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This paper aims to dynamically analyze the opportunities and challenges of AI in the defense sector in Lebanon or any security agency or any organization with sensitive data through a resource-based view perspective, the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI)/narrow AI applications in the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) and to diagnose the current strategic orientation toward innovation and technology within the LAF while avoiding isomorphism.

The methodology is based on a qualitative interpretive case-study approach collected from several departments of the LAF. In fact, there is a developing convention to use qualitative research approaches among which case studies to study information technology phenomena (Trauth and Jessup, 2000; Benbasat et al., 1987; Klein and Meyers, 1999). Data were collected through centered semi-structured in-depth interviews (two to three hours each) with an interview guide coded abductively between the researchers and the interviewees conducted in numerous departments of the LAF with their top officials and generals (O1, O2, O3…); the anonymity of the interviewees was kept due to the sensitivity of the data collected, which took place between September 2018 and March 2019. Data consolidation and processing were conducted using NVivo.

This paper shows that the LAF is undeniably facing many challenges among which isomorphism caused by the lack of resources; it also shows that narrow AI applications provide new avenues for the LAF to avoid such institutional isomorphism.

The role of narrow AI in limiting isomorphism in the defense sector.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become an issue in the international banking industry, where each bank must assert its stakeholders, the social fabric and the natural environment. In the same time, legitimacy which has become one of the most critical issues for corporations, can be increased in the eyes of other stakeholders or institutions by structurally or procedurally adjusting to institutional influences. By conforming to three external institutional pressures (normative, mimetic and coercive), identified by DiMaggio and Powell (1983), organizations can build, support and gain legitimacy for their activities in specific institutional environments.

Using a qualitative approach, this research highlights the input of neo-institutional theory in the CSR context in top Lebanese banks in Lebanon.

This paper aims to analyze the impact of neo-institutionalism and the role of stakeholders in legitimizing CSR practices in the Lebanese banking sector.

Top Lebanese banks cannot simply comply with institutional pressures to gain their legitimacy, they need to develop their CSR activities targeted toward legitimacy-building at the local level; as for managers they cannot simply adopt managerial perspectives instrumentally to gain societal support, they need to adapt such perspectives and practices to the local needs as expressed by their internal and external stakeholders.

Managers of top Lebanese banks need to proactively engage in managing institutional pressures by adopting and adapting legitimacy-seeking strategies. This study highlights that top Lebanese banks differ in their CSR orientation because of their ownership structure, number of employees and profitability.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of the accreditation path toward legitimacy in business schools from an isomorphic and a social responsibility perspective.

A qualitative method is used to analyze the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) accreditation process in three Lebanese business schools aiming at revealing a new role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in this process.

Accreditation in business schools is a “temporary isomorphic legitimacy tool” enhanced by CSR in a continuum that may lead to sustain legitimacy in higher education once accreditation is attained.

This research has its limitations around the external validity of the qualitative methods. In fact, the authors’ results depend on the context of the three studied business schools, and the generalization of the results was never the authors’ primary objective. Further research must be done to build and elaborate on the authors’ findings, either within the authors’ sample or within other business schools in Lebanon.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) can play a major role in guaranteeing and sustaining legitimacy in the phase after accreditation. May be this was the philosophy behind the proposition of the AACSB of the new standard regarding CSR in 2013 highlighting the importance of ethics, CSR, and sustainability education in business schools.

Accreditation in business schools is a “temporary isomorphic legitimacy tool” enhanced by CSR in a continuum that may lead to sustain legitimacy in higher education once accreditation is attained.

This study aims to identify the strategic leadership and change management used to obtain the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) accreditations as well as the research development on AACSB in the past decade.

This study used a systematic literature review following Petticrew and Roberts’ study. The articles were limited to empirical studies published from 2013 to 2022, taken from the Dimensions AI database.

The findings suggested that two leadership styles were used to obtain AACSB accreditation: dominance-oriented transformational and financial leadership, alongside three traits of academic leaders: commitment, engagement and encouragement. Additionally, three change management models/processes were found in the articles: teaching evaluation framework, temporary isomorphism and authenticity. Finally, they discovered that the object of the studies on AACSB accreditation had been narrowed down from the organizational level to smaller objects consisting of schools’ identity, teaching, learning and business schools’ key players.

As this study only used Dimensions AI, potential articles related to the topic outside the database could not be obtained. Thus, it limits the scope of the findings of this paper.

This study informs academic leaders in business schools about the role of strategic leadership and change management in obtaining AACSB accreditation.

Through a systematic scoping review, this study presented a decade of research development on AACSB in addition to the strategic leadership and change management needed to obtain it.