This paper assesses the tripartite link between a country’s financial (in) stability, its level of financial development, and economic growth. Using a panel of 21 countries over the period 2001–2020 and using the IMF Financial Market Index to proxy financial development, we find (i) that financial stability varies positively with the development of the financial system, and (ii) that the relationship between financial stability and economic growth depends critically on the level of financial development of each country. These results show that in the absence of financial development, the impact of economic growth on financial (in)stability will havedifferent effects. In addition, we performed a subsample analysis by dividing the overall sample into two subsamples based on stability levels. We find that financial development enhances stability more in the more stable subsample, while growth does so in the less stable subsample.

In this study, we examined the effects of information and communications technology (ICT) and financial development on mitigating gender inequality in Brazil, using autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approaches, between 1991 and 2022. The ARDL bounds test was employed to find the presence of co-integration within the series of data. Both in the short run and the long run, financial development has a significant negative impact on gender disparity; this means that policies aimed at enhancing women’s financial and consumption services should be promoted in the short run. In the long run, we can conclude that ICT developments lead to a decreasein gender inequalities, which may imply the need for strategic, long-term planning to increase ICT infrastructure, especially in deprived areas. This includes subsidising affordable internet, skills training for women in the ICT field, and promoting women’s participation in the technology industry. In addition, the impact of optimal financial development varies over time; hence, there is a need for flexibility and sustainability in financial development. Policy makers should therefore continue to strengthen and enhance financial inclusion initiatives, as well as regularly follow up on the impact of these initiatives on gender equality.

Endpoint indicators for social life cycle analysis (S-LCA) are still less consolidated than those for environmental LCA. There is a broad consensus that human well-being should be the overarching goal of social sustainability and therefore also of S-LCA. However, to date the two major databases for S-LCA are restricted to a multiplication of working hours with a quality- or risk-adjusted factor. This paper aims to evaluate the congruence between this technical pragmatism and well-established findings of happiness research. The analysis starts with the argument that evidence and consequentiality are necessary criteria for any variables used. It is then shown that some of the variables such as poverty are not consequential, while the unit of working hours lacks any evidence about a relationship with subjective well-being. The analysis concludes that a simple pointbased endpoint indicator would be more appropriate for S-LCA than the current hour-based indicator.

In an era of growing environmental challenges, the role of banks in promoting sustainability is critical. This study examines how Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), green finance, and green innovation influence the environmental performance of Indian banks. Guided by legitimacy theory and the natural resource-based view, survey data from 379 bank employees were analysed using structural equation modelling. The results reveal that robust CSR initiatives, effective green finance practices, and innovative green strategies significantly enhance banks’ environmental performance. These findings contribute to theoretical understanding and offer practical insights for improving sustainability in the banking sector. The study recommends that banks in emerging economies strengthen internal resources by investing in CSR, adopting green finance, and fostering green innovation to boost environmental performance. Such efforts align with global sustainability goals, positioning banks as key players in environmentalprotection and responsible finance.

To achieve inclusive growth, and poverty and inequality reduction, African countries should enhance labour-intensive agricultural production due to their abundance of natural resources and labour.In this paper, we examine the impact of agriculture on the economic growth of Zimbabwe using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ardl) model employing data covering the period 1970 to 2019.The results show that agricultural production has a significant positive impact on economic growth in the short run while showing no impact on economic growth in the long run.Additionally, the study confirms that inflation, government expenditure and gross fixed capital formation have a positive impact on economic growth in both the long run and short run.Although the agricultural sector plays a salient role in the early stages of economic development, it is, however, not able to maintain sustainable economic growth over a long period in Zimbabwe.Additional macro-economic policy levers are required to compliment agricultural production and promote sustainable economic growth.

The paper is aimed at developing an ecosystem that can be used within the domain of the circular economy on the foundation of Industry 4.0 technologies. The study emphasizes the importance of Industry 4.0 as a crucial element in the development of the circular economic ecosystem. The circular economic ecosystem is comprised of a business model, business strategies, and resources and capabilities supported by a circular economy framework. This study adopted literature review analysis and case studies as mythology to analyse and synthesize the latest trends and aspects developing within the framework of the circular economy. The major findings of this paper present a theoretical conceptual framework of a circular economic ecosystem that can be adopted at organizational level. The study also supplies a way forward for future studies in this research domain as there are several factors which are found but need to be explored.

This paper attempts to formulate new theories of sustainable finance, meeting a need to establish a set of propositions that can help us understand the behaviour and actions of economic agents towards sustainable finance. The paper used a literature survey to establish a theoretical relationship between sustainable finance and the actions of economic agents. The paper proposed six theories of sustainable finance, namely, the priority theory of sustainable finance, the resource theory of sustainable finance, the peer emulation theory of sustainable finance, the life span theory of sustainable finance, the positive signalling theory of sustainable finance, and the system disruption theory of sustainable finance. These theories offer believable explanations for the behaviour and actions of economic agents towards sustainable finance. Academics, policy makers, economists, researchers and students will find these theories very useful in their work in sustainable finance.

Health care professionals are ageing, and there is a severe, global need to attract future employees.This study examines the construction of employer brand image among young health care professionals, and related elements.The qualitative research data were collected through email and personal interviews from young nursing and physician students.The analysis results indicate that organisations can affect their employer brand image for future employees through supportive working culture and human resource practices as well as direct marketing actions.The marketing and human resource practices targeted towards young health care professionals are underused.The results can help health care organisations in planning recruitment and marketing processes according to young health care professionals' expectations.This study integrates human resource management research and marketing research relating to employer branding and recruitment.

This paper attempts to address and critically examine a current concept of leadership in business studies: digital leadership. Researchers often say that this is a new leadership style and that there is a necessity for such a new style because the entrepreneurial environment has changed considerably with digitisation, but also with Industry 4.0, which to a certain extent coincides with digitisation, and the concept of a so-called vuca (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous) world. The conclusion drawn here could be summarised as follows: a changed business environment forces companies to react, namely with a new way of leading – digital leadership. This study will show that such a concept is by no means new, as research claims, but rather hasbeeninexistence formorethan150years. What many researchers understand by digital leadership, apart from the demand for driving forward digitisation, coincides with the leadership principle introduced by Prussian General Moltke, known as ‘mission-type tactics.’ One of the aims of this paper is to demonstrate this. It will also be shown that digital leadership, in contrast to transformational leadership, can be acquired and that digital leadership cannot be classified in the opposition to transformational or transactional leadership, but is rather to be held and understood as a third variant. Only a prescriptive method based on under-standing seems to be a suitable method.

Our study examines the crowding-in/out effect of foreign direct investment and government expenditure on private domestic investment for 15 members of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) for the period 1991–2019. The study employed the panel Pool Mean Group (PMG)/ARDL technique in estimating the short-run and long-run cointegration relationships between FDI, government capital expenditure and domestic private investment and adds three more variables for control purposes (interest rate, GDP growth rate and trade openness). For the full sample, FDI crowds-in domestic investment whilst government crowds-out domestic investment. However, in performing a sensitivity analysis, in which the sample was segregated into low and high income economies, both FDI and government investment crowd-in domestic investment whilst government expenditure crowds-out domestic investment in lower income SADC countries with no effect of FDI on domestic investment. Policy implications are discussed.