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Strategic management and business development can be delivered easier in large scale organizations and Multinational Enterprisers (MNEs) due to their excess in human resources, expertise and time orientation. Small and Medium Size Enterprises (SMEs) on the other hand operate in unpredicted environments, with limited resources aiming for their survival first and then their development. The contrast between the two types of enterprises seems chaotic in numbers but not in plans and intentions. The contribution of the MNEs to national economies and impact to the society and the environment can be measured with a variety of standards, metrics and practices such as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), the Environmental, Social and Governance Index (ESG), the Social Responsible Investments (SRI) and other. On the other hand, SMEs that also have direct impact to the society, the local and regional economy, the employment, and offer the same, if not more, opportunities to their limited human resources in terms of skills development and effort recognition, cannot record and report such actions, plans and strategies and recognized for their responsible management and leadership. The ESG criteria help organizations develop reputational capital that evolves into financial capital. However, the effort and investments needed to score on the ESG indexes is forbidden for the SMEs who intentionally or intention successfully delivering ESG activities, in a smaller scale, without a system to record and report them. This paper introduces the core design of a decision support system that guides SMEs to maps their operations against the ESG criteria. An extensive literature review has been conducted to identity software systems that coordinate, propose and support ESG activities and analyze elements of such systems that can be extracted for the development of a light system. Such a system, with the relevant enhancements, presented in this paper can be useful tool for the SMEs to report their ESG performance. The system functions as an assessment tool providing a staged evaluation of the SMEs activities, identifies ESG gaps and proposes actions needed to fulfill the requirements of ESG criteria. The final output of the system graphs the distance between the current and the target stage of the SME on the most common ESG criteria. However, the proposed system does not evaluate the scale of each ESG activity implementation but its existence in the SME operations and the degree of its adaptation. The paper also highlights the pre and post conditions for the utilization of the proposed technology using a process map, the social economic impact, research limitations and areas of further research. The goal of this research is to indicate that SMEs can and should be awarded ESG scores as well. For this SMEs can use such supportive technologies to direct them towards ESG compliance, and report achievements and contributions that can help them attract investments needed for them to keep on delivering a greater contribution the local, and why not international, economy and society.

The purpose of leadership style assessments is to determine the basic features and characteristics of leadership behaviours and to reveal the leader’s personality traits and abilities and to increa...

Living in the 21st century does not necessarily mean that men and women are treated fairly and respectfully regarding their respective needs and thus in a gender equitable way. On the one hand, women still do three times the amount of unpaid care work, earn 18% less for the same work, make up the minority of C-Suite Level leaders with only 22% compared to 78% of men (which has become even worse due to the Covid-19 Pandemic) and have to deal with issues such as the glass ceiling or glass cliff which prevent their careers from flourishing, to name a few issues. On the other hand, studies by experts conducted in the field of gender equity have shown that women were rated as more effective leaders during and before a crisis, that female participation in the workforce could add between 12-18 trillion dollars to global GDP and increase profits of companies whilst reducing turnover rates and improving productivity as well as employee satisfaction, therefore potentially benefitting society as a whole. To understand why the world has not become gender equitable yet despite the many benefits it would provide, the research conducted in this paper includes academic primary and secondary research, an international literature review, 13 individual interviews with top level managers and/or diversity, equity and inclusion experts (DEI) as well as a global survey with 66 respondents. The results led to the conclusion that there is a need for a shift away from the patriarchal system towards a gender equitable society, which can be achieved with the help of the Global Gender Equity Model (GGEM). The GGEM is a new conceptual model for understanding and describing the implementation of the factors that create gender equitable nations. It is based on four socioeconomic pillars (People, Economy, Education, Governance) aligned with ESG (Environment, Social Governance) criteria adopted by private and public organizations. The four pillars of the GGEM model blend the traditional corporate and government systems of global nations with the current need for individual and collective accountability, collaboration as well as transparency and free flow of information. These pillars were found to be associated with equitable environments and can be seen as both interdependent and positively reinforcing of each other. This means the relative strength of any one pillar has the potential to either positively or negatively influence national gender equity. The GGEM uses the principles behind these pillars to develop and deliver an assessment tool and guidelines that are holistic in their approach to help transform nations from their current inequitable state. The model has been developed to benefit any organization by enacting some or all of these principles no matter their location or the path selected to achieving true gender equity. The integration of the GGEM model with the ESG index has been designed to incentivise the adaptation of the model towards achieving faster and higher organizational ESG scoring. The paper also presents the limitations of the model at its current stage and areas of further research which can support it with technologies and processes that can give adaptation efficiency and implementation consistency.

COVID-19 has caused challenges in traveling, sales activities, and teleconferencing is at the moment the main communication tool in industry. Various technologies have been introduced during the last a couple of years to increase the immersion of remote presence. Technologies, that can be called as a virtual reality social platform (VRSP) such as Glue, MootUp, Breakroom, LearnBrite, Virtway Events, Engage, AltspaceVR, and VirBELA are robust solutions for a small group of people to participate in the same event. In July 2021, both Microsoft CEO and Facebook CEO published their visions for remote presence, teleconferencing, and much more. Microsoft plans to build an enterprise metaverse (combining technologies such as AltspaceVR, Mesh, Teams, and HoloLens). Facebook in turn intends to transit their business from social media platform to metaverse provider. In February 2021, much before the metaverse enhancement of the big tech giants, Turku University of Applied Sciences started the development of its own metaverse technology. According to Nevelsteen (2018) metaverse is a virtual universe shared amongst its users allowing them to interact with each other within the boundaries of the platform. For TUAS the metaverse concept is a combination of social communication, hands on experiencing and digital twin integration. None of the mentioned VRSP technologies include all these three features neither Microsoft or Facebook have this type of vision. Moreover existing VRSP technologies typically have challenges such as update management, number of simultaneous users, usability, user experience, license policies, customization but also limited user interaction and user data gathering. In this paper, we will introduce our own metaverse technology. Research conducted at TUAS tested existing VRSPs, compared Unity and Unreal game engines in metaverse development and based on industry trend analysis revealed that Epic Games intends to focus on metaverse software development tools. On the other hand the use of Unreal limits user groups for VR and PC users. This research approach presented in this paper provides metaverse experiences to be used with various ways from VR/AR/XR to PCs and mobile phones. This way, users who have limited resources available are able to participate in metaverse applications where the user experience will vary based the available device. This paper introduces the TUAS metaverse technology, the first experiences of developing it and how the first prototype version of this technology has been used in various maritime sector projects. To demonstrate the technology a harbor area has been selected as a test environment. In the first test, AltspaceVR technology was used to develop the environment itself with features needed in virtual exhibition called Match XR. This will be followed by an experiment where the harbor environment with same functionalities will be moved to the TUAS metaverse technology. Finally, the paper reports how multiplayer concepts such as MarISOT command bridge training scenarios can be developed utilizing the TUAS metaverse technology.

Since the first ideation of the World Innovation Stock Exchange in 2015, the business landscape has drastically changed. The world witnessed the introduction the Metaverse as the pioneer of cyber-parallel worlds. Societies endured a global pandemic and the subsequent socio-economic crises of unprecedented force. All happened under an ambient banalization of individual entrepreneurship as a shaping capacity with increasing impact power on the Collective (physical, cultural, and digital society). Under the phenomena of globalization and financialization, the contribution to knowledge and innovation is becoming more and more organic, since citizens themselves endorse an entrepreneurial proactiveness in tackling challenges of varied scale. The contemporary global technologic and social disruptions are changing the game of innovation management. Emerging and existing technologies of the Industrialisation 4.0 not only provide a platform to the digital world, but also augment it, thereby augmenting the impact a sole individual, a simple organization, or a remote business can have in innovating globally. Moreover, global crises have accelerated both the already occurring evolution of work-places & work-practices, and the capacity stakeholders have in endorsing collectively and holacratically projects to solve commonly faced challenges. More than ever before, the digital world enables to collaboratively develop, control and monetise one another’s Innovation. The diversity in stakeholder’s collaboration is a consequence of these structural changes. Indeed, it is no longer surprising that eminent businessmen now collaborate individually with start-up incubators, celebrities partner with social enterprises, and eminent scholars pair up with MNCs to come up with developmental programs. Above the previously mentioned technological, social, and economic disruptions, a superseding revolution has occurred. One that is structurally reshaping individual and social relationships to knowledge and knowledge management: the democratisation of intellectual capital. Nowadays, anyone connected to the web can collaborate and expose its ideas formally or informally on a variety of social media and professional platforms. The number of innovators with unique profiles, in age, geographic location, and social status has sprung. The power of metaverstic-like processes in knowledge management relies on its democratic nature, inclusively welcoming a diversity of profiles and ideas. How to take sporadic ideas and contributions internationally, expressed on a web platform, and instantaneously match them, ideally structure them, and coordinate their protagonists’ actions to pursue them? How to facilitate and incentivise the evolution idea-innovation? How to optimally take ideas on a page to a lifechanging service? Since innovation management is becoming gamified, the is an evident need to develop Metaverstic project management tools that encompasses not only AI-facilitated holacratic teaming, but also blockchained project management in all its phases (from ideation to market launch), while taking into account the critical component of innovation monetisation. In 2015, the World Innovation Stock Exchange already set the bases of such Metaverstic platform of innovation management: this Exchange structures the meeting of the minds, just as any financial stock exchange does, while following the Shared Values principles. To extend on the premises of this novel Exchange, this paper describes in detail how a component of the W.ISE will have to be developed, namely the World Innovation Stock Exchange Democratic Incubator (WISE-DI). It describes how it operates conceptually and to which extent it answers structural guidelines to practically develop this W.ISE. It addresses the critical notion of Innovation tokenization with the MarkPoints cryptocurrency, the securitization of project management via the W.ISE blockchain, and the monetization of the launched-to-market innovations in the real economy*. The ultimate benefit of the W.ISE-DI platform relies on both its smart structuring capacity and user-friendly/ interactive interface, which enable to manage intellectual contribution ownership and incentivise R&D collective financing.

The climate crisis has received high levels of attention from the public and scholars over the last few decades. While the search for solutions involves strict regulations and innovation in clean energy sources, changing individual behaviours towards sustainability could prevent us from reaching a point of no return. Inarguably, there is a need for strong involvement of the public and private sector organizations, changing individual organizational behaviours towards sustainability might foster a great impact in terms of lowering the effects of the climate crisis. In this context, a democratic pro-environmental behaviour (DPEBs) is introduced to enable green behaviours with individual and voluntary actions within organizations that benefit the preservation and recovery of the environment. Recycling, efficient energy consumption, reduction of meat consumption and sustainable transportation are examples of actionable PEBs that need to be fostered to contribute to the reduction of the human impact on climate change.Nevertheless, the adoption of new behaviours is a complex goal that requires the application of mechanisms to address employee intrinsic and extrinsic democratic motivation. In this vein, gamification, as a process that enhances projects and service with affordances for gameful experiences., might provide a viable alternative. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the extent to which gamification is an effective alternative to promote the adoption of democratic pro-environmental behaviours and contribute to the creation of the relative organization culture. The accepted definition of gamification for this paper is the process of enhancing a service with affordances for gameful experiences in order to support user's overall value creation. This marketing perspective approach, has more focus on the effects obtained as a consequence of activating intrinsic and extrinsic motivation through the use of gamified systems rather than the analysis of the characteristics of the game design elements, and the incentives for its practical and actual adaptation and utilization within organizations.A systematic literature review was conducted in order to exclusively retrieve - after a thorough selection process - case studies that evaluated the psychological and behavioural effects of gamified information technology systems. Psychological outcomes are related to intrinsic motivation; in the case of gamification, positive outcomes are described by gameful experience. These, in turn, are categorized in this work according to the motivational need to which they correspond and their adaptation likeness in a corporate context. On the other hand, behavioural outcomes are related to extrinsic motivation; these are the desired pro-environmental behaviours promoted extrinsically with the use of the gamified application.Fifteen studies were analysed in detail, which overall provided positive results regarding gamification’s capability to engage users by appealing to intrinsic motivation and to effectively promote the adoption of extrinsically motivated PEBs. As a result the paper presents a methodological approach and a process model that integrates democratic organizational culture elements that utilize gamification to achieve employee pro-environmental behaviours that can benefit both the economy and the society. Furthermore the proposed model is linked with the ESG criteria as a further incentive for its organization adaptation from theory to practice. The paper also indicates limitations and areas of further research on the proposed model towards green ocean strategies that can maximize its applications and impact.

Driving sustainable and successful change towards achieving democratic organizational culture a company has to evolve through the 6 levels of the Company Democracy Model which needs to be supported by two foundational and prerequisite enablers. The first one is the critical thinking skills to build an alignment on a meta-level / logic-level / thinking level for effective and efficient communication and actions. Effective actions and communication require clear thinking which requires thinking processes. The second one is the Change Management tools and skills to drive the change. However the integration and activation of these two enablers seem to be the challenge on the first level in the company democracy model who seeks critical thinking to become change agents. This paper integrates the concepts of critical thinking and change making with the introduction of the problem solving Kepner-Tregoe (KT) Method in the Company Democracy Model. Critical Thinking is approached as the applied thinking processes to gather, organize, analyse, confirm, and communicate information in order to solve concerns and issues in an effective, unbiased and self-reflected mode that first seeks to understand and then to act. Therefore, it is the prerequisite for effective and efficient actions. This necessary exchange of information can more targeted and effortless if achieved through a democratic organizational culture which equips each member in an organization with the same logic/thinking, to reveal their intellectual capital by focusing on how to think, not what to think. Effectively thinking requires understanding the concern and the situation that creates a need to act. The concept of situationality, as introduced in the Company Democracy Model (CDM) is further supported in this paper with the KT problem solving methods to identify the core nature of a specific situational concern that enables or disables people’s thinking. The paper defines and analyses the situational concerns which can be categorized in five areas such as understanding a situation, deviation cause, alternatives selection, risk reduction and change enhancement.The identification of the situationality helps finding a thinking approach which leads to an idea that is transformed into an innovative process, product or services. This can be considered a fundamental approach for effective and efficient actions within democratic organizational cultures. Furthermore change management lies in the capability to assess a situation in which people interact, understand the mechanics of the system that forms individual or groups behaviour, and develop activities to manage these mechanics that change human behaviour. Therefore, the challenge of the first level of the company democracy model which is understanding human behaviour is based on the effectiveness of critical thinking capabilities in a systematic human performance model. The elements of the performance environment influence the performance of any person. These elements operate as a system, influencing performance as it happens. The paper presents the five performance system core elements which deal with the environment infrastructures (processes, workflows, expectation and priority setting) the capabilities and willingness of the performer, the demonstrated or desired response/ behaviour, the consequences which follow the behaviour and the performance feedback given to the performer. The paper uses the Aristotelian golden mean to effectively balance this employee performance, and identity imbalances that feed the development of corrective actions and impact behavioural change.

Sustainable Development has been introduced in 1987, and it is underpinned by three equally essential pillars: economy, society, and the environment. The adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015 was a watershed moment in the campaign for sustainable growth. Since then, this set of 17 objectives has steered the private and governmental sectors toward more sustainable, inclusive, and responsible processes. In addition, the ESG Index has recently gained prominence primarily in the financial industry. While ESG Investment Markets in developed nations have proliferated, many emerging market businesses have been marginalized, owing to a lack of human and financial resources for ESG compliance. Considering that the appropriate ESG credentials may result in various advantages, ranging from attracting potential investors to establishing a good reputation and gaining a competitive edge, it is critical for firms in Emerging Markets to employ tactics that will assist them in achieving this.The research conducted involve an extensive literature review on this subject, a survey with 86 valid responses and four interviews with international experts. The results indicate that within different challenges regarding ESG compliance, the unbalanced approach that many businesses adopt is a major one. Societal issues seem to be the aspect that companies primarily focus on, while Environment issues appear to be neglected or forgotten. This is especially true in Emerging Markets because of a lack of data, a lack of interest and a lack of political pressure. Therefore mapping ESG and SDGs requirements can bring significant benefits to organizations that can improve their Corporate Sustainability without harming their economic growth, development and strategy.This research introduces an ESG – SDG mapping model and its execution process to achieve the maximum of this relationship. The prioritization of the SDGs has to be related to the ESG strategy an organization is committed to executing based on its capability and maturity. The proposed model is based on integrating the Blue, Pink and Green oceans and the gradual achievement of SDGs during the transition from one ocean to the other. This Pink Ocean and Green Ocean driven ESG framework is targeted primarily for the Emerging Markets where the need to adapt the SDGs is more significant than other regions. The paper indicates the initial limitations in the strategy and application of the proposed model and areas of further research that can overcome these limitations and wider its areas and regions of adaptation, and improve the scoring parameters and process. Local and international companies can use the proposed model to ignite and boost their Corporate Sustainability by complying with the ESG metrics and align themselves to the Sustainable Development Agenda.

Partner choice is an important element for any business throughout its lifecycle. It is even more strategic in early startup stages, when the business model is set in the pre-incubation phase.Entrepreneurs are confronted to take decisions on which partners to choose. Those strategic decisions on which partners to commit with, and defining their roles, can be made more or less formally, with the risk of relying on “gut feelings” when there is complex data to be taken in consideration and when there is pressure, constraints, limited resources and no proper methodology for the entrepreneur to base its decision on.Confronted to such a situation, it is interesting to consider building a decision-making support methodology for strategic partner choice for in the business modelling phase of a startup pre-incubation phase. This can offer support to the entrepreneur and make its leadership anchored in more formal approach to decision-making.This research presents a methodological framework that can support early startups, while still in the pre-incubation phase, to select the most suitable strategic business partner(s) and develop, based on that, their business operations, management, development and commercialization models. The methodology offers an initial approach which allows an entrepreneur to make more formal investigation and be assisted in the decision-making process on choosing the partners and defining their roles and contribution in the strategy of the start-up. Specifically, the methodology intends to provide support on selecting the most relevant and feasible data types that need to be collected for the effective partner evaluation and selection. Furthermore, it provides a data collection mechanism and algorithm, a partner evaluation procedure, support on identifying the strategic intend or need from a specific partner, the analysis of the potential partner based on the partnership needs, a scoring tableau based on several parameters per partner selection criteria and finally the calculation of the potential partner’s score. The research conducted evaluated twenty-one potential partners for a VR training startup that intends to operate in the following months and it is currently at the partnerships establishment phase. The partners that have been analyzed derive from eight, related to the start-up, professional sectors, from five countries, and with more than fifty unique activities that cover the fourteen key parameters of the partner evaluation methodology. The paper presents the overall methodological approach in stages and the procedure (steps) of each stage. It indicates the goal setting approach, the evaluation of the partner’s activities, the partner’s evaluation scorecard, the computation of the scoring process and the visualization of the scoring results in tables and charts that create a partner’s evaluation dashboard for effective partners comparison in total or in specific partnership requirements as set in the partnerships strategy and objectives. It must be noted that the proposed methodology is not an optimal tool but more of a heuristic exploratory tool. Further research has been scheduled to be extend the testing of the methodology with more cases, to increase the number of partner evaluation parameters and to link several of the related parameter metrics with sources than can provide more subjective values.

Innovation, and technological innovation in particular, seems to be the driving force in the modern entrepreneurial revolution that stated at the beginning of this century. The .net phenomenon with the rise of the internet active users made the word flat, increased the business opportunities but also decreased the success rate. Blue oceans strategies have been replaced by Green and Pink oceans strategies in a continuous effort to stay current with the global innovation trends, needs and expectations. Most of the businesses across all industries seek micro-innovations to improve their product or services delivery but not necessarily to make a breakthrough. However, their innovation rate and pace differ from one another ranging from a year to five years. The distance to deliver innovation is related with the distance organizations have from democratic organizations cultures that ignite and utilize internal knowledge contributions which can lead to innovative processes, products, and services. The company’s DNA and philosophy is primarily responsible for the innovation pace and effectiveness, but this is also affected by internal and external factors. The ability or inability to create democracy organizational cultures has positive and negative consequences that need to be assessed in relation to the company’s’ finances, workforce knowledge and maturity, industry readiness and openness, and other factors. To understand the reasons and the business innovation frequency, an academic and critical literature review has been conducted. The results led to the formulation of a framework taking into consideration several weighted internal and external factors. Furthermore primary research has been conducted to better understand their innovation motives innovation frequency by gathering and analysing data from 66 individuals such as university innovation hub coordinators, entrepreneurs and product developers.This paper introduces the Survival, Mirrored and Compulsive (SMC) Framework, a step-by-step guide to help businesses understand their innovation readiness status. The framework calculates several attributes and plots the results on a graph indicating the factors to be considered in at the company’s innovations strategy. The primary findings indicate factors that impact the innovation frequency such as the available R&D facilities, financial position and stability, cumulative organizational knowledge, policy direction, and the industry the organizations operate, among others. The analysis of these factors in the SMC framework revealed that survival mode is what impacts organizational innovation frequency. Organizations tend to either reduce or postpone innovation initiatives until they feel comfortable for their existence or learned from their mistakes, neglecting however the fact that innovation driven by democratic internal development and utilization of the human intellectual capital costs less, is more likely to succeed, and can be attempted continuously. Therefore, the paper extends the SMC framework to the Democratic SMC (DMSC) that aligns the SMC phases with the Company Democracy Model innovation evolution levels by relating and categorizing the SCM innovation factors to the CDM levels. This helps to understand the organizational innovation DNA and also the culture and philosophy that impacts the company’s human intellectual capital production frequency and the utilization frequency of this capital as well. The paper refers limitations on both the SMC framework and DSMC model at their current development stages and identifies areas of further research for their maturity through applications and optimization.

Regional and national development has always been impacted with the synchronisation of the public and the private sector. The growth of privately owned enterprises contributes significantly to the national economy, employment and prosperity, but also to the national pride, brand name and reputation for further investments to be made in a country. Therefore the support of the public sector to the development of the private sector is mandatory for the public sector to keep its private sector and avoid a catastrophic brain drain. Scandinavia is one of the regions with remarkable achievements in innovation, science, technology and economy compared to its size, as league of nations and population with other countries or regions. This paper attempts to identify the main elements of the unique Scandinavian government business policy formula for innovation startup success, particularly in Sweden and Finland, which has been key in creating a region with an incredibly high density of “unicorns” (BN$ companies per capita), second to Silicon Valley.The paper has used a research methodology which is based on primary research taking the form of interviews and surveys, along with secondary research based on existing academic literature.The research conducted in this paper identifis and analyses tax structures, government favors, human resource bases, public private partnerships, social safety nets, venture capital and investment infrastructures, R&D investments, and business support systems available to entrepreneurs of the Scandinavian countries. Having identified such key elements, the paper propose a more globally applicable public sector model for the support and encouragement of startups, and business innovation. The model named Scandinavian Democratic Governmental Support Model for Start-Ups and Innovations (SDeGMSI) is based on the practices of Scandinavian governments, while also accounting factors such as cultural values, performance of local economies, and demographic characteristics. The democratic concept in the development of this model is supported by the Company Democracy Model, another Scandinavian innovation management model, and is critical for the fair and unbiased support of the government to all the organizations and startups that can demonstrate significant and valuable intellectual capital for the economy and the society. SDeGSISM is characterized by its triple-pyramid for public support of startups and Innovation and can be used to help develop more internationally competitive economies through the establishment of a series of publicly enforced innovation supports and changes to the business environment. The three interrelated pyramids of the model represent the levels of support provided by the government to start-ups (reversed pyramid 1), the types of organisations across which said support is distributed (pyramid 2), and the impact that support, once applied to start-ups, should have on an economic level (reversed pyramid 3). The pyramids, organised by volume of support provided, disruptive potential of businesses, and scale of impact, respectively, provide an indication and an assessment on how governments are aligned with the Nordic model for entrepreneurial support.Furthermore, structures, practices and metrics available in the model support the creation of more dynamic economies which favor market development and disruption over the continued market dominance of incumbents. The “market-favoring” economies which this model seeks to both encourage and foster are more conducive to economic dynamism and create greater opportunities for investors, as cycles of market disruption increases the potential for widespread returns.The paper indicates limitations on the proposed model and identifies areas of further research for future development and applications.

The global agriculture industry remains underdeveloped due to a lack of education among farmers about best practices and technologies. Similarly, corporate gamification and the rise of serious games have demonstrated their effectiveness in education within our era. The implementation of gamification principles through accessible technological platforms has massive potential in building best practices in the agriculture industry. Rice agriculture has a resistance to the adoption of new methodologies and technologies. This paper introduces ‘Riceville’, a game used to simulate a virtual farming environment promoting the use of effective best-practices introduced by leading rice organisations like the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). By gamifying best practices, the social norms of low adoption and perception of risk can be altered to boost the reception of novel practices within the industry. This will not only serve to modernize the rice industry but also improve yields for farmers while helping agriculture companies increase exposure.

Humans must be in focus when companies are improving performance in business. Applied philosophy for management and leadership places humans in the company context as living entities aligned with t...

The aviation travel industry offers today a commodity product that attracts all types of customers. However, many clients are price-sensitive and often look for the cheapest product offering. As legacy airlines’ core strengths do not align well with the new customer preferences, this research work investigates the background of the rise of the low-cost carriers and consequently proposes a wholistic transformational model for legacy airlines. This paper presents a business transformation model with five strategic areas. The first two areas, which are Modernization and Environmental Sustainability, advise legacy carriers to focus on digitizing large parts of their business and establish operations within a sustainable business model. The next two areas are the adaptation of products offered with stronger people-centric marketing and communication strategies. The final area is the optimization of portfolio management, where legacy carriers are urged to rethink their investment strategy and possibly divest from low-cost carrier subsidiaries.

During the last decade, the art industry and especially the museums, the art galleries and the auctions has stagnated due to the global financial crisis (2007–2017) and latest lockdowns brought by the Covid-19 pandemic (2020-). Many art institutions introduced digital technologies into their operations and transitioned to the online art market. Visits to art exhibitions include interaction with other visitors of similar interests. Hence, digital art venues must create the same environment vibes and offer similar opportunities as the physical ones. The paper indicates the application of the avatar technology as an interaction method in digital museum spaces. It also provides the functional requirements, a navigation process, and the implementation scenarios for the adaptation of such technologies. The application of this digital strategy can transform the art market, contribute to the museum’s sustainability, and offer the public different ways of learning and entertainment.

The triadic combination of wisdom, strategy, and democracy in a sustainable and social context introduces a new area in management and leadership where thinking replaces believing for the benefit of human beings, society, and the economy. Humanity requires sustainable leaders who advance by education and personal growth for the people and the planet through prosperity, peace, and partnerships. Drawing and processing data, information, and knowledge with established business methods such as the Wisdom Cube and applying sustainable leadership, wisdom is generated and inherited based on its four dimensions. This synthesis demonstrates the Sustainable Leadership Wisdom Cube (SLWC) model developed to benefit anyone who can be provided with the right tools and resources to adapt themselves to suit society. This framework is based on understanding the various wisdom characteristics, focusing on business innovation within the Pink and Green Oceans strategies under sustainable and social management and leadership.

The 2020 global crisis triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic progressively shut down economies from East to West as the virus spread worldwide. Progressively, nations suffered massive economic losses as their markets became both disrupted and polarized, reflecting public authorities’ weaknesses to collaborate on a socio-economic speed adaptation. Beyond an organizational crisis, significant management and leadership concerns were raised on the sporadic and disjoint initiatives taken across sectors. Paradoxically, big data utilization wasn’t optimized and fully potentialized. It, in turn, leads to a worrying number of R&D waste in time and outputs. Globalized trans-disciplinary and multi-sectorial ecosystems’ intertwined character adds to a Global Alliance’s organizational complexity to operate successfully. This paper proposes the International Collaboration Guideline on Crisis Management (ICGCM), which aims to be automatized by International Triangulation Systems (ITS).

Housing prices globally remain very expensive for young adults while financial instruments to obtain them become more complicated, demanding, and discouraging, especially in the modern post global financial crisis (2007–2017). The way people acquire homes haven’t change over the last 100 years, maintaining the three classic and dominant alternatives which is either thorough mortgages, cash payments, or combination of these. Young adults have been underserved by financial institutions and their products have not yet met young adults’ conditions. This research has been directed to utilize today’s technology and contribute with innovative financing solutions that can addresses the young adults’ needs. The proposed Fintech approach presents the architecture of a technology-based platform whereby Co-sharing agreements between real estate developers and young adults can be created. Such agreements can be integrated into the financial institutions processes to efficiently address and serve this significant target group by delivering creative innovative financing alternatives.

The importance and purpose of heritage preservation have been extensively discussed in tourism research and has also been linked with regional and national development strategies. Because of time degradation, human activities, and the overcrowding effect, heritage preservation and reconstruction efforts are becoming critical to ensure the sustainability of heritage sites and disseminate the history and the potential of a region or a country. Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) offer useful applications in heritage preservation. This study aims to explore the potential of these interactive technologies to be applied in heritage preservation in Africa, introduce strategies and applications developed Egypt and Tunis but also from Oman, and Finland, and highlight their impact in regional and national socio-economic development. As members of the Time Machine Europe this paper analyzes previous experiences in global scale and aim is to contribute in large-scale digitalization projects in Europe but also world-wide.

The Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) concept evolved from a commonly-doubted understanding to a measurable framework. It compensates for negative socio-economic externalities emulated by consumerist societies. Its progressive takeover on market mindsets set the pathway for Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) factors implementation in alignment with global plans for greener practices like the Kyoto Protocol. Ultimately, CSR-driven initiatives under democratic rules enable a swift Green Ocean Strategy and a dynamic integration from the business environment to the business ecosystem. So far, CSR and ESG transitions have been criticized for their labor and cost intensiveness, not necessarily translating into shareholder's short-term financial interests. This paper explores the efficient implementation and execution of a strategy that extends CSR to ESG. It provides transitional frameworks for organizations to transform their CSR activities into achieving ESG compliance using shared intellectual capital in a structured and profitable way.

The contribution of the Small and Medium Size Enterprises (SMEs) in every economy is undeniably significant. Still, their existence relies on their leadership’s ability to respond to the continuous challenges utilizing best their limited resources. This paper introduces a Democratic Leadership Change Integration Model (DLCIM) that can be used globally to support and institutionalize SMEs’ innovation by maximizing their human intellectual capital’s effectiveness democratically. Knowledge democratization is a crucial stage in knowledge generation. Its benefits encourage both the employees and the organization to create innovative products and services under ethical management values and principles. The proposed framework helps organizations and SMEs achieve a knowledge-based democratic company-employee relationship. It encapsulates the integration of The Company Democracy Model as the tool and base for innovation, the ADKAR model for change management, and the Self-Determination Theory as a leadership principle.

Developing countries are characterized by various factors that feed into a vicious cycle of underdevelopment; poor education systems, low-skilled workforce, low per capita income, and unstable governments which build a weak foundation for economic prosperity and foreign investments. Moreover, there is no foundation from which innovation could transpire to drive growth. This research aims to provide a solution to this development paradox by emphasizing the urgency to address innovatively the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN-SDGs) and utilize effectively the human intellectual capital of the developing countries with the support of multinational organizations. It introduces a Bilateral knowledge sharing model providing the MNCs a framework to merge local knowledge with existing expertise for the development of local market products, whilst developing the country’s human capital. Furthermore, it extends on the creation of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) actions for the MNCs related to the UN SDGs and 2030 Agenda.

The research conducted for this paper is an extension of the continuous efforts at the Turku University of applied Sciences to optimize the Maritime Immersive Ocean Technology (MarsISOT) by integrating advanced immersive technologies. This paper reports the integration of hand tracking and finger recognition in the ShipSEVR learning episode. ShipSEVR, part of MarISOT, is a VR Training next generation learning environment focused specifically on ship engines and engine rooms safety procedures. The technology has been designed and developed at Turku University of Applied Sciences for Wartsila Land and Sea Academy utilizing latest VR technologies. The delivered learning episode consists of a 3D ship engine room space where trainees are expected to find certain devices and equipment by utilizing the available technical drawings. This enhanced human computer interaction environment reflects to industry requirements the derived after the first version of the technology and its test with industry experts.

Despite the obvious benefits that Multinational Corporations (MNCs) have on developing economies, those often come together with tremendous externalities. Rather than exploiting cost drivers and cost savings to deliver cheaper products to the Western customer, MNCs could try to find more ways to cater to local markets profitably whilst contributing to resolving social challenges. This paper introduces a management framework that facilitates knowledge-exchange between local organizations and the MNCs for a more targeted product development that can effectively respond to the local needs. This research explores the relationship between MNCs and developing markets; it highlights the pitfalls of new product development efforts for such markets in depth before touching upon more effective ways of generating innovative intellectual capital for product development practices; it introduces the 4Es Management Framework that can solve cultural exchange challenges in MNCs, and lastly, it elaborates on how this can constitute alternative CSR initiatives.

Democratization can be defined as the autonomy of decision-making and unbiased contribution, and access to data and information. Therefore, public sector democratization can give more liberty to the public sector employees to trigger original viewpoints that can initiate a more innovative and ambitious-driven work environment. Such democratization can create governmental, corporate entrepreneurship where public servants can explore entrepreneurial opportunities. The process is similar to knowledge-based business transformation, where organizational culture needs to change to achieve better use of knowledge and human resources management. In this paper, such a modification will be adopted by implementing a Holistic Model for governmental entrepreneurship, by integrating the Kotter’s Model for change management, the Self-determination Theory for employee motivation, and Democratic Governmental Intrapreneurship Model (DeGIM) for knowledge management. The paper is based on data and information from the Balkan’s region public sector and sets the base for future adaptation elsewhere.

Due to outdated evaluation systems and their misleading parameters, organizations increasingly struggle to manage Human interdisciplinary intellectual Capital (HIIC) regarding project and general development. The education of current experts is not able to keep up with the speed of nowadays disruptive evolution of modern challenges, making the managing process of HIIC within organizational projects increasingly inefficient. This paper aims to develop a framework which can be used as a tool for organizational and project development to accurately identify and manage Human intellectual capital (HIC) free from inaccurate parameters. Such parameters are values that serve to make judgements about progress and performance and are historically a rather static assessment tool. The framework uses the concept of applied philosophy for organizational culture and the Company Democracy Models for knowledge management. This research identifies and redefines human intellectual capital parameters under a modern perspective in order to better reflect the HIIC challenges.

Augmented reality (AR) is the technology that expands the physical world by enhancing the objects that reside in the real world with computer generated perceptual information to provide interactive experience in a real-world environment. AR is used effectively in many business sectors such as the engineering, education and training, medicine, logistics and transport, and others. Rescue services is one of the challenging areas where the use of AR technology has extremely high demands for robustness and ease of use. In this paper, we have introduced two augmented reality versions for the FiAAR project developed by Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences. The first version is developed for Realmax HMT-1 device with hands free interaction utilizing speech recognition. The second version in turn focuses on hand recognition and it's developed for Realwear Qian device with Leap Motion sensor. Our intention is to show the potential of current AR technologies in demanding use cases.

The competitiveness and development of the maritime sector together with the continuous effort on increasing operations performance while reducing operations costs, drives the needs for on-board effective and qualitative training safety related issues. Virtual reality (VR) has been considered by classification societies and training organizations as a technology that can significantly improve seafarer's performance and competence with the adaptation of maritime applications developed for design simulation and gaming. This paper presents the evolution of the MarSEVR (Maritime Safety Education with VR) technology as a new concept and technology by integrating finger tracking and hand recognition technologies that increase immersiveness and user engagement within the MarISOT technology, a Green Ocean innovation composed of VR safety applications. The paper approaches this integration by addressing game design, pedagogic and cognitive neuroscience principles and challenges on the use of hand recognition and finger tracking in the MarSEVR learning episodes.

In a dynamic and ever changing business landscape organizational sustainability is defined and redefined according to the socioeconomic challenges. This paper presents a practical framework that can significantly support organizational efforts on approaching, achieving, sustaining and improving its environmental, social and governance (ESG) strategies, objectives, and targets. The proposed framework, referred to as DESGGO (Democratic ESG Green Ocean) is based on the Company Democracy Model (CDM), covering the ESG governance elements/factors. Furthermore, the paper introduces a synergetic relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and ESG indicating the evolution of an organization to extend from applying outstanding governance practices, which lead to Blue Oceans, into outstanding social and environmental practices which lead to Green Oceans. The paper analyses the main ESG criteria per category and maps them on the DESGGO, six ESG and CSR progression levels moving the organization from Red to Green Oceans by adapting ESG practices.