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The paper investigates factors that contribute to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) surviving major exogenous shocks. Global crises such as the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) have increasingly heightened scholarly interest in post-crises responses. However, studies that compare the relative responses to external shocks and the outcomes for SMEs operating in different institutional settings are limited. We examine the relative degrees of success European and African SMEs experienced in avoiding the worst consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.

We use the resource dependency theory (RDT) with variants of institutional theory since the RDT has been shown in practice to have greater explanatory power when used in this way. We augment our framework with a feminist theory dimension. To test our hypotheses, we apply regression analyses using cross-sectional data from the World Bank Enterprise Surveys (WBES), which include responses from private enterprises in 26 European and eight African countries. We construct our data by combining the COVID-19 follow-up surveys with relevant firm-specific characteristics from the WBES conducted in 2020–2021 using firm-specific unique IDs. After removing the firms with missing observations, the sample number of SMEs is 15,178.

Our empirical findings support the theoretically posited positive effects of innovativeness, institutional connectedness and governance capability on SMEs’ survival in the face of external shocks. Further, we confirm the importance of firm-specific characteristics (financial status, size and age) for SMEs’ survival. Female-owned SMEs are more likely to suffer during COVID-19, especially in Africa. The results are more nuanced when we consider industry specificity and heterogeneity of government support.

Our article helps answer the theoretical (and policy-relevant) question of whether SMEs that are resilient to major exogenous shocks may share certain characteristics despite operating in different institutional environments. If that is so, then it may be that lessons from one continent may have at least some relevance for the other. Our approach’s broad value lies in its capacity to test the degree to which established bodies of theory developed in the Northern Hemisphere may be deployed in Africa, well beyond the contexts which provided their initial empirical basis. This paper also contributes to the literature on the effect of environmental-change shocks on entrepreneurship performance outcomes.

This paper aims to examine the mediating role of occupational stress in addressing the missing link between organisational intelligence (OI) traits and digital government service quality and propose relevant strategies in sustaining the digital government service quality whilst enhancing the psychological well-being of the service providers.

This paper utilises a triangulation design approach to interpret the findings of the study and propose pertinent strategies. Firstly, we examined the mediating role of occupational stress in addressing the link between OI traits, and digital government service quality. Next, we examined the priority factors of OI traits and occupational stress to sustain the quality of digital government services via the Importance-Performance Map Analysis (IPMA). These findings were cross-examined with the code’s percentage generated from participants’ open-ended survey feedback on aspects that requires improvement in sustaining service quality.

In principle, occupational stress mediates the relationship between OI traits at the third-order component level and digital service quality. Analysis at the lower component level shows that the mediation effect of occupational stress is only significant in the presence of employee-oriented OI traits and “Alignment and Congruence”. Accordingly, the IPMA exhibited the importance of “Job engagement”, “Alignment and Congruence” and “Occupational Stress” in sustaining service quality. Conversely, code’s percentage analysis demonstrated the role of other insignificant traits such as “Leadership” and Appetite for Change and Knowledge Deployment’ in ensuring the sustainability of digital service quality.

By integrating the Organisational Model of Stress with Public Service-Dominant Logic, this paper rejuvenates the stressors utilised in a traditional work setup and widens the perspective of individual job performance to organisational level performance, to reflect the context of today’s public service delivery. We triangulated the outcome from mediation analysis, IPMA as well as open-ended feedback analysis and propose prioritisation on the aspects of “Employee-oriented traits”, “Psychological Well-being”, “Alignment and Congruence”, “Leadership” and “Appetite for Change and Knowledge Deployment” aspects for sustaining digital government service quality. Considering the significance of occupational stress in sustaining service quality in both quantitative and qualitative analysis, this paper also takes the approach of proposing a stress intervention program at the individual and organisational levels to manage the psychological well-being of the service providers.

This paper aims to examine the mediating role of occupational stress in addressing the missing gap between organisational intelligence (OI) traits and digital government service quality.

By employing multistage cluster sampling, a total of 394 responses from the Malaysian service providers at federal government agencies were obtained. For data analysis, the partial least square structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) approach with a disjoint two-stage approach was employed to assess the proposed higher-order model. The analysis was carried out to examine how occupational stress mediates the relationship between OI traits at each component level and digital service quality.

Occupational stress mediates the relationship between OI traits at the third-order component level and digital service quality. At the second-order component level, only the employee-oriented OI traits exhibit a significant indirect effect on the digital government service quality. Narrowing down to the first order component level, two OI traits, namely “Alignment and Congruence”, and “Heart” demonstrate significant indirect effects in the mediation analysis.

By incorporating the organisational model of stress (OMS) with public service-dominant logic (PSDL), this paper takes an approach to revitalise the stressors and individual-level performance used in a traditional work setting. Precisely, it examines how digital service quality is influenced by today's high-performing public organisation stressors (OI traits) along with non-technical element (occupational stress). More importantly, digital government service quality was examined from a less emphasised perspective, namely the supply side or service providers’ standpoint in sustaining the digital government service performance.

This paper presents a conceptual model that links digital government service quality with organisational intelligence (OI) traits and occupational stress among the service providers in the public sector.

This is a conceptual paper that carries out a systematic review of the key literature from 1978 to 2021, concerning the evolution of models, scales and dimensions attributing to digital government service quality, OI traits and occupational stress. Following this, a new conceptual model is proposed to reflect the need of today's public service delivery from a broader perspective.

Based on the reviews of the existing models, there is no convincing evidence of the existence of a conceptual model that incorporates digital government service quality, OI traits and occupational stress from the public service providers' viewpoint. Therefore, a conceptual model, with occupational stress acting as a mediator between various OI traits and digital government service quality, is presented as a comprehensive framework to heighten the quality of the public service delivery.

This paper explores the gap in the current service quality studies and proposes a conceptual model that is more reflective of today's public service delivery. Firstly, it helps better understand digital government service quality from a much less focused area, the supply side (service providers) standpoint as opposed to the demand side (citizen) viewpoint (citizen). Secondly, it extends the understanding of performance and evaluation of public service delivery from perspectives such as knowledge utilisation, strategic alignment and participatory decision-making. Thirdly, it extends the literature on digital service quality from a non-technological perspective, as to how it is influenced by employees' psychological well-being factors.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how teachers can use their Sgaw Karen students’ names as a means to gaining awareness of their students’ home culture, language and personal stories.

This case study uses interviews with four Karen families to explore the meanings behind the names and nicknames given to Karen individuals.

The findings of this study reveal that Karen names can provide teachers important insights into Karen culture, history and language. Moreover, Karen names can also provide important biographical information about the student.

This study only focuses on Sgaw Karen names and does not include other Karen subgroups like the Pwo Karen, who are also resettling in the USA. This study does not include all Sgaw Karen names, but the authors have made efforts to include Karen names from various regions of Burma and of different religious backgrounds.

Teachers and others working with culturally and linguistically diverse students like the Karen will gain a better understanding of the various ways that names are given across cultures. While this paper focuses on one particular ethnic group, it is believed that teachers need to expand their notions about how other non-European groups name their children and how these names may reveal something about the student’s heritage culture, history, language and the unique lived experiences of their students.

Too often teachers and others working cross-culturally do not realize that other cultures follow different naming practices than those used in the USA. Teachers often mispronounce or misunderstand students’ names when the student comes from a cultural group unfamiliar to them. This paper helps a general audience better realize the unique approach Karen culture takes to naming children and how these names are often transformed to fit American naming conventions. As the title suggests, Karen students often feel embarrassed and take on a negative opinion of their given name as a result of a lack of awareness by teachers and others.

This paper provides a unique perspective in the literature on the ways cultural naming conventions can serve teachers aspiring to incorporate biography-driven instruction into their classroom practices.