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This study aims to outline an axiology of inclusivity, which can facilitate self-reflection on the possible impact of acting and pursuing a more inclusive branding and marketing for places.

By deconstructing the main assumption, which constitutes the new inclusive paradigm in the marketing and branding of places as more participatory, responsible and democratic, this article tackles critical and pragmatist concerns about the political dimension and its implications for branding and marketing theories and practices in the realm of places.

The article argues that, to be understood and enacted as inclusive, branding and marketing should be seen and act as (bio)political arts of government, characterized by the impolitical as an alternative form of political praxis, whose axiological foundation is based on a particular form of civism, which offers a different mode and stance of approaching political effects and impacts for all stakeholders involved.

Little has been written about the political value, substance and appearance that indicate inclusivity as a fundamental notion for participation, engagement and democracy. This article contributes to the existing literature, arguing that inclusivity should be demystified, as it may present a self-fulfilling discourse that might create political problems.

The chapter aims to evaluate the efficacy of stakeholder participation in the solid waste management system of Mauritius in view of providing a possible mechanism to attain the goals of a sustainable waste management framework.

The study employs qualitative indicators, namely, User Inclusivity and Producer Inclusivity of the Wasteaware Benchmark Indicators. Secondary data are used to conduct a critical and comprehensive analysis of the sub-indicators falling under each of the two main indicators to determine the overall compliance level with respect to stakeholder engagement of the waste management sector of Mauritius.

The results of the study show a LOW/MEDIUM compliance level for both User Inclusivity and Provider Inclusivity indicators, which indicates that improvement is required in the stakeholder engagement mechanism in Mauritius. The main weaknesses identified comprise of lack of an adequate legal framework with clear definition of waste types with regards to segregation, especially for non-hazardous wastes, low efficiency of sustainable waste management awareness campaigns and lack of inclusion of the informal sector. The main strengths identified consist of a proper bidding mechanism in place and a good level of equity in the provision of waste management services with respect to comingled waste collection. Suggested improvement areas include a revamping of the existing legal framework related to waste management to cater for higher inclusivity of all stakeholders together with including sustainable waste management topics in the formal education curriculum.

The User Inclusivity and Producer Inclusivity indicators were previously applied only to cities to measure the level of stakeholder participation, but this study has demonstrated that these indicators can also be adopted on a nation-wide level to evaluate stakeholder engagement. The use of these indicators together with secondary data presents a less time-consuming method to assess stakeholder participation in the waste sector, which can be particularly useful for Small Island Developing States.

The purpose of the research was to discover the process of social and environmental report assurance (SERA) and thereby evaluate the benefits, extent of stakeholder inclusivity and/or managerial capture of SERA processes and the dynamics of SERA as it matures.

This paper used semi‐structured interviews with 20 accountant and consultant assurors to derive data, which were then coded and analysed, resulting in the identification of four themes.

This paper provides interview evidence on the process of SERA, suggesting that, although there is still managerial capture of SERA, stakeholders are being increasingly included in the process as it matures. SERA is beginning to provide dual‐pronged benefits, adding value to management and stakeholders simultaneously. Through the lens of Freirian dialogic theory, it is found that SERA is starting to display some characteristics of a dialogical process, being stakeholder inclusive, demythologising and transformative, with assurors perceiving themselves as a “voice” for stakeholders. Consequently, SERA is becoming an important mechanism for driving forward more stakeholder‐inclusive SER, with the SERA process beginning to transform attitudes of management towards their stakeholders through more stakeholder‐led SER. However, there remain significant obstacles to dialogic SERA. The paper suggests these could be removed through educative and transformative processes driven by assurors.

Previous work on SERA has involved predominantly content‐based analysis on assurance statements. However, this paper investigates the details of the SERA process, for the first time using qualitative interview data.

The European Forum for Enhanced Collaboration in Teaching (EFFECT, 2015–2019) (EFFECT, 2019), a project co-financed by the European Commission, through its Erasmus+ programme, has been exploring effective methods for university teachers’ development at the European level, including pedagogical staff development “modules” to support inclusivity and citizenship in teaching and learning practice. Throughout the project and in this chapter, the authors have taken “inclusivity” to convey an attitude and appreciation for principles which inform “inclusion” as a practice – in the context of reflective and reflexive practice the words become largely interchangeable.

The way academic staff teach is of critical importance in any reform designed to enhance inclusion and citizenship in higher education. Conveying these values-related topics in an academic context hardly lends itself to a traditional pedagogical training model. Promoting inclusion means stimulating discussion, challenging stereotypes and unconscious biases, as well as improving educational and social frameworks. The Change Laboratory methodology (Engeström, 2001) was chosen for the pedagogical staff development workshops under EFFECT, with a view to engaging teaching staff in a deeper reflection about the topics and about their teaching practice. Change Laboratory is an intervention-research methodology that aims at reconceptualizing activity: it intends to provoke authentic reactions, responses and disagreements among the participants and provides opportunity for them to work together to reimagine their activities and to identify “concrete” solutions that address persisting issues in their practice. The theory takes a broad conceptualization of “activity” and “practice,” which is not specific to the education sector or the “classroom.” The Change Laboratory is a methodology designed to support the “expansive learning cycle” described by Engeström and as such can be understood as a theory of change which the EFFECT project team applied to a pan-European higher education learning and teaching context.

In 2017, the project team designed and implemented four physical, face-to-face pedagogical staff development workshops on inclusivity and citizenship skills based on this methodology, attended by over 100 participants from across Europe. In 2018, the workshop model was adapted to a virtual learning environment and three online sessions on inclusivity and citizenship skills for higher education teaching staff were offered.

The pedagogical staff development workshops enabled participants to use open reflective questions to provoke discussion about the challenges faced in their own learning and teaching contexts, think about their pedagogical practices and identify their unconscious biases. Most of the participants rated the workshops as very good and innovative, and considered the methodology an effective vehicle for promoting meaningful open discussion.

In this chapter, the authors reflect on the design, implementation and lessons learnt from the pedagogical staff development workshops on inclusivity and citizenship skills. The authors propose a set of recommendations for individual teaching staff and institutional leadership to consider when addressing continuous professional development for inclusivity and citizenship.

This paper aims to address the issue of gender inclusivity in the information technology (IT) sector of India. The main objective of the paper is to find out the factors influencing female participation in the IT industry. It proposes some policy initiatives to support involvement of women in adequate proportion in the workforce.

The study uses a unique set of data from 63 IT companies from three big cities of Delhi-National Capital Region (NCR), Bengaluru and Kolkata. An ordered logit model is applied to find out the determinants of female absorption in the IT industry. ANOVA is used to study the variations between and within the IT industry of female labor force participation.

Result reveals that the percentage and mobility of female employees in an organization does not depend on the turnover or the total number of skilled employees in the organization. It depends on the location.

The main limitation of the paper is that many IT companies do not want to reveal data about the percentage of female employees. If more companies could have been included, more accurate results could have been found.

The study discusses the aspect of gender inclusivity in the IT sector as well as the impact of higher skill on gender. The paper proposes some policy initiatives which can increase the number of female employees in the IT sector.

The study fulfills the need to know about the gender inclusivity aspect of the IT sector in India.

Most public foresight programmes in the 1990s limited participation to technological experts in the identified fields. However, almost all the programmes had an implied social dimension and several concluded that more inclusive participation was needed in future programmes. The paper aims to discuss how inclusiveness might be achieved.

At first sight extending participation seems eminently possible. Inclusiveness is a matter of definition and process that has been encountered in other foresight style activities where the opinions of the polity need to be taken into account. Definitions and processes form the core of our approach, using ideas from human behaviour, sustainability and corporate governance.

Learning how to extend participation has started through the German FUTUR programme and the creation of some online discussion forums. Some other programmes in The Netherlands (1996) and the UK (from 1998 onwards) have attempted to become more inclusive, with varying degrees of success.

The discussion is restricted to exploring some general principles related to making foresight programmes more inclusive. Some of the detail has been worked out but is not complete enough to be discussed.

Inclusiveness introduces specific management and process needs, if foresight programmes are to be extended into the social sphere without their becoming chaotic. The principles discussed imply a need for a change in mind‐set for foresight sponsors and practitioners.

None of these ideas have been used in practice and to that extent are original.

Groups once marginalized by culture, ethnicity, class, sexuality, age, and physical ability have entered and impacted business, service, and educational institutions. To unify their widening communities, leaders must pursue inclusivity, which demands more than equitable demographics. Inclusivity integrates each individual’s perspective, regardless of group – the tougher goal of equitable belonging. Most diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging programs agree that inclusivity starts with leaders’ acknowledging their own biases and committing to organizational reform. Yet few apply leadership principles to gain crucial team collaboration in the project. This chapter explicitly shows public- and private-sector executives and instructors how to guide staffers and students to understand and welcome unfamiliar cultural, social, and personal variances so they themselves create an inclusive cohort. Experiential activities, games, performance arts, and focused, reflective debriefings help make inclusivity the norm by playfully but persistently uncovering even unconscious exclusionist assumptions and replacing them with informed, diversity-positive interactions. These emotionally engaging exercises reveal that exclusionism emerges most bluntly in casual conversation, which both displays and perpetuates preconceptions. Fortunately, self-corrected speech can become the avatar and instrument of inclusivity. So the gentle unearthing and disproving of biases about cultural, social, and personal differences allow participants to construct a diversity-enhanced unity deeper than uniformity. Albeit temporary and simulated, such visceral learning experiences dramatically immerse players in the hurtful disregard caused by microaggressions of privilege and prejudice about cultures, ethnicities, classes, sexualities, ages, and abilities. These exercises and leaders’ modeling grow collegiality despite – indeed, through – human variety, letting all celebrate their individuality while greeting new views and voices.

This paper investigated the possibilities of implementing inclusive education in the tertiary-level language classrooms and suggests new teaching methodologies adhering to the guidelines of multicultural education (MCE) framework. It explored how Indian teachers fostered social inclusivity in ESP (English for Specific Purposes) classrooms and documented the methods used by the language teachers to sustain a socially inclusive environment in the classroom.

This qualitative study undertaken with 17 faculty members using online interviews and surveys as tools revealed the challenges faced by the teachers.

The results have implications towards teacher training as there is a clear dearth of teacher strategies to foster an equitable and inclusive learning environment inside the classroom.

Classrooms are the sources of values and perspectives, and teachers are responsible for providing equal opportunities to students who are otherwise marginalised in society.

Inclusive education aims at providing equal opportunities to people despite the differences in terms of race, class, caste, region, religion, gender, sexuality, ethnicity and disabilities. India being a multilingual and multicultural country, inculcating values in students to enable them to reflect beyond these differences becomes important.

The learning outcomes of this study are as follows:

1. understand the role of financial inclusivity in the sustainable development of a nation;

2. examine the concept of social entrepreneurship and identify the skills needed to be a social entrepreneur;

3. analyze the opportunities and challenges faced by social entrepreneurs, especially in an emerging economy; and

4. assess the feasible options with respect to upscaling and expansion.

Yamuna Sastry, a young woman from a traditional Indian family, had set out to achieve her dream of financial inclusivity by helping the underprivileged in her country gain financial independence and credibility. When she was approached by a cab driver to file tax returns for him, a new venture took shape in her mind, and along with a partner, CabDost, a socially driven financial advisory start-up was created to provide financial advisory services exclusively for cab drivers. CabDost had been instrumental in making over 15,000 cab drivers financially literate, instilling in them a culture of compliance, getting them tax refunds and enabling the Indian Government recover eight crores in taxes. The success of financial inclusivity among cab drivers inspired CabDost to extend its financial services to truck drivers, auto drivers, housekeeping staff and other contractual workforce. The company found it challenging to address the demands of the increasing customer base with its available technical resources. The absence of an in-house tech team and the need for an all-in-one tech platform to provide a wide variety of financial services induced CabDost to explore other options. Dvara Money, a neo bank offering financial services, approached CabDost with a merger proposal. Though it was a lucrative offer, the founding members were apprehensive as they knew that most of the mergers failed because of myriad reasons. They were contemplating on their next move as they were in a dilemma about whether to develop a technical team in-house or to go ahead with the merger.

The case can be taught to business management students as a part of the introductory course on entrepreneurship or social entrepreneurship. The case can be used specifically to make the students understand the role of financial inclusivity in the sustainable development of a nation, the concept of social entrepreneurship, the journey of social entrepreneurs in the financial inclusivity space, right from ideation to execution, the challenges faced in the bargain, survival mechanisms adopted and the various options available for further growth and expansion.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

This study aims to determine the perception and attitude of consumers toward the presence of cybernetic avatars (CAs) as part of a social inclusion initiative.

A mixed method was used to conduct the study using facial recognition expressions and surveys. Three studies were conducted. Study 1 examines consumers’ attitudes and perceptions of a CA and what it can do to promote social inclusivity among people who have mobility disabilities but wish to work. Study 2 tests a conceptual model to determine the factors that affect consumers’ intention to visit an establishment that uses CAs as their employees. Study 3 extends Study 2 and tests two moderators predicted to influence consumers’ attitudes toward CAs and their intention to visit an establishment that uses CAs.

The results show that consumers generally accept and are excited about such technological developments. Study 2 further supports this positive perception with its conceptual model. Study 3 provides insights into how the moderating factors influence a consumer’s attitude toward CAs and their intention to visit the establishment. Between consumers who have a mobility disability and those who do not, those who have mobility disabilities showed a more positive attitude and intention to patronize such an establishment.

Studies on CAs are still in the infancy stage. This study provides insight into how society can use technology to promote social inclusion, contrary to prior opposing arguments towards integrating robots into society.