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In Thailand, the number of higher education institutions (HEIs) offering international programmes has surged dramatically. Internationalisation is seen as key to competing in the higher education market, modernising educational programming, and generating new streams of revenue. Yet, such rapid change is disorientating for the internationalisation of higher education (IHE) in the Thai context. That said, there is little disagreement on what it is not; it is not Thai. This chapter investigates apparent efforts to ‘de-place’ Thailand from IHE and considers how these attempts may connect to (post-)colonial tensions between sovereignty and civilisation. Through a synthesis of scholarship in the areas of higher education, cultural geography and Thai studies, the authors construct a framework for exploring how IHE is both imagined and experienced in Thailand. In particular, they re-examine datasets from studies they conducted with stakeholders over recent years, including executive leadership, international faculty members, and university students. Through a series of narrative portraits, a dialogue of voices is constructed that reflect distinct orientations to ‘Thainess’ in the IHE. The authors argue that a wider and more inclusive orientation to internationalisation is not only respectful of local identity but is enhanced by it. Ultimately, the hope of this study is to offer a vision of what an ‘emplaced’ idea of IHE in Thailand might look like, one grounded in an orientation unique to a particular place with its own cultural and social coordinates.

This chapter examines how information and communication technology (ICT) initiatives affect customers’ everyday routines with an emphasis on how electronic word of mouth (eWOM) affects their purchasing decisions and determines if eWOM might serve as a useful trust factor when making purchasing decisions. This chapter is based on both primary and secondary data and examines how eWOM affects customers’ buying decisions in this era of increasing social media platform usage. One hundred individuals from various regions of Karachi provided the primary data, collected through an online survey. Secondary data are also employed, such as details from business websites, scientific papers, and other related publications of businesses. In Karachi’s developing digital market, it was discovered that eWOM via social media used to have a substantial impact on consumers’ shopping habits. The effectiveness of social media content depends greatly on how appropriate it is for the intended audience. Social media marketing doesn’t quite simply aim to improve consumers’ impressions or directly advertise things. It also entails maintaining and fostering relationships between businesses and prospective customers. According to the research, consumers’ recommendations and ratings of goods and services made on social media, whether through eWOM or another channel, influenced their decisions to buy. Customers consider social media to be trustworthy when making decisions about what to buy. Customers are currently adopting social media as opposed to more conventional means to learn about new products. Most customers believe that eWOM from social media greatly affected their shopping choices, according to the results of the study.

Purpose: As a result of the transition from the paradigm of ‘knowledge and skills’ learning to the university of uncertainty, the concept of VUCA has grown for the revision of various adaptive models of educational practices.

Need for Study: The primary goal is to explore the research field of the educational system and learning environments; the investigation of scientific knowledge is enabled by bibliometric analysis, revealing through it the fluctuations of the literature.

Methodology: To better view the historical evolution of publications in the educational system field, two data samples were integrated into this study, with the focus of the chapter being on the authors, keywords, articles, journals, subject analysis, word cloud analysis, and cluster analysis. The first includes 1,620 Web of Science-recorded documents published between 1991 and 2022, and the second sample comprises 159 Scopus-recorded papers published between 1978 and 2022.

Findings: The first empirical results show that interest in this subject escalated around 2008. The main concerns around this research field are the labour market, teaching-learning, technology, economic development, the medical field, and sustainability. After 2020, a new subject took amplitude, seemingly connected to the educational system and learning environment, that subject being ’COVID-19.

Practical Implications: The relationship between authors, keywords, and sources is illustrated through Sankey diagrams, from which valuable information can be extracted: nine of the Scopus authors have published articles in the ‘Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management’ documents that present the following list of keywords: ‘higher education’, ‘education’, ‘management’, ‘leadership’, and ‘tertiary education’.

Education to an international standard that can provide successful careers has arguably been the main drive of many parents to allocate scarce financial resources to the education of their progenies. Competition for high-calibre degrees has seen an explosion of opportunity in the private education sector. As many Global South countries do not have the equivalent control of standards provided in the United Kingdom (UK) by the Quality Assurance Agency, this can lead to dissatisfaction with the qualifications received in the Global South. This chapter aims to explore the factors influencing participation in higher education in the Global North versus the Global South, particularly where these relate to or vary by locality, and the relative influence these have on the propensity of the learners living in these areas to progress into higher education in local universities. The conceptual framework and methodology provided in this chapter show the differences between transnational education (TNE) as primarily a standalone or independent activity supported by a UK higher education institution (HEI)/provider versus being a collaborative effort between a UK host university and a South/Southeast Asian HEI university partner. The methodology provides a strategy for UK host institutions to best provide carefully aligned independent or collaborative partnerships with the partner country regulatory bodies. The chapter concludes with the author’s personal reflections and recommendations based on decades of collaborative and independent university provision of TNE. These reflections are focused on design-based courses in selected South/Southeast Asian HEI partnerships with the College of Architecture and Design at Birmingham City University.

This chapter provides a comprehensive investigation of the literature on sustainability reporting in Islamic banks using a content analysis of 200 English language articles published between 2000 and 2023. The data were collected from the Web of Science (WOS) database and analyzed using Bibliometrix in R software. This chapter addresses the trends of the most influential authors, institutions, countries, and research hotspots. This chapter fills one of the gaps in sustainability reporting literature, setting up a statistical description of the principal features of sustainable Islamic banking research and carrying out an analysis of its knowledge structure via bibliometric analysis. This chapter found that the number of articles on sustainability reporting in Islamic banks has increased over time; however, it is concentrated on a few core sources and authors, mostly related to Islamic finance, accounting, and ethics, as well as sustainability and social responsibility. The analysis of the co-authorship network shows a limited degree of collaboration between researchers from different clusters. The most productive and collaborative countries are Malaysia, the United Kingdom, and Pakistan, reflecting their well-developed and regulated Islamic banking industries that follow sustainability guidelines and frameworks. Moreover, the co-word analysis identifies 11 clusters and 43 keywords that represent the main topics and themes in the field, such as corporate governance, performance, disclosure, and risk. This chapter suggests some directions for future research and action on sustainability reporting in Islamic banks. This chapter contributes to the literature on sustainability in Islamic banking and the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The purpose of the chapter was to examine the impact of customer care chatbots on customer satisfaction levels in the mobile telephony industry in Zimbabwe, with a special focus on the company Econet Wireless. This chapter shows the conceptual framework used. An online questionnaire was administered to a sample of 100 Econet Wireless subscribers who were selected using probability stratified random sampling from Zimbabwe’s 10 provinces. The research data were collected and analysed for correlation, and a multiple regression analysis was carried out to identify the relationship between customer satisfaction and the three customer service improvements brought in by the introduction of customer service chatbots. The study discovered that there is a positive relationship between customer satisfaction levels and each of the three customer service improvements brought in by customer service chatbots, namely customer service convenience, speed of response, and omnichannel strategies. This study thereby proves that the introduction of customer service chatbots in the mobile telephony industry in Zimbabwe can lead to an improvement in customer satisfaction levels. However, addressing service quality only as a determinant of customer satisfaction in isolation is not sufficient to fully improve customer satisfaction levels. Therefore, organisations that seek to improve their customer satisfaction should consider strategies that address all determinants of customer satisfaction, namely price, product quality, service quality, situational factors, and personal factors. This study contributes to the body of knowledge, particularly regarding the use of artificial intelligence (AI) for customer service in developing economies.

Purpose: Twenty-first-century leaders operate in an unpredictable and complex business environment. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity) nature of the business milieu and proved to be a real-life test for organisations and their leaders. It brought challenges and losses at personal, organisational, societal, national, and global levels. Nevertheless, some leaders and organisations thrived during and after the pandemic. This research assimilates leadership lessons from extant literature and real-life cases of leadership successes and failures. The authors aim to consolidate leadership strategies valuable in unpredictable, demanding, and complex times like COVID-19.

Methodology: The research relies on an extant literature review and opinions of four c-suite leaders captured through semi-structured interviews. The study uses content analysis to analyse the primary data collected.

Findings: The present research presents its results as a VUCA Leader Toolkit. It consolidates learnings from real-life case studies, extant literature, business reports, and experts’ opinions. It addresses the gap in existing research on VUCA-suited leadership strategies. The outcome of the present study is a clear, adequate, explicit, and well-defined list of VUCA-necessitated leadership strategies.

Originality/value: The research proves its utility in providing the VUCA Leader Toolkit. The outcomes carry usefulness for both present and future business leaders. The business environment today is ever-changing, complex, and uncertain. This unpredictability, uncertainty, complexity, and fuzziness would proliferate in the coming times. Hence, it is imperative to have a list of leadership strategies that may serve as a ready reckoner for leaders.

Introduction: Entrepreneurship and frugal innovation have emerged as critical drivers for addressing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in a global context. The United Nations developed the SDGs to address social, economic, and environmental challenges, ranging from poverty and inequality to climate change and sustainable economic growth. Entrepreneurship and frugal innovation offer a unique approach to achieving these goals by promoting innovation, creativity, and sustainability in business practices.

Purpose: This chapter aims to examine the role of entrepreneurship and frugal innovation in achieving SDGs in a global context. This chapter seeks to identify how entrepreneurship and frugal innovation can contribute towards realising the SDGs and how these concepts can be leveraged to create sustainable and scalable businesses that promote sustainable development.

Methodology: In order to examine how entrepreneurship and frugal innovation contribute to the worldwide achievement of the SDGs, the chapter will use a qualitative research technique. The literature review will involve the qualitative analysis of both developed and developing countries on some specific sectors like transportation, education, health sector, and financial services.

Findings: Through analysing relevant literature, qualitative research, and related examples this chapter provides insights into the challenges and opportunities associated with promoting entrepreneurship and frugal innovation for achieving the SDGs in different contexts.

Practical Implications: The chapter aims to contribute towards a better understanding of the role of entrepreneurship and frugal innovation in achieving SDGs and to provide recommendations for policymakers, entrepreneurs, and other stakeholders on supporting and promoting these concepts globally.

Purpose: The business world has become more turbulent than ever. Organisations must be proactive to meet the challenges of the increasingly disruptive, dynamic, and unpredictable world. One technique that has supported leaders and organisations under challenging circumstances is ‘backcasting’, which works by envisioning a desirable future state and then working backwards to attain it. The current study aims to extend an understanding of the backcasting practices and strategic approaches that can be used by leadership teams in different industries in order to survive in turbulent times and can be adapted within and beyond any pandemic.

Methodology: The research employs a desktop research method to review and compare the most commonly used strategies that leaders from different sectors can use for their respective organisations to thrive in the VUCA world.

Findings: There needs to be more research on the applicability and relevance of backcasting that the leaders of different sectors can employ. The study would provide insights that would bridge the existing research gap and come up with suitable strategies that can be employed for dealing with VUCA challenges in the Indian context.

Significance: The outcome of the study will be helpful to the leaders in designing and aligning ‘out of the box’ backcasting strategies to survive in the highly disruptive world.