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The new teleworking conditions imposed by extreme events such as the COVID-19 pandemic blur the border between home and official working space, amplifying the conflicting demands of family and work life experienced by employees across national cultures. Drawing on conservation of resources (COR) theory, this study explores cross-national variances in the underlying mechanism of how family–work conflict (FWC) affects employees’ operational and marketing productivity in the global epidemic-induced teleworking context.

This study conducts a large-scale and cross-national survey of 710 remote employees who worked from home partially or fully during the COVID-19 outbreak across three countries: the USA, the UK and Vietnam.

The results show that FWC drives affective commitment, leading to greater employees’ operational and marketing productivity when teleworking. We also find distinct moderating effects of organizational factors (i.e. task control) and employees’ psychological factors (i.e. emotional exhaustion) on the FWC–operational productivity link across the three countries. Moreover, centralization positively moderates the effect of operational productivity on marketing productivity in the teleworking context in Vietnam, while it is not the case in the USA and the UK.

This study fills a gap in the literature by revealing cross-national differences in the underlying mechanism of the FWC effects on employees’ operational and marketing productivity in the pandemic-induced teleworking conditions. It extends extant studies in the work–family literature by introducing affective commitment as an important mediator in translating the negative consequences of FWC to operational and marketing productivity gain in crisis-driven teleworking across national cultures. We also provide insights into the distinct moderating roles of task control and emotional exhaustion in determining the FWC effect on operational productivity as well as that of centralization in driving marketing productivity. The findings have substantive implications for teleworking design and management to improve employee productivity across different national settings.

The Globe Group CIC (Globe) was established as a not-for-profit dedicated to driving positive sustainable change mitigating the impacts of climate change and building resilience within communities. As a team of 26, consisting of staff and volunteers, they are based at their Eco Centre in Uttoxeter, Staffordshire. Having hosted the first ever Midlands Climate Expo & Sustainability Conference Climate Expo in 2022 and expanded this the following year by bringing together over 500 individuals and over 100 organisations to drive change, this highlighted the importance and impact of collaborative, cross-sector action. This was followed by efforts to create lasting change throughout their county by creating the first ever Staffordshire & Stoke-On-Trent Celebration of the Possible (COP). The case study highlights seven key steps to bringing together the partnerships, businesses, stakeholders, funding and local communities. This was built on the back of six years of steady growth at Globe and led to the COP Framework highlighting a potential vision of the future for the county agreed by the partnership with their vision informed by over 300 members of the Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent community and their oversubscribed COP Conference 2024 attended by over 150 from all walks of life keen to support the Staffordshire journey to greater sustainability and Net Zero.

This chapter critiques the masculinist assumptions underlying the development and experience of VR technology, emphasising the importance of acknowledging the player's own body in VR systems. Mark Zuckerberg's 2022 keynote, introducing Facebook's rebrand as Meta, reflected ongoing industry narratives that VR allows users to transcend their physical bodies. This chapter challenges such myths, highlighting how VR technology is often designed with a white, cis, able-bodied male user in mind, marginalising other bodies. Drawing from feminist phenomenology, the chapter argues for a situated understanding of embodiment in VR that acknowledges the specific socio-cultural and physical contexts of the user body. The chapter explores how VR produces presence, immersion and embodiment through an affective assemblage of player body, VR system and game, emphasising the individualised and contingent nature of VR experiences. The chapter critiques the concept of VR as an empathy machine, as popularised by figures like Jaron Lanier and Nonny de la Peña, and instead proposes a feminist approach to VR embodiment. This approach recognises the limitations of the body and the sociohistorical contexts that shape our understanding of bodily possibilities. Using the VR game Tentacular (Firepunchd Games, 2022) as a case study, the chapter demonstrates how a feminist understanding of VR embodiment provides a more nuanced analysis of VR's potential. This game highlights the importance of the relationship between player and avatar(s) in producing affective experiences that challenge dominant narratives of mastery and control in VR.