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A Novartis social business in India completely separated the activities of its social and business units—the former engaging in raising the health awareness of villagers and encouraging them to visit free health camps, while the latter developed affordable medicine delivered directly to village pharmacies. Connections between these units were made through open and fluid market-type mechanisms, and by appealing to the needs and interests of villagers with incentives. This synchronized business model was developed partly because Novartis believed in villagers' self-initiated behavior for health improvements, which made it not interfere into marginalized institutions, and more significantly because it used its internalized control and coordination systems with clear goals of social contribution in operating the business unit. Consequently, Novartis achieved economies of scale, business sustainability, and social contribution.

Cross-boundary cooperation with shared goals and values involving the poor has been argued as an indispensable means for inclusive business (IB) success. Cooperation may become dynamic, especially when exploratory and creative attempts with effective cooperative learning among partners can be realized. Even so, not many companies have reported successful in building the cooperation. One case, providing clean, affordable drinking water to the poor in Tanzanian rural villages, suggests that a delegated and grassroots-based approach in cooperation with a highly trustworthy local partner can successfully promote cooperative learning and transfer know-how in both operations and management. This approach also stimulates local and self-initiated activities for expanding water facilities and generating local businesses in an area where employment is scarce. Deviation from mainstream-institution-based operations and management is one example of institutional interconnections that enable the rural poor to self-manage projects and stimulate self-initiated business activities, consequently contributing to rural development and sustainable development goals.

Given the complexity of inclusive business (IB) to combine social contribution and business sustainability, companies make strategic choices. One multinational corporation (MNC) avoided interconnections with villagers and used only market-based relations with stimulants and incentives in the market. Another one delegated management completely to local partners, succeeding in stimulating the poor’s self-initiated economic activities. MNCs seem to have difficulties in handling institutional interconnections. In such cases, market-based relations or delegating management to the local partners were found to be highly effective for covering missing capabilities. One foreign NGO, despite its well-developed institutional interconnections with the locals, is struggling to develop markets for its social enterprises. In contrast, one local trust successfully cooperated with many local partners, appealing to local institutions (values and beliefs). Also, poor farmers felt the social contributions of two local companies by being incorporated into the companies’ supply chains backed by their corporate social responsibility (CSR) orientations and activities. Hence, both foreign and domestic organizations seem to succeed in IB by embedding their projects to their original institutions and developing diverse mechanisms to compensate for missing capabilities. One exception is a local company which successfully coordinated MNCs’ CSR activities, local communities, and governments. However, its success is owing to governmental regulation for CSR contribution. In general, though restricted by institutional backgrounds and business orientations, each case tried to create a fit between business models and its contingencies, achieve scale (at the level of communities, nations, or the global market) and business sustainability, and generate socioeconomic effects.

The economic crisis of 2008 has caused a significant increase in the number of unemployed in Spain and a decrease in investments in active training policies. In this context, it is even more necessary to demand improvements in the degree of efficiency of the training programs aimed at unemployed people.

This paper presents the opinions of a group of experts in labor intermediation on the need to include transversal competences in the training contents of employment courses aimed at the tourism sector to improve the degree of employment of the unemployed.

All the experts consulted have indicated the need to enrich the subjects of the training courses by incorporating workshops that favor the implementation of certain transversal competences such as team work, management in stress situations, problem-solving, willingness to learn, self-initiative, verbal communication and mastery of social networks.

The main limitations are given by the small number of experts in the field. However, their long career and participation in employment programs make their opinions valuable.

The main practical implication is in the fact that the proposed suggestions about modifications in the contents of the training courses for employment in the tourism sector are perfectly applicable, and according to the expert’s opinions, they would improve the degree of labor insertion of the participants.

The improvement of the degree of employability of the unemployed who participate in the training actions and a greater adaptation to the specific characteristics of the jobs offered by the entrepreneurs of the sector.

The adaptation of the formative contents of the courses focused on the unemployed can make possible two desirable effects. On the one hand, the improvement of the quality of the tourist resources and on the other hand, increase the degree of employability of the unemployed, and in this way improve the efficiency of training programs.

The purpose of this study is to ascertain factors that enable micro- and small firms (MSFs) to cope with the effects of a long-term crisis and develop a model which guides conceptual understanding. This study’s setting is represented by the global financial crisis and by Cyprus and Greece, two nations severely affected.

On-site, unstructured, face-to-face interviews were conducted among 135 MSF leaders.

Sixteen different coping factors were identified as central to participants, resulting in the emergence of four key dimensions. Three dimensions, self-initiative, financial acumen and human attributes, are associated with entrepreneurs’ skills, initiatives, passion and networks, whereas one dimension, individual-firm advantage, considers firms’ and individuals’ valuable assets and resources, namely, image/reputation, quality or location. Almost two-thirds of participants recognised a lack of collaboration beyond their suppliers within their industry. Several intergroup differences were revealed, including Cypriot participants’ higher optimism concerning their firms’ future.

This study responds to calls for research that illuminates the understanding of firms’ ability to overcome inadequacies imposed by the socio-economic environment in which they operate. To this end, a theoretical framework emphasising the vital significance of four dimensions is proposed. Apart from their conceptual insightfulness, the dimensions identify clear associations with resilience and coping and can therefore be of practical value to micro–small-sized firms and their respective industry.

With the proliferation of several quality awards and standards, many organisations have taken their initiatives to employ different awards and standards in one form or another to sustain competitive edge. The ultimate objective of a self‐assessed quality management system (SQMS) is to assist the organisation in its quest for corporate performance, business results and financial health. It can be achieved through proceduralising organisational activities and increasing uniformity and conformity of repeated tasks. This paper presents the compatibility of assessment criteria of the Baldrige Award with the conformity requirements of both ISO 9000 and ISO 14000. A SQMS is built upon these criteria and requirements. The core concepts and skeleton of the system are explained, and its applicability is illustrated with reference to an implementation case in an engineering organisation in Hong Kong.

The purpose of this paper is to measure employees’ attitude toward distributed leadership (DL) practices and investigate the challenges involved in implementing DL practices in Indian organizations.

This study is conducted within an exploratory research framework. The data were collected from 180 young middle-level executives from a diverse group of industry sectors belonging to private and multinational organization located in northern part of India. Unstructured (personal interviews and focus group interviews) and structured interview schedule (questionnaire) were administered to measure employees’ attitude and challenges of implementation.

The qualitative and quantitative analytic strategies were adopted to analyze the data. Results of exploratory factors analysis showed the existence of five underlying dimensions about the significance of DL practices, namely, self-initiatives, improved functioning, achieving organizational goals, accountability and mutual respect. Furthermore, results showed the importance of contextual factors in implementing DL practices namely horizontal structure, professionalism, work commitment and power sharing. Also, the attitudinal dimensions were found to be positively correlated with the dimensions of implementing DL practices in Indian work context.

This study strengthens the importance of measuring employees’ attitudes that can be a good predictor of implementing best practices in organizations. The major limitation of this study is of the small sample size and has been limited to young managers.

This is an original paper based on the empirical data from Indian managers. No study is conducted on the concept of distributing leadership in Indian work context on a similar or related theme.

The objective of this paper is to present a model that uses multi‐agent system (MAS) technology to assist doctors based at rural areas to receive timely expert opinions from specialist doctors working in medical institutions like the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Research, Chandigarh or the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi.

A MAS is a software entity wherein agent metaphor is used to represent human‐like intelligence and behavior. These agents are distributed over geographical areas and are part of software running at these sites. The foundation for this model lies in the fact that medical intelligence is distributed in nature and, if it is possible to bring this knowledge together, it could prove to be advantageous in providing improved health care to those people in rural areas. A few existing research works are included to demonstrate the usage of MAS in health care.

It has been observed that the health scenario in India is ranked poor world‐wide by international organizations and, with the increasing population, this will worsen.

Initially, the aim is to concentrate on a few medical departments only. It can be extended into more detailed framework.

Physical computing and networking infrastructure are required for practical implementation along with training for the doctors.

The primary beneficiaries of this system are likely to be those patients in the rural sector requiring expert medical opinion. The government health organizations will be able to provide quality medical facilities comparable with the medical facilities available in the developed nations. Currently this would seem to be a distant dream.

This study aims to investigate how the role of female leadership works in sports coaching. Drawing key insights from the ability–motivation–opportunity (AMO) framework of human resource management, the authors explore the underlying mechanisms of female leadership and the role female coaches play in enabling athletes to develop their self-initiative through AMO enhancement.

The sample in this study is made up of 11female coaches from eight teams in China selected using purposive sampling. Data was collected and analyzed on various aspects of female leadership.

Analysis of interviews and secondary data show that the mechanisms and enablers related to AMO enhancing practices stimulated by female coaching leadership can increase team performance.

This study opens new avenues for sports science research and strengthens the theoretical and practical understanding of the intentions and mechanisms female coaches implement as leaders in sports coaching.

First, this study contributes to the AMO framework by helping form new theoretical insights based on the understanding of female sports coaching mechanisms. Second, this study provides novel insights into female leadership literature by investigating the mechanisms of female leadership in the context of sports exercise. Third, this study also contributes to the body of research on sports coaching in Asia, especially that of Chinese women in such leadership roles.

It was not until the late 1960s that housing attracted much attention from academic social scientists. Since that time the literature has expanded widely and diversified, establishing housing with a specialised status in economics, sociology, politics, and in related subjects. As we would expect, the new literature covers a technical, statistical, theoretical, ideological, and historical range. Housing studies have not been conceived and interpreted in a monolithic way, with generally accepted concepts and principles, or with uniformly fixed and precise methodological approaches. Instead, some studies have been derived selectively from diverse bases in conventional theories in economics or sociology, or politics. Others have their origins in less conventional social theory, including neo‐Marxist theory which has had a wider intellectual following in the modern democracies since the mid‐1970s. With all this diversity, and in a context where ideological positions compete, housing studies have consequently left in their wake some significant controversies and some gaps in evaluative perspective. In short, the new housing intellectuals have written from personal commitments to particular cognitive, theoretical, ideological, and national positions and experiences. This present piece of writing takes up the two main themes which have emerged in the recent literature. These themes are first, questions relating to building and developing housing theory, and, second, the issue of how we are to conceptualise housing and relate it to policy studies. We shall be arguing that the two themes are closely related: in order to create a useful housing theory we must have awareness and understanding of housing practice and the nature of housing.