Ambika Zutshi

This book explores women’s entrepreneurship in the Asian region. Entrepreneurship refers to the identification, evaluation and exploitation of new business opportunities (Shane & Venkataraman, 2000). The Asian region is diverse yet shares common cultural values and geographical boundaries. We refer to Asia to include countries such as China, India, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Pakistan, the Philippines, Republic of Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 2021) and West Asia to include Saudi Arabia, Turkey. Many of these Asian countries are developing economies experiencing fast economic growth in the last two or three decades. These countries often experience sociocultural values and/or religious beliefs that often hold women in inferior positions, and there are many barriers that may impede Asian women from reaching their economic goals and potential (Cho et al., 2020).

This book explores women’s entrepreneurship in Asia and analyses the experiences of women entrepreneurs through institutional logics. Covering ten different countries throughout Asia, including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Nepal, Brunei, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, this book highlights a range of success stories, the supports, challenges, policy and practical implications to improve women’s participation in entrepreneurship. Women in some Asian countries are subjected to cultural norms and beliefs systems which regard women as inferior. This book suggests actions by governments, universities, organisations and women themselves to help improve the position of women as entrepreneurs in Asia and explains how these actions are in line with the UN’s Sustainability Development Goal of gender equality. The book also considers how women may contribute to developing businesses that focus on addressing corporate social responsibility and sustainability. This book is an essential resource for women entrepreneurs, academics researching these areas and students studying women’s entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship more generally. Women who are keen to start their own businesses and policymakers seeking to support the establishment of women-led businesses in the Asian region will also find this useful.

This conceptual paper examines voluntary versus mandatory cloud-based training, generating recommendations to harmonise the complementarity of face-to-face and online media in future careers. Technological change was already accelerating when the COVID-19 pandemic response turbocharged transformations of knowledge dissemination in training, thus impacting learning and competency development for the future. The methodology applies comprehensive, structured literature review following PRISMA guidelines with development of a novel conceptual framework illuminating facets of knowledge dissemination. Exploring the context of workplace training and the future of careers with aid of NVivo it was found that altered social cues in cloud training are generating changes in learner attention span, engagement, and peer-to-peer interaction, potentially increasing contract cheating. It is hence recommended that stakeholders demarcate theoretical and practical learning outcomes to develop hybrid cloud media and face-to-face knowledge dissemination to accentuate professional accreditation requirements, engagement and etiquette in virtual spaces, and improve understanding of work-home balance.

The Circular Economy (CE) is heralded as an important concept with the potential to guide businesses and society toward a more sustainable future. However, while collaboration is widely accepted to play a central role in advancing circularity, little is known about how organizations effectively work together to achieve these outcomes. This is particularly problematic given that any shift toward collaboration requires systematic approaches based on effective collaborative processes between organizations. This conceptual paper addresses this gap by providing a comprehensive investigation of collaboration and circularity. The paper is based on a systematic literature review of 66 scientific publications as the foundation for analysis. Based on the analysis, the paper contributes to the CE literature by offering a novel approach to conceptualizing collaboration and circularity. A conceptual framework is provided which differentiates CE strategies at three stages of the product lifecycle. The paper makes a second contribution to the CE literature by examining the role that multilevel collaboration plays in facilitating a transition from a linear economy to a CE and, in particular, the significance of government in managing collaboration opportunities between partners. We highlight intermediaries as important accelerators in this transition. Future research directions are provided, including how government and intermediaries—among others—collaborate for CE transitions.

This article focuses on the ongoing challenge of reduction of food waste at three downstream interfaces and food waste impact on triple bottom line dimensions: environmental, social (including ethical) and economic. The interplay between downstream interfaces (consumers-retailers; consumers-food service businesses; consumers-households) of food supply chain and areas of food waste accumulation is discussed in the article. The findings are based on a two-step method: first, a systematic literature review of the published studies on food waste between 2008 and 2020, and second, theme development to understand food waste at the three interfaces and to develop propositions for future research. The propositions are strategic interventions to provide managerial recommendations for food waste reduction involving downstream food supply chain stakeholders. The findings highlight the conundrum of balancing conflicting stakeholder perspectives within triple bottom line dimensions to tackle food waste: economic and social dimensions of triple bottom line take priority over the environmental dimension. Testing the propositions as part of future research will help to further streamline the policy recommendations to reduce food waste at the downstream part of the supply chain.

Hotels have implemented substantial sustainability initiatives. However, these efforts might be compromised during a crisis. How did sustainability in hotels fare during the COVID pandemic? To investigate, we reviewed national and regional hotel associations’ publicly available stakeholder communications during the COVID crisis. We collected data over four time periods to identify foci and changes. From website content analysis, viewed through a critical sustainability lens, six communication themes emerged. These were (1) operational procedures and technology; (2) staffing; (3) financial support; (4) health and hygiene; (5) marketing; and (6) community network building. Our findings revealed that hotel associations’ public communications were dominated by economic aspects, indicating a demotion of sociocultural and environmental elements of triple bottom line (TBL) considerations. That is, sustainability became largely silenced during the crisis, thus raising questions as to the centrality and meaningfulness of the previous sustainability efforts. The research contributes an in-depth insight that the hotel sector prioritizes economic elements during a crisis, which is problematic if a crisis is long-term and for any recovery efforts. We recommend centralizing sustainability in communications to sensitize and signal attention to strategic core needs.

Brand resonance is a marketing concept under‐explored in the performing arts context. This paper responds by analysing focus group findings from a large Opera group, “Big Opera^[1]” (For research integrity and anonymity requirements of focus group research, the company pseudonym is Big Opera) on how decision‐makers can enhance brand resonance. Opera patronage was dwindling before the COVID‐19 pandemic, which was further crystallized during the pandemic. As the performing arts sector tries to revive, it is useful to understand how brand resonance concepts can be used to reinvigorate patronage at the opera. A qualitative study of four opera focus groups, which included 24 participants with varying levels of attendance was conducted to examine brand resonance. The study reveals that when customers have brand attachment and love, developed through intense experiences at the opera, facilitated by engagement with the brand, and community, then brand loyalty develops for the opera by intention to re‐purchase. The paper contributes to the literature by making recommendations on how to enhance brand resonance thereby increasing attendance. Intense experiences at the opera and engagement can be enhanced by offering packaged deals, such as accommodation and dinner, or drinks and canapés packages, backstage access, the development of a social club, social media brand community and loyalty programs to increase brand loyalty.

COVID-19 pandemic has brought significant and multiple challenges for SMEs. While SMEs have traditionally faced financial and non-financial crises, the pandemic has brought about additional uncertainties on how to maintain business continuity. The purpose of this paper is to examine how SMEs can mitigate against COVID-19-related crisis by examining the impacts that the pandemic has had on them through a review of 34 articles. The thematic analysis from the literature covered three overarching and inter-related challenges including (i) cost and finance-related challenges, (ii) disruption of activities, and (iii) existential difficulties. The paper’s value lies in addressing the gap between the espoused literature’s claim of the beneficial impact of new technological advancements and SMEs’ ability to survive in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The additional value of this paper is a framework of recommendations to help enhance SMEs’ resilience and responsiveness in the context of COVID-19. These recommendations include collaboration, openness, taking advantage of opportunities/victory, and durability.

Universities that sign the Talloires Declaration signify their commitment to education for sustainable development. This research explores whether the signification is a strategic desire to be seen to be doing the right thing, or a genuine commitment to enhancing sustainability and helping the environment. This semi-structured interview research involves communication with the sustainability managers in the majority of Talloires signified universities in Australia. Since Australia has a comparably high rate of commitment to the Talloires Declaration, the findings represent rich and deep insight into reasons and motivations that can inform the adoption process around the world. Applying institutional theory and related concepts of structuration, isomorphism, and signaling, the findings are analyzed to reveal the range of environmental initiatives and the underlying explanation of themes. Current strategies and future directions for universities are indicated. Findings are that higher education is a key mechanism in business and society for finding and harnessing knowledge-based solutions. The challenge is that institutionalization has created resistance to change through coercive, normative, and mimetic isomorphism, along with rhetoric. Structuration factors should be considered in the context of making positive changes for sustainability in the university sector.