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This paper explores the collaborative dynamics and dimensions within a virtual multi-cultural and interdisciplinary workplace. The study focusses on the use of online communication technologies to enhance social inclusion and networking within academia.

This study uses an autoethnographic approach to draw on the personal experiences of a team of four scholars, including three early-career researchers and a senior scholar. Their reflections on their academic positionality and the institutional constraints reveal both the strengths and vulnerabilities of collaborating in a virtual workplace.

The findings offer insights into the complexities of navigating social dynamics, such as delegating responsibilities, organising meetings across various time zones and encouraging continuous collaboration, inclusivity and effective communication during an extensive timeline. As a result, their experiences revealed that a virtual workplace culture with similar and different attributes to a “normal” workplace emerged.

The paper demonstrates how to create an effective and inclusive virtual workplace by exemplifying best practices in academia and providing practical guidance for individuals and institutions based on honest, co-produced autoethnographic reflections of the authors’ lived experiences.

This study aims to explore the application scenarios of metaverse offices in organizations, including immersive work experiences, weak social networks and virtual meetings. Based on the exploration of this application scenario, this study discusses four levels of organizational change that will be brought about by the future metaverse office, such as the inter-enterprise ecological collaboration model, distributed autonomous organization, flexible leadership and individual belongingness. The metaverse office has some special advantages over traditional office models, but the metaverse office still raises some issues, such as privacy, security, addiction, equity and usability. These issues brake the widespread adoption of metaverse technologies. The study recommends that researchers take these issues into account in future metaverse research and development.

This study surveys the relevant literature by means of a literature review in order to analyze how metaverse technology can be applied to teleworking. Two databases including Web of Science (https://www.webofscience.com/) and Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.com) were selected for this study. Keywords such as “teleworking and metaverse” were used, and 18 publications were found to be relevant to the study. After excluding duplicates, less relevant and older literature, only 14 articles could be used as references for this study. Based on the exploration of this application scenario, this study discusses four levels of organizational change and issues that will be brought about by the metaverse office of the future.

It presents the application scenarios of the metaverse office in organizations, including immersive work experience, weak social networking and virtual meetings.

The pandemic triggers a desire for contactless working. The three main applications of the metaverse office also have a practical value which has been proven in some high-tech companies. It is foreseeable that an efficient, electronic and personalized office model will be enthusiastically adopted by society. Metaverse office will gradually step into people's view in the future.

The concept of the metaverse office has rarely been touched upon by theoretical research, although the technology is gradually becoming known. Even its application to teleworking has only recently been reached by some organizations.

This study aims to examine the relationship between knowledge management and career development in an era characterized by high levels of youth unemployment and a demand for specialized skills. Despite the increasing transition to a knowledge-based economy, there is a significant gap between young people’s skills and career readiness, necessitating an in-depth analysis of the role of knowledge management at the individual, organizational and national levels.

The authors conducted a qualitative study using the theory-context-characteristics-methodology approach based on a systematic literature review. The authors created an ecological framework for reflecting on knowledge management and career development, arguing for a multidisciplinary approach that invites collaboration across sectors to generate innovative and reliable solutions.

This study presents a comprehensive review of the existing literature and trends, noting the need for more focus on the interplay between knowledge management and career development. It emphasizes the need for businesses to promote the acquisition, storage, diffusion and application of knowledge and its circulation and exchange to create international business human capital.

The findings may help multinational corporations develop managerial training programs and recruitment strategies, given the demand for advanced knowledge-based skills in the modern workspace. The study also discusses the influences of education, experience and job skills on business managers’ performance, guiding the future recruitment of talents.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this review is among the first to assess the triadic relationship between knowledge management, career development and the global unemployment crisis. The proposed multidisciplinary approach seeks to break down existing silos, thus fostering a more comprehensive understanding of how to address these ongoing global concerns.

Despite the increasing interest in the metaverse—immersive three-dimensional virtual worlds wherein personalized avatars interact with one another—little is known about how users cognitively appraise and emotionally experience it. To fill this gap, the present study explores the emotional, behavioral and social consequences of users' cognitive appraisals, while focusing on social virtual reality (VR) as a representative entry point to the metaverse.

Drawing on cognitive appraisal theory against the backdrop of a framework for classifying emotions, this study develops and tests a theoretical model to account for users' continuance intention and its consequences in the social VR context based on two-wave panel survey data collected from 216 users of social VR platforms, including AltspaceVR, VRChat, Bigscreen and Rec Room.

The results of the first survey showed that perceived opportunity was more strongly influenced by technological opportunity than social opportunity, whereas perceived threat was more strongly affected by social threat than technological threat. Integrating the data collected from the first survey with those of the second survey, we also found that users' continuance intention positively influenced both their behavioral engagement and social self-efficacy.

By adopting a longitudinal approach, this study provides insights that may be valuable to researchers and practitioners who seek to use social VR for business purposes. This study also contributes to the metaverse literature by conceptualizing and operationalizing the opportunity and threat factors of social VR and identifying salient emotions that users experience in this context. Finally, this study has practical implications for addressing the social and technological features that may cause adverse user experiences in social VR.

This study aims to reflect on the future of work dimensions through the new concept of inclusive organizational behaviour (IOB) and its practices.

This work is a reflective concept development paper that focuses on new dimensions of organizational behaviour (OB) exploring IOB practices in the new workplace which can broaden the concept of OB that fits into the future of work.

The IOB practices will adapt and help in adapting to the new work dynamics that can create more humane and stimulating workplaces, thereby benefiting society at large. Individual positive psychological traits, team dynamics and a fusion of digital corporate culture with a human-centric approach and sustainability are highlighted in the redefined IOB, expanding the concept of OB from the three levels of analysis (individual, group and the entire organization’s behaviour) in the new normal post-COVID situation.

Limited research studies are being conducted to investigate the future of work dynamics in the new standard post-COVID environment, which is dominated by digitization. The lack of literature and the changing situations that impact OB are the limitations.

Corporate houses, policymakers and leaders who understand the workplace dynamics in the post-COVID scenario can effectively leverage the insights from this work and may chalk out a road map for future work through IOB practices.

This research extends knowledge pertaining to IOB practices and the changing dynamics that need to be followed in the future OB practices.

Researchers explore the impact of an intelligent assistant in virtual teams by applying the theoretical lens of a transactive memory system (TMS) to understand the relationships between trust in a specific technology, knowledge sharing and knowledge application.

An online survey was administered to a Qualtrics-curated panel of individual, US-based virtual team members utilizing an intelligent assistant with team collaboration software. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was utilized to examine the hypothesized relationships of interest.

Results suggest that knowledge application is strongly influenced by trust in a specific technology and knowledge sharing. Additionally, a transactive memory system positively increases trust in the intelligent assistant, and similarly, trust in the intelligent assistant has a significant positive relationship with knowledge sharing.

The research model contributes to our understanding of the impact of an intelligent assistant in virtual teams. Although the transactive memory system construct has been explored in various contexts and models, few have explored the impact of an intelligent assistant and trust in a specific technology.

This study aims to test the relationship between virtual knowledge sharing (VKS) and team effectiveness (TE) during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study also explores the moderating role of collaborative technologies.

This is a cross-sectional study conducted in the service sector of India. A purposive sample of 321 knowledge workers from National Capital Region of India was used. Questionnaires were distributed to knowledge workers working in a virtual environment. The hypotheses were tested with confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling (SEM) using partial least square-SEM.

The study reveals that, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, virtual knowledge sharing (VKS) positively affects team effectiveness (TE). Furthermore, the impact of VKS on TE is contingent upon the utilization of collaborative technologies.

The study contributes to the existing literature by exploring the impact of VKS on TE during the COVID-19 pandemic and the importance of collaborative technologies in facilitating virtual team collaboration, which has practical implications for organizations seeking to enhance TE in virtual environments.

We conceptualized the novel phenomenon of COVID-induced virtual teams and its implications and provided researchers with the required information on how to conduct a phenomenon-based study for conceptualizing novel phenomena in relevant ways.

This article stems from phenomenon-based and, thus, theory-building and grounded qualitative research in the German industrial sector. We conducted 47 problem-centered interviews in two phases (February–July 2021 and February–July 2022) to understand how team members and team leaders experienced COVID-induced virtual teamwork and its subsequent developments.

Empirically, we found COVID-induced virtual teams to be characterized by a high relevance of shaping positive team dynamics via steering internal moderators; crisis is a novel external moderator and transformation becomes the key output factor to be leveraged. Work-from-home leads to specific configuration needs and interrelations between work-from-home and on-site introduce additional dynamics. Methodologically, the phenomenon-based approach is found to be highly suitable for studying the effects of such novel phenomena.

This article is explorative. Thus, we advocate further research on related novel phenomena, such as post-COVID-hybrid and work-from-home teams. A model of how to encourage positive dynamics in post-COVID-hybrid teams is developed and lays the groundwork for further studies on post-COVID teamwork. Concerning methodology, researchers are provided with information on how to conduct phenomenon-based research on novel phenomena, such as the COVID-induced virtual teams that we studied.

Companies receive advice on how to encourage positive dynamics in post-COVID teamwork, e.g. on identifying best practices and resilient individuals.

In a country such as Germany that faces labor shortages, our insights might facilitate better labor-market integration for those with care-work obligations and international workers.

We offer a first conceptualization of a relevant novel phenomenon, namely COVID-induced virtual teams. We exemplify the phenomenon-based approach as a suitable methodology that serves to build relevant theory using active categorization.

Education 4.0 is one of the major transformations in the field of education to improve the quality of teaching and learning processes and prepare students as 21st-century learners. This study aims to examine the effect of Educations 4.0 on creative and collaborative learning of students.

In this correlational research study, a quantitative data collection tool such as a questionnaire is used. This research is conducted on university students (N = 365), and purposive sampling technique is used to achieve the purpose. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 27.0 is used to analyze the data.

The findings of the study reveal that there is a strong positive relationship between education 4.0 and the two major 21st-century skills, i.e. collaboration and creativity. The value of correlation coefficient value of the variables is 0.597, which indicates positive and strong relationship; hence, null hypothesis is rejected and an alternative hypothesis is accepted.

The results of the current study are beneficial for the school managers to enhance students' two significant 21st-century skills, i.e. “Creativity” and “Collaboration.” Also, the school managers can make efforts to develop teachers' competence to adapt the technological advancements for improving students' creativity and collaboration to benefit their learning.

This is a unique study because there are only a few recent studies that show a connection between Education 4.0 and 21st-century skills. Also, there is no other study that presents the direct association of Education 4.0 and students' creativity and collaboration specifically in the context of Pakistan.

This study aims to delve into the transformative potential of metaverse-driven sustainable tourism (MDST) to envision a sustainable and inclusive future for the tourism industry.

The author uses a forward-looking approach by drawing insights from existing literature, visionary articles and an analysis of technological developments to project the MDST trajectory to 2050, aligning with sustainable development goals (SDGs).

The study highlights the profound potential of MDST as a crucial force in sustainable tourism, identifying key components – immersive experiences, artificial intelligence integration, blockchain and collaborative platforms – that will drive MDST’s evolution. The alignment with SDGs demonstrates MDST’s capacity to facilitate global collaboration, cultural exchange and community engagement, especially in uncertain situations (e.g. pandemic).

While presenting an exploration of MDST, there is a need for empirical evidence in response to the dynamic tourism environment.

Tourism policymakers, businesses and technology developers can leverage MDST to drive sustainable practices, enhance user experiences and contribute to economic growth. The findings offer actionable insights for the practical implementation of MDST initiatives, aligning with the importance of SDGs.

The value of this study lies in its forward-looking perspective, envisioning the role of MDST in the year 2050. The author proposes ten foci for MDST development, contributing to the discourse on sustainable tourism.