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The authors propose to estimate a varying coefficient panel data model with different smoothing variables and fixed effects using a two-step approach. The pilot step estimates the varying coefficients by a series method. We then use the pilot estimates to perform a one-step backfitting through local linear kernel smoothing, which is shown to be oracle efficient in the sense of being asymptotically equivalent to the estimate knowing the other components of the varying coefficients. In both steps, the authors remove the fixed effects through properly constructed weights. The authors obtain the asymptotic properties of both the pilot and efficient estimators. The Monte Carlo simulations show that the proposed estimator performs well. The authors illustrate their applicability by estimating a varying coefficient production frontier using a panel data, without assuming distributions of the efficiency and error terms.

The author develops a bilateral Nash bargaining model under value uncertainty and private/asymmetric information, combining ideas from axiomatic and strategic bargaining theory. The solution to the model leads organically to a two-tier stochastic frontier (2TSF) setup with intra-error dependence. The author presents two different statistical specifications to estimate the model, one that accounts for regressor endogeneity using copulas, the other able to identify separately the bargaining power from the private information effects at the individual level. An empirical application using a matched employer–employee data set (MEEDS) from Zambia and a second using another one from Ghana showcase the applied potential of the approach.

Introduction: Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) play a vital role in the economic development of economies by generating job opportunities. Considering their significance, understanding the challenges and skills required in these enterprises becomes essential and timely.

Purpose: This study aims to discuss the limitations and skill gaps faced by SMEs in emerging economies, such as India, Indonesia, Brazil, China, Malaysia, Ghana, Hungary, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Türkiye, UAE, Iran, Kazakhstan, Türkiye, Zambia, Romania, and Vietnam.

Methodology: The study adopts a systematic review and meta-synthesis approach, utilising a literature review to comprehensively analyse, synthesise, and map the existing literature by identifying overarching themes.

Findings: The study examines the challenges SMEs encounter in emerging economies, including resource scarcity, limited access to credit, inadequate infrastructure, low technology adoption, restricted global market access, and ineffective marketing strategies. There is a notable shortage of skilled labour and development initiatives within SMEs in India even though the country has a sizeable pool of qualified workers. There is a pressing need for additional technical and managerial skills to remain competitive in the market. The findings of this study will assist HR managers in addressing skill shortages among employees in SMEs operating within emerging economies

The changing roles of the United Nations (UN) and national institutions have made addressing climate change a critical concern for many multinational enterprises’ (MNEs) survival and growth. This chapter discusses how such institutions, which vary in their nature and characteristics, shape firm strategies for climate change adaptation. Exploring different versions of institutional theory, the chapter demonstrates how and why institutional characteristics affect typical patterns of firm ownership, governance, and capabilities. These, in turn, influence companies’ internationalisation and climate-change strategies. Climate change poses challenges to how we understand firms’ strategic decisions from both an international business (IB) (HQ–subsidiary relations) and global value chains (GVC) (buyer–supplier relations) perspective. However, climate change also provides opportunities for companies to gain competitive advantages – if firms can reconfigure and adapt faster than their competitors. Existing IB and GVC research tends to downplay the importance of climate change strategies and the ways in which coherent or dysfunctional institutions affect firms’ reconfiguration and adaptation strategies in a globally dispersed network of value creation. This chapter presents a perspective on the institutional conditions that affect firms’ climate change strategies regarding ownership, location, and internalisation (OLI), and GVCs, with ‘investment’ and ‘emerging standards’ playing a significant role. The authors illustrate the discussion using several examples from the Global South (i.e. Bangladesh) and the Global North (i.e. Denmark, Sweden, and Germany) with a special emphasis on the garment industry. The aim is to encourage future research to examine how a ‘business systems’, or varieties of capitalism, institutional perspective can complement the analysis of sustainability and climate change strategies in IB and GVC studies.

The immersion of global higher education in a competitive, economy-oriented paradigm calls for perspectives on internationalisation that are explicitly aimed at shaping cooperative, sustainable and alternative/decolonial futures. The authors of this chapter recognise the relevance of research perspectives that – epistemologically aligned with critical internationalisation studies – emphasise the dilemmas and contradictions of internationalisation of higher education (IHE). In this chapter, the authors therefore present reflections that confront the hegemonic discourse that portrays the phenomenon of IHE as an unconditional good. The authors dialogue with the idea of promoting a perspective of IHE from and for the Global South – that is, one that instead of suppressing, recognises the epistemic plurality of the world. To do so, the authors assume that any critical efforts to address internationalisation in the context of the Global South can be enriched when explicitly situated within colonial history. The authors argue that looking towards the future of IHE requires a look towards its past. Specifically, the authors bring together four interrelated lines of argument: (i) recognising the university as a historical producer and reproducer of colonial hierarchies; (ii) conceiving the Global South as a field of epistemic challenges; (iii) having a non-myopic view of South–South cooperation; and (iv) spreading the epistemological horizon of internationalisation. Such reflections might contribute to envisioning new horizons for IHE in the Global South and its relation with those who have been relegated to a status of invisibility.

The construction workforce plays a crucial role in the successful delivery of any construction project and, eventually, the performance of any construction organisation. Effectively managing these workforces becomes crucial. However, past studies have shown that workforce management within the construction industry has been on the back foot, with workers being seen as resources required to deliver construction projects. This situation begs the need for a construction workforce management model that can be tailored to an organisation’s situation and adopted to manage workers and improve organisational performance effectively. To this end, this chapter reviewed existing workforce management theories, models, and practices to develop a suitable approach towards managing the construction workforce. Ultimately, a strategic workforce management with a classical view using a soft workforce management approach that embraces employees’ empowerment and development through trust was proposed. Five major practices that best suit the soft workforce management approach were identified as key constructs in the proposed construction workforce management model.

This chapter addresses the question of what normatively binding claims can be associated with the principle of sustainability. It proposes a theoretical reading of justice that requires a new level of morality, namely a global (spatial), intergenerational (temporal) and ecological (material) extension of the scope of responsibility. This makes it plausible that responsibility for those who are distant in space and time, as well as for nature, becomes a matter of conscience. At the same time, it is shown how the binding claims resulting from the principle of sustainability can be internalised in the course of a conscience formation and how the gap between knowledge and action in questions of sustainable development can be closed by means of an emotional underpinning. Finally, it is proposed to transfer the question of conscience to spatial units and tourism through the model of ‘Destination Conscience’ and to institutionalise the idea of ‘inner commitment’ or self-commitment. One suggestion is the creation of committees that could be a collective ethical conscience for the future issues.