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This paper delves into the critical role of women in the domains of architecture, engineering, construction and urban planning, particularly within the context of the United Nations sustainable development goals (SDGs) and the imperative of achieving gender parity. Concentrating on the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, this paper explores the profound importance of women as essential contributors to urbanisation and sustainable development. It scrutinizes the existing gender disparities within the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industries; evaluates prevailing women empowerment indices in diverse sectors; and presents a strategic framework for harnessing women’s engagement to cultivate inclusive and sustainable urban cultures in the GCC. This conceptual paper introduces an actionable framework that can serve as a guiding agenda for empowering women in the AEC sectors by incorporating their socio-cultural, economic and ecological contributions towards creating sustainable cities.

Centring its focus on Gulf Cities, this paper employs a comprehensive approach to examine the current gender disparities within the architecture, engineering and construction sectors. It probes potential barriers and advocates for leveraging women’s participation to foster inclusive and sustainable urban development in the GCC. The study introduces the Women’s Empowerment Index (WEI) for the Gulf AEC industry elucidating how these measures are translated into a tailored framework.

The paper presents a practical framework that provides actionable guidance for engaging various stakeholders, including governments, academia and industry players, to empower women within the AEC industries. An “Agenda for equitable AEC industries for sustainable urban development: Our Common Gulf Cities” is culminated in a Women Empowerment Index for the AEC Industry (WEI-AEC) designed to serve as a guidance tool to monitor progress within industry, governments and academia.

Future research endeavours could advance the framework by conducting institutional support analyses, multi-stakeholder collaboration studies and practical testing of the framework within real-world scenarios.

The findings of this study can guide and influence a diverse range of initiatives, including policy development, educational strategies, corporate endeavours, awareness campaigns, capacity-building programs, skill enhancement initiatives and knowledge exchange among the Gulf Cooperation Council countries.

This conceptual paper introduces a practical framework that can serve as a roadmap for implementing the study’s potential to shape policies, educational programs and corporate initiatives aimed at advancing both gender equality and the development of sustainable cities.

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic was unprecedented, and none of the world’s think tanks could have predicted how far it would spread. People visualise the pandemic as a classic example of a VUCA environment (an environment characterised by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity). Managing COVID-19 requires unique and different leadership qualities.

Purpose: This study’s rationale emphasises that VUCA demands strategic and agile leadership. Leaders across the globe must acknowledge the fact that the elements of VUCA, i.e. volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity, are not synonymous and hence need differential treatment. Also, recommend adopting agile leadership to tackle the VUCA world.

Methodology: This is a conceptual study focusing on agile leadership. The study addresses the challenge of leading in the VUCA environment. The constituting components of VUCA are differentiated, followed by an extensive literature review of agile leadership.

Findings: VUCA is the new normal and is there to stay. Business leaders still need to counter VUCA due to their incapacity to distinguish and treat the components equally. Furthermore, there is an emergent need to develop an agile workforce, agile organisations, and agile leadership to combat VUCA. The study indicates that business leaders must be agile enough to handle the COVID-19 pandemic and future crises. There is a constant need to ensure agility. This study will provide a deep insight into VUCA and help business leaders emerge victorious in turbulent times.

Despite growing emphasis on green skills, innovation, and sustainable livelihoods, research remains limited in the informal economy, particularly in developing countries. This study investigates gaps in green skills training, innovations and livelihoods among informal metal fabricators, shedding light on the challenges and opportunities within this sector. Specifically, the study critically assesses the potential for upskilling informal metal fabricators through Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) institutions and university innovation hubs.

Employing a qualitative interpretive methodology, we conducted 40 key informant interviews with small-scale informal metal fabricators operating in Magaba and Gaza home industries, two of Harare’s largest home industries in Zimbabwe. Subsequent key informant interviews were held with TVET educators and innovation hub lecturers. Observations were carried out over a period of three months to comprehensively explore the issues under investigation.

Gender disparities persist within informal innovation spaces, with women making strides in the traditionally male-dominated field of metal fabrication. However, challenges such as prejudices, stigma, ridicule and abuse hinder women’s full participation in manufacturing processes, often relegating them to less physically demanding roles like customer engagement and product marketing. Inequities in support for green skills training were evident, with the innovation hub model primarily catering to formally educated youth in universities, neglecting the active involvement of notable informal innovators with limited formal education. While a gradual shift toward renewable energy sources is observable in the informal economy, government-owned TVET institutions show minimal or no adjustments in course content to incorporate essential green skills. In light of the findings, the study proposes measures to ensure equitable green skills training, innovation and the promotion of sustainable livelihoods in the informal metal fabrication sector.

The findings of this study represent a novel contribution the gaps in green skills training in the informal economy and how these inform reforms for vocational learning and training practices and the incubation of innovations.

Grounded on the conservation of resources (COR) theory, this study examines the relationship between tyrannical leadership and knowledge hiding. Additionally, this study aims to investigate the mediating role of psychological distress and the moderating role of psychological safety.

Data was gathered from 435 employees in the corporate sector in China. The study used the partial least squares structural equation modelling approach to assess the proposed connections and analysed the data collected with the help of SmartPLS 4 software.

In the study, it was found that there is a positive relationship between tyrannical leadership and knowledge hiding, and this association is mediated by psychological distress. Additionally, the results asserted that the positive effect of tyrannical leadership on knowledge hiding through psychological distress is less pronounced when there is a greater degree of psychological safety.

Leaders should avoid being tyrannical and adopt a supportive leadership style. They should be aware of the effects of their behaviour on employee well-being, provide resources to help employees cope with distress and foster a culture of psychological safety. This approach promotes knowledge sharing, innovation and employee well-being within the organisation.

This study contributes to the existing literature by investigating a new factor that influences knowledge hiding: tyrannical leadership. Furthermore, it explains that employees who experience tyrannical leadership are more prone to psychological distress, such as anxiety and fear, and are likelier to engage in knowledge-hiding behaviours. Finally, the study identifies psychological safety as a factor that can mitigate the negative effects of tyrannical leadership on knowledge hiding.

This article investigates the practical implementation of the ecosystem approach in different branches of public management within an urban context. It explores how ecosystem thinking is introduced, disseminated and applied in a local government organization.

We utilize a qualitative case study methodology, relying on official documents and expert interviews. Our study focuses on the city of Espoo, Finland, which has actively embraced ecosystem thinking as a fundamental framework for its organizational development for almost a decade.

The case of Espoo highlights elements that have not been commonly attributed to the ecosystem approach in the public sector. These elements include (1) the significance of complementary services, (2) the existence of both collaborative and competitive relationships among actors in public service ecosystems and (3) the utilization of digital platforms for resource orchestration. Our study also emphasizes the need for an incremental adoption of ecosystem thinking in organizational contexts to enable its successful implementation.

The study provides valuable insights into the introduction and dissemination of ecosystem thinking in public management. It also further develops previously developed hypotheses regarding public service ecosystems.

This study applies the target similarity model to examine the effects of servant leadership on supervisor commitment and supervisor citizenship behavior. The mediating role of supervisory commitment is explored to determine the relationship between servant leadership and supervisor citizenship behavior. The difference in supervisor gender is examined in the linkage between servant leadership and supervisory commitment.

The data were collected through a survey of 478 salespeople in the retail industry. Structural equation modeling (SEM) techniques were used to verify the hypotheses of this study.

The findings showed significant support for the direct and indirect effects of servant leadership on supervisor commitment and supervisor citizenship behavior. Furthermore, the positive relationship between servant leadership and supervisory commitment was stronger among female supervisors than male supervisors.

Due to the scarcity of studies conducted on the linkages of servant leadership, supervisory commitment and supervisory citizenship behavior, this study theoretically and empirically contributes to the leadership literature as it is the first study to investigate these direct and indirect relationships. Similarly, this study examined gender differences in servant leadership to fill the gap in the research field.

The current study evaluated (1) characteristics of the community leadership development program associated with successful participant recruitment, (2) active ingredients that promoted fellow engagement and program completion and (3) how the program addressed blackness and racism.

Individual interviews were conducted with a representative subset of former program fellows.

Results indicated that offering training in small cohorts and matching fellows with individual mentors promoted program interest. Program strengths and unique ingredients included that the program was primarily led by people from the Black community, program malleability, and that the program was a partnership between fellows and leadership. Additionally, the program was responsive to fellows’ needs such as by adding a self-care component. Fellows also noted dedicated space and time to discuss race and racism. Results offer a unique theoretical perspective to guide leadership development away from the uniform or standardized approach and toward one that fosters diversity and equity in leadership.

Altogether, this work demonstrates how leadership development programs can be participant-informed and adapted to participants’ social and cultural needs.

The present study integrates inclusive leadership and protection motivation theory to propose a new model predicting employees' intention to work from home during an emergency situation such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

A questionnaire was developed to collect data from 939 Taiwanese and Vietnamese office employees using a non-probability convenience sampling method. A total of 887 valid questionnaires were used for further analysis. The data were analysed following a two-stage structural equation modelling using SPSS 22 and AMOS 20 software. The validity and reliability of the instrument were tested and ensured.

The results revealed that inclusive leadership and factors related to protection motivation theory– including perceived severity and perceived vulnerability – have positive direct and indirect effects on employees' work-from-home intentions through the mediating role of employees' work-from-home-related attitudes. Protection motivation theory factors were found to have a stronger effect on employees' work-from-home intention than inclusive leadership. Differences in the relationship between perceived vulnerability, perceived severity and employees' intentions towards working from home were also discovered among participants from the two studied countries.

The integration of inclusive leadership and protection motivation theory brings into light what will drive employees' intention to work from home during an emergency situation. The present study has several theoretical and practical implications for scholars, governments, managers and policymakers that can help them improve management policies for working from home in the future.

Based on integrating inclusive leadership and protection motivation theory to explore employees' intention to work from home during an emergency situation, the present study demonstrated that inclusive leadership and protection motivation theory should be considered for studies on working from home in a pandemic setting.

The current study proposes a moderated mediation model to predict work-from-home engagement during an emergency such as the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic based on the integration of well-known concepts, including inclusive leadership, organizational support and perceived risk theory.

An online questionnaire on the Google Forms platform was designed and distributed to Vietnamese employees using a convenience sampling method. A total of 794 valid questionnaires were used for data analysis. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was employed to test the proposed model and hypotheses. The instrument's validity and reliability were tested and ensured.

The study found that inclusive leadership has direct and indirect effects on work-from-home engagement through the separate and serial mediating roles of perceived organizational support and employee motivation. The present study also revealed that the effects of perceived organizational support and employee motivation on work-from-home engagement are strengthened by employee risk perception. Moreover, the study showed that perceived organizational support and employee motivation performed the lowest of the four elements that were considered, while the importance of these two factors was the highest.

These findings suggest that in an emergency such as COVID-19, contextual factors should be given more attention. Based on these findings, several theoretical and practical implications for human resource management are highlighted.

By integrating inclusive leadership, organizational support and perceived risk theory to explore employees' engagement in working from home during an emergency, the present study demonstrated that in addition to traditional factors, leadership and contextual factors should be considered for studies on working from home in an emergency such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The present study established that these factors might encourage employees' work-from-home engagement.