Search results

Purpose: Leaders must come up with new ideas and motivate their people to welcome new beginnings if they are to adapt to the changing demands of the business. Organisations face challenges in navigating the vast array of possibilities and choices in the volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA) world. This chapter explores various leadership styles, highlighting leadership initiatives in the context of (VUCA) during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methodology: Secondary sources were used to collect information and data, including published articles, journals, newspapers, reports, books, and websites. The logical progression was used to comprehend the idea of VUCA leadership and strategies.

Findings of the Study: The VUCA accurately depicted the global landscape after COVID-19. It offered a valuable framework for examining strategy and leadership in a swiftly evolving world. To portray the dynamic characteristics of the corporate environment and to lead, many businesses use VUCA. Furthermore, this study highlights the VUCA leadership essential skills needed for effectively navigating VUCA circumstances.

Practical Implications: This study focuses on VUCA leadership practices and strategies in the workplace. The chapter outlines six key competencies: setting goals, being prepared, putting the customer’s needs first, flexibility and adaptation, decision-making, and collaboration and teamwork. These skills are essential for corporations to endure and thrive in VUCA circumstances. Corporate leaders are encouraged to integrate these skills into their repertoire, equipping themselves to confront challenges in a volatile environment.

Purpose: The importance of creativity and innovation can’t be overstressed today. Especially in the context of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA) world, firms cutting across businesses have to pay special attention to building a culture of creativity and innovation around business processes.

Design/Methodology/Approach: The study uses an extant literature review and practical cases to highlight the parameters required to build a culture of creativity and innovation in companies. These parameters lead to the development of the conceptual framework that can help firms sustain innovation even amidst a fast-changing business environment.

Findings: The findings suggest that focus on internal and external forces is required to keep up innovation efforts in the VUCA world. Being agile with a discrete focus on learning is essential to remain creative and innovative for business sustainability.

Research Limitations/Implications: The study is crucial for academicians, practitioners, and policy makers. It is expected to open new avenues of research for further contributing to the body of knowledge related to the field of creativity and innovation while expected to help society by bringing them more innovative products at pocket-friendly prices.

Originality/Value: The study is unique as it delineates the relationship between creativity and innovation in the context of the VUCA world. The research also offers an innovation framework that is a valuable addition to both fields of academia and corporate.

Purpose: The COVID-19 pandemic has been a good example of a Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity (VUCA) world. Higher educational institutions (HEIs) have faced a massive hit because the jobs in this industry have become unexpected. Considering the most valuable assets ‘Teachers’ crunched in the VUCA crisis, the study intends to determine if personal harmony (PH) and organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) would enhance teachers’ job satisfaction (JS).

Design/methodology/approach: Data are collected from the teachers of Indian HEIs and teachers who have experienced the impact of the COVID-19 catastrophe (VUCA). Considering the pandemic restrictions, data have been collected through an online survey (N = 364).

Practical Implications: PH is an individual’s internal quality and attribute that cannot be developed on force or situational need. Even in an uncertain situation, teachers have tried their best to contribute through professional service. Hence, people who possess PH contribute their best even though unsatisfied with their jobs.

Originality/value: This study has focused on finding the relationship between two different variables, PH and OCB (which has not been explored in Asian countries, majorly in India, where it has a vast cultural diversity and structure influencing the educational policies) that hinders the factors influencing JS, where these two variables are highly influenced by hygiene factors such as values, culture, ethical standards, personal belief, leadership styles, and fair treatment showcased by the organisations/institutions.

Introduction: Cost competitiveness, customer focus, and sustainability compliance are essential for new-age firms to survive and succeed in the VUCA market environment. This study examines how automobile corporations have improved cost competitiveness, productivity, and product quality.

Purpose: This study examines the importance of cost competitiveness, customer focus, and sustainability compliance for the long-term survival of organisations in VUCA markets, looking at the practical efforts made by automobile corporations to enhance cost competitiveness, productivity, and quality.

Methodology: The study utilises a comprehensive analysis of the strategies and initiatives implemented by the selected automobile companies. It involves a review of relevant literature, case studies, financial data analysis, and interviews with key industry experts, providing a holistic understanding of the actions taken by these organisations to achieve their goals.

Findings: The study reveals that cost competitiveness, customer focus, and sustainability compliance are critical factors for the long-term survival and success of organisations in the automotive industry. The analysed automobile companies have undertaken practical efforts to improve cost competitiveness, enhance productivity, and ensure high-quality products, enabling them to navigate the challenges and maintain a competitive edge.

Significance: The findings of this study contribute to a deeper understanding of the importance of cost competitiveness, customer focus, and sustainability compliance in the automotive industry. It highlights the need for organisations to constantly monitor both qualitative and quantitative profit to avoid complacency and ensure long-term efficiency. The study’s insights are relevant to businesses operating in other sectors, as they face similar challenges in the VUCA market environment.

Anti-racism has been practiced in various ways, with varying degrees of effectiveness. This chapter engages with the body of scholarship that focuses on approaches aimed at promoting anti-racist actions, policies and social change. It discusses some of the main anti-racism strategies that have been deployed across different countries and examines anti-racism practices in interpersonal, intergroup and community settings. These approaches encompass civil rights campaigns, legislative and policy interventions, affirmative action, diversity and inclusion training, prejudice reduction, intergroup contact, organisational development and holistic anti-racism approaches. Some anti-racism practices and policies, such as awareness campaigns, social marketing and diversity training, also extend to digital platforms, with social media and multimedia networks deployed to broaden the reach and impact of anti-racist endeavours. This chapter specifically engages with local anti-racism movements and draws principles for broader implementation of anti-racism policy and practice. It concludes with a brief discussion of the effectiveness of contemporary anti-racism approaches.

Purpose: Twenty-first-century leaders operate in an unpredictable and complex business environment. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity) nature of the business milieu and proved to be a real-life test for organisations and their leaders. It brought challenges and losses at personal, organisational, societal, national, and global levels. Nevertheless, some leaders and organisations thrived during and after the pandemic. This research assimilates leadership lessons from extant literature and real-life cases of leadership successes and failures. The authors aim to consolidate leadership strategies valuable in unpredictable, demanding, and complex times like COVID-19.

Methodology: The research relies on an extant literature review and opinions of four c-suite leaders captured through semi-structured interviews. The study uses content analysis to analyse the primary data collected.

Findings: The present research presents its results as a VUCA Leader Toolkit. It consolidates learnings from real-life case studies, extant literature, business reports, and experts’ opinions. It addresses the gap in existing research on VUCA-suited leadership strategies. The outcome of the present study is a clear, adequate, explicit, and well-defined list of VUCA-necessitated leadership strategies.

Originality/value: The research proves its utility in providing the VUCA Leader Toolkit. The outcomes carry usefulness for both present and future business leaders. The business environment today is ever-changing, complex, and uncertain. This unpredictability, uncertainty, complexity, and fuzziness would proliferate in the coming times. Hence, it is imperative to have a list of leadership strategies that may serve as a ready reckoner for leaders.

In this final chapter, we explore the ever-evolving 21st century landscape where ethics drive community development toward resilience and progress. Drawing inspiration from the subheadings mapping our journey, we traverse international case studies spanning Canada, Brazil, Sweden, Kenya, China, Australia, Antarctica, and India. Through these global insights, we uncover the impacts of dynamic forces on communities worldwide, navigating ethical dilemmas and opportunities. We present strategies tailored to diverse continent-specific needs, explore inclusive governance models, and highlight the transformative power of ethical engagement. This journey underscores the vital role of resilience and concludes with a global call to embrace ethical approaches for inclusive community development and a sustainable future.

Multinational enterprises (MNEs) in the agri-food sector are continuously transforming their global value chains (GVCs) to address sustainable development challenges of food security (SDG2) and climate change (SDG13). However, the central role of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in (re)creating GVCs across multilevel stakeholders through innovative approaches to solve sustainability challenges remains under investigated. This explorative study investigates how international NGOs influence the transformation of large-scale industrial animal agriculture to a more sustainable (cell-based) agri-food GVC. The authors conducted a case study on the Good Food Institute (GFI), an international NGO, that has been an active player in the transition to alternative sources of protein to solve animal-based agriculture sustainability issues. The results show that an international NGO can contribute to the transition to a more sustainable GVC and can enhance the GVC’s innovation capabilities.

This chapter contributes to the scholarship of teaching and learning in extracurricular enterprise and entrepreneurship education. It draws on research from two annual ‘Business Challenge Weeks’ (BCW) held at Oxford Brookes University in 2021 and 2022, in which teams of postgraduate students from three faculties worked on external client projects, supported by an academic mentor. It presents and discusses findings derived from a survey and interviews conducted after the second of these years. The chapter takes a transdisciplinary perspective, after Budwig and Alexander (2020), Piaget (1972) and Klein et al. (2001) and explores the relationship between this and the enterprise and entrepreneurship development pipeline set out by QAA (2018). It analyses the experiences of the three main participating groups engaged in the challenge weeks – students, external clients and academic mentors – and explores the organising challenges inherent in multiparty pedagogical initiatives. The chapter contributes to knowledge in this area by revealing and reflecting on the motivations and expectations of the three participant groups, the roles they played during the week and the outcomes they reported. It also expands understanding of transdisciplinary enterprise pedagogy.