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This chapter aims to help redirect Business and Society (BAS) scholarship to embrace the unprecedented challenges of the Anthropocene era including climate collapse and ecological breakdown. The existential risk presented by the new reality of the Anthropocene requires a radical rethinking of the purpose of business and its dominating working models. This chapter discusses the main problems of efficiency and growth and shows that business efficiency often results in aggregate ecological overshot. It is argued with Herman Daly that frugality, that is, substantial reduction of the material throughput, should precede business efficiency for achieving ecological sustainability. This chapter suggests new directions for BAS scholarship by highlighting three major issues, namely the scale of business activities relative to the ecosystem of the planet, short termism that is the discrepancy between the time horizon of business decisions and that of ecological processes, and inequality which is the result of current business models that are all about accumulation of wealth and not paying enough attention to distribution of wealth. The chapter concludes that the Anthropocene era represents a clear disjuncture and discontinuity from the past and business needs to find a new realignment to achieve a sustainable world. That realignment requires a drastic modification of business-nature relations.

The purpose of this paper is to emphasize the need for critical review and realignment of business education as well as business practices to contemporary needs.

The paper analyzes two compelling presentations from distinguished scholars in which they made a seemingly contradictory statement about the discrepancy between business education and practice. Subsequently, a critical analysis of the presentations is applied, through which some remarkable similarities emerge.

The paper finds that: there is a discrepancy between what business education knows and what it does; there is a discrepancy between what business knows and what it does; and the discrepancy on both ends should be attributed to multiple reasons, of which the most important one is: the resistance to adopt the change that epitomizes contemporary circumstances.

Management and organizational behavior scholars should rethink their stance toward educating and preparing today's business students for the ambiguous workplace that awaits them. At the same time, business practitioners should start adopting reward practices that fit today's predominantly organic work environments.

This paper presents a viewpoint that is still rejected and considered unpopular among large groups of scholars who insist on a quantifiable and highly theoretical underpinning of their teachings, even though they are confronted with an increasing gap between their teachings and writings, and the highly volatile reality.

This paper aims to show that the planning‐oriented reference model is a conceptual approach that may provide a more complete alignment of strategic information, governance constructs, as well as process and information flows in the development of virtual partnerships.

The research consists of a literature review along with interviews and observations recorded from previous public/private sector engagements in virtual planning and process change initiatives.

There are very few references that directly address the alignment of strategic plans, governance, and processes within the context of a reusable reference model library. Hence, such an approach may have merit in enhancing the body of knowledge associated with virtual business planning efforts.

If narrative strategic planning and policy information can be aligned and subsequently formally documented within a process‐oriented reference model structure, the resultant blueprint may be helpful in facilitating the rapid formation of virtual business partnership.

In a global economy competitive advantage will increasingly depend on how quickly organizations are able to reorganize in response to changing demand and market condition. Hence, virtual relationships will play an important role in the competitive challenges of the twenty‐first century. The framework proposes the use of reusable, process‐based planning libraries that could reduce the time and complexity associated with the formation, maintenance, and dissolution of virtual partnerships.

The business environment of construction organisations has undergone significant change over the last 50 years. As a result, construction management has had to respond to issues such as increasing levels of client expectation, globalisation of the construction economy, cut‐throat competition, and tight margins, plus the “inherent” obstacles to operating in the sector, such as separation of design and construction, fragmented production methods, adversarial relationships, and a reluctance to innovate and take up information technology. Furthermore, the problems of poor and unstructured training, multi‐tiered management systems, and poor communication provide less than optimal conditions for achieving high quality products in good time and to budget. One approach to addressing these issues is through the concept of employee empowerment. This paper presents an overview of the empowerment concept in the context of construction management, highlighting the hurdles, an implementation process, and achievable benefits.

This paper revisits Bartlett and Ghoshal’s transnational theory of the MNC in relation to multi-domestic MNCs. We argue that the aggregate level of analysis adopted by Bartlett and Ghoshal is unhelpful for identifying significant changes in multi-domestic MNCs at the level of discrete functions. We argue that a more disaggregated level of analysis is required. Our analysis of two cases of multi-domestic MNCs that have undertaken the global integration of their locally distributed purchasing functions indicates that while significant change to the purchasing function has occurred, at the aggregate level both MNCs remain multi-domestic. In both cases the decision to integrate local purchasing was regarded as having more obvious benefits than integrating other functions such as marketing. While both of our case multi-domestic MNCs may in future choose to integrate other functions and develop into full-fledged transnational companies we argue that there is no inevitability to this. Indeed global integration may cease with the purchasing function. A second theme in this paper is that we argue that Bartlett and Ghoshal’s transnational theory has a biased view of what constitutes effective governance mechanisms for achieving global integration, local responsiveness and worldwide learning and that it would greatly benefit from a more balanced application of hierarchical and relational governance mechanisms.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of corporate real estate (CRE) holdings on firm performance. Unlike previous studies, the paper does not only consider the firms’ primary business segment but also their activities in different business fields. This is of particular interest because additional segments often have different requirements for the provision of space and thus for the ownership strategy, which could have led to a possible bias in previous studies. Furthermore, additional business areas are becoming more relevant through integrated solutions.

The study uses a balance sheet data set of companies in the six largest European economies for the period from 2000 to 2016. Germany serves as a suitable laboratory for deeper analyses. Holdings of 490 firms are regressed to the stock market performance using a two-stage approach. This procedure is repeated by considering additional business segments.

The analyses reveal that ownership reduces stock market performance. Additional business activities also appear to influence the relevance of ownership for firm performance.

The research shows that ownership is priced depending on its primary and additional business activities. First, this insight helps capital market players to choose the right investment strategy. Second, it provides CRE decision-makers with information on the optimal provision of real estate.

This is the first paper to examine the contribution of real estate ownership on firm performance in light of the fact that companies operate in more than one sector.

This paper aims to deliberate the significant impacts caused by the COVID-19 pandemic on small and medium enterprises (SMEs). It also discusses SMEs’ practical approaches to capitalise on the renewed opportunity in the new normal by expanding their businesses regionally and globally. This paper also discusses the tactical and strategic interventions SMEs need to take to charge forward.

The resource-based view of the firm (Barney, 1991) is used to explain how SMEs develop a sustainable competitive advantage in the new normal. The resource-based view focuses on the link between strategy and firm internal resources. Drawing from the resource-based view of the firm, internal analysis of the resources that are regarded as sources of competitive advantage controlled by the SMEs is imperative in today’s business environment. Based on the resource-based view theory, this paper focuses on reinventing SME’s strategies in the new normal to foster sustainability.

Post-COVID-19 pandemic, SMEs must essentially be dynamic, forward-looking and transformational in capturing the regional and global markets’ opportunities. They need to sharpen their internal competencies and realign their effective business strategy in seizing the vast opportunities in the international markets.

How SMEs respond to COVID-19 has important implications for subsequent performance in the new normal. This study focuses on the different potential SMEs’ reactions to COVID-19 and how their strategy affects SMEs performance and fosters sustainability in the new normal.

The sustainability of SMEs is critical for the nation’s socio-economy. This study offers a holistic view of how SMEs respond to their challenges and help them choose the right business options.

This paper’s contents are solidly based on accumulated evidence, observation and critical arguments on the impacts caused by the COVID-19 pandemic that caused numerous challenges faced by the SMEs, with a specific focus on SMEs operating in Malaysia.

This paper presents a dynamic model for e‐business strategy derived from the results of a longitudinal analysis of enterprise resource planning (ERP) enabled organisations.

This involved a study of 11 international ERP‐enabled organisations over a four‐year period using multiple interviews and extensive secondary data collection. Three separate research models were used to analyse different stages of e‐business growth and the results of this multi‐stage analysis consolidated into a staged model of e‐business transformation (eBT).

The model focuses on realising the benefits of B2B interaction through the alignment of ERP with different e‐business strategies, increasing emphasis on employee empowerment and successful management of value alliances.

The findings provide practical guidance to managers implementing e‐business systems through integrated ERP implementations.

The study demonstrates the application of a comprehensive research model based on three previously validated research frameworks for e‐business strategy.

This paper aims to explore how women entrepreneurs in Brazil are managing their businesses and gendered role expectations at home in the context of Covid-19. Using the lenses of business-family interface theoretical construct, the paper seeks to explain how women are navigating the business and family commitments in the pandemic context.

This paper adopts the interpretivist approach using Gioia methodology and 13 individual semi-structured interviews with women entrepreneurs in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil.

The findings demonstrate that women implement numerous strategies including reliance on social relationships within the family, and externally, to manage the home-business expectations. The findings also reveal entrepreneurial resilience and adaptability in the face of a crisis that marks how women entrepreneurs navigate challenges in their entrepreneurial journeys.

This paper contributes to the gender and entrepreneurship literature by giving greater visibility to women entrepreneurs in developing society in the context of the pandemic. This paper also demonstrates how negotiating gender roles can empower women entrepreneurs to challenge gendered norms.