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Purpose: The purpose of this article is to identify the opportunities for resetting Caribbean tourism along the lines of sustainability, the use of SMART technology and social inclusion so that it benefits all of its stakeholders. Design/methodology/approach: This is a conceptual paper that draws on research about the limitations of Caribbean tourism and the emerging needs of tourism stakeholders in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. Findings: The paper proposes five areas of focus - educating smartly, becoming a smart and strategic employer, using technology smartly to identify value and values of internal and external customers, thinking, buying, using sustainably and connecting the dots in joined up government. Research limitations/implications: The paper draws on current research on problems associated with pre-pandemic tourism and proposes ways that these can be addressed. It utilizes the service-profit chain model to identify the relationships between internal and external service value. Practical implications: Caribbean tourism interests have the choice of using the pandemic as an enforced pause or an opportunity to reset. This paper assumes the latter choice and makes specific recommendations for private and public sector interests to shape a sector that is socially inclusive and sustainable and that incorporates smart technology. Social implications: The Caribbean is the world's most tourism dependent region but a critical examination indicates that the pursuit of tourist numbers and dollars has come at a cost to local residents. The paper utilizes the new three Ss of smart destinations, social inclusion and sustainability to recommend ways in which tourism can better serve the region and a new generation of tourists. Originality/value: Tourism in the Caribbean has grown exponentially but not always in a way that benefits all of its stakeholders. Covid-19 forced a cessation of most activities and created an opportunity to rethink tourism. This paper recognizes that the changing needs of external and internal stakeholders must be considered if tourism is to be successful and sustainable, and proposes five overlapping and important innovations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper discusses the outcomes of an exploratory study into the innovations, adaptations, and best practices that the tourism and hospitality sector in Africa should implement in dealing with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic-induced disruptions. Design/methodology/approach: This paper was based on data collected through qualitative approaches by reviewing published academic articles and unpublished documents, including websites, media reports and global public health entities such as the World Health Organization (WHO). Because of the lack of reliable data in some cases, this study is inductive in nature. Findings: The main finding of this research suggests that Africa which is seemingly the least affected in infection and casualty rates has conversely borne the brunt of the negative responses from the global community in travel restrictions and mobility curtailment. Overwhelming trends suggest the domestic tourism market does not have the spending capacity of international visitors who arrive with foreign currency, inevitably main-stream in the form of USD, EURO and GBP, with their spending power estimated at between 1:18 and 1:22. The fragmented, cascaded and sometimes disorganised approach in dealing with policy adoptions and implementation in managing developments around the pandemic further inhibits a compelling approach to continent-wide tourism and hospitality revival. Originality/value: This paper highlights trends, innovations, and adaptations to COVID-19-related revival strategies for Africa and contributes to academic debates on the topic which, in the Global South context is currently under-researched. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper explores the challenges Malaysian tourism and hospitality organisations faced during the COVID-19 pandemic and assesses how they coped and strategized with these challenges. Next, the study explores innovative action and best practices in dealing with the pandemic. Additionally, the study focusses on the efforts of policymakers. The paper also reviews government policy and support programmes made available to the business sector during the pandemic. Design/methodology/approach: The paper identifies the key pandemic-related issues and challenges faced in the tourism and hospitality industry through open-ended questions with senior industry practitioner insights and policymakers. Findings: The study highlights emerging challenges and issues for Malaysian hospitality and tourism businesses. In addition, it offers specific recommendations and strategies to enable industry stakeholders to respond to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Practical implications: These findings are of interest to Malaysian tourism and hospitality industry stakeholders and policymakers as they highlight challenges and offer possible post-pandemic solutions. Originality/value: The paper reflects current issues and challenges from the perspective of tourism and hospitality practitioners on managerial and operational issues relating to the COVID-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study highlights areas of key importance for building event resilience and provides best-practice industry examples that foster innovative, adaptable and transformative event environments, which are areas of high academic and managerial relevance in times of uncertainty. Design/methodology/approach: The study employs a multicase study research design that draws on interviews with the leaders of four event organizations in Denmark and Norway: (1) the Steinkjer Festival, (2) Run Alone Denmark, (3) FC Midtjylland and (4) the Bergen International Festival. Findings: The events demonstrated the critical necessity of understanding innovation and its contribution to resilience in the event sector, particularly in times of uncertainty, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. These organizations achieved success by continuously fostering innovative environments before COVID-19 by being value-driven and customer-centric organizations. Digital technologies were not used as makeshift solutions but rather to enhance event attendees' experiential platforms and expand each event's business potential. Practical implications: The paper answers the call for event and festival research during the COVID-19 pandemic to explore the importance of understanding failure, crisis, innovation and recovery. Originality/value: The paper's contributions to event management research are (1) adding to the ongoing discussion about building a resilient event sector in times of uncertainty, (2) screening how event organizers achieve innovation in their organizations and (3) providing insights on future requirements for events in a post-COVID world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate how the digital competence of academicians influences students' engagement in learning activities in the face of the pandemic outbreak. In addition to this, the paper investigates how digital competence influences each dimension of student engagement (cognitive, affective and behavioural). Design/methodology/approach: A cross-sectional, quantitative and explanatory research design was used to conduct the study. Data were gathered with an adopted questionnaire administered to a randomly selected sample of 500 university faculty members who were not digitally literate prior to the outbreak of the pandemic. Apart from the goodness of data tests, inferential statistics were applied to test hypotheses. Findings: Results indicate a significant influence of teachers' digital competence on student engagement and the pandemic outbreak positively moderates the relationship. Digital competence equally influences all three dimensions of student engagement. Practical implications: The outbreak of COVID-19 made the adoption of digital life more compulsive and the nations with already available digital infrastructure and digital competence effectively minimized the adverse effect of social distancing as a result of the pandemic outbreak. Findings emphasize practitioners to focus on the digital capacity building of academicians and the provision of digital infrastructure to facilitate student engagement. Social implications: Society is transforming into a hi-tech lifestyle and technological advancement is penetrating almost every sphere of life at an unprecedented pace. From the digitalization of day-to-day affairs to e-governance, the adoption of technology is becoming a new normal. The outbreak of the pandemic overtook academic institutions equally. So, the social distancing compelled academicians and other stakeholders of universities to switchover from in-campus classes to online classes. The findings enrich the existing body of literature by explaining how digital competence has a determining role in ensuring student engagement amid the COVID-19 outbreak. Originality/value: This research is a seminal work, as it tests the influence of digital competence on student engagement with the moderating role of the pandemic outbreak. To the best of the author's knowledge, existing literature does not present this kind of research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Emerging technologies have the capacity to transform industries offering substantial benefits to users. Given the increasing demand for advanced logistics services, third-party logistic service providers (LSPs) face greater pressure to deploy and realise these technologies, especially given the demands and operational challenges created during the COVID-19 crisis. Drawing upon the diffusion of innovation (DOI) theory and technology–organisation–environment (TOE) framework, this paper goes beyond just identifying drivers and barriers to technology adoption to understanding how LSPs and industry experts perceive these drivers and barriers and simultaneously confront and undertake actions to implement them. Design/methodology/approach: An exploratory study was conducted in three phases: (1) in-depth interviews with twelve stakeholders in the Australian logistics industry; (2) five in-depth interviews conducted with stakeholders during the COVID-19 crisis and (3) a focus group discussion session. All interviews were analysed using content analysis and revealed several drivers for the deployment of emerging technologies, including internal organisational factors that drive supply chain (SC) network optimisation. Findings: The analysis of the three phases identified several drivers for the deployment of emerging technologies in logistics, including internal organisational factors that drive SC network optimisation. Also identified were external drivers including the impact of the COVID-19 crisis, along with barriers and specific actions that were considered and implemented by LSPs for sustainable operations, particularly in a post-COVID-19 environment. Originality/value: This study explores organisational and industry drivers for the implementation of emerging technologies. Explicitly, it extends the extant research by highlighting organisational and industry drivers and enablers that influence adoption and deployment of emerging technologies. Second, it advances the existing perspectives on LSPs in the Australian context on the development and implementation of technology strategies. The paper offers insights around implementation of technologies, directly obtained from industrial application for managers and practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to evaluate the impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on startups performance and the moderating effects played by several resilience-related startup characteristics during times of crisis. Design/methodology/approach: To achieve this, 94 Brazil-based startups were surveyed, and multivariate data techniques (PLS-SEM) were applied. Findings: The results show that despite the startups performance having been affected by the pandemic crisis, the response measures, when influenced by the resilience characteristics of these companies, moderated this effect. Furthermore, our findings suggest the future challenges to be faced by these organisations in the post-pandemic period. Research limitations/implications: Proposing a framework, our survey research contributes to the dynamic capabilities theory by showing that startups resilience is linked to the micro-foundations of sensing (e.g. innovation systems, resilience culture, pivoting practices, innovativeness products), seizing (e.g. leadership/focused skills, people development and selection, agility, clear vision of business process) and reconfiguring capabilities. Practical implications: Not only for theory, but this paper also contributes insights and guidelines for business practice in the face of challenges arising from times of crisis. By demonstrating the positive effect of early response measures based on resilience, our findings provide genuine managerial input that can help managers, funders and decision-makers in these companies operations against turbulent crises early on, thereby supporting the traction phase and sustaining their performance. Originality/value: Previous research has examined the effects of the COVID-19 crisis in several sectors and perspectives. However, this study is the first to empirically test and clarify how the resilience and singularities of these new business models based on innovation could react to the changes caused by the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to "identify", "analyze" and "construct" a framework to quantify the relationships between several determinants of organizational preparedness for change in the start-ups during the COVID-19 emergencies. Design/methodology/approach: Total interpretive structural modelling (TISM) is used to find characteristics that assist in analyzing the readiness or preparedness level before initiating a change deployment process in start-ups. A cross-impact matrix multiplication applied to classification (MICMAC) analysis is performed to determine the driving and dependent elements of change in start-ups. Findings: From literature research and an expert interview, this study selected ten variables of change preparedness to explore inner interconnections and comprehend the inner connections factors. The findings depict that clarity of mission and goals, reward system, technological advancement and motivational readiness have been considered the most important readiness factor for deploying organizational change in start-ups during the COVID-19 emergencies. Practical implications: This research will aid the management and researchers gain a better understanding of the factors that influence change preparedness. Constant observation of current changes in the start-ups and the external environment will aid in improving the quality of products or services provided by the start-ups during the COVID-19. The start-ups can use these criteria linked to change readiness. The priority of each element is determined using MICMAC analysis and ranking using the TISM technique, which assists start-ups in ordering the enablers from highest to lowest priority. Originality/value: There is no research regarding factors influencing organizational readiness for change in start-ups during the COVID-19 emergencies. This research gap is filled by analyzing aspects linked to organizational readiness for change in start-ups. This gap inspired the present study, which uses the "Total Interpretive Structural Modelling (TISM)" technique to uncover change determinants and investigate hierarchical interconnections among factors influencing organizational readiness to change in start-ups during the COVID-19 emergencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The goal of this paper is to narrate about tourism in Sri Lanka in the context of the current pandemic and other challenges and identify innovative solutions to rebuild tourism. Design/methodology/approach: This qualitative study was undertaken by employing mainly secondary data sources. Findings: Since the 26-year long civil war in Sri Lanka ended in 2009, tourism grew to unprecedented levels over the next ten years. Sri Lanka had formulated strategies to attract six million tourists and US$ 10 billion earnings by 2025. Tourism had been the third highest foreign exchange earner of the country representing over 5% of GDP, around 500,000 employees. The 2019 Easter Sunday terrorist attacks that killed 269 people severely affected tourism. Within a year of the attacks, the global COVID-19 pandemic further impacted tourism further. The current war in Europe added to the problems of Sri Lanka, which in 2022 plunged to its worse economic and political crisis. The protesters against the political corruption and fiscal mismanagement demanded the resignation of the President, Prime Minister and the Cabinet. In spite of these major challenges, this paper attempts to bring some optimism about the future potential of tourism in Sri Lanka. Originality/value: This paper suggests 12 key measures and 9 suggestions for innovation to rebuild tourism in Sri Lanka from 2022 to 2030. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide answers to the following questions: How was the tourism and hospitality industry in Guyana impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic? What recovery strategies have been designed? What are the prospects for the successful implementation of those strategies? Design/methodology/approach: The paper is based upon a qualitative analysis of the recommendations and formal proposals that were issued from a variety of sources within government, private sector and academia during the 2019–2021 period of the pandemic. Findings: The main findings of this paper are that an industry consensus exists regarding the severity of the impact of the pandemic and the need for a collaborative strategy to be designed and innovative measures implemented in order to accelerate industry recovery. This recovery entails attracting to Destination Guyana both a new wave of health-aware travellers as well as visitors from traditional markets and the diaspora. Analysis suggests that there is a broad consensus and convergence of objectives that embrace both government and private sector. Originality/value: The COVID-19 pandemic has given rise to a significant quantity of literature and has seen a conspicuous incorporation of scientific medical data into tourism analysis. This is only to be expected in the circumstance of a global health emergency that has devastated the global tourism industry. The value of this article lies principally in its proposal of innovative methods and strategies that are critical to tourism recovery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The need for accelerating innovation is exacerbated as organizations struggle to either adapt or perish in this unforgiving condition due to the COVID-19 disruption. To address this issue, many organizations have embraced employee-driven participatory innovation to survive and thrive albeit the uncertainties. This study aims to investigate the role of enterprise social media (ESM) in supporting and facilitating these efforts. Design/methodology/approach: This study first identified the underlying mechanisms that allow ESM use to foster and maintain participatory innovation and then reexamined how these mechanisms played out during the COVID-19 lockdown restrictions. The data was collected through a questionnaire in two phases, before and during work-from-home mandates, and the results were analyzed and compared to capture similarities and differences. Findings: The results revealed that innovation culture and management support mediated the effects of ESM use on three measures of innovation productivity in both conditions. Interestingly, the effect of ESM use was more prominent in driving innovation in the work-from-home condition. This effect was not limited to the direct effect of ESM use on innovation productivity but on innovation culture and management support as well. Originality/value: The results suggest that ESM offer a potentially useful path to support and enable employees to participate in the innovation processes, especially when they work remotely or in a distributed team. More generally, this paper should be of interest to researchers and practitioners interested in understanding, implementing and evaluating enterprise social software applications and encouraging employee-driven participatory innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to use a theoretical framework to investigate the relationships between different innovation-oriented dynamic capabilities, dynamic resilience and firm performance among logistics service providers (LSPs) and in-house logistics departments of industrial companies during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Design/methodology/approach: The conceptual theoretical framework relies on the dynamic capabilities framework (DCF) and the relational view (RV), which are rooted in the resource-based view (RBV). It is hypothesized that the dynamic capability to innovate reinforces the dynamic capability to adapt and to recover in highly dynamic and vulnerable environments during the pandemic. This allows LSPs to successfully create new services and respond to the changing market circumstances in terms of logistics service quality (LSQ) and firm performance. Data were collected from 83 LSPs and 30 in-house logistics departments via an online survey. The study determined the general strength and direction of the relationships between latent variables. A correlation analysis was utilized to establish statistical significance of the results. Findings: In this study, a range of innovation-oriented capabilities for achieving more dynamic resilience were bundled in a conceptual framework and were found to be statistically significant for LSQ and firm performance. They are the capability to distribute new knowledge, to train employees effectively, to develop cross-functional collaboration within the firm, to develop inter-firm relationships with business partners on a long-term basis as well as to learn from rivals, and to pursue a win-win relationship with them. Research limitations/implications: The results of the study do not imply that the identified capabilities are the only ones relevant to increasing dynamic resilience during the pandemic. In October 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic was at different stages in different countries, so that the level to which firms were affected varied, and although the data were collected during one month only, due to the high dynamics of the pandemic, data were collected during different stages of disruptions, even among respondents in the same country. This study was set in the context of COVID-19, and it could not be proved whether the conceptual framework is generalizable to other crises or particular industries, but it would be worthwhile to examine this in the future. Finally, it was not tested whether LSQ mediates the relationship between innovative capabilities and firm performance during the pandemic. Practical implications: The results help managers with regard to their strategic and operational decisions in relation with COVID-19. These findings are useful for executives and logistics managers to improve these capabilities to gain a competitive advantage during pandemic and to find their strengths and weaknesses to develop critical capabilities for situations with a high turbulence and dynamic in their environment, and therefore provide a path for improvement. Originality/value: This paper operationalizes a multi-theoretical conceptual framework in the context of logistics management (LM) and supply chain management (SCM). This conceptual framework was empirically tested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The COVID-19 crisis has created enormous strain in global supply chains. The disruption has caused severe shortages of critical items, including personal protective equipment (e.g. face masks), ventilators and diagnostics. The failure of the industry to meet the sudden demand for these necessary items has caused a severe humanitarian crisis. These situations, resulting from the COVID-19, crisis have led to the informal growth of frugal innovation in sustainable global supply chains. This paper aims to provide a detailed overview of drivers of frugal-oriented sustainable global supply chains, following lessons acquired from emerging countries' attempts to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. Design/methodology/approach: The authors used a focused group approach to identify the drivers and this paper further validated them using existing literature published in international peer-reviewed journals and reports. The authors adopted total interpretive structural modeling (TISM) to analyze the complex relationships among identified drivers. Findings: The authors present a theoretical framework to explain how the drivers are interlinked. This paper has developed the framework through a synthesis of the TISM modeling and Matrice d'impacts croisés multiplication appliquée á un classment analysis. This paper observed that government financial support, policies and regulations, under the mediating effect of leadership and the moderating effect of national culture and international rules and regulations, has a significant effect on the adoption of emerging technology, volunteering initiatives and values and ethics. Further, emerging technology, volunteering initiative and values and ethics have a significant effect on supply chain talent and frugal engineering. These results provide some useful theoretical insights that may help in further investigating the role of frugal innovations in other contexts. Originality/value: The authors find that outcomes of the methodical contributions and the resulting managerial insights can be categorized into four levels. Industry and researchers alike can use the study to develop the decision-support systems guiding frugal-oriented sustainable global supply chains amid the COVID-19 pandemic and in recovering them thereafter. Suggestions for future research directions are offered and discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Purpose: Organizations need actionable knowledge to cope with environmental uncertainty, make effective decisions and develop innovation strategies. Since innovation evolves through generations, the present study aims to unravel and define innovation intelligence, considering this transformation, and discuss how environmental uncertainty is resolved in each one. Design/methodology/approach: This article is a conceptual paper that employs a typology and model approach in its research design Findings: Contexts are categorized into ordered and unordered (according to the Cynefin framework), in which intelligence with prediction and control approaches are applied for uncertainty management, respectively. Also, the three generations of innovation management, namely, technology push, market pull and a combination of these two (hybrid), intelligence benefit from a prediction approach, and in the networked (collaborative) generation, intelligence takes advantage of a control approach. Research limitations/implications: The conceptual approach adopted in this research is limited to, and focused on, understanding intelligence, innovation intelligence and presenting preliminary insights into their relationship with uncertainty management. Practical implications: This research guides decision-makers to adopt the appropriate intelligence approach to manage uncertainty during their innovation management process and illustrate it by the industry uncertainty matrix and COVID-19 pandemic situation. Originality/value: This study proposes a typology of intelligence based on different knowledge pyramids. Also, it introduces innovation intelligence and its relation to knowledge management and environmental uncertainty management that has not yet been clearly addressed in the literature. Moreover, it determines the uncertainty management approaches for each variant of innovation intelligence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aims to investigate technology-based health and safety (H&S) management to control the spread of disease on construction sites using a partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) approach. Design/methodology/approach: An extensive literature review is conducted to develop a conceptual framework. The variables identified from the literature review are included in a cross-sectional survey which gathered a total of 203 valid feedback. The variables for challenges are grouped under their relevant construct using exploratory factor analysis. Then, a hypothesized model is developed for PLS-SEM analysis using Smart PLS software. Later, the outcome of the model is further validated by nine construction experts using a semi-structured questionnaire survey. Findings: The results rationalized the relationships between the COVID-19 H&S measures, challenges in implementing COVID-19 H&S measures on construction sites and the innovative technologies in transforming construction H&S management during the COVID-19 pandemic. The possible challenges that obstruct the implementation of H&S measures are highlighted. The potential technologies which can significantly transform H&S management by reducing the impact of challenges are presented. Practical implications: The findings benefited the industry practitioners who are suffering disruption in construction operations due to the pneumonic plague. Originality/value: By developing a conceptual model, this study reveals the contribution of technology-based H&S management for construction projects during the COVID-19 pandemic, which remains under-studied, especially in the context of the developing world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is a preface to Volume 35 of the Emerald Series Research in the Sociology of Work. The new editorial team expresses gratitude to the previous editor and discusses their reasons for taking on the editorship, which include the importance of researching work and workers in the current context. They highlight the challenges faced by workers, such as precarious work arrangements, technological advancements, and the impact of climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic. The team emphasizes their intention to provide a platform for critical and rigorous research, with a focus on ethnographic studies. They also mention future volumes and encourage readers to monitor the series webpage for calls for papers. [Extracted from the article]

Purpose: This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies. Design: This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context. Findings: Organizational areas which deal with innovation are often the first to see costs cut when an economic crisis emerges. Yet this can actually have a dramatic negative effect on recovery after a crisis, compared to cutting costs elsewhere. Originality: The briefing saves busy executives, strategists and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To meet the rapidly increasing demand for medical treatment during the outbreak of COVID-19, Huoshengshan and Leishenshan Hospital are rapidly built (9–12 days) in Wuhan. These two urgent emergency projects are unprecedented. In general, substantial literature suggests that the possibility of shortening a schedule by more than a quarter of its original duration is implausible. By contrast, the two projects had successfully compressed the schedules from months and years to about ten days. This study aims to investigate how this was done and provide references for future projects. Design/methodology/approach: The study uses qualitative case study techniques to analyze the project practices in two urgent emergency projects. Data were gathered through semi-structured interviews and archival research. During interviews, interviewees were asked to describe the project practices adopted to overcome the challenges and freely share their experiences and knowledge. Findings: The results illustrate that a high degree of schedule compression is achievable through tactful crashing, substitution and overlapping applications. The successful practices heavily rely on the high capacity of participants and necessary organization, management and technology innovations, such as three-level matrix organizational structure, reverse design method, site partition, mock-up room first strategies and prefabricated construction technology. For instance, the reverse design method is one of the most significant innovations to project simplification and accelerate and worthy of promotion for future emergency projects. Practical implications: The empirical findings are significant as they evoke new thinking and direction for addressing the main challenges of sharp schedule compression and provide valuable references for future emergency projects, including selecting high-capacity contractors and replacing the conventional design methods with reverse design. Originality/value: Substantial studies indicate that the maximum degree of schedule compression is highly unlikely to exceed 25%, but this study suggests that sharp compression is possible. Although with flaws in its beauty (i.e. compressing schedule at the expense of construction cost and quality), it is also a breakthrough. It provides the building block for future research in this fertile and unexplored area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The research empirically examines the role of artificial intelligence (AI) integrated with social customer relationship management (SCRM) in multinational enterprises (MNEs) towards international relationship management under social distancing conditions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Design/methodology/approach: The study initially undertakes pertinently focused theoretical research in the fields of international marketing, knowledge management, and customer relationship management. And, utilizing the theories of resource-based view (RBV) and dynamic capability view (DCV) theory, the study develops a theoretical model that is subsequently empirically validated through a survey and structural equation modeling. Findings: The study highlights the importance and means of adopting AI-integrated social CRM by MNEs, in the context of international relationship management, under the Covid-19 social distancing conditions. The study more specifically elucidates the role and significance of MNE leadership approach and support towards the adoption of AI-integrated social CRM systems and, ultimately, performance improvement of MNEs under such conditions. Research limitations/implications: The study presents insights and prescriptive explications on a topic at the heart of state-of the-art technology-based international marketing in the explicit context of the primary business-defining environment of the Covid-19 pandemic. The research provides practicable suggestions to MNEs' leadership towards the adoption of an AI-integrated social CRM system. And the study presents a unique model for international relationship management under social distancing conditions, potentially applicable during other crises. Originality/value: The research is original and on a 'fresh' topic that combines the latest technological advancements in business (AI-integrated CRM) with the present critical business context (pandemic). The research develops a tested theoretical model that (a) is unique in its field; (b) provides a solid foundation for further research; (c) bears generic value and application during other-than-Covid-19 conditions; and (d) enhances the understanding of important fields of international marketing, including international customer relationship management and global knowledge management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: There is a well-documented trend among businesses for applying continuously improving, technologically-supported processes. This trend, in part, responds to evolving and challenging business environments and competitive pressures. It also increasingly mandates the need for businesses to invest in improving their digital capabilities and is driven by the expectation that such investments will better equip them for uncertain times. The COVID-19 pandemic presented disruptions to the supply chain, logistics, operations, market demand and labour supply, with industry reports providing evidence that businesses with digital capabilities were better able to respond to such disruptions promptly and appropriately. The study aims to investigate the effects of Industry 4.0 (I4.0) technologies on business operations and supply chain resilience. Design/methodology/approach: The authors surveyed 117 Australian manufacturing firms using an online survey and analysed the data by using the partial least square structural equation modelling method. Findings: The authors found I4.0 capabilities directly and positively impact supply chain resilience and that incremental innovation acts as a complementary mediator for the I4.0 technologies' relationship with supply chain resilience. I4.0 technology capability needs to first transfer to incremental innovation for operations resilience. The authors also found that incremental innovation and operations resilience are serial mediators in the relationship between I4.0 technologies and supply chain resilience. Originality/value: This research linked the three research areas of I4.0 implementations, innovation capabilities and resilience. To the best of the authors' knowledge, there has not been a previous study that investigated all three constructs together. Also, this study considered operations resilience and supply chain resilience as two distinct constructs and found I4.0 technologies had differential effects on them. The findings, thus, provide a novel contribution to the resilience, organizational capability and innovation literature. The investigations make clear to business practitioners how investments in technology and innovation capabilities translate into the resilience that is required in periods of disruption to business certainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aims to examine the challenges posed by COVID-19 restrictions for audit processes in India and explore the perceptions of the profession on how technology was leveraged to conduct audits during this period. The opinions of auditors on future changes in post-COVID-19 audit practices and processes are also explored. Design/methodology/approach: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with senior auditors working in various audit firms in major business centers in India and subjected to content and thematic analysis using the institutional theory perspective. Findings: The auditing profession used technology to respond to COVID-19-imposed disruptions of established audit process and practices while maintaining the legitimacy of audit reports. The findings indicate that auditors now seem to strongly support the integration of emerging technologies into their auditing practices post-COVID to ensure data accuracy and transparency. The interviewees displayed keen interest in continuing remote and in-person audits to maintain audit quality in the future. The experience of COVID-19 appears to have forced the auditing profession to overcome their reluctance to adopt technologies that were previously used by only Big 4 and large audit companies. Practical implications: The results will be of particular interest to various stakeholders concerned with aspects of the acceptance of technology-assisted audit reports such as legitimacy, required infrastructure, cost involvement and resistance to change. The findings will also assist professional bodies and policymakers in both developed and developing economies in devising useful strategies to promote technology-aided auditing during and after COVID-19. Limitations posed by inadequate infrastructure and resistance to changes must be overcomed before implementation of technology-aided audits. Originality/value: As COVID-19 pandemic is a recent phenomenon, to the best of the authors' knowledge, this study is one of the first few studies that have examined the use of technology to facilitate audits during the COVID-19 period, more specifically from a developing economy perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The COVID-19 pandemic has stimulated a global movement of open innovation initiatives aimed to provide knowledge and tools to support policy decisions and actions in the emergency scenario. The authors describe an open innovation process aimed to build an information coordination system to reduce the infection diffusion within the population. Design/methodology/approach: The authors use coordination theory principles to elaborate a framework of activities, resources and dependencies among information resources and producers in the COVID-19 emergency. The framework was applied to develop a case study aimed at describing a health emergency system implemented by Dyrecta Lab (a research laboratory on computer science) and CITEL (a medical research center). Findings: The authors describe the existence of relevant "flow," "fit" and "share" dependencies within the activities of infection containment and medical treatment. The authors identify eight key resources and a number of actors involved in those activities, and describe a platform able to gather a multitude of epidemic-related metrics with the purpose to address dependencies and support decision making. Research limitations/implications: The authors provide insights for advancing the academic discussion on process coordination principles in time-constrained, volatile and highly demanding scenarios. Practical implications: The value of the authors' research can be identified for practitioners engaged to develop innovative development projects for public utility. The authors provide a contribution also for first responders and health operators involved in management of the current and future emergencies. Originality/value: The adoption of process coordination principles is a relatively new and powerful approach to analyze and optimize the processes that characterize the management of emergency scenarios. Besides, the study and application of open innovation in healthcare are partially limited. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aims to analyze the socio-ecological policy trade-off caused by technological innovations in the post-COVID-19 era. The study outcomes are utilized to design a comprehensive policy framework for attaining sustainable development goals (SDGs). Design/methodology/approach: Study is done for 100 countries over 1991–2019. Second-generation estimation method is used. Innovation is measured by total factor productivity, environmental quality is measured by carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and social dimension is captured by unemployment. Findings: Innovation–CO2 emissions association is found to be inverted U-shaped and innovation–unemployment association is found to be U-shaped. Research limitations/implications: The study outcomes show the conflicting impact of technological innovation leading to policy trade-off. This dual impact of innovation is considered during policy recommendation. Practical implications: The policy framework recommended in the study shows a way to address the objectives of SDG 8, 9 and 13 during post-COVID-19 period. Social implications: Policy recommendations in the study show a way to internalize the negative social externality exerted by innovation. Originality/value: This study contributes to the literature by considering the policy trade-off caused by innovation and recommending an SDG-oriented policy framework for the post-COVID-19 era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]