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Despite the popularity of gig employment amid the changing business landscape, gig scholarship is somewhat limited and the untold reality about gig is yet to be fully revealed. This study aims to critically address the nature of gig employment, its ambiguities, evolution, theoretical premises and the appropriate future road ahead.

This paper adopts a dual analytical approach – bibliometric and thematic analyses. After incorporating the exclusion–inclusion criteria, the authors identified 2,135 articles for the bibliometric analyses by using VOSviewer. Additionally, for the deep-delving synthesis, the authors conducted thematic analyses following Braun and Clarke (2006), based on 351 papers.

The findings revealed that gig work, in its different forms, is emerging as an alternative work arrangement with respect to the future of work. This study also identified multilevel perspectives of gig employment along with its holistic nomological network. Finally, this study offers some critical research directions that should help enhance the theoretical and practical strengths of this nascent scholarship in future.

The review findings are limited in nature owing to the paucity of quality research papers published in the said domain.

The paper brings more clarity to what gig is and isn’t, along with its critical perspectives from multilevel lenses.

This paper identifies critical perspectives related to gig work and suggests appropriate directions for future gig work related scholarship.

Despite the opportunities of digital twins (DTs) for smart buildings, limited research has been conducted regarding the facility management stage, and this is explained by the high complexity of accurately representing and modelling the physics behind the DTs process. This study thus organises and consolidates the fragmented literature on DTs implementation for smart buildings at the facility management stage by exploring the enablers, applications and challenges and examining the interrelationships amongst them.

A systematic literature review approach is adopted to analyse and synthesise the existing literature relating to the subject topic.

The study revealed six main categories of enablers of DTs for smart building at the facility management stage, namely perception technologies, network technologies, storage technologies, application technologies, knowledge-building and design processes. Three substantial categories of DTs application for smart buildings were revealed at the facility management stage: efficient operation and service monitoring, efficient building energy management and effective smart building maintenance. Subsequently, the top four major challenges were identified as being “lack of a systematic and comprehensive reference model”, “real-time data integration”, “the complexity and uncertainty nature of real-time data” and “real-time data visualisation”. An integrative framework is finally proposed by examining the interactive relationship amongst the enablers, the applications and the challenges.

The findings could guide facility managers/engineers to fairly understand the enablers, applications and challenges when DTs are being implemented to improve smart building performance and achieve user satisfaction at the facility management stage.

This study contributes to the knowledge body on DTs by extending the scope of the existing studies to identify the enablers and applications of DTs for smart buildings at the facility management stage and the specific challenges.

Purpose of This Chapter: This research aims to study the need for more age of qualified talent. The evolving corporate needs, education, and curriculum require urgent reform. Current university methods do not align with corporate demands due to outdated content and ineffective pedagogy.

Design / Methodology / Approach: Drawing on established research, this study delves into 7 prominent training strategies across 14 sectors. A survey of 53 HR professionals and managers forms the basis for employing the non-linear best–worst method (BWM) and the Fuzzy BWM to discern the most effective training and development (T&D) modules. This comprehensive methodology ensures a nuanced analysis of T&D practices and insights for businesses seeking to align with Industry 5.0 demands.

Findings: On-the-job training emerges as the most impactful method, followed by case studies, interactive group learning, and more. These methods enhance employee skills in Industry 5.0.

Research Limitations: Limited by a small sample, future research should expand participant diversity for robustness.

Practical Implications: The study holds significance for bridging the skill gap between academic institutions and Industry 5.0. Aligning strategies with industry needs reduces skill disparities, fuels growth, and addresses employability. The study’s impact extends to society, lowering unemployment and shaping a resilient, adaptable workforce for Industry 5.0.

Originality: This innovative research examines decision-making for implementing T&D strategies in the emergence of Industry 5.0, aligning with a human-centric approach to business transformation.

Building on the introduction to positive psychology and positive education in Chapter 1, the aim of Chapter 3 is to focus on wellbeing and positive education in secondary schools. This includes an overview of approaches to intervening in mental health (‘traditional’ and those which draw on the principles of positive psychology) that have been used in schools, and the factors that can influence their outcomes. When and how to apply interventions across three levels: the system, the community, and the individual, are also explored, alongside four different approaches: whole school, whole class, small group, and one-to-one. The chapter draws on up-to-date research and practical experience in secondary school settings, and includes a case study of Positive Psychology in Practice, based on the delivery (by the author) of a multi-component PPI (mPPI) – The Hummingbird Project, which has now been delivered to approximately 4,000 students in 24 secondary schools across the North West of England. The effectiveness of the mPPI, key lessons learned and insights gained are shared, including how to overcome the challenges of working in a culture not conducive to positive education.

Research indicates a long historical connection between racism and nationalist ideologies. This connection has been highlighted in the resurgence of exclusionary nationalism in recent years, across many multicultural societies. This chapter discusses the notions of race, ethnicity and nation, and critically examines how racism shapes contemporary manifestations of nationalist discourse across the world. It explores the historical role of settler-colonialism, imperial expansions and the capitalist development in shaping the racial/ethnic aspect of nationalist development. Moreover, it provides an analysis of the interconnections between the racialisation of minorities, exclusionary ideologies and the consolidation of ethno-nationalist tropes. This chapter further considers the impact of demographic changes in reinforcing anti-migrant exclusionary sentiments. This is examined in connection with emerging nativist discourse, exploring how xenophobic racism has shaped and is shaped by nostalgic nationalism based on the sanitisation of the legacies of Empire and colonialism.

This paper aims to examine how the fields of social enterprise, social entrepreneurship and social innovation have theorised and applied the concepts of narrative and storytelling.

A literature review and subsequent thematic analysis were used. A keyword search of three databases identified 93 relevant articles that were subsequently reviewed for this paper.

Four main roles for storytelling and narrative were found in the literature: to gain support for social innovation, to inspire social change, to build a social-entrepreneurial identity and to debate the meaning and direction of social innovation itself.

Following the literature review, capacities and applications of storytelling and narrative in other, related fields are discussed to highlight practical use cases of storytelling that might currently be underdeveloped in the social enterprise and innovation sectors.

The paper argues that the social innovation and enterprise literature predominantly views storytelling as a form of mass communication, while often overlooking its ability to foster communal debate and organise intrapersonal dialogue as possible aspects of strategic thinking and innovation management in social enterprise, social entrepreneurship and social innovation.

Both technological and human-centric perspectives need to be acknowledged when combining lean production practices and Industry 4.0 (I4.0) technologies. This study aims to explore and explain how lean production practices and I4.0 technologies may coexist to enhance the human-centric perspective of manufacturing operations in the era of Industry 5.0 (I5.0).

The research approach is an explorative and longitudinal case study. The qualitative data collection encompasses respondents from different job functions and organizational levels to cover the entire organization. In total, 18 interviews with 19 interviewees and five focus groups with a total of 25 participants are included.

Identified challenges bring forth that manufacturing organizations must have the ability to see beyond lean production philosophy and I4.0 to meet the demand for a human-centric perspective in socially sustainable manufacturing in the era of Industry 5.0.

The study suggests that while lean production practices and I4.0 practices may be considered separately, they need to be integrated as complementary approaches. This underscores the complexity of managing simultaneous organizational changes and new digital initiatives.

The research presented illuminates the elusive phenomena comprising the combined aspects of a human-centric perspective, specifically bringing forth implications for the co-existence of lean production practices and I4.0 technologies, in the transformation towards I5.0.

The study contributes to new avenues of research within the field of socially sustainable manufacturing. The study provides an in-depth analysis of the human-centric perspective when transforming organizations towards Industry 5.0.

Small businesses are facing evolving environments, with a resulting need to shift their traditional approaches toward new business models (BMs). Many face difficulties within this transition process due to their specific resource constraints. Based on this, incremental changes to the BM – business model transition (BMT) – are proposed as comprising a suitable framework for entrepreneurial small businesses.

This study conducts a systematic literature review (SLR) to cover a broad range of relevant literature within a final sample of 89 articles. The SLR method was chosen to integrate research in a systematic, transparent and reproducible way. For qualitative analysis and framework derivation, the study draws on a thematic ontological analysis.

The broad search criteria, focusing on BM, incremental BM changes and small businesses, pave the way for a comprehensive overview of multiple research streams of BM concepts (e.g. digital and sustainable BM). The main contribution of this work is the resulting holistic BMT framework, comprising the main parts BM innovation, external antecedents (transition of environment, entrepreneurial ecosystem), internal antecedents (dynamic capabilities, entrepreneurial orientation, resilience, strategy) and output (firm performance).

The framework provides guidance for entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial managers to implement and complete BMT in small businesses. Furthermore, the presented paper sets a future research agenda focusing on small businesses structured according to the derived framework.

This study provides the first SLR of existing BM concepts with a small-business specific perspective on BMI and a focus on various incremental BM changes.

In light of a need for more critical education about datafication, this paper aims to develop a framework for critical datafication literacy that is grounded in theoretical and empirical research. The framework draws upon existing critical data literacies, an in-depth analysis of three well-established educational approaches – media literacy, the German “(politische) Bildung” and Freirean “critical pedagogy” – and empirical analyses of online educational resources about datafication.

The study interconnects theoretical analyses with an empirical mixed methods investigation that includes expert interviews with creators of online educational resources about datafication and a qualitative survey with educators interested in teaching about data technologies.

The research identified novel findings on the goals of resource creators and educators, such as a focus on empowering and emancipatory approaches, fostering systemic understanding of datafication and encouraging collective action. Such perspectives are rare in existing critical data literacy conceptualisations but show resemblance to traditional education scholarship. This highlights how much can be learnt from practitioners and from these more established educational approaches. Based on these findings, a framework for critical datafication literacy is suggested that aims for systemic understanding of datafication, encouraging critical thinking and enabling learners to make enlightened choices and take different forms of action.

The study is unique in its interconnection of theoretical and empirical research, and it advances previous research by suggesting a grounded framework for critical datafication literacy.