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There is a need for research examining how governments and firms responded to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. This study investigates the interdependence between governments and innovative small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) during the pandemic in relation to the dynamic capabilities and resource dependence theories.

We use World Bank survey data collected immediately before and after the COVID-19 outbreak and a generalized structural equation model to examine the mediating role of government support in the relationship between firm innovation, resilience and survival.

Innovative SMEs exhibited higher resilience and a better chance of survival during the pandemic, partly due to attracting more government support.

This study offers a novel understanding of the government’s role in supporting innovative SMEs during the pandemic. The findings have implications for how government support policies can limit the deadweight effect and the substitution effect.

This paper develops a new model of policy development for the creative industries in a transitional economy setting. These sectors could potentially make a significant contribution to the continuing growth of the Vietnamese economy; however, they are currently held back by a lack of policies designed to support them

The paper uses data collected from a mixed-methods study of the creative and cultural sectors in Vietnam. The paper combines quantitative results from a mapping project with ethnographic observations and several qualitative interviews to identify the policy needs of the sector.

The paper develops the INCITE model of policy development composed of four parts: education and human resources, infrastructure, intellectual property rights and freedom of speech.

The paper contributes to our understanding of the kinds of policies needed to support the creative industries by exploring their development in an economy transitioning from a state planned economy to a market-driven one.

This article aims to evaluate the entry and exit of companies from local productive structures, with a specific focus on the sectoral complexity of these activities and the complexity of these portfolios. The study focuses on empirically demonstrating the thesis that related economic diversification exacerbates the development gap between more and less complex regions.

The article uses indicators formulated by the economic complexity approach. They allow a relevant descriptive analysis of the economic diversification process in Brazilian micro-regions and provide the foundation for the econometric tests conducted. Through three distinct estimation strategies (OLS, logit, probit), the influence of complexity and relatedness on the entry and exit events of firms from local portfolios is tested.

In all estimated models, the stronger relationship between an activity and a portfolio significantly increases its probability of entering the productive structure and, at the same time, acts as a significant factor in preventing its exit. Furthermore, the results reveal that the complexity of a sector reduces the probability of its specialization in less complex regions while increasing it in more complex regions. On the other hand, sectoral complexity significantly increases the probability of a sector leaving less complex local structures but has no significant effect in highly complex regions.

Due to the data used, the indicators are calculated considering only formal job numbers. Additionally, the tests do not detect the influence of spatial issues. These limitations should be addressed by future research.

The article characterizes a prevailing process of uneven development among Brazilian regions and brings relevant implications, primarily for policymakers. Specifically, for less complex regions, policies should focus on creating opportunities to improve their diversification capabilities in complex sectors that are not too distant from their portfolios.

The article makes an original contribution by proposing an evaluation of regional diversification in Brazil with a focus on complexity, introducing a more detailed differentiation of regions based on their complexity levels and examining the impact of sectoral complexity on diversification patterns within each group.

This study examines the relevance of information and communication technologies in the effect of gender economic inclusion on environmental sustainability.

The focus is on a panel of 42 sub-Saharan African countries over the period 2005–2020. The empirical evidence is based on generalized method of moments. The environmental sustainability indicator used is CO2 emissions per capita. Three indicators of women’s economic inclusion are considered: female labour force participation, female employment and female unemployment. The chosen ICT indicators are mobile phone penetration, Internet penetration and fixed broadband subscriptions.

The results show that: (1) fixed broadband subscriptions represent the most relevant ICT moderator of gender economic inclusion for an effect on CO2 emissions; (2) negative net effects are apparent for the most part with fixed broadband subscriptions (3) both positive ICT thresholds (i.e., critical levels for complementary policies) and negative ICT thresholds (i.e., minimum ICT levels for negative net effects) are provided; (4) ICT synergy effects are apparent for female unemployment, but not for female employment. In general, the joint effect of ICTs or their synergies and economic inclusion should be a concern for policymakers in order to better ensure sustainable development. Moreover, the relevant ICT policy thresholds and mobile phone threshold for complementary policy are essential in promoting a green economy.

The study complements the extant literature by assessing linkages between information technology, gender economic inclusion and environmental sustainability.

Labour efficiency is the key component for the long-term sustainability of construction firms. Recent studies show that modernising organisational/managerial processes is necessary to raise labour efficiency in many emerging nations. Construction supervision is a crucial element in organisational/managerial practices, which provide blood circulation to the project operations by directing labour. Accordingly, this study aims to quantify the impacts of crucial organisational/managerial elements on the efficiency of labour in building construction projects based on the viewpoint of construction supervisors.

A total of 28 factors were determined as critical, where lack of labour motivation, poor labour training facilities, poor performance evaluation practices, no labour rewarding mechanism and poor communication/cooperation between parties were judged to be the top five key issues in the list. The validity and reliability of the study findings were ensured through statistical tests and the experts' discussion outcomes. In view of the evolving challenges facing the industry, the results indicate that the organisational policies of construction enterprises in place addressing financial procedures, communication strategies, resource management and performance management practices must be enhanced.

The study findings will make a substantial contribution to reducing the disparity between organisation/management policies and labour practices towards changing how the sector operates to increase labour efficiency in construction projects.

This study contributes to addressing the knowledge gap in the industry associated with the organisational protocols, especially to understand/predict how such elements are significant, how much they influence the efficiency of construction practices and what steps can be made to limit their effects on labour efficiency in construction. These could be crucial in modernising organisational policies and procedures for construction management.