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The prolonged civil war in Syria and the full-scale war in Ukraine have significantly impacted the nations’ children, yet Ukrainian and Syrian children found ways to express their agency. This comparative study centers on children’s first-hand accounts of conflict through a feminist geopolitical approach and interpretive textual analysis methods to explore common themes children express in diaries, how resistance is articulated, and how other actors mediate these narratives. Informed by feminist geopolitics, the authors investigate how the everyday practice of narrating their experiences provides children with a space to articulate their perspectives on war-related experiences. This research employs thematic analysis to explore four Ukrainian and four Syrian children’s diaries. In this chapter, the authors discuss three salient themes from the diaries: (1) trauma and fear; (2) loss of normalcy; and (3) coping, hope, and resilience. The authors argue that these themes demonstrate children’s agency and that diaries can be read as a medium of resistance. This chapter also pays attention to how such narratives are mediated, commodified, and even controlled by adults for political objectives. This chapter, thus, contributes to the discussion of the nature of children’s experiences in armed conflict. Furthermore, it explores how children’s agency is potentially articulated, manipulated, and restricted in everyday sites.

Higher education institutions are embedding education for sustainability in curricula, but there are many challenges slowing the process down.

This paper uses reflections from stakeholders across eight disciplines to identify themes supporting EfS integration across disciplines, using collaborative autoethnography.

The paper highlights unique challenges and opportunities in embedding sustainability education and potential institutional pathways to enable interdisciplinary approaches to embedding EfS.

The paper highlights unique challenges and opportunities in embedding sustainability education and the role of institutional support in overcoming differing worldviews.

This research focuses on people’s activities in the Liuhua Clothing Wholesale District in Guangzhou, China. The increasing use of social media in business, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, has created inevitable changes to the way space is utilised. Lockdowns and transport restrictions pushed the clothing wholesale traders to engage in livestreaming to maintain their business. This research aims to understand how spaces have been mediatised with the use of social media.

To investigate changes in the use of spaces, this research draws on actor-network theory and regards spaces as actors, adopting qualitative research methods, including observation, semi-structured interviews and mapping.

The research finds that spaces are mediatised for presentation on social media. During the COVID-19 pandemic, when in-person activities were suspended, the virtual space, constituted by elements that exist in physical and virtual spaces, became more valued. Physical space is no longer perceived as a whole but as elements, such as background, sound and light, all of which are involved in the construction of virtual space on social media. The perception of physical space has become less important than the images presented on social media.

Social media now exists in many people’s everyday lives, but its influence on architecture and space has received insufficient attention. This research interrogates this phenomenon in a clothing wholesale district in China to reflect on the influence. Its significance lies in documenting the spatial implications of dependence on social media and the changes to spatial use in the age of social media.

This study aims to explore the human resource management (HRM) practices related to training and feedback in the app work industry, specifically in online food delivery service, and investigate the emotional and behavioral responses of gig workers.

This study adopts a qualitative approach by interviewing 19 gig workers from six food delivery firms operating in different countries.

The results show limited training and feedback opportunities are provided to app workers, although the complexity of training and delivery methods differ across platforms. To address this shortage, app workers developed response strategies relying on social interaction.

This study adds to the research on HRM practices in the gig economy by portraying the way in which training and feedback unfold in the food delivery app ecosystem and by disclosing the gig workers’ emotional and behavioral responses to it.

This study shows that the way training activities are currently designed may provide little value to the ecosystem and are likely to produce negative emotional responses in gig workers. Thus, platform providers may make use of these findings by introducing more transparent feedback and social learning opportunities.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is among the first empirical studies on online delivery gig workers addressing specific HRM practices. It reveals significant insights for training and feedback, suggesting app economy characteristics strongly affect training and feedback practices for app workers.

This study aims to analyse the research themes in Islamic finance, assess the extent to which Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can be achieved through implementing Islamic financial principles and explore the potential for reshaping human behaviour under an Islamic framework. The research aims to establish a paradigm that evaluates the role of Islamic finance in fostering social justice, environmental sustainability and ethical governance as a sustainable alternative to the capitalist system.

This research employs a comprehensive literature review and thematic analysis to assess the alignment of Islamic finance with SDGs. Secondary data from peer-reviewed academic articles (2016–2024) were collected and analysed using an inductive thematic approach. Key themes include Islamic finance, maqasid ash-shariah and the role of Islamic finance in sustainable development. A conceptual framework is proposed to depict how Islamic financial practices can contribute to the SDGs.

The study identifies that Islamic finance, rooted in Shariah principles, offers a robust foundation for fostering social justice, ethical governance and environmental sustainability. By integrating zakat, donations, private investments and socially responsible investments, the Islamic financial model aligns with SDGs, addressing poverty (SDG 1), reducing inequality (SDG 10) and promoting sustainable economic growth (SDG 8). The findings underscore the potential of Islamic finance to address capitalism’s shortcomings, such as income inequality and unsustainable practices, while advocating for a paradigm shift in human behaviour through adherence to Islamic values.

Policymakers and financial institutions can leverage the insights from this research to design and implement Islamic financial models that promote equitable resource allocation, sustainable development and ethical practices. The framework offers a practical guide for integrating Islamic finance into conventional financial systems to achieve SDGs.

The study contributes to the existing literature by presenting a novel conceptual framework that integrates Islamic finance with sustainable development goals. It offers a unique perspective on transitioning from capitalism to an Islamic financial model, emphasizing behavioural and ideological changes to achieve equitable and sustainable economic outcomes.

Characterised by simultaneous food waste and shortages, our current food system is far from sustainable. Industry 4.0 has responded with technology-enabled innovations, including digital food-sharing platforms aimed at facilitating the efficient redistribution of surplus food. However, potential users often express reluctance to adopt such platforms, prompting this study to explore the underlying reasons for their hesitations.

This study was conducted in China, the world’s largest platform economy, where food-sharing platforms are notably absent. Using a vignette-based qualitative approach, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 35 potential users. The data were analysed through thematic analysis to uncover insights into adoption intentions.

The findings highlight the relevance of factors identified in existing technology acceptance theories, such as performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, hedonic motivation, facilitating conditions and price value, in shaping adoption intentions. Additionally, content-specific and context-specific factors – such as trust in other users and the platform, concerns about “losing face” (mianzi) and safety concerns during the pandemic – emerged as critical influences on users' decisions to engage with these platforms.

This study contributes to scholarly discussions on enhancing the effectiveness of new technological innovations for food supply chain sustainability. The theoretical contributions expand the technology acceptance literature by incorporating factors related to platform service content and operating context.

This study aims to broaden understanding of customer helping behaviour in the banking environment and provide strategic direction for much-needed further research regarding its role and management within the customer service journey.

Gift-giving literature was further explored to identify plausible characteristics of customer helping behaviour in the banking environment.

Customers’ acts of helping could be complex in nature and may involve multiple actors, including customer helpers, gatekeepers, and other members of customer helpers’ networks. Moreover, customer helpers and their helping networks may operate in both offline and online environments, in various stages of the service experiences, and ultimately in the customer journeys. Furthermore, the help customers provide to other customers could be framed by socially constructed arrangements that seem to be (1) dynamic in nature, (2) comprising of joint efforts by multiple actors, and (3) within diverse and interlinked helping environments. Accordingly, several research implications for the banking environment are identified.

Key to services in the banking environment may be the complex and synthesised helping systems among customers that evidently could affect product adoption, use, and customer loyalty of customers receiving help throughout the service experiences and customer journeys. Accordingly, guided by gift-giving literature, the current paper sets the research agenda.

The development of project managers and leadership has been highlighted as crucial for improving project success and performance, resulting in a rise of interest in project leadership research over the last two decades. While several qualitative reviews have been conducted, there have been limited quantitative and systematic reviews on project leadership. This study fills this gap by portraying the knowledge landscape and tracking the evolution of project leadership research from 1998 to 2022 through bibliometric approaches.

Based on 816 records, including 793 articles extracted and selected from the Web of Science database and specific journals, and 23 articles selected from three non-SCI/SSCI indexed journals, the authors used CiteSpace and bibliometrix R-package to depict visualizations of the trajectory of co-cited references, the landscape of co-occurred keywords and emerging trends in project leadership via reference co-citation analysis, keyword co-occurrence analysis and thematic mapping.

The bibliometric analyses enabled the authors to understand the conceptual aspects of project leadership and its theoretical background. Three stages of the intellectual bases were identified and tracked: the infancy phase (1998–2007), the growth phase (2008–2014) and the new development phase (2015–2022). The results of keyword co-occurrence analysis indicated that the research focus evolved from investigating traits and competences to examining the effects of traditional leadership behaviors, and then considering context-specific leadership. The findings of thematic mapping and theoretical interpretation illustrate the potential directions of the competence comparison, new and appropriate leadership, and the interaction between leadership and context.

This study advanced the field by providing a systematic review of project leadership, developing potential future directions for project leadership research and providing practical implications for career development and training.

The theoretical landscape surrounding the contribution of digital transformation to sustainability in higher education institutions is lacking in literature. Blended learning has gained popularity and poises for further growth as a sustainable and inclusive mode of learning that will shape the future of education. This study aims to investigate the organizational critical success factors that ensure high-quality blended learning opportunities.

Data was collected through an online student survey and semistructured interviews with academic leaders and faculty members.

Exploratory factor analysis and multiple linear regression revealed five main contributing factors to a successful overall hybrid experience, namely, faculty support, cognitive flexibility, learner self-actualization, student engagement and sense of belonging. In the results, students were satisfied with their gained skills, knowledge and engagement, and have succeeded in developing cognitive flexibility, self-actualization and sense of belonging. Faculty support was the strongest determinant. The presence of certain organizational dynamics, comprising management support of those with sustainability mindset, effective communication, blended leadership qualities and adequate faculty personality traits, presents as a major predictor to quality learning opportunities.

The theoretical landscape surrounding the contribution of digital transformation to sustainability in higher education institutions is lacking in literature, which emphasizes the novel aspects of this study. In particular, it contributes by determining the overall level of research on the subject, theoretical stances in this area and potential avenues for further investigation.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a devastating impact on all facets of education. This led to educational institutions deploying blended and online systems for teaching and learning. The purpose of this study was to assess the role of blended learning in promoting quality education during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The qualitative research design was deployed in this study and enabled the researcher to collect data via in-depth interviews. Twenty-five (25) tertiary institutions accredited by the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC) were randomly selected to participate in this study. The registrars of the institutions were purposively selected and served as the participants for the study. Thematic content analysis was used to analyze the data collected via the interview. Ethical considerations were adhered to during the study.

The study established that COVID-19 had a devastating effect on tertiary institutions; multiple technological and open-sourced systems were deployed for teaching and learning; blended learning was adopted to augment the traditional face-to-face mode of teaching and learning due to its ease of use, usefulness and accessibility as it was used for quizzes and assignments, accessing lecture notes, among others. Despite these, the deployment of technological and blended systems was met with challenges that somehow affected effective teaching, learning.

The study was limited to 25 tertiary educational institutions in Ghana. It was again limited to the COVID-19 era.

This research aids in understanding the extent of the impact of COVID-19 on teaching and learning and how blended learning is currently deployed and used in tertiary institutions in Ghana. The findings are relevant to policymakers and management of educational institutions as it informs them of the right method and tools to deploy for teaching and learning during pandemics.

As educational institutions globally are dealing with the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is prudent to look into how tertiary institutions in Ghana deploy blended learning to facilitate teaching and learning. Thus, this paper is original as it fills the relevant literature gap in terms of scope, setting, methodology and findings.