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Even if digital financial services have a positive impact on financial inclusion, it creates a digital as well as gender divide within and across countries, creating regional disparity even within developing nations. Though pandemic has initiated digitalization of various services, there has been scanty research on whether digital transfer of income can improve digital financial inclusion in post-pandemic era, especially in developing countries. The purpose of the current study is to explain the regional disparity within developing countries from three regions East Asia Pacific, South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, using latest World Findex data, 2021.

The author takes an instrumental variable approach to run bivariate probit model to find the factors that motivate the users to make digital payments.

The study observes that electronic transfer of wages, government transfers and remittances can motivate individuals to make use of digital mode of transactions and mobile. The practice of formal saving and borrowings are the prerequisites. However, this mechanism holds good for East Asia Pacific and not for South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, which are poor in information and communication technology infrastructure. Women are lagging behind men, but digital transfer of wages motivate them to make digital transaction.

Digitalization of all government services and provision of affordable mobile network and internet services are necessary for regions like South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. In East Asia Pacific region, data protection, data governance and better regulatory framework are required. Higher female labor force participation with digital transfer of wages and empowerment with smartphones are key to reducing the Gender gap.

The current study corrects for the possible endogeneity issue, which the extant literature has not paid attention to, and provides region-specific and gender-specific policy recommendations for an improved digital inclusion.

Emerging Economies (EEs) are characterized by sustained growth performance, but they suffer from inequality as well, especially the Gender Inequality. Literature points out a number of gender norms which play a significant role in aggravating the gender disparity. The chapter chooses a panel of 25 EEs for the period of 2007–2020 to investigate how gender norms can affect the female labor force participation (FLFP) and development relationship. Results suggest that EEs are in a stage of development where even if countries are growing at a reasonable rate, FLFP is falling. Further investigation reveals that skewed sex ratio can dampen the impact of development, whereas secondary school enrollment and legislation to protect women from sexual harassment in the workplace may foster the effect of development. Thus, policies to encourage parents to invest more on the girl child and providing legal support to women at the workplace can be effective policies to reduce gender inequality.

There is a long-lasting debate on the relationship between democracy and economic growth, though it remained inconclusive. On the other hand, corruption is one of the greatest challenges of the contemporary world that lessens the efficiency of a good government, distorts public policy, leads to the misallocation of resources, harms the private sector and particularly hurts the poor. Moreover, the corruption–growth relationship has been shown to be contingent upon the political regime. This chapter has chosen a set of emerging market economies (EMEs), which consists of democratic as well as authoritarian countries, to throw light on democracy–growth relationship through the channel of corruption using a system generalized method of moments estimation of a panel of 27 countries for a period of 2006–2018. Results show that democracy is growth-enhancing but corruption dampens its positive impact to some extent. However, for authoritarian countries corruption can enhance growth.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between income shock suffered during the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent financial well-being (FWB) of Indian adults, mediated by financial resilience (FR) and psychological resilience (PR).

The authors propose a conceptual model for the relationship between income shock and FWB, with FR and PR as mediator variables. The authors consider four dimensions of financial resilience: economic resources, financial inclusion, financial knowledge and social capital. This study uses a unidimensional scale for PR. Data were collected from 370 respondents from 11 cities across India. Structural equation models were built to test the proposed hypotheses.

Income shock was negatively associated with FWB. Estimated path coefficients for FR and PR were statistically significant and confirmed a mediating role. Among the four dimensions of financial resilience, only economic resources were positively associated with FWB. The mediation relation between economic resources and FWB was larger than PR.

Since convenience sampling was used to collect data, the results of this study are indicative but not generalizable.

For individuals who suffered income shocks during the pandemic, adequate economic resources are crucial for FWB. Governmental disbursements, personal savings and medical or life insurance could provide an adequate safety net.

There are no extant studies that examine the association between income shocks and FWB in the pandemic, and this study contributes to the literature.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are a major source of employment and revenue growth in developing nations like India, but they also face challenges from resource shortages, shifting consumer demand and heightened competition. This research aims to discover the aspects that enhance SMEs' competitiveness and performance.

By analyzing literature and consulting experts, 10 factors that boost a firm's competitiveness were identified. The total interpretive structural modeling (TISM) method was then used to determine their interaction and structural hierarchy. Neutrosophic-MICMAC analysis was employed to assess the driving-dependence power of each factor.

The study discovered that the factor, namely “entrepreneurial orientation,” was found to be a significant one. “Manufacturing strategy” was found to be extremely dependent on the remaining competitive advantage factors.

This SME-focused framework can be adopted by large businesses to enhance organizational performance by focusing on critical factors. The study depends on experts' judgment, which might be biased. Findings will assist SMEs in identifying significant factors influencing competitive advantage and relationships, increasing awareness of factors contributing to competitive edge.

The results of the research may encourage SME sector managers and practitioners to prioritize the factors that contribute to a firm's competitive advantage.

The majority of research on SME competitive advantage focuses on individual aspects. To add to the body of knowledge on the subject, this study applies the TISM technique to Indian SMEs to identify the contextual interactions among factors that increase long-term competitiveness.

The pandemic COVID-19 brought in large challenges globally among the workforce. There were reports of how employee layoffs and pay-cuts were gradually becoming prominent across industries based on media reports. However, there were no attempts to develop a typology of challenges faced by the workforce.

This study mined user-generated content from Twitter to bring out a typology of challenges due to the sudden turbulence that is faced from the pandemic. A case study has also been conducted by taking in-depth interviews in the academic sector to deep dive into the nature of these problems.

The study findings indicate that these challenges are basically stemming from challenges surrounding infrastructure readiness, digital readiness, changing nature of deliverables, workforce demand versus supply problems and challenges surrounding job losses.

There is a need to explore the linkages through inferential research infrastructure readiness, digital readiness, changing nature of deliverables, workforce demand versus supply problems and challenges surrounding job losses on employee welfare during pandemics.

The authors provide inductive insights based on a data-driven research methodology surrounding the sudden challenges faced and possible mechanisms to address these issues faced by a stressed workforce catering to multiple stakeholders.

The present study aims to investigate the influence of key factors on the success of women micro-entrepreneurs in select states of India.

An empirical study is carried out to understand the influence of the psychological, socio-cultural, skill and resource-related factors on the success of women entrepreneurs. To achieve the set goal, a comprehensive questionnaire is developed for collecting data and is analyzed using the t-test, the chi-square test and structural equation modeling.

The proposed model is validated using structural equation modeling, and the fitness values indicate that the model is fit to explain the entrepreneurial success of women entrepreneurs in India.

The result advocates that the participation of women entrepreneurs may be increased to not only improve national growth but also empower women in India.

In the context of the women micro-entrepreneurs, no such study covering such a vast area of India has been carried out.

The study explores the perceptions of graduates on their employability and future of work, in light of the challenges thrown upon by new vicissitudes in the work environment. The study intends to assess the preparedness of management graduates in facing the challenges and uncertainties of the actual job market.

Semi-structured and informal interviews with 65 management graduates from UK, Canada, Italy and India. The thematic analysis uncovered the concerns and areas to develop for management graduates regarding their future employability perceptions.

The authors benefited from a unique opportunity to capture the views and experience of graduates who are undergoing management education during this ambiguous period. Three major themes were developed on how to develop oneself for an ambiguous future of work which includes Psychological strengths, Skill enhancement and Future mindset. The study also unearthed the major focus areas for better employability from a graduate perspective.

Practical contribution comes from strategies to prepare university graduates for sustainable careers. Study hints at the importance of work experience, adaptability and skill enhancement in meeting the challenges of the future.

From a global approach this is one among the first studies to look into the graduate perspective of their preparedness for future work.