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This chapter examines three common fintech use cases transforming the financial industry. First, the chapter introduces fintech's role in enhancing financial services and promoting financial inclusion, especially through digital platforms. Second, it investigates various fintech applications that support financial institution management by harnessing the power of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). Finally, the chapter explores fintech use cases related to the regulatory environment, including regulatory technology (regtech), blockchain technology, and cryptocurrencies. The insights presented in this chapter cater to researchers and practitioners keen on better understanding fintech's diverse applications in the ever-evolving financial industry landscape.

This paper aims to explore why a country with significant under-investment in water infrastructure has not successfully imposed domestic water charges. Drawing on an economization lens, it examines how an economy emerged in the imposition of water charges but was subsequently hidden due to their politically motivated suspension.

Drawing on documentary evidence, a theoretically informed examination of the “economization” process is set out. This examination recognizes the central role sustainability plays in water management but illustrates how sustainability must be integrated with environmental, social, economic, cultural and political factors.

The findings set out the challenges experienced by a state-owned water company as they attempt to manage domestic water charges. The paper reveals that while the suspension of water charges has hidden the “economy” within government subvention, the economic and sustainable imperative to invest in and pay for water remains, but is enveloped within a political “hot potato” bringing about a quasi-political/quasi-economic landscape.

The findings demonstrate how the effective and sustainable management of domestic water supply requires collaboration between multiple participants, including the government, the European Union, private citizens and the water protest movement.

While highlighting the challenges faced by a country that has seriously under-invested in its water resources, the paper reflects the societal consequences of charging individuals for water, raising important questions about what water actually is – a right, a product or a political object.

Showing how an economy around domestic water supply in Ireland was revealed, but subsequently hidden in “the political”, the paper illustrates how sustainability is as much about economics and politics as it is about ecological balance and natural resources.

While the potential for digital innovation (DI) to transform organizational practices is widely acknowledged in the information systems (IS) literature, there is very limited understanding on the socio-political nature of institutional interactions that determine DI and affect organizational practices in social cash organizations. Drawing on the neo-institutionalist vision, the purpose of the study is to examine the unique set of institutional exchanges that influence the transition to digital social cash payments that give rise to new institutional arrangements in social cash organizations.

The paper draws on an in-depth case study of a government social cash organization in Pakistan. Qualitative data were collected using 30 semi-structured interviews from key organizational members and stakeholders.

The results suggest that DI is determined by the novel intersections between the coercive (techno-economic, regulatory), normative (socio-organizational), mimetic (international) and covert power (political) forces. Hence, DI is not a technologically deterministic output, but rather a complex socio-political process enacted through dialogue, negotiation and conflict between institutional actors. Technology is socially embedded through the process of institutionalization that is coupled by the deinstitutionalization of established organizational practices for progressive transformation.

The research has implications for government social cash organizations especially in the Global South. Empirically, the authors gained rare access to, and support from a government-backed social cash organization in Pakistan (an understudied country in the Global South), which made the data and the consequent analyses even invaluable. This made the empirical contribution within this geographical setting even more worthy, since this case study has received little attention from indigenous scholars in the past. The empirical findings showcased a unique set of contextual factors that were subject to BISP and interpreted through an account of socio-cultural sensitivities.

The paper provides practical implications for policymakers and practitioners, emphasizing the need to address institutional challenges, including covert power, during the implementation of digitalization projects in the public sector. The paper has certain potential for inspiring future e-government related (or public sector focused) studies. The paper may guide both private and government policy-makers and practitioners in presenting how to overcome certain institutional challenges while planning and implementing large scale multi-stakeholder digitization projects in similar country contexts. So while there is scope of linking the digitization of public sector organizations to anti-corruption measures in other Global South countries, the paper may not be that straightforward with the private sector involvement.

The paper offers rich social insights on the institutional interchanges that occur between the social actors for the innovation of technology. Especially, the paper highlights the social-embeddedness nature of technology that underpins the institutionalization of new organizational practices. These have implications on how DI is viewed as a socio-political process of change.

This study contributes to neo-institutional theory by theorizing covert power as a political force that complements the neo-institutional framework. This force is subtle but also resistive for some political actors as the force shifts the equilibrium of power between different institutional actors. Furthermore, the paper presents the social and practical implications that guide policymakers and practitioners by taking into consideration the unique institutional challenges, such as covert power, while implementing large scale digital projects in the social cash sector.

In recent years, many Western states have moved towards funding the asylum processing and resettlement systems of countries in the Global South. These forms of outsourced migration governance are upheld by a vast industry of state and non-state actors. This chapter draws on fieldwork conducted in the Republic of Nauru to look at the people and places on the frontlines of the extractive asylum industry. Using Alexander Weheliye’s (2014) concept of ‘racialising assemblages’, the author argues that outsourced asylum regimes exacerbate the continuous subjection of Indigenous and migrant communities to toxic practices and discourses. Outsourced asylum is a contemporary practice of resource extraction (much like other forms of mining) that builds on colonial extractive projects that disproportionately target communities of colour. Ongoing processes of dispossession and displacement are occurring as people and places are rendered into resources and frontline sites for the extractive asylum industry. This chapter also shows how humanitarian and liberal democratic discourses are part of the mechanics of racialised geopolitical ordering. Racialised refugees are made into destitute victims, whereas locals become brutish villains, rather than political subjects. In attending to the politics of refusal, where Nauruans and refugees refuse ingrained racialising assemblages that deny them personhood, the author stresses the importance of intersectional advocacy that highlights the toxic effects of extractive asylum regimes on local and migrant populations alike.

“Web3” is a practice in participatory digital infrastructures through the ability to read, write, and control own digital assets. Web3 is hailed as the alternative to the failings of big tech, offering a participatory mode of digital organization and shared ownership of digital infrastructure through algorithmic governance. This paper offers an introductory playbook to researchers entering the field of Web3 by providing an analytical lens to approach the emergent field of Web3 as “infrastructuring.” It argues that Web3 can be understood as a collective, community exploration of “how to infrastructure.” Drawing on qualitative examples derived from digital ethnographic methods, the study reveals that play, politics, and prefiguration are fundamental qualities underpinning Web3’s vision of offering an “exit” from established institutional infrastructures. Therefore, a primary challenge Web3 faces in its governance experiments centers around the question of how to effectively build and manage infrastructure.

Entrepreneurship, sustainability, and the creation of a resilient, green economy are intricately linked, particularly as conventional economic models grapple with existential challenges. However, empirical research addressing the connection between entrepreneurship and sustainability for a more balanced and resilient future is notably scarce. This chapter aims to bridge this gap by investigating the role of entrepreneurship in advancing sustainability and establishing a resilient, green economy. Through comprehensive research utilizing critical discourse analysis (CDA), three research questions were explored to draw insightful managerial and practical implications. In the intersection of entrepreneurship, sustainability, and a green, resilient economy, opportunities are seized by entrepreneurship amid limitations, while sustainability presupposes responsible management of resources for current needs without compromising the future. A green economy ensures adaptability, growth, and ecological stability even in resource-scarce conditions. The CDA affirms the influential role of entrepreneurship in pursuing sustainability and a green, resilient economy, drawing from 18 cases across public, private, and social sectors to highlight environmental, social, and economic impacts. Furthermore, the CDA uncovers power dynamics, ideologies, and social structures affecting entrepreneurship’s role in fostering sustainable and resilient, green economies. Collaborations between governments, corporations, and social ventures in diverse countries promote sustainability within existing social structures, fostering comprehensive development. However, imbalanced power dynamics pose challenges, risking potential social exclusion. This chapter concludes by addressing practical implications and limitations, aiming to contribute to an ecologically balanced and socially equitable future by understanding entrepreneurship’s role in promoting sustainability and green resilience within the context of power dynamics, ideologies, and social structures.

The geopolitical significance of the Mediterranean Sea transcends regional security and energy supply, profoundly impacting global security dynamics. Daily headlines underscore the plight of migrants from the Middle East and North Africa crossing the Mediterranean, exacerbating humanitarian crises and European identity challenges. Environmental concerns are further heightened by the abundance of global ports facilitating oil and goods transportation, alongside the staggering number of tourists flocking to the Mediterranean coast annually. This chapter serves as a gateway to the book, exploring the concept of “geopolitics” and delineating its characteristics. It specifically delves into the political economy of the Eastern Mediterranean and the geopolitical obstacles to energy security in the region. The chapter strategically selects four primary issues to dissect the region’s conflict complexity: the Syrian crisis, the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, the unresolved Cyprus dispute, and the Lebanon–Israel conflict over water border demarcation.

Cost and schedule overruns are rife in dam projects. Normative evidence espouses overruns as though they are inimical to development and prosperity aspirations of stakeholders. This study examines the causal relationship between project financing and overruns.

Causative data were extracted from completion reports of 28 major dam projects in Africa. Each of the projects was financed jointly by up to 10 international development lenders. Relationships between causes of overruns and project outcomes were analysed.

Analyses elicit indicators of remarkable correlations between finance procedures and project outcomes. Lenders’ disposition to risk attenuation was the main debacles to project success. Interests had mounted, whilst release of fund was erratic and ill-timed. Finance objectives and mechanisms were grossly inadequate for projects’ intense bifurcations. Projects had slowed or stalled because lenders’ risks attenuation processes were purposed to favour lenders’ objectives, and not projects’ interests. In addition, findings also show project owners’ own funds and the number of lenders to a single project correlate with overruns.

Findings imply commercial complexities around major projects. They also show transactions are shaped by subtle (mis)trust behaviours in project finance procedures. Thus, scholarly solutions to project performance issues should consider behavioural issues of stakeholding parties more broadly, beyond contractors and project owners. Project finance ecosystems are vulnerable to major actors’ self-interests, opportunism and predatory conducts. Borrowers would manage this by developing and improving their capacity to build resilience and trust. Evidence shows intense borrower nations in Africa have limited capacity and acuity for these.

This study contextualises megaprojects in complexity rather than cost. Its additionality is in how finance steers absolute control of project environment away from project owners and how finance administration triggers risks and overrun.

Complexity and interconnections of the wicked problems constantly challenge policy-makers and public authorities. The tourism system, with its diverse nature and entangled connections among the stakeholders, provides a favourable ground for the emergence of numerous wicked issues. The Bulgarian tourism policy ecosystem has a well-developed legislative basis, envisaging most of the possible problems among the actors. Still, the decision-makers, service delivery managers, technical experts and social researchers need close coordination and a systematic approach to reach a coherent and acceptable solution. The current chapter reveals the gaps in the work of the tourism policy institutions in Bulgaria, caused mainly by the lack of coordination and limited communication among them.