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Academic institutions, for the most part, discontinued face-to-face classes in favor of adopting and deploying online learning modalities that allowed for immediate participation. The pandemic has hastened the pace of implementation as well as the utilization of and reliance on technology. Artificial intelligence (AI) is important for higher education business continuity. Currently, some institutions are utilizing these resources to strengthen their student recruitment and retention efforts. Others use them to make the classroom more accessible or to construct tailored learning programs.

The rapid spread of the deadly COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 has compelled many countries to enact stringent measures to halt the virus’s spread. The pandemic has hastened the adoption of online teaching and remote work technology. While a combination of online and face-to-face learning is the way of the future, it will necessitate additional resources to support program development and delivery, as well as increased collaboration between IT and subject matter experts.

This successful technological integration, which includes a smooth transition from face-to-face training to digital e-courses, provides a variety of benefits, including money saved on travel expenses. Top technological developments will continue to enhance company innovation and efficiency while also improving service efficiency. The top strategic technology trends for this year fall into three categories: human centricity, location independence, and resilient delivery, and are expected to be significant for the next five to ten years. Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) will need to establish a technological ecosystem that is dependable, cloud-based, data-integrated, and learning-focused to compete successfully in this “new normal.” After the epidemic, when classes resume on campus, a hybrid approach to virtual learning is likely to become the new normal. While it is unlikely that campuses would be totally virtual, they will also be unlikely to be entirely physical.

A blend of actual and virtual classrooms, as well as online learning, is the long-term solution, and strategic decisions made now will be critical in preparing for a post-pandemic world.

Accreditation represents a quality of academic standards and validation, and its impact on business schools is multifaceted. Accredited institutions are widely acknowledged for their higher quality, financial stability, stakeholder acceptance and overall growth compared to non-accredited educational institutions. Given these positive outcomes, this study aims to explore the role of accreditation in fostering financial innovation and business sustainability.

The study used a qualitative design to understand this relationship, engaging 36 leaders from Advance Collegiate Schools of Business-accredited business schools in the Gulf Cooperation Council region as participants to collect data. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to gain an in-depth understanding of the topic. Data were analysed using the content analysis method.

That accreditation significantly influences the business sustainability of these schools. In addition, although the direct impact of accreditation on financial innovation may not be immediately apparent, it was observed that financial inflows experienced remarkable growth after obtaining accreditation.

While the effects of accreditation have been thoroughly researched, its influence on financial innovation and business sustainability remains unexplored. This study aims to discern if accredited educational institutions excel in financial innovation and maintaining sustainable business practices. These findings have important implications as they guide university administrators to maximise the benefits of accrediting their business schools.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how the digital competence of academicians influences students’ engagement in learning activities in the face of the pandemic outbreak. In addition to this, the paper investigates how digital competence influences each dimension of student engagement (cognitive, affective and behavioural).

A cross-sectional, quantitative and explanatory research design was used to conduct the study. Data were gathered with an adopted questionnaire administered to a randomly selected sample of 500 university faculty members who were not digitally literate prior to the outbreak of the pandemic. Apart from the goodness of data tests, inferential statistics were applied to test hypotheses.

Results indicate a significant influence of teachers’ digital competence on student engagement and the pandemic outbreak positively moderates the relationship. Digital competence equally influences all three dimensions of student engagement.

The outbreak of COVID-19 made the adoption of digital life more compulsive and the nations with already available digital infrastructure and digital competence effectively minimized the adverse effect of social distancing as a result of the pandemic outbreak. Findings emphasize practitioners to focus on the digital capacity building of academicians and the provision of digital infrastructure to facilitate student engagement.

Society is transforming into a hi-tech lifestyle and technological advancement is penetrating almost every sphere of life at an unprecedented pace. From the digitalization of day-to-day affairs to e-governance, the adoption of technology is becoming a new normal. The outbreak of the pandemic overtook academic institutions equally. So, the social distancing compelled academicians and other stakeholders of universities to switchover from in-campus classes to online classes. The findings enrich the existing body of literature by explaining how digital competence has a determining role in ensuring student engagement amid the COVID-19 outbreak.

This research is a seminal work, as it tests the influence of digital competence on student engagement with the moderating role of the pandemic outbreak. To the best of the author’s knowledge, existing literature does not present this kind of research.