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Middle East and North African (MENA) countries notoriously exhibit high prevalence of unemployment and informality among a large fraction of population and, at the same time, gender gaps in labour force participation and job mobility. Why is there such persistent labour market segmentation? What is the impact and potential of various formalisation policies in several MENA countries (Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine and Tunisia)? An overview of the informal economy is provided with respect to taxonomy, coverage and drivers. Transition matrices and multinomial logistic regressions are applied to longitudinal microdata from labour market panel surveys (LMPS) (in Egypt, Jordan and Tunisia), focusing on workers’ occupational mobility regarding their pre-existing status, age cohort, gender and other demographics. Persistent segmentation and low occupational mobility in all countries suggest that informal employment is not driven by choice on the labour supply side but by structural constraints on the demand side. Existing formalisation policies encapsulating distinct stick and carrot strategies and targeting business versus workers achieve rather modest impacts. Promoting social and solidarity enterprises and extending microfinance to informal enterprises are promising policies for the creation of decent jobs.

Organizations remain a vital sociological topic, but organizational sociology, as a subfield, has evolved significantly since its inception. In this paper, I argue that organization sociology is becoming increasingly disconnected from organizational theory, as currently conceived. The focus of sociological research on organizations has become more empirically grounded in the study of social problems and how organizations contribute to them. Sociologists continue to see organizations as important actors in society that play a role in shaping social order and as contexts in which social processes play out. I propose two main sociological approaches for organizational research, which I describe as “organizations within society” and “society within organizations.” The first approach examines the role of organizations as building blocks of social structure and as social actors in their own right. The second approach treats organizations as platforms and locations of social interactions and the building of community. These approaches are somewhat disconnected from the sort of grand theorizing that characterizes much of organizational theory. I argue that the problem-oriented sociology of these two approaches offers a vital way for organizational scholars to expand and theoretically revitalize the field.

This chapter explores the role of artificial intelligence (AI), particularly its subfield of machine learning (ML) methods, as a core technology of the fintech revolution in the financial services industry. It simplifies some of the complex concepts related to AI by introducing the main ML paradigms and related techno-methodic aspects. This chapter uses real-world examples to illustrate how next-generation AI powered by ML is transforming the financial services industry. Next, in illustrating the risks associated with AI adoption, this chapter discusses the need for regulation to address the essential facets of AI governance, including transparency, accountability, ethics, and responsible use. Lastly, it looks at emerging regulatory approaches across leading global jurisdictions. The primary goal is to give readers an initial understanding of AI's profound impact on the financial sector.

The recent pandemic has witnessed increased digitalization. The supply chain disruptions have forced businesses to adopt innovative business strategies that were not prevalent in previous years. This chapter elaborates on how integrating disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, and the Internet of Things (IoT) into business strategies is essential for modern organizations. It emphasizes creating and capturing value through business model innovation, highlighting the significance of developing a value proposition differentiating an enterprise in the market. This involves rethinking and redesigning how organizations create customer value, leveraging these technologies to enhance efficiency, customer experience, and competitive advantage. This chapter advocates for a proactive approach to technology adoption, stressing the importance of agility, innovation, and a forward-thinking leadership mindset in capitalizing on the opportunities presented by technological advancements.

Smart technologies in today's Internet of Things (IoT) era cover a wide spectrum, including smart identification technologies, robotics, virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), wearable technologies, cloud, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and blockchain. This study aims at revealing the role and importance of smart technologies in service systems which encompass a wide spectrum of sectors. The scope of this study covers the main applications in transportation and logistics, retail, health care, hospitality, and financial services sectors. A broad overview is provided for the potentials and benefits of smart technology utilization in these service areas, and future research agenda is suggested. Findings reveal that simultaneous use of smart technologies bring tremendous opportunities in terms of efficiencies and automation, reshaping and transforming operations and business processes of the service enterprises. The study highlights that although core proven applications of smart technologies are in manufacturing, generally lagging service sector applications promise radical productivity improvements, performance enhancements, and increased service quality. By radically upgrading the customer satisfaction to entirely new levels and providing unique customer experiences, smart technologies lead to bottom line profitability improvements as well competitiveness.

The present chapter attempts to highlight the vulnerabilities of female migrants as compared to non-migrants in the unorganized urban labor market. Informal female migrants working in construction, as domestic workers, tailors/boutiques, and garment workers in the urban unorganized sector of Uttar Pradesh’s selected urban locations, are covered in this chapter. Though the fact prevails that workers in the unorganized labor markets are confronted with various livelihood crunches, still those who are migrants and swelling the urban labor markets are more prone to different vulnerabilities. There is scanty literature on the situation and condition of migrants particularly female migrant workers in India, whereas we know more about the condition of international migrants, mainly migrant workers in the Gulf and other regions. The study is based on interviews with 174 female informal workers who have migrated and 222 non-migrants from various regions of the state to the urban locations of selected cities. Our study also attempts to do an in-depth, qualitative exploration of these vulnerable women’s lives and perceptions and tries to capture layered vulnerabilities, risks, and rewards confronted due to both migration and work in the informal sector. Specifically, the findings reflect upon the fact that how strong societal norms may actually prevent women from acknowledging or articulating the true reasons for their migrations.

The insurance industry has been slow to adopt digital technologies due to high barriers to entry, product complexity, capital reserves, solvency requirements, and regulatory constraints. This chapter focuses on how insurtech is disrupting the insurance industry, resulting in a transformation from a traditional structure to a dynamic user-centric ecosystem. Next, it highlights the insurtech ecosystem by providing an in-depth analysis of the new paradigm on how insurtech is transitioning from the linear value chain to a more dynamic and interconnected value network. Finally, this chapter defines a perspective of insurtech's impact by identifying three waves of transformation within the insurance industry and understanding the evolution and chronology of insurtech's influence. Thus, this chapter provides insights into the opportunities and challenges of this technological breakthrough, offering a comprehensive view of insurtech's transformative journey within the insurance landscape.

Internet of Things (IoT) has seen rapid penetration with widespread applications at individual user level and organizational level. Marketing is among the critical areas where IoT has brought significant transformation for businesses. This bibliometric analysis aims to understand the present IoT-marketing trends and inform the future research agenda accordingly. This chapter also seeks to identify some common threads explored across the studies. This bibliometric analysis uses research papers from Scopus database. Preliminary analysis showed a growth in the number of articles published over the past decade, indicating increased interest among researchers. This growth is spread across geographies, including developed and developing countries. The findings indicate that the research on IoT in the marketing, being an enticing area for researchers, is growing and will further escalate in future. This study makes novel contributions to the literature around the topic as it reviews IoT research trends in marketing. The analysis further helps to establish the collective viewpoint of many researchers who agree that IoT has enormous potential in marketing. Lastly, the study discusses limitations and future avenues for research related to the topic.