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The global economy has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has placed greater responsibility on companies to fulfill their obligations to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) amid the crisis. This chapter investigates the role of a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) attributes in improving a firm's CSR in the emerging economy of Jordan and how the COVID-19 pandemic modifies this relationship. Using a Jordanian sample of 655 firm-year observations during the 2014–2021 period, the research results show that older CEOs, well-educated CEOs, CEOs' remuneration, and CEOs' ownership positively correlate with CSR reporting. However, long-tenured CEOs are associated with lower CSR initiatives. The subsample analysis findings also validate the significance of CEO attributes in improving CSR practice during the COVID-19 pandemic compared to the prepandemic period. These findings are beneficial for the regulatory setters to understand better whether CEO attributes are linked to engagement in CSR-related information. This research is among the limited number of studies that have explored how CEO attributes impact CSR reporting for the stakeholder's welfare. Moreover, it uniquely concentrated on contrasting the findings before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This performance autoethnography may or may not be interpreted as a continuation of a conversation regarding the experiences of those with devalued statuses in academic settings. The authors rely on “strange accounting” to consider their experiences in the academy from various standpoints: before and after promotion, before and after leaving academia. While reflecting on our past experiences, we introduce the concept of “everyday precariousness” as a way of explaining the normalization of instability, insecurity, and negative affect that is part of everyday life for those with devalued statuses in academic settings and beyond. Everyday precariousness is an embodied experience for those in vulnerable positions. Normalized exposure to risks, such as discrimination, harassment, bullying, or structural instability, produces an undercurrent of threat that permeates academic culture. Our stories of everyday precariousness span race, ethnicity, class, academic roles, and gender boundaries (among many others). Analyzing these experiences furthers previous work on the uses of strange accounting as well as the dynamics of status silencing. In the final analysis, unresisted and unabated, everyday precariousness and status silencing can lead to institutional failure and resonance disasters.

This chapter examines the internationalisation of public higher education in Brazil using the theoretical triptych of internationalisation as developed by leading scholars in the field: internationalisation at home (IaH), internationalisation abroad (IA), and internationalisation at a distance (IaD). This framework – while rooted in knowledge, systems, and scholarship from researchers and institutions in the Global North – is a constructive tool for categorising and understanding internationalisation at Brazil’s higher education institutions (HEIs) when coupled with an exploration of the history, context, policy, and dynamics of internationalisation efforts. The chapter then summarises and underscores recent and important scholarship by Brazilian researchers and others in the Global South that describes the history of the nation’s internationalisation efforts. It also critiques the powerful influence that Global North-centred objectives and priorities for internationalisation have on the process at Brazilian HEIs. Following a discussion of the theoretical framework and relevant literature, the chapter provides a case study of internationalisation efforts and initiatives of an elite public university, the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG). Content analysis of UFMG’s website and publicly available reports and data demonstrates a high level of institutional internationalisation that has unfolded in recent years, stimulated by federal funding and guided by a strategic framework developed within the Ministry of Education. An analysis of UFMG’s mission, partnerships and programmes finds that the institution serves as an example of internationalisation in Brazil’s public higher education context, as its programmes and initiatives exemplify the overarching objectives of internationalisation in Brazilian higher education.

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic was unprecedented, and none of the world’s think tanks could have predicted how far it would spread. People visualise the pandemic as a classic example of a VUCA environment (an environment characterised by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity). Managing COVID-19 requires unique and different leadership qualities.

Purpose: This study’s rationale emphasises that VUCA demands strategic and agile leadership. Leaders across the globe must acknowledge the fact that the elements of VUCA, i.e. volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity, are not synonymous and hence need differential treatment. Also, recommend adopting agile leadership to tackle the VUCA world.

Methodology: This is a conceptual study focusing on agile leadership. The study addresses the challenge of leading in the VUCA environment. The constituting components of VUCA are differentiated, followed by an extensive literature review of agile leadership.

Findings: VUCA is the new normal and is there to stay. Business leaders still need to counter VUCA due to their incapacity to distinguish and treat the components equally. Furthermore, there is an emergent need to develop an agile workforce, agile organisations, and agile leadership to combat VUCA. The study indicates that business leaders must be agile enough to handle the COVID-19 pandemic and future crises. There is a constant need to ensure agility. This study will provide a deep insight into VUCA and help business leaders emerge victorious in turbulent times.

In Thailand, the number of higher education institutions (HEIs) offering international programmes has surged dramatically. Internationalisation is seen as key to competing in the higher education market, modernising educational programming, and generating new streams of revenue. Yet, such rapid change is disorientating for the internationalisation of higher education (IHE) in the Thai context. That said, there is little disagreement on what it is not; it is not Thai. This chapter investigates apparent efforts to ‘de-place’ Thailand from IHE and considers how these attempts may connect to (post-)colonial tensions between sovereignty and civilisation. Through a synthesis of scholarship in the areas of higher education, cultural geography and Thai studies, the authors construct a framework for exploring how IHE is both imagined and experienced in Thailand. In particular, they re-examine datasets from studies they conducted with stakeholders over recent years, including executive leadership, international faculty members, and university students. Through a series of narrative portraits, a dialogue of voices is constructed that reflect distinct orientations to ‘Thainess’ in the IHE. The authors argue that a wider and more inclusive orientation to internationalisation is not only respectful of local identity but is enhanced by it. Ultimately, the hope of this study is to offer a vision of what an ‘emplaced’ idea of IHE in Thailand might look like, one grounded in an orientation unique to a particular place with its own cultural and social coordinates.