to shift their mindset from reductionism to systems thinking. Reductionism views complex systems as a collection of separate parts that can be studied independently. In contrast, systems thinking acknowledges the interconnectedness of all parts and how they influence each other. When they embrace systems thinking, leaders and managers can make systems innovation and drive systems change to achieve sustainable and inclusive growth. Achieving a sustainable and inclusive future requires a collective effort from individuals, organizations and governments. It demands a comprehensive understanding of the interdependencies and interactions within complex systems, as well as a willingness to adopt new ways of thinking and leading. This chapter presents a compelling case for adopting systems innovation, systems leadership and systems change as critical components in building a sustainable and inclusive future.