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The goal of this study is to explore the role leadership play by Singapore’s government in the handling of the Covid-19 crisis and to suggest recommendations around the leadership dynamics in solving similar challenges experienced by businesses, organizations and societies.

This review was conducted using a case study and a desk review, a systematic review as well as a narrative method where physical books, web searches, online platforms, patterns in related occurrences and related literature were used to support the study. The review was anchored on the contingency approach and the stakeholder theory. Two hypotheses were developed and tested using qualitative comparative analysis. The study finding showed that the Singapore government used an all-inclusive functional leadership approach in curtailing the effect of the pandemic on Singaporeans. The study recommends that in decision-making, being proactive and timely is critical, and developing more conceivable and holistic crisis response plans through an integrated orientation is paramount to the successful achievement of a goal.

Despite some flaws, it was found that the Singaporean government had conveniently used a contingency leadership approach through an all-inclusive functional leadership to mitigate the effect of Covid-19 through the use of social media, messaging apps and effective communication, effective pandemic control techniques, albeit in a proactive manner. As a result, Singapore's mortality rate was relatively lower than that of other nations that were adversely affected by the epidemic, earning them a prime position in the crisis response. The study, therefore, contends that their proactive response to containing the pandemic can be used as a model for people, businesses, the political system and society to lessen incidents of a similar nature in the future.

Policymakers, scholars and frontline workers may have sufficient reason to devote time to developing a more viable, comprehensive crisis response plan by pursuing an integrated learning strategy, through the use of contingency approaches and drawing on past experiences in dealing with global health emergencies. Apart from this, Singapore’s experience will serve as a lesson for the management of businesses and leaders of societies to take proactive steps in dealing with challenges as soon as they arise.

This review showed that contingency is a reality faced by every society and organization and people’s collective responsibility is a necessity during such time. Therefore, when an organization/institution is in a familiar situation, policymakers, academics and business management/leaders need to be proactive and also reflect on past experiences to deal with current and future mistakes in the course of daily operations in an organization/society.

Social enterprises (SEs) face tensions when combining financial and social missions, and this is particularly evident in the scaling process. Although extant research mainly focuses on SEs that integrate their social and financial missions, this study aims to unpack social impact scaling strategies in differentiated hybrid organizations (DHOs) through the case of African SEs.

The study entails an inductive multiple case study approach based on four case SEs: work integration social enterprises (WISEs) and fair trade producer social enterprises (FTPSEs) in Uganda and Kenya. A total of 24 semi-structured interviews were collected together with multiple secondary data sources and then coded and analyzed through the rigorous Gioia et al. (2013) methodology to build a theoretical model.

The results indicate that SEs, as differentiated hybrids, implement four types of social impact scaling strategies toward beneficiaries and benefits (penetration, bundling, spreading and diversification) and unveil different dual mission tensions generated by each scaling strategy. The study also shows mutually reinforcing mechanisms named cross-bracing actions, which are paradoxical actions connected to one another for navigating tensions and ensuring dual mission during scaling.

This study provides evidence of four strategies for scaling social impact, with associated challenges and response mechanisms based on the cross-bracing effect between social and financial missions. Thus, the research provides a clear framework (social impact scaling matrix) for investigating differentiation in hybridity at scaling and provides new directions on how SEs scale their impact, with implications for social entrepreneurship and dual mission management literature.

The model offers a practical tool for decision-makers in SEs, such as managers and social entrepreneurs, providing insights into what scaling pathways to implement (one or multiples) and, more importantly, the implications and possible solutions. Response mechanisms are also useful for tackling specific tensions, thereby contributing to addressing the challenges of vulnerable, marginalized and low-income individuals. The study also offers implications for policymakers, governments and other ecosystem actors such as nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and social investors.

Despite the growing body of literature on scaling social impact, only a few studies have focused on differentiated hybrids, and no evidence has been provided on how they scale only the social impact (without considering commercial scaling). This study brings a new perspective to paradox theory and hybridity, showing paradoxes come into view at scaling, and documenting how from a differentiation approach to hybridity, DHOs also implemented cross-bracing actions, which are reinforcement mechanisms, thus suggesting connections and synergies among the actions in social and financial mission, where such knowledge is required to better comprehend how SEs can achieve a virtuous cycle of profits and reinvestments in social impact.

There is growing interest in innovative online problem-solving models such as crowdsourcing to serve individuals, firms and the society as a whole. Crowdsourcing is the combination of efforts from various sets of individuals who are either volunteering or working part-time for socioeconomic production, basically in the cyber world. This hybrid work model is already in use by businesses and entrepreneurs; some of the platforms include Amazon mechanical Turk, 99designs, Hit RECORD and Design Crowd.

Much has been parleyed and published, and this is primarily because of the efficient socioeconomic potentials crowdsourcing offers.

This paper addressed the following three questions to help have a better understanding of crowdsourcing: who can perform crowdsourcing? why it is relevant to crowdsource in this present proliferated internet age and if there are going to be some changes in the future and the last but not the least what can be done to promote it in the society?

This paper discusses the three W’s and concludes with challenges facing the crowdsourcing work model.

The aim of this article is to describe Huawei's internationalization process in Venezuela and show how socio-political and economic conditions helped to expedite the company's development in this Latin American nation between 2006 and 2019. Through this internationalization process, Huawei participated in a large technological transition in Venezuelan telecommunications.

This research uses an integrative approach, developing a quasi-case study from a review of the academic literature, contemporary news stories and institutional and practitioner documents.

The review indicates that Huawei was engaged in business with the Venezuelan phone company before its renationalization. Secondly, Huawei's internationalization was a beneficiary of the increased relations between the Venezuelan and Chinese governments, mainly through “oil for loans/goods” agreements. Lastly, this internationalization process includes wholly owned subsidiaries, direct export, greenfield and government joint ventures.

This research provides an understanding to other firms and strategists about the benefits of strong bilateral economic relationships between home and host countries.

This paper is among the first academic articles that describe the internationalization process of Huawei in Venezuela. Considering the host country's changing political and economic conditions during the last 20 years, such research may provide a perspective for considering other Chinese business expansions in Venezuela and Latin America.

In many countries, individuals can receive welfare support whilst simultaneously being employed. The level of earned income that welfare recipients are allowed to keep has long been a subject of debate. Core issues include whether in-work benefit regulations provide incentives for individuals to expand labour market participation and are thus also socially effective and whether the population perceives welfare benefits for individuals who earn own income as fair. This article contributes to the debate about the social legitimacy of in-work benefit regulations by shedding light on the principles guiding judgements about an adequate amount of in-work benefit receipt.

The authors use a factorial survey experiment to investigate which factors guide judgements about an adequate level of in-work benefit receipt. In the authors' factorial survey, the household composition, health status, and monthly earnings of a hypothetical in-work benefit recipient were varied experimentally. The study investigates Germany's basic income support programme, a means-tested social policy programme that targets both unemployed and employed individuals.

The results show that respondents consider higher earnings retention rates for lower-income earners to be fair. This preference mirrors the German legislation, which is based on the principle of need. Furthermore, the presence of children and of physical as well as mental health impairments are associated with support for higher earnings retention rates.

The findings suggest that citizens support the core features of in-work benefit regulations but do not consider in-work benefit recipients as a homogenous group when assessing the adequate level of benefit receipt.

All entrepreneurs face challenges during their venture start-up process, but immigrant entrepreneurs face additional and distinctive challenges due to their contextual newness. This paper focuses on understanding the intertwined journeys of nascent entrepreneurship and cross-cultural adaptation of immigrants in a small Western European country where immigrant entrepreneurship is still a relatively new phenomenon.

The induction-driven, 18-month longitudinal empirical inquiry focused on six early-stage nascent entrepreneurs. Qualitative methods included participant observation during an enterprise program, qualitative interviews and ongoing informal communication.

The data uncovered the interplay between the nascent immigrant entrepreneurship and cross-cultural adaptation. This led to the development of a novel conceptual framework which highlights how the cross-cultural adaptation domain links with the process of recognition, evaluation and exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities by immigrant entrepreneurs. While varying temporarily and contextually, cross-cultural adaptation was found to create both enabling and constraining tensions within the nascent entrepreneurial experiences of immigrants.

It is recognized that undertaking just six cases may present a significant limitation of the research, but a close examination of even one individual's lived experience can yield valuable insights. It is hoped that future work will test the highlighted research propositions and other findings in different empirical contexts, and so add to the emerging conceptual framework on nascent immigrant entrepreneurship within the context of cross-cultural adaptation.

No previous qualitative studies have been undertaken seeking to understand how cross-cultural adaptation interacts with the early stages of nascent immigrant entrepreneurial activity. By integrating new venture creation and cross-cultural adaptation theories, this research contributes to the conceptualisation of early stages of nascent entrepreneurial activities of immigrants in a new host environment. The implications of the research are also relevant to enterprise support bodies, policymakers and practitioners who support immigrant entrepreneurship.

Against the theoretical backdrop of the embeddedness and the resilience literatures, this paper investigates if and how SMEs' planning for adversity affects firms' performance.

The paper develops hypotheses that investigate the link between the risk management of immigrant-led and native-led SMEs and their performance and draw on novel data from a survey on 900 immigrant- and 2,416 native-led SMEs in 5 European cities to test them.

Immigrant-led SMEs are less likely to implement an adversity plan, especially when they are in an enclave sector. However, adversity planning is important to enhance the growth of immigrant-led businesses, even outside a crisis period, and it reduces the performance gap vis-à-vis native-led businesses. Inversely, the positive association between adversity planning and growth in the sample of native entrepreneurs is mainly driven by entrepreneurs who have experienced a severe crisis in the past.

This paper empirically uses planning for adversity as an anticipation stage of organizational resilience and tests it in the context of immigrant and native-led SMEs. Results support the theoretical reasoning that regularly scanning for threats and seeking information beyond the local community equips immigrant-led SMEs with a broader structural network which translates into new organizational capabilities. Furthermore, results contribute to the process-based view of resilience demonstrating that regularly planning for adversity builds a firm's resilience potential, though the effect is contingent on the nationality of the leaders.

Work-based placements are central to the university education of allied health and social work (AHSW) students. As a result of COVID-19, the clinical learning environment of students' work-based placements was dramatically altered resulting in numerous documented challenges. This inter-disciplinary study aimed to evaluate AHSW students' perceptions and experiences of completing a diverse range of work-based placements during COVID-19.

This study was a mixed-method inter-disciplinary study using an anonymous online survey consisting of multiple choice, Likert scale and free text questions. Mixed-methods design supported amalgamation of insights from positivism and interpretivism perspectives and enabled research questions to be answered with both breadth and depth. 436 students were invited to participate who were enrolled in five AHSW educational university programmes: speech and language therapy, occupational therapy, physiotherapy, radiation therapy and social work. Data collected was analysed using both quantitative (descriptive and analytical statistics) and qualitative (thematic analysis) methods.

118 students participated (response rate: 27%) representing a range of AHSW disciplines who attended diverse placement settings. While there was extensive disruption in the learning environment leading to increased levels of stress and concern, a triad of individual and systemic supports helped to ensure positive work-based placement experiences and student success for the majority of AHSW students during COVID-19: (1) university preparation and communication; (2) placement site and supervisor support; and (3) students' resilience and capacity to adapt to a changed work-place environment.

This inter-disciplinary study reports the work-based placement experiences from the professional education programmes of healthcare students during the COVID-19 pandemic, giving a unique view of their perspectives and learning during this unprecedented crisis.

This paper explores the historical roots of accounting for biodiversity and extinction accounting by analysing the 18th-century Naturalist's Journals of Gilbert White and interpreting them as biodiversity accounts produced by an interested party. The authors aim to contribute to the accounting history literature by extending the form of accounting studied to include nature diaries as well as by exploring historical ecological accounts, as well as contributing to the burgeoning literature on accounting for biodiversity and extinction accounting.

The authors’ method involves analysing the content of Gilbert White's Naturalist's Journals by producing an 18th-century biodiversity account of species of flora and fauna and then interpretively drawing out themes from the Journals. The authors then provide a Whitean extinction account by comparing current species' status with White's biodiversity account from 250 years ago.

This paper uses Gilbert White's Naturalist's Journals as a basis for comparing biodiversity and natural capital 250 years ago with current species' status according to extinction threat and conservation status. Further the paper shows how early nature diary recording represents early (and probably the only) forms of accounting for biodiversity and extinction. The authors also highlight themes within White's accounts including social emancipation, problematisation, aesthetic elements and an example of an early audit of biodiversity accounting.

There are limitations to analysing Gilbert White's Naturalist's Journals given that the only available source is an edited version. The authors therefore interpret their data as accounts which are indicative of biodiversity and species abundance rather than an exactly accurate account.

From the authors’ analysis and reflections, the authors suggest that contemporary biodiversity accounting needs to incorporate a combination of narrative, data accounting and pictorial/aesthetic representation if it is to provide a rich and accurate report of biodiversity and nature. The authors also suggest that extinction accounting should draw on historical data in order to demonstrate change in natural capital over time.

Social implications include the understanding gleaned from the authors’ analysis of the role of Gilbert White as a nature diarist in society and the contribution made over time by his Journals and other writings to the development of nature accounting and recording, as well as to one’s understanding and knowledge of species of flora and fauna.

To the authors’ knowledge this is the first attempt to analyse and interpret nature diaries as accounts of biodiversity and extinction.

Digital systems for independent aging, support and care are not being adopted as hoped. The purpose of this paper is to examine the results of three studies to derive key factors during the development and engineering process of care and support systems for older people that can impact acceptance and uptake to provide support to future projects.

The paper analyzed the results of three qualitative studies, including two detailed case studies and a further study with 35 participants, to derive key factors. Methods for deriving factors are based on thematic analysis to identify common factors across cases and participants.

The findings point to a broad set of interconnected factors that give developers of these types of systems specific recommendations. These highlight what makes these projects complex and identify implications for the development process. Furthermore, they show way the needed user-centered and iterative methods may be in conflict with funding processes.

While others have reported on single projects or looked at acceptance, these studies were the first to explore aspects of the development process that may contribute to the lack of success to date of these types of systems. The results here support more successful outcomes in the future, both by helping people involved in the development of these systems to avoid some of the issues others face and providing input to improve the performance of the engineering process.