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This chapter deals with the question: What is a conspiracy theory? It provides a concept of conspiracy theories and situates conspiracy theories in the context of COVID-19.

In order to understand how COVID-19 conspiracy theories work, one requires a theoretical concept of conspiracy theories. The developed understanding is especially grounded in Frankfurt School critical theory. Section 2 of this chapter works out a critical theory concept of conspiracy theories. Section 3 is an introduction to the communication of COVID-19 conspiracy theories.

Recently, the tourism industry in Asian countries has been adversely affected by two significant drivers: health emergencies and climatic changes. Virus outbreaks such as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), Ebola, avian flu, Zika virus and H1N1 influenza virus have caused much greater damage to the tourism and travel industry of Asian countries as compared to the more localized natural disasters and crises such as tsunami, Kathmandu earthquake, Typhoon Mangkhut in Indonesia, etc., resulting in huge job losses, severe financial losses, shutdowns and human casualties. The purpose of this study is to briefly discuss the major viral outbreaks in the Asian countries and discuss their impact on the tourism industry. It will also discuss the resilience strategies taken by the Asian countries to re-emerge their tourism markets from these outbreaks. It will be based on the systematic review of the earlier literature on the various viral outbreaks and the corresponding resilience measures in the Asian peninsula. While the association between the pandemic and travel has been widely discussed in previous studies (Kuo, Chen, Tseng, Ju, & Huang, 2008; Lee, Son, Bendle, Kim, & Han, 2012), there is still no specific study which provides a comprehensive outlook on the various viral outbreaks and the tourism resilience strategies in Asia. It might also help the tourism industry stakeholders from the Asian countries to adequately identify and thoroughly plan for the possible future outbreaks and align resilience measures accordingly.

The COVID-19 pandemic and its related economic meltdown and social unrest severely challenged most countries, their societies, economies, organizations, and individual citizens. Focusing on both more and less successful country-specific initiatives to fight the pandemic and its multitude of related consequences, this chapter explores implications for leadership and effective action at the individual, organizational, and societal levels. As international management scholars and consultants, the authors document actions taken and their wide-ranging consequences in a diverse set of countries, including countries that have been more or less successful in fighting the pandemic, are geographically larger and smaller, are located in each region of the world, are economically advanced and economically developing, and that chose unique strategies versus strategies more similar to those of their neighbors. Cultural influences on leadership, strategy, and outcomes are described for 19 countries. Informed by a cross-cultural lens, the authors explore such urgent questions as: What is most important for leaders, scholars, and organizations to learn from critical, life-threatening, society-encompassing crises and grand challenges? How do leaders build and maintain trust? What types of communication are most effective at various stages of a crisis? How can we accelerate learning processes globally? How does cultural resilience emerge within rapidly changing environments of fear, shifting cultural norms, and profound challenges to core identity and meaning? This chapter invites readers and authors alike to learn from each other and to begin to discover novel and more successful approaches to tackling grand challenges. It is not definitive; we are all still learning.

This chapter addresses the “Taylorism–Fayolism–Weberism (TFW) virus,” a metaphor developed to highlight how organizational features recommended by each of these three management theorists produce dysfunctions that create unintended hidden costs that adversely impact organizations and their employees. The virus leads to an ideology where cost cutting is seen as the best means to improve an organization’s performance. We explore the problematic features of the TFW virus: hyperspecialization, separation of work design from work execution, and depersonalized job descriptions designed for workers who are falsely assumed to be lazy. We then address how these organizational features are related to micro dysfunctions and hidden costs (e.g., poor work organization) that accumulate into macro-level dysfunctions and costs that form the features of the risk society envisioned by Ullrich Beck (1992). These dysfunctions collectively threaten human and planetary existence. Next, we describe how the socioeconomic approach to management (SEAM) can address the TFW virus in ways that manage and remediate micro, macro, and planetary risks that emerge from a globalized enterprise. We conclude by offering a hopeful agenda for research on how to use SEAM to more effectively manage the emerging micro and macro dysfunctions and impacts of the world risk society.

The Coronavirus pandemic in South Africa resulted in negative effects with high infection rates, health care shortages, increases in death rates, plus a collapsing economy. There was an urgent need for precautionary health promotional campaigns to educate populations about the virus. However, with South Africa’s diverse population cultural beliefs, socio-cultural aspects needed to be catered for. Health literacy also had to be considered for effective positive behaviour change patterns to occur. Social barriers such as misinformation, stigma, myths, anxiety and prejudice resulted into infodemics emerging in the population. Media representation about the pandemic needed to ensure truthful and authentic information reached target audiences. Specific examples related to religious beliefs (the Chief Justice Mogeng Mogeng) and cultural remedies (Madagascar’s artemisia or “green gold”) are included in this chapter, to elaborate examples of such cases in South Africa, with no audience engagement analysed. Two health promotional campaigns, Count Me In and We will beat this are analysed via a qualitative multimodal analysis. Behaviour change communication theories are included to triangulate and validate the findings. Findings indicated that health campaigns need to cater for socio-cultural diversities and be audience specific in order for adequate behaviour change to occur, via clear health messages.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to reveal the readiness of the employees in the banking sector in the Republic of North Macedonia to adapt to the reorganisation of working hours while at the same time using the safest payment methods in conditions when the world is trying to deal with the crisis caused by the COVID-19 virus.

Need for the study: The world is rapidly moving towards increasing digitalisation, which is part of all spheres of human life. The outbreak of the COVID-19 virus pandemic has accelerated these processes by requiring people to adapt to the new conditions. The countries that have worked rapidly to digitise the system, while massively using non-cash payments, have adapted more easily to their regular daily tasks. The Republic of North Macedonia, as a developing country, is trying to take a step forward by introducing the innovations used by developed countries, taking into account the available assets and human resources.

Methodology: A method for qualitative forecasting, Delphi, is used in three rounds, and the gained insights serve as inputs in the creation of two analytic hierarchy process (AHP) models.

Findings: From the extensive analysis we performed, we found that the lack of digitalisation and process automation made it difficult for employees to adapt to the method of working from home, and on the other hand, they had a much easier time adapting to the use of alternative distribution channels.

Practical implications: Our findings are useful for the country, regulatory bodies and the bank’s management in developing strategies and plans for working from home or reorganisation of working hours, to be more acceptable to employees, emphasising the benefits for both employees and employers. Also, researchers and management practitioners in developing countries interested in this area can follow our combined Delphi-AHP approach in conducting similar research.