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The COVID-19 pandemic was an eye-opening experience that put to the test our crisis management competencies across many institutions, including those offered by institutions of higher education. This study aims to review the literature on international business (IB) risks and IB education (IBE) to question whether business graduates are equipped to make decisions in today’s volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) marketplace.

While the IB literature has discussed the importance of various sources of risks on global business operations, IBE did not effectively adopt an integrative approach to building the needed risk management competencies related to those risks into our education. The authors argue that this integrative approach to teaching IB is critically needed to prepare future global managers for addressing crises, like that of the pandemic and others. Specifically, this study proposes that this integrated risk management competency can be developed through the building of “synergistic mindsets”.

This study presents a conceptual framework for the components of the synergistic mindset, with intelligence that directly links to present IB risks. These components are cultural intelligence (CQ), emotional intelligence (EQ), public policy intelligence (PPQ), digital intelligence (DQ) and orchestration intelligence (OQ).

Insights related to IBE effectiveness in addressing today’s VUCA market demands and IB risks are discussed.

Integrating institutional logic theory with institutional configurational perspective, this study proposes a theoretical framework to explore the configurational effect of multiple institutional logics, including state, market, and social logics, on social entrepreneurship (SE) participation.

Using data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) survey combined with other international databases, this study applies a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to identify the pathways that how state, market and social logics jointly promote or hinder high SE prevalence among 38 developing countries.

Results show that high SE prevalence rates are achieved through the interaction of multiple institutional logics rather than by any single factor and identify three institutional configuration pathways leading to high SE participation. Further, the pathways impeding high SE participation are not simply the negation of conditions that lead to high SE prevalence.

This study not only extends the institutional logics perspective to SE, enriching the growing research stream on how institutional complexity shapes entrepreneurial activities globally, but also underscores the significance of asymmetric institutional conditions in determining the presence and absence of high SE prevalence. These results have implications for policymakers to improve entrepreneurial institutional configurations that foster social entrepreneurial activities.

Compared with conventional statistical methods, which have limited effectiveness in exploring the synergies of multiple factors, the fsQCA method offers a more robust analysis of the causal complexity of institutional logics promoting or discouraging SE participation.

One impediment of e-government implementation is the lack of e-(government) competences among public officials, especially because foundational education programs fail to teach them. Therefore, this study suggests massive open online course (MOOC)-based continuous education. This study aims to design and evaluate a MOOC and MOOC platform for acquiring e-competence in the public sector and principles for such platforms to capture their inherent design knowledge.

This study uses design science research incorporating qualitative and quantitative methods and draws on established patterns of formulating design principles (DPs).

The core results are a physically instantiated MOOC platform and six DPs: DP of 1) easy access and easy use, 2) professional exchange, 3) protected space, 4) domain focus, 5) cooperation with higher education institutions and 6) promotion from higher government level.

This study contributes to e-government research by extending the design knowledge for the construction of domain-specific MOOC platforms. Moreover, the study contributes to platform economics by discussing existing theses and outlining new opportunities. The research also entails limitations, as the authors have solely considered MOOCs and neglected complimentary offers to sustain learning success.

This study provides practitioners with design principles they can use in their efforts to construct education platforms for the public sector. Moreover, the study presents a working MOOC platform instantiating these DPs, and thus provides an exemplary reference.

Not fulfilling expectations regarding digital public services comes with a risk of decreasing trust in public organizations and the overall government. The results of this study contribute to enabling public officials fulfilling stakeholders’ expectations and generating public value.

By linking e-government competence education with MOOC platform design, this research approximates an important research gap. Scholars previously investigated e-competences and focused on alone-standing MOOCs to convey those. The results of this study offer the potential to construct platforms to centralize such fragmented solutions, maximizing their impact among public officials.

This qualitative investigation is one of a series of sub-investigations under an umbrella project to develop Lampang Creative Livable Tourist City. The aim of this paper is to explore the integration of sustainable tourism into the development of Lampang, a city in northern Thailand. By collaborating with government and private agencies, academics, community leaders and the people of Lampang to reskill and upskill core community groups in the city, the researchers hope to enhance active citizenship, develop relevant skills and foster leadership networks that boost Lampang’s appeal as a sustainable tourism destination.

Data were gathered from brainstorming meetings, focus group discussions, observations and in-depth interviews. After identifying key characteristics required for creative citizens of Lampang city, the researchers developed and implemented pilot curricula with five target groups. Activities were developed to nurture creative leaders and promote innovative use of traditional culture and lifestyle.

The findings revealed that targeted local curricula can harness the cultural capital of the local community and equip locals with a modern toolkit to lay the foundations for a creative, livable tourist city.

This study’s originality lies in its grassroots approach to defining creative citizenship. It captures local community perspectives on what constitutes a creative citizen. Moreover, this research demonstrates how custom-designed educational initiatives can effectively nurture a creative and resilient urban ecosystem. This offers a blueprint for culturally informed urban regeneration, highlighting the role of sustainable tourism in enhancing the city’s attractiveness and livability for both residents and visitors.

Construction research comprises quality contributions to the modern methods of construction (MMC) context in terms of their benefits and relative advantages. However, the uptake of MMC is yet deemed very low in the public sector. Knowing that public clients acquire the purchasing power and the influential status to drive industry change, understanding their low MMC uptake is necessary.

A systematic review of literature has been chosen to extract the key variables contributing to the limited adoption of MMC across the public sector, reinforced by a qualitative semi-structured interview with 12 industry leaders and public clients. This methodology enables the authors to explore works from the past decade, paving a direction for an adequate empirical investigation by reviewing and critically analysing 49 academic articles and interviewing 12 industry leaders and public clients.

The study captured and argued the characteristics that have an influence on public clients' decision, inhibiting the extraction of values associated with greater MMC deployment. A critical analysis resulted in identifying 13 characteristics under 4 main themes, providing a new argument to existing knowledge by calling on the need to better understand public clients and the influence of their own characteristics on their MMC uptake.

This paper utilises the diffusion of innovation (DOI) theory which offers constructs that help explain the influence of the characteristics of a decision-making unit. The authors’ knowledge on public construction clients is limited, and more research in this direction may help in better aggregating construction demand. Overall, arguments provided in this paper enable relative improvements in supply's business models when approaching the public market. The study is believed to be in support of the relative governmental efforts to shape effective policies that can enhance innovation uptake among public bodies.

Based on the componential theory of organizational creativity and innovation, this study examined the relationship between managerial coaching (MC) and innovative work behavior (IWB). It focused on the mediating role of psychological empowerment and the moderating role of task interdependence.

The self-administered questionnaires were used to collect data from 420 employees of the United Arab Emirates’s public sector organizations. A hierarchical linear model (HLM) with different regression techniques was used.

The results showed that MC directly influences IWB. The path analysis also revealed that MC has an indirect effect on IWB via psychological empowerment. The moderating role of task independence in MC and IWB was also revealed.

The findings shall provide insights that will help practitioners and academics understand frontline employees' innovative behavior in public sector settings and formulate strategies that will increase the involvement of employees in displaying innovation-based activities at the workplace.

This study adds value to the literature by integrating the componential theory of organizational creativity and innovation in public sector settings.

This study aims to examine the impact of consumer risk appetite, biases (specifically negative recency bias), and the importance of reviews in enhancing information quality. By analyzing these variables, the authors gain insights into their role in enriching the overall information spectrum available to consumers. The findings contribute to a better understanding of how risk appetite, biases and consumer reviews shape the quality of information.

The questionnaire assessed the relationship between dependent and independent variables by asking participants to rate their experiences in relevant scenarios. Variance-based structural equation modeling with the ADANCO program was used to examine the data. ADANCO software is used explicitly for variance-based structural equation modeling. To evaluate research models and test hypotheses, partial least square path modeling is used.

The efficiency of reviews and ratings is greatly influenced by consumer risk appetite. Businesses should focus on clients who are willing to take risks and balance positive and negative feedback. It is essential to comprehend how customers understand reviews. Credibility is increased by taking biases into account and encouraging unbiased criticism. Promoting thorough reviews strengthens influence. Monitoring and making use of these elements improve online reputation and commercial success.

The research has limitations due to the simplicity of the attributes taken into account and the requirement for a larger sample size. Overcoming barriers to promote consistent client feedback is essential, and tailored emails can help with assessment generation. Increased customer participation in writing evaluations can be achieved by removing obstacles and highlighting the advantages of participation.

Businesses and buyers rely on this “organically” generated content as the basis of their promotional strategy and buying decisions. Most of the research is related to consumer reviews, their behavior and the importance of social validation. However, some critical aspects related to this need further investigation.

This study aims to understand the manifestation and adherence of performance management system (PMS) components in Brazilian startups, concurrently considering the different stages of development and catalyzing factors.

We gathered data through semi-structured interviews with founders and C-level executives from 19 startups. We used an inductive and exploratory method to spot patterns and differences through content analysis, aiming for a contextual understanding of startup PMS manifestation.

We analyzed the PMS of each startup, highlighting the consistency and differences among PMS components in each stage, considering the value proposition, goals, performance perspectives, monitoring indicators, action plans and performance evaluation processes. We also observe various catalyst factors that played an important role in accelerating the early development of the PMS in each stage.

This study provides a practical understanding of the meaning of each PMS component maturity that could be applied to startups in different stages and the catalyzing factors that played an important role in accelerating the initial development of PMS, providing practitioners with a holistic and situated context approach.

This is one of the first studies to provide empirical evidence on the manifestation and adherence of different components of the PMS in Brazilian startups, considering concurrently the organizational life cycle and existing catalyzing factors to the reality of these organizations.

This study aims to investigate the drivers of bank automation system performance expectancy compared to that of bank employees. The purpose is to shed light on the role played by consumers' cognitive schema on automation that is the perfect automation schema (PAS).

A survey was administered to about 500 Italian subjects to measure their PAS; financial knowledge, anxiety, and security; and sociodemographic and socioeconomic variables. Ordered probit regressions and an instrumental variable two-stage least squares regression are run.

The analyses reveal that cognitive schemas play a crucial role in consumer expectations in banking. Individuals with stronger PAS tend to have more positive expectations about bank automation performance compared to employee performance. Financial anxiety and knowledge positively affect bank automation performance expectancy while women, older people, and financially insecure subjects have poor expectations of automated banking systems.

This study extends the understanding of key consumer characteristics that affect bank automation performance expectancy compared to that of bank employees in services delivery in the Italian context. Moreover, it provides useful results for researchers, practitioners, banking institutions, and regulators.

This study aims at addressing the impact of entrepreneurial education (EE) by highlighting career choice intentions (CCI) and entrepreneurial mindset (EM) as impact indicators, as well as unpacking the drivers and mediators in the formation of CCI among college students underpinned by social cognitive career theory (SCCT).

The hypotheses were tested on a survey sample of 1,198 students from 15 higher education institutions in China. Multinomial logistic regression was used to compare the different effects of EE on CCI, which is a categorical variable with four types of options.

The results confirmed the effects of EE on entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE), entrepreneurial outcome expectations (EOE) and EM, as well as the heterogeneity of antecedent connections with students preferring one career choice to the others. The results also revealed the mediating role of ESE and EOE in the model.

The study implies that ESE and EM should be integrated into EE learning outcomes and educators should focus on multiple career choice intentions rather than just entrepreneurial intention for college students' sustainable development.

The research contributes to the literature by verifying CCI and EM as impact indicators of EE, to a nuanced understanding of the educational development of various options of career paths by comparing different career intentions in a mediating model and to the expansion of SCCT by integrating diverse factors in a coherent model within the context of higher education in China.