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This paper aims to analyse the role of a network in the development of female business experiences through the study of the Industrie Femminili Italiane (I.F.I.) (Italian Women’s Cooperative Enterprise), founded in 1903 in Rome to promote women’s work and their economic conditions.

This study applies the embeddedness theory for women’s empowerment that provides a valuable lens to explore the interactions between female entrepreneurs and their social, cultural and economic contexts.

With this study, the authors found that the network structure was used at the beginning of the past century in Italy as a useful instrument for female emancipation and empowerment, extending to common/not exceptional women entrepreneurial opportunities otherwise reserved for rich and noble women. In the interplay among the different “contexts” (political, social, cultural and cognitive), it seems to emerge the incidence of female social relationships in facing an unfavourable political and cultural context, breaking out the norms and allowing the business to exist and influencing, with the activity of the high social standing women, the cognitive structure of the other female workers, make them active participants in this entrepreneurial activity.

This is a single case study that has shed light on a specific female network, and the authors’ findings and considerations are influenced by the shortage of data and sources available. Demonstrating that I.F.I. is the result of the collaboration of women from different social classes involved at different organisational levels, this work shows, from a historical perspective, the importance of female mutual support for their emancipation and the role played by the network structure as an amplifier of possibilities otherwise limited to rich women, the emancipation of women and minorities in countries characterised by important barriers to entrepreneurship.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper analysing a female entrepreneurial network from a historical point of view and its role in overcoming gender barriers within the analysis of the interplaying contexts.

This study aims to conduct a systematic literature review and bibliometric analysis on the topic of digital labour. The study also identifies the future research directions for the topic.

In total, 118 research papers were identified and reviewed from 11 established research databases and A*, A and B category journals from the ABDC journal list. The papers covered a timespan between 2006 and 2023. Bibliometric analysis was conducted to identify key research hotspots.

The emergent themes and associated sub-themes related to digital labour were identified from the literature. The paper found three significant themes that include digital labour platform, gig economy and productivity. This study also acts as a platform to initiate further research in this field for academicians, scholars, industry practitioners and policymakers. The future research scope in the topic is also presented.

The present study is unique in its nature as it approaches the topic of digital labour from all relevant perspectives.

This conceptual, multi-voiced paper aims to collectively explore and theorize family entrepreneuring, which is a research stream dedicated to investigating the emergence and becoming of entrepreneurial phenomena in business families and family firms.

Because of the novelty of this research stream, the authors asked 20 scholars in entrepreneurship and family business to reflect on topics, methods and issues that should be addressed to move this field forward.

Authors highlight key challenges and point to new research directions for understanding family entrepreneuring in relation to issues such as agency, processualism and context.

This study offers a compilation of multiple perspectives and leverage recent developments in the fields of entrepreneurship and family business to advance research on family entrepreneuring.

Measuring and understanding the dynamics of democracy as well as democratic attitudes of people have become a big challenge for every democratic state. The study proposes the investigation of middle-class peoples’ attitudes towards democracy in Pakistan.

The study employs a deductive approach based on cross-sectional data from Pakistan’s middle-class people. The researchers use a survey questionnaire through a convenience sampling technique. Finally, the study utilizes 1854 samples to conclude the findings.

The evidence confirms that trust in public institutions and political engagement positively and significantly impact peoples’ democratic attitudes. In addition, the investigation witnessed the preference for democracy also supports understanding middle-class peoples’ democratic attitudes.

The study would provide an endorsement for politicians of Pakistan to perceive the inclination of middle-class people towards democracy. The study would guide the researchers and policymakers and intellectualize the middle-class peoples’ opinions and attitudes. Moreover the study would support reflecting the public confidence in decision making and ability to deliver. Finally the study findings would contribute to the literature of political science and democracy to understand democratic attitudes mainly focusing on middle-class populations.

This study empirically confirms the Pakistani middle-class peoples’ attitudes towards democracy.

This study focuses on the work from home experiences of professional, middle and upper middle class married women with children in India during the COVID-19-induced lockdowns. This study aims to examine the experiences of changing nature of work and gendered realities of work–life balance for working mothers while working from home during the pandemic.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight working mothers at three different time points during the lockdown in the city of Hyderabad in India.

A thematic analysis revealed changed work practices that required adapting, reinventing and reimagining new ways of working. This was time consuming albeit a satisfying experience for working mothers. At the same time, the blurring between home and work meant working mothers were operating without an off button.

The findings show that the existing gender inequalities in sharing the domestic burden unravelled fast in the absence of support structures.

The authors give voice to the lived experiences of working mothers of managing both work and home and how they navigated challenges during the lockdown.

The aim of this paper is to examine the effect of structural and demographic board diversity as well as board tenure on family firms' environmental performance, by analyzing the differences between family and non-family businesses and within family firms.

Tobit regressions are applied to investigate the effect of independent directors, CEO non-duality, board gender diversity and board tenure on environmental performance. The study also controls for other board and firm characteristics, as well as for time, industry and country-fixed effects. In doing so, the authors rely on a sample of non-financial listed firms from France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Portugal over the period 2014–2021.

The authors find that women on the board positively influence environmental performance and this effect is significant only in family firms, although board tenure negatively moderates the relationship. Board independence significantly affects environmental performance only in non-family firms. A strong presence of family directors has a negative effect on family firms' environmental performance, especially when directors' turnover is low.

This paper examines the unexplored relationship between structural board diversity and environmental performance in family companies. This study provides empirical evidence on the association between gender diversity and family firms' environmental performance focusing for the first time on a European setting. Moreover, this study provides evidence of a different effect of board tenure in family and non-family businesses.