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Discussions on tourism development address the urgent need to reduce the negative impacts of tourism on tourist destinations. Despite decades of trying to find potential ways to foster sustainability, however, current tourism development is still mainly driven by political interests and growth agendas. In spite of concepts intending to improve sustainable tourism development, negative dynamics, such as over-tourism and the exploitation of nature and local communities, dominate the current reality of tourism. This article focuses on the concept of degrowth as a potential solution for rethinking tourism policy and practices to ensure greater sustainability. Its aim is to explore the gap between these policies and the academic theories on instigating sustainable change, and the actual reality of the tourism industry, which is primarily driven by economic motivations such as growth.

To explore this dichotomy, this paper investigates the values of tourism lifestyle entrepreneurs. Small businesses are the most dominant group in the industry in terms of numbers. I contend that researching their viewpoint on current developmental trends could lead to valuable insights into how to tackle this gap between theory and reality. This paper also explores how the degrowth paradigm may promote sustainability in tourism, as well as the potential role that tourism lifestyle entrepreneurs could play in this development. The discussion is illustrated by a case study based on interviews with tourism entrepreneurs in Iceland.

The findings indicate that various tourism stakeholders have different approaches to growth, with many tourism lifestyle entrepreneurs tending to embrace degrowth practices by acting according to their value base, albeit sometimes unconsciously. This focus on aspects other than growth could potentially encourage tourism lifestyle entrepreneurs to contribute to sustainable development.

The examples discussed in this paper are locally limited and cannot be generalized due to the small size of the interviewed sample group. The scalability of individual entrepreneurs’ impact is limited due to their small size.

The actions and values applied by these tourism lifestyle entrepreneurs demonstrate how degrowth can be manifest on a small scale: growth is only embraced up to a certain limit, so it oes not exceed social and environmental capacities; from that point on, community well-being plays the key role. This study demonstrates the untapped knowledge tourism lifestyle entrepreneurs could provide to rethinking the tourism industry.

This study demonstrates the importance of shedding more light on ethical issues and values beyond growth in both academic and political discussions. Addressing tourism lifestyle entrepreneurs as smaller-scale actors of tourism degrowth could be a meaningful starting point for holistically rethinking tourism and give them a voice.

This research emphasizes untapped knowledge by acknowledging entrepreneurs and their potential for rethinking tourism development, concluding with recommendations for practice and policy.

The purpose of this study is to estimate the effects of gender composition in the workplace on employee job satisfaction and commitment.

The data were collected on both the organizational and employee levels at three different points in time in organizations with more than 70 employees. Multi-level mixed-effects ordered logistics regressions were used to account for the multi-level nature of the data and the ordered nature of the dependent variables.

Employees in gender-balanced workplaces show higher levels of job satisfaction and commitment than those in female-dominated or male-dominated workplaces. The relationship is also based on the gender of the individual, as men show a significantly lower level of both job satisfaction and commitment when working in male-dominated workplaces than others, while for women, the effect is only significant for commitment.

Aiming for a balance in the gender composition of the workplace may improve employee attitudes, especially for men. The results also indicate that further research is warranted into why job satisfaction and commitment are significantly lower among men in male-dominated workplaces.

The relationship between gender and job satisfaction and commitment is well established, but less is known about the effects of gender composition on job satisfaction and commitment. Previous papers have focused on job satisfaction. This paper extends prior studies by estimating the effects of gender composition on both job satisfaction and commitment using multi-level regressions on a rich dataset.

This chapter examines the connections between race and class divisions and examines how they shape racial inequities in the distribution of resources, power and privilege. Throughout history, racial identity has been a key factor in determining a person's position in modern capitalist societies. As such, issues of race and class have preoccupied sociologists and other scholars with diverse ideological orientations. This is highlighted in debates around the nexus of race and class in the production of racial structures, laws and institutions that legitimate and perpetuate the normalisation and centrality of whiteness. This chapter summarises some of the historical and ongoing debates, providing a synthesis of how race and class divisions continue to shape contemporary intergroup relations and social policy. It delves into racial capitalism and how race intersects with other social identities to determine socio-economic hierarchy in many western countries.

This paper aims at understanding how automotive firms integrate customer relationship management (CRM) tools and big data analytics (BDA) into their marketing strategies to enhance total quality management (TQM) after the coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

A qualitative methodology based on a multiple-case study was adopted, involving the collection of 18 interviews with eight leading automotive firms and other companies responsible for their marketing and CRM activities.

Results highlight that, through the adoption of CRM technology, automotive firms have developed best practices that positively impact business performance and TQM, thereby strengthening their digital culture. The challenges in the implementation of CRM and BDA are also discussed.

The study suffers from limitations related to the findings' generalizability due to the restricted number of firms operating in a single industry involved in the sample.

Findings suggest new relational approaches and opportunities for automotive companies deriving from the use of CRM and BDA under an overall customer-oriented approach.

This research analyzes how CRM and BDA improve the marketing and TQM processes in the automotive industry, which is undergoing deep transformation in the current context of digital transformation.

This empirical paper investigates how entrepreneurial firms change their business models in the context of internationalization by identifying different forms of business model innovation (BMI) and exploring the interrelationship between BMI and internationalization.

Based on the dynamic states approach of entrepreneurship (Levie and Lichtenstein, 2010), this paper analyses primary and secondary data from nine European firms following a multiple case study approach.

This paper presents four patterns of radical change and eight types of incremental adaption with-in business models in the context of internationalization. We describe these BMI patterns and types, and we also show how they contribute to increasing involvement in international business activities and the internationalization-related triggers that might cause them.

This paper contributes to a better understanding of the BMI process in the course of internationalization. It also highlights the complex interrelationship between BMI and internationalization by building on a progressive theoretical approach.

In Germany, various approaches have been taken to tackle the current teacher shortage in technical and vocational education and training (TVET). One attempt to remedy the shortage in Bavaria has been the introduction of an engineering education study programme at universities of applied sciences. Ideal candidates for this programme should have an interest in both engineering and social interaction. For effective recruitment, therefore, it is necessary to know applicants’ characteristics such as their vocational interests. In this study, the vocational interest profiles of students in TVET teacher training programmes were identified and their interest profiles and further characteristics were compared with those of other VET students at universities and universities of applied sciences.

An online questionnaire based on Holland’s interest theory and adapted from the Allgemeiner-Interessen-Struktur-Test-3 (interest structure test) was administered to 85 students in TVET teacher training programmes at universities and universities of applied sciences in Bavaria. Items regarding reasons for choosing a particular study programme, university location and other personal details were added.

The vocational interest profiles of students at universities and universities of applied sciences can be described as similar but weakly differentiated. Insights are provided by the characteristics of students such as the majority being first-time academics in the family. The reasons for choosing the degree programme and university location highlight the fact that a large proportion of students in engineering education would not have chosen a teaching-related degree programme if it had not been offered at the respective university of applied sciences.

Although the sample in this study was small and, therefore, limiting, it represented a high proportion of TVET teacher training students in Bavaria and a substantial proportion of first-year students in TVET teacher training programmes at universities and universities of applied sciences in Bavaria (section 2.2 and 3.1). Thus, the findings provide valuable insights into commonalities in interest profiles between engineering education students at universities of applied sciences and other TVET students at universities. With respect to the domain of the chosen vocational specialisation, differentiated profiles emerged that, for example, showed a stronger artistic orientation among students in construction technology/wood. For further analysis, the previous variable-centred orientation of the analysis can be supplemented by person-centred analyses (e.g. cluster analysis and latent variable mixture modelling, LVMM) (cf. Leon et al., 2021).

The findings in this study reveal the potential for attracting candidates to universities of applied sciences if they prefer to study in rather rural areas close to their hometowns. With the aim to educate prospective teachers for future work not only in metropolitan regions but in rural areas too, offering bachelor degree programmes in rural areas would seem promising. A regional option can boost the recruitment of new students and attract candidates that otherwise would be unable to pursue studies or a career as a teacher in vocational education. The results of this study and those of previous studies suggest that universities of applied sciences can cooperate with universities to help solve the teacher shortage problem.

Overall, it is apparent that the students' interests reached comparatively high values in all interest orientations and thus are only weakly differentiated. If undifferentiated profiles indicate low levels of career readiness, this significantly affects the recruitment of young people for the teaching profession. Assessing career orientation and promoting vocational interests should be prioritised during secondary school education. Vocational orientation measures are essential and should provide insight into typical activities of daily work life in different professions and thus pique and foster interests.

This study provides insight into how to respond to the teacher shortage in VET by identifying important characteristics of engineering education students using vocational interest profiling.

Sharing patient health information (PHI) among hospitals has been much slower than the adoption of health record systems. This paper aims to investigate if privacy regulation (PR) or security measures (SMs) influence hospitals’ use of health information exchange (HIE) to share PHI with other providers (e.g. physicians, labs, hospitals). The study specifically focuses on how multiple PRs can impede and a strong national security infrastructure (NSI) can support HIE.

The study uses secondary data from a multi-national and multi-hospital survey administered by the European Union. The multi-level structure of the cross-sectional panel data is used to test the influence of both hospital-level (e.g. PR) and national-level variables (e.g. NSI) on HIE. A total of nine types of HIE, three types of PRs, nine SMs and other relevant control variables are considered. This study uses a two-level random intercept generalized linear model to test the hypothesis proposed in the study.

The study finds that national-level PRs (NLPR) have the strongest positive influence on HIE in comparison to regional (RLPR) and hospital-level (HLPR) PRs. Moreover, the study finds evidence that the presence of RLPR and HLPR, on average, decreases the positive impact of NLPR by 264%. The SMs also have a significant and positive impact on HIE. Adoption of an additional SM can increase the odds of engaging in a certain type of HIE between 21% and 61%. On the other hand, a strong NSI can also amplify the positive impact of SM on certain types of HIE.

This study extends prior research on the role of PRs in enabling HIE by considering the complexities brought up by adopting multiple PRs. NLPRs have the strongest impact on HIE in comparison to RLPRs or HLPRs. Moreover, public infrastructure initiatives such as those related to secure communications can also complement SMs adopted by the providers by encouraging HIE.

This paper aims to appraise the effectiveness of gender quotas in breaking the glass ceiling for women on boards (WoBs) in companies that are legally obliged to comply with quotas (listed companies and state-owned companies, LP) and in those that are not (unlisted companies and nonstate-owned companies, NLNP). Furthermore, it investigates the glass cliff phenomenon, according to which women are more likely to be appointed to apical positions in underperforming companies.

A balanced panel data of the top 116 Italian companies by total assets, which are present in both 2010 and 2017, is used for estimating ANOVA tests across sectors and fixed-effects panel regression models.

WoBs significantly increased in both the LP and the NLNP companies, and this increase was greater in the financial sector. Furthermore, the relationship between the percentage of WoBs and firm performance is not linear but depends on the financial corporate health. Specifically, the situation in which a woman ascends to a leadership position in challenging circumstances where the risk of failure is high (glass cliff phenomenon) is only present in companies with the lowest performance in the sample, in other words, when negative values of Roe and negative or zero values of Roa occur together.

These findings have relevant policy implications that encourage the adoption of gender quotas even in specific top positions, such as CEO or president, as this could lead to a “double spillover effect” both vertically, that is, in other job positions, and horizontally, toward other companies not targeted by quotas. Practical interventions to support women in glass cliff positions, on the other hand, relate to the extent of supervisor mentoring and support to prevent women from leaving director roles and strengthen their chances for career advancement.

The authors explore the ability of gender quotas to break through the glass ceiling in companies that are not legally obliged to do so, and to the best of the authors’ knowledge, for the first time, the glass cliff phenomenon in the Italian context.

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.

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.