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Introduction: Amidst Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity (VUCA), turbulence is a vital component of an entrepreneurial landscape. VUCA world has set a new dynamic in the business environment and organisation’s settings. In such an environment, it is pertinent for entrepreneurs to exhibit creativity, innovative service behaviour, and performance.

Purpose: The study investigates whether creativity, innovative service behaviour, and performance of entrepreneurs are fostered through employee engagement practices in a highly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous environment.

Methodology: The methodology involves a systematic review and meta-synthesis. By identifying the major topics, a systematic literature review helped critically analyse and synthesise the literature.

Findings: According to the study, corporate entrepreneurial factors like (management reinforcement, reward/reinforcement, job autonomy/discretion, time attainability, and organisational boundaries) entrepreneurial potential, entrepreneurial orientation, human capital, self-efficacy beliefs lead to employee engagement, which, in turn, fosters creativity, innovative service behaviour, and performance among entrepreneurs in the VUCA world.

The aim of this chapter is to investigate the immigrant women entrepreneurship phenomenon by analysing management academic literature on the issue. Stemming from the most current data on immigration and from the awareness that entrepreneurship is a viable instrument of immigrant (women) integration and inclusion, this chapter analyses the most updated management results on the issue. The analysis is mainly centred on works published after 2019, and some interesting insights emerge. Among them, we can refer to the awareness that research on immigrant women entrepreneurship is still in its infancy. Although, indeed, immigrant entrepreneurs and women entrepreneurs have been analysed considerably by researchers, it has been mainly in isolation. Therefore, room for investigating still exists, and this chapter uncovers some possible future research avenues. Moreover, by reviewing the selected papers, it clearly emerges that not all immigrant women entrepreneurs are alike; different targets (that is, different ethnicities) must be addressed differently by policy makers when policy measurements are identified. In other words, generic programmes aimed at increasing entrepreneurship among immigrant women cannot necessarily be successful.

Purpose: Entrepreneurship is one of the best ways towards self-sufficiency and poverty alleviation for women in a country without guaranteed employment. The research contributes and provides reasons for supporting women’s entrepreneurship, as although it is well-documented that women’s entrepreneurship increases economic growth, other approaches need attention, especially those related to sustainability.

Need for the study: Women have superior emotional intelligence, resilience, and capacity to maintain a healthy work–life balance; women make better business and entrepreneurial leaders. Many businesses see encouraging women to join the workforce as a key to achieving sustainability goals. This study will provide valuable insights into the role of female entrepreneurs in driving sustainable business practices in the USA and India – rural India and urban India.

Methodology: The chapter adopts a descriptive research design methodology in conducting a thorough literature review on the evolution of women entrepreneurship in India. The case-based approach has been adopted to depict women entrepreneurs and their growth stories. The analysis is based on qualitative analysis of secondary data and primary data. This research proposes exciting revelations regarding the trend of women entrepreneurship in India and, from a global perspective, challenges women entrepreneurs face in organised and unorganised sectors in India and policies in different countries that promote women entrepreneurship towards sustainability.

Findings: Women business owners in India help the economy thrive, reduce poverty, and have a greater chance of shaping India’s destiny. This chapter looks at how entrepreneurial actions affect cultural morals and values. Women’s business growth rates vary from country to country, and this variation is influenced by the fact that countries can be broadly categorised as either developed or developing.

Innovation is critical to the tourism industry. Living Labs (LLs) are innovation ecosystems which are becoming popular in tourism. LLs are a model of open innovation characterized by a networked approach to innovation. Local communities and businesses are usually excluded from processes of decision-making concerning the management of tourism. LLs enable local communities' participation in the sustainable development of tourism, thereby providing them the opportunity to increase their share of benefits. This chapter focuses on a case study of an LL recently created in Portugal and discusses LLs as an environment for tourism innovation where the local community is stimulated to explore competencies to cocreate value.

Purpose: This chapter explores the two major schemes applicable to skill development in India: Skill Acquisition and Knowledge Awareness for Livelihood Promotion (SANKALP) and Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY).

Need for the Study: The primary objective of this research is to check the role of these schemes in enhancing the skills of socio-economically stressed community members for their livelihoods. The secondary aim is to analyse the outcomes of these schemes through a qualitative inquiry.

Methodology: A survey was conducted, and the data was collected from trainees of the skill development programmes. Based on the responses, a qualitative content analysis was performed, which showed that most trainees have the thirst and urge to enhance their life skills for a minimalistic livelihood.

Findings: The study concluded that though there are many schemes, only PMKVY is active. They focus on more than just youth communities. Instead, they consider individuals in different age categories.

Practical Implications: The Government of India (GOI) is progressing towards a healthy economy to compete with other countries. For this mission to be achieved, skill and labour development is paramount. Appropriate training must be provided and administrated through government schemes.

Global value chains (GVCs) have been challenged by several emerging macro-trends during the last years. Among them, sustainability of production and consumption patterns is becoming a central theme given the necessity to mitigate the degradation of the environment and the over-exploitation of scarce natural resources. In this respect, scholars and practitioners increasingly propose the circular economy (CE) approach as a systemic solution to overcome the conventional linear “take–make–use–dispose” model underlying the structure of contemporary global economy. However, the international business (IB) community has introduced the topic of CE only marginally in its debate. The aim of the present study is to fill this research gap identifying the opportunities for integrating IB and CE principles. Thus, the main objective is to investigate whether and how the adoption of the CE paradigm by multinational enterprises (MNEs) may affect activities, geographical configuration, and governance of their relevant GVCs.

The authors address the issue from a conceptual point of view, identifying direct and indirect impacts of CE adoption on GVC, relative enablers, and possible broader implications. Lastly, the authors propose some reflections for future investigations.

This chapter examines the role extracurricular activities have in developing higher education (HE) student’s entrepreneurial competencies and capabilities. Specifically, this chapter examines: What type of students participate in extracurricular activities? Why do students choose to participate? and What activities offer for entrepreneurial competency and capability development. An electronic survey (e-survey) collected pre- and post-data from two groups: Group A – students participating in extracurricular enterprise and entrepreneurship (EEEx) activities (n = 119); and Group B – students engaged in non-enterprise-related extracurricular activities (n = 72). Findings indicated that students in both groups were motivated to engage in extracurricular activities to enhance their skills, fulfil personal interests and enhance their employability. Utilising Morris, Webb, Fu, and Singhal’s (2013) entrepreneurial competencies list as a model, there were found to increase in all but one competency (creativity) for Group A, yet for the control group, most competencies decreased. Independent sample T-tests demonstrated that there was no significant difference in the final ratings of entrepreneurial capability between Group A and Group B, however, the degree of improvement for perceived entrepreneurial capability, pre-to-post, for those participating in enterprise activities was substantially higher than the control group. Finally, students participating in EEEx activities were more likely female, studying a programme within the Business School, and in the second or final stage of their programme. This chapter demonstrates the value that EEEx activities provide in a competency context for students and tasks educators with considering how to develop and signpost specific entrepreneurial competencies and capabilities.

Introduction: Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) play a vital role in the economic development of economies by generating job opportunities. Considering their significance, understanding the challenges and skills required in these enterprises becomes essential and timely.

Purpose: This study aims to discuss the limitations and skill gaps faced by SMEs in emerging economies, such as India, Indonesia, Brazil, China, Malaysia, Ghana, Hungary, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Türkiye, UAE, Iran, Kazakhstan, Türkiye, Zambia, Romania, and Vietnam.

Methodology: The study adopts a systematic review and meta-synthesis approach, utilising a literature review to comprehensively analyse, synthesise, and map the existing literature by identifying overarching themes.

Findings: The study examines the challenges SMEs encounter in emerging economies, including resource scarcity, limited access to credit, inadequate infrastructure, low technology adoption, restricted global market access, and ineffective marketing strategies. There is a notable shortage of skilled labour and development initiatives within SMEs in India even though the country has a sizeable pool of qualified workers. There is a pressing need for additional technical and managerial skills to remain competitive in the market. The findings of this study will assist HR managers in addressing skill shortages among employees in SMEs operating within emerging economies

Purpose: Nikoletta Taylor and Close, (2022) asserts that a skill gap analysis can be used to determine the lacking skill and carry out recruitment based on that gap. It goes without saying that for a student, that would be their first employment, and with internships, there is no way to experience all aspects of the working world.

Need for This Study: When it comes to the recruiter’s expectations and the applicant’s skills, specifically among students, a gap still exists, leading to a need for practical exposure for applicants.

Study Design/Methodology/Approach: A quantitative study was adopted. A questionnaire was prepared with constructs and variables from the review and a total of 403 responses was collected from reputed institutions in Tamil Nadu.

Findings: This study reveals that skill development is needed; it is found that experiential learning through the gamification process is a suitable learning strategy. The experiential learning factors supporting skill development are self-efficacy, outcome expectation, interest, choice actions, and performance, followed by review, feedback, and continuous improvement.

Originality/Value: Learning all these factors through the gamification process would give students practical exposure to real-time scenarios of the corporate world. The proposed model gives students experience through gamification and learning activities.

Over the years, at the international level, the social construction assumption according to which women would be less innovative than men and, consequently, also less prone to be involved in innovative fields, since their educational path decisions to career path decisions, has long prevailed. This has resulted in a widespread lack of representation of women in more innovative sectors, in comparison to their male counterparts. In recent years then, if the pandemic has had an impact, at least for some specific socio-economic contexts, especially on those that can be typically considered as ‘necessity entrepreneurs’, it has to be said that it has been able also to generate some virtuous dynamics crosswise related to innovative issues. In particular, this chapter aims to go in depth into these issues from the perspective of innovative women entrepreneurs in the attempt to answer to the following questions: how does the socio-economic environment affect innovative women entrepreneurs? And, what are the unique experiences, achievements and contributions of innovative women entrepreneurs in Italy? In order to answer to these specific research questions, an analysis based on direct interviews with a sample of Italian innovative women entrepreneurs has been conducted.