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The study aims to explore the entrepreneurial agency, focusing on migrant entrepreneurs’ ability to reshape societal structures and initiate endeavours despite limitations in entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs) with constraints.

Through 23 qualitative interviews in an EE with constraints and using a grounded theory-inspired abductive approach, the study uncovers coping mechanisms and responses to barriers and imitations and explores entrepreneurial agency within these EEs.

The findings show that migrant entrepreneurs overcome constraints through a bricolage approach involving seizing opportunities, leveraging family and friend networks, collaborating strategically, adapting and innovating. Moreover, they exhibit a strong “entrepreneurial gene”, displaying resilience and determination to succeed despite challenges.

Interviewees’ subjective perceptions and language barriers may bias the results due to the narrow spatial focus. Advancing the understanding of entrepreneurial agency in EEs with constraints helps practitioners design training programmes fostering adaptive capabilities and forward-thinking mindsets. At the same time, ecosystem actors can implement inclusive practices and strategies to mitigate regulatory hurdles, promote cultural competence and facilitate collaborative initiatives among entrepreneurs.

Delving into the entrepreneurial agency of migrant entrepreneurs reveals the importance of inclusive EEs in fully exploiting migrant entrepreneurs’ economic and societal value.

Given the adversity of the COVID-19 pandemic, there remains an incomplete understanding of the gender disparities in the affectedness and recovery of micro-entrepreneurs from the crisis. Consequently, this paper aims to scrutinise gender disparities in the initial repercussions of the crisis and throughout the recovery phase.

Acknowledging the interconnectedness of micro-entrepreneurs’ professional and private spheres, the study adopts a mixed-methods approach combining a representative quantitative study with qualitative data from 36 semi-structured interviews with self-employed individuals in Germany amidst the COVID-19 crisis.

The findings indicate a gender gap in the impact and recovery trajectory, particularly affecting female entrepreneurs in caregiving roles beyond immediate financial repercussions. These disparities did not result in more pronounced business measures for recovery but rather involved more experimentation and prosocial behaviours, with a preference for alternatives to state aid, such as personal reserves and social networks.

Unveiling the dual influence of economic and social factors as essential for female entrepreneurs’ recovery from the crisis adds to the literature by providing a comprehensive understanding of gender-specifics.

This study aims to pilot-test the acceptability, feasibility, preliminary efficacy and user experience of an animated virtual reality (VR) game (“Goliath: Playing with Reality”) aimed at reducing stigma related to psychosis and schizophrenia among health-care students and trainees.

A mixed-methods design was used. Sixteen trainee clinical psychologists with experience working with service users with psychosis/schizophrenia engaged with the VR game using a headset and controllers, and completed measures before and after. Quantitative measures assessing intervention acceptability, appropriateness and feasibility were collected and analysed descriptively. These were complemented by qualitative feedback on user experience, analysed through content analysis. Pre- and post-intervention mental health stigma-related measures were also collected and analysed inferentially.

Most participants found the VR game acceptable, appropriate and feasible for reducing mental health stigma. Although there were no significant changes in stigma-related measures, participants were impressed by the immersive storytelling and the symbolic portrayal of psychosis. Participants also valued the educational aspect, empathised with people living with psychosis/schizophrenia and experienced a range of emotional reactions. However, participants noted usability concerns, and suggestions for improvement were made.

This is one of the first studies to show the potential of “Goliath: Playing with Reality” as a mental health educational intervention for health-care students and trainees. Drawing on narrative theory and immersive-interactive storytelling techniques, the VR game provides experiences that can foster narrative engagement and emotional connection, potentially enhancing its effectiveness in mental health stigma reduction efforts.

The University of Arizona Libraries (UAL) has engaged in learning and applying trauma-informed concepts since 2020. These efforts followed conversations about how to compassionately uphold the libraries' Code of Conduct (CoC). Conversations occurred against the backdrop of the global COVID-19 pandemic, a national racial reckoning following the murder of George Floyd and a series of local incidents including border control, racial aggression, insecure access to basic needs and mental health services, and the recent on-campus homicide of a faculty member. In response, the library's Diversity, Social Justice, and Equity Council (DSJEC) began working to identify resources for trauma-informed services and leadership. UAL has interrogated the ways in which the CoC serves both as a response to expressions of trauma and a potential perpetuating source of trauma for patrons and staff. Moreover, many staff members have experienced trauma that occurred either within or outside the workplace that affects their work experience. UAL contracted with relational healing and life coach Nisha Mody to deliver a series of webinars introducing trauma-informed concepts and connecting them to academic library work.

A result of trauma-informed training was a deeper knowledge of trauma-informed principles and their connection to systemic inequity and power. For this reason, UAL and other academic libraries may encounter challenges when applying trauma-informed practices within the administrative and cultural context of higher education.

While the battlefield means danger to some people, it may mean excitement and adrenaline for others. Battlefields can also carry the meanings of a mirror of history, a place of commemoration, and respect. At the same time, it is a market and marketing area for travel providers that respond to changing human needs. Many studies mention that battlefields can mean different things for each individual. This section gives the supply and demand size of battlefield tourism that will meet all these meanings. The supply and demand for the battlefields are tried to be expressed by giving both the place of the visit-oriented research on the battlefields in the literature and the protected and surviving battlefields and related structures in the world.

The spread of conspiracy theories and associated vaccine rejection within the wellness industry and spiritual communities during the COVID-19 pandemic attracted significant media and scholarly attention. Informed by the ‘(Con)spirituality, Science and COVID-19 in Australia’ project (2020–2021) (Halafoff, Marriott, et al., 2022; Halafoff, Weng, et al., 2022; Roginski & Rocha, 2022), funded by the Templeton Religion Trust and awarded via the International Research Network for the Study of Science and Belief in Society (INSBS), this chapter reports on findings pertaining to holistic spirituality, purity doctrines and wellness, arising from a parallel pilot study on ‘Spirituality and Wellness (SWell) in Australia’ (2021). Both studies have revealed a ‘spiritual complexity’ in Australia and internationally, and the authors report on this here, focussed particularly on spirituality’s quest for pristine bodies, and on spiritual ‘moral communities’ (Ganga Kieffer, 2023) exceptionalism and relationality.

This paper aims to extend the scope of previous studies on education-occupation mismatch to explicitly focus on the role high school track choices have on the risk of being mismatched in the labor market.

The paper uses the most exhaustive available database regarding the early-career paths of university graduates in Romania. Using a novel matching technique, entropy balancing (EB), our study relies on multinomial logit models and logit regressions to estimate the effect of the completed high school track on the likelihood of being mismatched in the labor market. The empirical analysis focuses on two types of education-occupation mismatches: horizontal and vertical mismatches.

We show that studying a different field in college compared to the completed high school track increases the risk of being skill mismatched in the first job after graduation. Five years after college graduation, the influence of the high school track fades, while being skill mismatched in the first employment plays a more important role. In contrast, we find no evidence that pursuing a college major unrelated to the completed high school track increases the probability of being overeducated. However, being overeducated in the first job increases the risk of being overeducated five years later.

The study brings new reliable evidence on the extent to which high school track choices may contribute to the risk of being mismatched in the labor market.