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In this chapter, we theorize about online freelancers’ approaches to work flexibility. Drawing from an ongoing digital ethnography of US-based online freelancers pursuing work on digital platforms, our data question the common conceptualizations around the flexibility of online freelancing. We posit that the flexibility of where to work, not when to work, is the most important attribute of their work arrangement. Our data show (1) the online freelancers in our study prefer the stability and sustainability of full-time work over freelancing when both are offered as remote options; (2) full-time remote employment increases these workers’ freelancing control / flexibility; (3) these workers keep freelance work options open even as they transition to more permanent full-time work arrangements. We discuss how these findings relate to workplace culture shifts and what this means for contemporary working arrangements. Our insights contribute to the discourses on knowledge-based gig work and for what it means to study individuals online.

This paper examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health and wellbeing of academic and professional Higher Education (HE) staff in the UK.

A mixed-method survey questionnaire was sent to almost 300 UK HE staff to secure qualitative and quantitative data to enable data triangulation.

The study found an adverse impact on academic and professional staff's mental health and wellbeing, further resulting in stress and anxiety. Several reasons for the increased stress and anxiety levels were identified, but social isolation and the increased workload were the most commonly reported. The most affected groups by the pandemic were females, younger staff, full-timers and those with disabilities or caring responsibilities.

This study offers a range of strategies to support staff's mental health and wellbeing; as such, it is of great interest to policymakers to inform their decisions of similar crisis events in the future. It also addresses some of the COVID-19 areas of research interest for the UK parliament.

The study's originality derives from exploring the pandemic's impact on UK HE staff's mental health and wellbeing by including professional staff's experiences alongside those of academics. It also expands the scant evidence concerning the pandemic's impact on HE staff in the UK.

Stockbrokers’ frauds in India frequently occur, causing investors significant financial loss. This study aims to unfold the various dubious practices adopted by stock brokers in the recent past to defraud investors and the necessary corrective regulations passed by the market regulator to prevent and detect fraud.

The authors conduct exploratory research using a collective model of literature review, case studies and regulatory changes.

The authors find tightening the system’s loopholes and strengthening the regulatory system using technology helps in the early detection and prevention of fraud. Media activism and investors’ awareness play a role in reducing incidences of fraud.

This study unfolds the practices followed by stock brokers to defraud investors, indicative of regulatory gaps and enforcement lapses. Regulators are evolving a robust system to curb these practices and make them on par with international standards. But, it has a long way to go.

Robust fraud detection and prevention mechanism is desirable to restore investors’ confidence in the stock market. Regulators should focus on investors’ protection and education and whistleblowers’ protection. Compared to the market regulators worldwide, the Securities and Exchange Board of India has less power to identify, detect and punish fraudulent brokers and needs to be empowered.

Besides the regulatory changes, strict enforcement and investor campaigns are required to increase public awareness and restore trust in the stock market to combat the recurrence of fraud.

This paper can be helpful to regulators, investors and financial intermediaries like stock brokers and aid in strengthening the reliability of capital markets and restoring investors’ confidence.

While previous research has identified that environmental innovation is shaped by a variety of drivers, researchers have devoted limited attention to the role of nature-based resources in the country. Building on environmental innovation theory and the natural resource-based view of the firm, this study introduces ecological resource deficits as a novel driver of environmental innovation. The authors explore how ecological resource deficits interact with institutional and regulatory drivers as well as firm-level technology drivers to explain the extent of environmental innovation across different countries.

The authors apply fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to a multi-source dataset to identify different pathways for environmental innovation across 28 countries.

Findings show that higher environmental innovation is a function of ecological resource deficits complemented by the presence of at least two other conditions. Moreover, the results show that environmental policy stringency and societal expectations are substitute conditions of environmental innovation.

This study reveals the interdependences between different conditions for environmental innovation across countries contributing to a more nuanced understanding of the geography of environmental innovation.

This paper examines the political budget cycles in emerging and developing countries using a sample of 91 countries from 1992 to 2019.

This paper employs a pooled ordinary least squares (OLS) model with clustered standard errors at the country level. To address endogeneity issues, the authors also employ a two-step system generalized methods of moments model.

The authors find clear evidence of political budget cycles in emerging and developing countries. The authors consistently find that incumbents increase total government spending, particularly in economic affairs, public services and social welfare, in the year before an election and the election year. In contrast, they contract spending in the year after an election.

Policymakers should be aware of the political budget cycles during election years. Promoting control of corruption and democracy helps to alleviate the effects of the political budget cycles in emerging and developing countries.

The authors are among the first to explore the political budget cycles in emerging and developing countries by focusing on the total government spending and its main compositions, including expenditures on economic affairs, public services and social welfare. Besides, the authors also explore the conditioning effects of control of corruption, political ideology and democracy.

This paper investigates the (a)symmetric effects of financial development in the presence of economic growth, energy consumption, urbanization and foreign direct investment on environmental quality of South Africa between 1980 and 2017.

A robust measure of financial development is generated using banking institutions and non-banking institutions market-based financial development indicators, while environmental quality is measured using carbon footprint, non-carbon footprint and ecological footprint. The objectives of the study are captured using linear and non-linear autoregressive distributed lag.

The result from the symmetric analysis suggests that financial development stimulates carbon footprint and ecological footprint in the short run; however, financial development abates non-carbon footprint. In the long run, financial development has a significant negative effect on carbon footprint and ecological footprint. However, the asymmetric analysis established strong asymmetric effect in the short run, while no asymmetric effect is found in the long run. The short run asymmetric analysis reveals that positive shock in financial development increases carbon footprint and ecological footprint; however, positive changes in financial development reduce non-carbon footprint. Negative shocks in financial development, on the other hand, have a positive impact carbon footprint, non-carbon footprint and ecological footprint.

The study's outcome implies that the concept of “more finance, more growth” could also be applied to “more finance, better environment” in South Africa. The study offers vital policy suggestions for the realization of sustainable development in South Africa.

This empiric adds to the body of knowledge on the influence of financial development on various components of environmental quality (carbon footprint, non-carbon footprint and ecological footprint) in South Africa.

Impactful pedagogies in Higher Education are required to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century. This chapter outlines an inclusive, flexible, and work-based learning curriculum design framework to respond to these needs. Two cases from Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU) are used to illustrate this framework in a transnational educational context in Sub-Saharan Africa. Case one explores the impact of a Railway Operations Management program in South Africa, where the views of two cohorts of 137 recent graduates were gathered through an online questionnaire. Case two examines the views of Optometry/Orthoptics students who undertook an intensive two-week clinical work experience on the train-based clinic (Phelophepa train) in South Africa; data was gathered through an online questionnaire from 58 participating students since 2014. Both examples highlight transformative personal experiences and impacts of their education beyond just their studies – to a clearer sense of personal and professional pride, to becoming role models for their families and to developing meta-cognitive skills to support lifelong learning. In the Railway Operations Management example, additional benefits were seen to their organization – through improved interpersonal skills, decision-making, and problem-solving and creating knowledge-sharing – whereas in the Optometry/Orthoptics case life-changing impacts to patients were delivered through this work experience.

Mindfulness is the human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what we're doing. This study explores on the impact of mindfulness on different elements of knowledge management, knowledge creation, knowledge sharing and knowledge hiding.

The authors undertake an inductive reasoning approach whereby they try to generate themes from specific observations and conceptualize the theory of mindfulness and knowledge transfer.

This study finds out that mindfulness critically facilitates an open environment and enhances the clarity of thought which aids in effective knowledge creation. Such a realistic understanding about the present scenario encourages employees to share knowledge and equips them to collaborate and effectively work in teams. Surprisingly, this study also finds that mindfulness increases the result orientation to the extent that employees tried to hide knowledge from their co-workers targeting certain self-desired outcomes. In other words, similar to knowledge creation and knowledge sharing, mindfulness increases agenda-based knowledge hiding.

The theory of mindfulness and knowledge transfer states that mindfulness increases knowledge creation, knowledge sharing and agenda-based knowledge hiding.

Skilled graduates delivered through vocational programmes are critical to ensure the future growth of emerging economies. This study explored students' reflections and experiences of online teaching and learning (T&L) during the COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa. The study specifically focused on the transferable skills students acquired and their relevance to working in the local retail and hospitality industries.

Following a case study research design, this study retrospectively delved into the multi-perspectives of students enrolled in vocational programmes. A total of 145 students completed reflective questions via a Qualtrics link regarding the topic in question. Student reflections were grouped and analysed for recurring themes using Atlas.ti. Through thematic analysis, two topical themes emerged related to transferable skills development and the usefulness of skills for future work.

The findings suggest that although students had to rely on online classes during the COVID-19 pandemic, they still developed vital transferable skills, including communication, teamwork, organisational, self-management, flexibility, technology, metacognition and problem-solving.

The findings offer valuable input into planning and developing student-centric online courses to facilitate the development of desired transferable skills. Findings could also guide best T&L practices regarding how education and training across digital platforms could be used to ensure that graduates are prepared to navigate the future complexities of working in ever-changing globalised industries.

This study provides new insights into the evolution of T&L and how unexpected situations could provide an opportunity to hone desired skills and prepare students for employment and the 21st century workplace.

This study aims to provide a cutting-edge evaluation of the sharing economy's impact within the realm of tourism and hospitality. The primary objectives guiding this research are as follows: to uncover the prevalent discussions and debates within the tourism and hospitality sector concerning the implications and effects of the sharing economy on urban destinations; and to analyse how scholarly inquiries and empirical investigations have contributed to a comprehensive comprehension of the intricate theoretical foundations and practical intricacies inherent in the sharing economy. This exploration takes place within the extensive expanse of existing literature.

The study used the non-conventional method for data mining. An artificial intelligence (AI) tool called www.dimensions.ai was used to mine data between the year 2002 and 2021. After which the data was analysed, using Citespace software that assisted in building themes for answering the research questions.

The sharing economy has multifaceted implications for rural and urban destinations. For instance, the findings demonstrated that emotional solidarity fosters community bonds between tourists and residents, enhancing authenticity. While, management firms optimise short-term rentals, boosting revenue and occupancy rates despite capped at 20%. It further demonstrated that the sharing economy disrupts traditional accommodations, especially hotels, impacting rural and urban destinations differently based on location and regulatory flexibility. Technological advancements would shape the digital future, transforming the resource in sharing and connectivity in urban settings.

Management firms or agents significantly enhance property facilities, revenue and occupancy rates. Properties managed by professionals perform better in terms of revenue and occupancy; furthermore, traditional accommodations need innovative strategies to compete with sharing economy platforms. Policymakers must consider location-specific regulations to balance sharing economy impacts. Embracing technological advancements ensures urban destinations stay relevant and competitive.

Emotional solidarity fosters bonds between residents and tourists, contributing to a sense of community. Management firms contribute to local economies and stability. However, Airbnb's impact on traditional accommodations raises concerns about the effect on residents and communities.

The study incorporates classical sociology theory to understand emotional solidarity and extends the concept of moral economy to guide economic behaviour in the sharing economy. The analysis also underscores the influence of technological trends such as mobile technology, Internet of Things, AI and blockchain on sharing practices in reshaping existing theoretical frameworks in the sharing atmosphere. Furthermore, the co-creation of value theory highlights collaborative interactions between hosts and guests, shaping the sharing economy experience. Consumer segmentation and choice theories shed light on sharing economy dynamics. Institutional and location-based theories provide insights into regulatory and location-specific impacts.

This research contributes by comprehensively exploring the multifaceted implications of the sharing economy on a tourist destination. It delves into emotional solidarity, management firm roles and location-specific impacts, enriching the understanding of the sharing economy's effects. The application of co-creation of value theory and examination of platform technologies offer fresh perspectives on value creation and user engagement. The study's focus on practical dimensions guides stakeholders in optimising the benefits and addressing challenges posed by the sharing economy in urban contexts. The exploration of moral economy and its relevance to the sharing economy provides a novel perspective, while the examination of technological influences on sharing practices contributes to understanding the digital future of the sharing economy.