Disability Inclusion in Corporate Supplier Diversity Initiatives.

PURPOSE: Since the 1960s, federal and state governments and private-sector companies have used supplier diversity initiatives to ensure their supply chains include businesses owned by traditionally economically disadvantaged or underrepresented groups. Originally concentrated on racial and ethnic minority groups, programs have expanded to include businesses owned by women, veterans, LGBTQ+ individuals, and, in some cases, people with disabilities. This study investigates the extent to which disability is included in supplier diversity initiatives of Fortune 500 companies. METHODS: This paper uses a novel data set created by the authors with information on supplier diversity initiatives and Disability, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) statements in Fortune 500 companies extracted from public sources. This information is combined with data from Compustat, a corporate financial database published by Standard and Poor's and additional variables from other sources. RESULTS: 75% of the Fortune 500 companies have supplier diversity programs that express a commitment to diversity yet only 49% of those with such programs include disability-owned businesses (38% of all Fortune 500 companies). Among the largest 100 companies, 89% had supplier diversity programs that included disability, almost 6 times the rate Ball et al. reported in 2005. This study finds disability inclusion varies significantly by company size, industry, and whether the company is a government contractor. CONCLUSION: Despite the growth in disability inclusion, the absence of disability as a diversity category in regulations mandating supplier diversity initiatives for government contractors impacts disability inclusion. If we want to align our supplier diversity programs with the Americans with Disabilities Act, the first step is to address the issue in the Small Business Administration and federal contracting requirements.

Beyond the basics: Exploring the impact of social media marketing enablers on business success.

In today's fast-paced world, social media marketing is crucial for businesses. However, many Saudi Arabian organizations need more skills and resources to use this strategy effectively. This article outlines organizations' top issues when adopting social media marketing and provides valuable insights into how to overcome them. After conducting an extensive literature review and consulting with experts from various sectors, 19 critical issues hindering social media marketing adoption in Saudi Arabian organizations were identified. The study employed the DEMATEL approach to analyze these issues and determine their impact level and cause-effect relationships. The study found that customer support, platform trust, secure data sharing, and perceived value significantly impact a business's social media marketing success. By addressing challenges like customer support, platform trust, and perceived value, businesses can enhance their social media marketing success and promote themselves globally by attracting and retaining customers through their social media presence. The insights gained from this research offer valuable guidance for Saudi Arabian organizations looking to refine their social media marketing strategies. To overcome the challenges hindering the adoption of social media marketing, businesses must address the "cause" and "effect" category issues. By adopting a formal and pragmatic approach, Saudi Arabian organizations can achieve sustainable growth and promote themselves to a global audience.

Africa's businesswomen - underfunded or underperforming?

While the recent success of Africa's 'Lionesses' - successful female entrepreneurs - is internationally celebrated, less is known about how liquidity can fuel the success of the 'Lionesses' and other businesswomen. Using information from a panel of over 800 male- and female-owned businesses in Ghana (ISSER-IGC survey), we capture a measure of underfunding, in addition to data on supplier credit, equity and other finance sources. Our regressions reveal a female-to-male productivity gap of between - 11 and - 19 per cent, values similar to estimates for other African countries. However, when financial constraints are taken into account, the gender performance gap disappears. Accordingly, female business owners who indicate that funding is not a problem are associated with higher productivity than males, all things equal. In a finding new to the literature, our regressions reveal the importance of supplier credit for Africa's businesswomen.

300 African Businesswomen in Focus - Suppliers Key to Success. Suppliers to Africa's businesswomen (e.g. sellers of cloth for garment manufacture) who offer the possibility for delayed repayment, statistically boost the survival of female-owned businesses. Africa's 'Lionesses' ­ exceptional businesswomen ­ are a comparative rarity, a reason we explore the reasons behind their success. Using data from over 800 Ghanaian businesses from 2011 to 2015, we examine the role of funding in explaining why the majority of businesswomen perform so poorly. Our findings highlight an unusual fact ­ suppliers to female-owned businesses (e.g. sellers of cloth for manufacture into garments) who offer their female customers the possibility to delay repayments are enormously beneficial in narrowing the gender gap. Targeting tax-cuts towards such suppliers would boost the emergence of future 'Lionesses'.

Mining the sustainability of takeaway businesses in online food delivery service supply chain.

The online food delivery service supply chain constitutes a crucial element in achieving sustainable development goals. With its prosperity, an increasing number of takeaway businesses are drawn to this sector. As their numbers rise, issues such as profitability resilience, environmental friendliness, and fulfillment of social responsibility emerge, posing potential disruptions to the service supply chain. Against this backdrop, our endeavor is to mine the sustainability of takeaway businesses using the triple bottom line. We propose a two-stage approach involving the Bayesian best-worst method and a data mining technique to derive the weights of sustainability criteria and the clusters of takeaway businesses. Subsequently, a case study is conducted focusing on takeaway businesses on the Ele.me platform in China. The results highlight economic sustainability as the most valued criterion, followed by social and environmental sustainability. Clustering outcomes reveal four distinct levels of sustainability, with a stronger performance in social sustainability compared to environmental and economic dimensions. Further discussions explore the relationship between sustainability levels, cuisine categories, and business size. Consequently, this study suggests an effective approach for advancing sustainability initiatives within the online food delivery service supply chain.

Covid-19 pandemic induced measures in food industry improves food safety as perceived by food business operators in Finland.

This study examines the response of food business operators (FBOs) to the COVID-19 pandemic in relation to food safety and FBOs' experiences of remote inspections performed by official food control. The study was conducted between November and December 2020 with a web-based questionnaire for food processing businesses in Finland. Most of the 60 responded FBOs had made changes to many own-check sectors such as working hygiene (83.4%) and preparedness for special situations (78.0%). Of the FBOs, 47.1-83.0% assessed that the changes in the own-check sectors had a positive impact on food safety and 43.2-100.0% believed that some of the changes would remain after the pandemic. Of the FBOs, 69.8% found on-site inspections at least partially replaceable with video inspection of the production areas. This study shows that, although the pandemic seriously interfered with food production, it also induced FBOs to take measures that promote food safety.

Small Empires: How Equipped are Small Business Owners to Hire People with Disabilities?

PURPOSE: This study explores small businesses' knowledge base and practices concerning interviewing and hiring job candidates with disabilities, as they are not required to comply with the provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). METHODS: We first conducted 18 in-depth interviews with small business owners to explore their knowledge of the ADA, their practices surrounding hiring (for those with and without disabilities), and their sense of the best practices for how a candidate should navigate the interview and request for accommodations. Responses were then used to create a survey of an additional 110 small business owners. RESULTS: Six themes arose from the interviews, illuminating the steep learning curve involved in each (1) hiring well, (2) the need to trust an employee's character as much as their skill set, (3) the need for an employee to fit within the small business's family-like environment, (4) the preference for job candidates to be transparent about their needs as early as possible, (5) the importance of personal experience with disability, and (6) the difficulty in obtaining precise information about the ADA. Survey responses supported the general findings of the interviews while also providing information about the relative rarity of encountering a job candidate with a disability. CONCLUSION: Hiring employees with disabilities is challenging for small businesses, and bias is difficult to avoid. The availability of clear information on how to comply with the ADA and other laws and practices would be welcome by many small business owners.

Affordable Health Insurance Options for Small Business and Low-Wage Workers Remains Elusive: Experience With New Health Reimbursement Arrangements in New Jersey.

Low-wage workers and those employed by small businesses are least likely to be offered health insurance coverage and they are over-represented among the uninsured. Two new forms of health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs) that allow employers to help fund individual market coverage for workers have been touted as breakthrough strategies to help fill this gap. Despite several years of experience and low adoption, little is known about employer understanding of or views about these HRA options. Consistent with other evidence, only 11.8% of New Jersey employers we surveyed offer or plan to offer either of the HRA options. Few respondents (18.5%) report familiarity with either option. Even among businesses that offer or plan to offer this form of HRA, under half (47.6%) say that they are familiar with them. Other reasons cited for not offering these options include broker advice and complexity. While more investigation is needed, these findings suggest that new strategies should be explored to fill the gap in health insurance for low-wage and small business employees.

A qualitative study of factors that managers in small companies consider important for their wellbeing.

PURPOSE: Given the importance of small businesses for society, and the significance of managers' wellbeing for employee health, leadership, and business performance, more knowledge is needed on the sources of managers' wellbeing. This study explored factors within the small business context that were perceived by managers to hinder or enable their wellbeing. METHODS: Data were collected through qualitative semi-structured interviews with 20 managers from 12 small companies, and analysed with content analysis. RESULTS: The factors that these managers in small businesses experienced as enhancing or hindering their personal wellbeing covered five categories: demands and resources in the daily managerial work, achievement of results, social factors, organizational factors, and individual factors. CONCLUSIONS: The specific context of managerial work in small companies encompasses unique factors. For instance, the small company managers' wellbeing was affected by vulnerability due to the smallness of the business and the absence of available resources. Simultaneously, a small company context provided a strong social climate and close relationships with employees and customers that strengthened the managers' wellbeing. The findings suggest that the availability of financial, personnel, and organizational resources varies between small companies of different size, which may have implications for small business managers' work and wellbeing.

Impact of land use, travel behavior, and socio-economic characteristics on carbon emissions in cool-climate cities, USA.

US cities of cool-climate zone such as Chicago and Boston are witnessing a reduction in carbon emissions potentially due to promoting public transportation and alternative energy resources. It is difficult to validate or deny optimal integration between land-use practices and transportation policies in mitigating carbon emissions due to the lack of urban comparative studies among metropolitan areas. Therefore, this research aims to examine the relationship between land use, travel behavior, and socio-economic characteristics related to carbon dioxide emissions at the zip code level. The research tends to investigate the carbon emissions in four metropolitan regions in cool climatic zone 5 compared to the carbon emissions in all US zip codes, to generate benchmarking predictive models. To this end, nine regression models were developed in this research. These include the US data model, zone 5 model, zone 5 cities model, zone 5 metropolitan areas model, zone 5 micropolitan areas model, Boston model, Chicago model, Columbus model, and Detroit model considering 14 independent variables. The nine models were calibrated and evaluated to include the statistically significant variables having the expected logical sign and acceptable values for t-statistic and multicollinearity. The adjusted R2 values vary between 0.62 and 0.91, where Boston, Chicago, Columbus, and Detroit models are statistically better than other models. The results indicate that the policies that can be adopted to reduce carbon emissions vary among the models.

Uncovering the gray zone: mapping the global landscape of direct-to-consumer businesses offering interventions based on secretomes, extracellular vesicles, and exosomes.

BACKGROUND: The last decade has seen a significant increase in media attention, industrial growth, and patient interest in stem cell-based interventions. This led to a rise in direct-to-consumer businesses offering stem cell "therapies" for multiple indications with little evidence of safety and efficacy. In parallel, the use of stem cell secretomes as a substitute for stem cell transplantation has become an increasing trend in regenerative medicine with multiple clinical trials currently assessing their efficacy and safety profile. As a result, multiple businesses and private clinics have now started to exploit this situation and are offering secretome-based interventions despite the lack of supporting data. This poses significant risks for the patients and could lead to a credibility crisis in the field. METHODS: Internet searches were used to locate clinics marketing and selling interventions based on stem cell secretomes, exosomes, or extracellular vesicles. Data were extracted from websites with a particular focus on the global distribution of the businesses, the cellular source of the secretome, the indication spectrum, and the pricing of the provided services. Lastly, the types of evidence used on the websites of the businesses to market their services were extracted. RESULTS: Overall, 114 companies market secretome-based therapies in 28 countries. The vast majority of the interventions are based on allogenic stem cells from undisclosed cellular sources and skin care is the most marketed indication. The price range is USD99-20,000 depending on the indication. CONCLUSIONS: The direct-to-consumer industry for secretome-based therapies appears to be primed for growth in the absence of appropriate regulatory frameworks and guidelines. We conclude that such business activity requires tight regulations and monitoring by the respective national regulatory bodies to prevent patients from being conned and more importantly from being put at risk.

Perpetuating Victimization with Efforts to Reduce Human Trafficking: a Call to Action for Massage Therapist Protection.

Human trafficking guised as massage therapy businesses is a highly successful business model that creates independent but related victims beyond the women and girls forced into sex work. Massage clinicians and the massage therapy profession are also negatively impacted by the trafficking massage business model with over 9,000 established illicit massage businesses marketing services alongside professional therapeutic massage businesses. Credential regulation efforts advocated for by various massage-related professional organizations and regulating agencies have fallen short in their purported intentions to protect massage therapists and trafficking victims. Massage industry advocates continue endorsing massage therapy as a branch of health care although health-care workers are not generally considered or treated as sex workers. Sexual harassment research in direct patient care disciplines, such as physical therapy and nursing, points to a high patient initiated incident rate and transdisciplinary, detrimental mental health outcomes for clinicians. Reporting and debriefing instances of sexual harassment inside of health-care organizations, covered by The Civil Rights Act of 1964, promotes a victim-centered perspective to support the well-being of past, current, and pending victims. The massage therapy workforce is comprised of mainly female sole proprietors, creating a double vulnerability in their potential to experience sexual harassment. This threat is compounded by little-to-no protective or supporting systems or networks for massage clinicians. The priorities of professional massage organizations to depend on credentialing and licensing as their primary efforts to fight human trafficking, seems more to perpetuate the current system/expectations, leaving individual massage therapists responsible for fighting or reeducation deviant sexualized behaviors. This critical commentary closes with a call to action aimed at professional massage organizations, regulators, and corporations to protect massage therapists through a unified position, supported in word, policy, and action, against sexual harassment, and unequivocally condemns professional massage devaluation and sexualization in all forms.

The impact of bank's engagement in shadow banking activities on bank's sustainability: Evidence from Chinese commercial banks.

The economic and environmental consequences of bad banking practices have aroused much attention. In China, banks are at the center of shadow banking activities through which they avoid regulation and support environmentally unfriendly businesses such as fossil fuel companies and other high-pollution enterprises. In this paper, we study the impact of bank's engagement in shadow banking activities on its sustainability by using annual panel data of Chinese commercial banks. The result shows that bank's engagement in shadow banking activities has a negative impact on its sustainability and the negative impact of bank's engagement in shadow banking activities is more pronounced for city commercial banks and unlisted banks which are less regulated and lack corporate social responsibility (CSR). Furthermore, we explore the underlying mechanism of our findings and prove that bank's sustainability is impeded because it transforms high-risk loan into shadow banking activities which are less regulated. Finally, by using difference-in-difference (DiD) approach, we find that bank's sustainability improved after the financial regulation on shadow banking activities. Our research provides empirical evidence that the financial regulation on bad banking practices is beneficial for bank's sustainability.

How Does Sustainable Leadership Affect Environmental Innovation Strategy Adoption? The Mediating Role of Environmental Identity.

This paper uses social identity theory to develop an environmental identity theory and interpret why sustainable leadership can influence environmental identity, which in turn, results in environmental innovation strategy (EIS) adoption. Data were collected from 90 samples of technology manufacturing firms in Taiwan, and a latent growth curve model was employed to analyze the longitudinal data. The research results confirm all hypotheses. Mediating analysis also supports the environmental identity as a mediating role between sustainable leadership and EIS. Indeed, past studies have not explored the mechanism studied in this paper, a novel mechanism which can not only advance the literature on sustainable development but also help companies to realize sustainable development through environmental innovation strategy adoption.

Income inequality, social cohesion, and crime against businesses: Evidence from a global sample of firms.

Rising inequality is one of the grand societal challenges of our time. Yet, its effects on firms - including multinational enterprises (MNEs) - and their operations have not been widely examined by IB scholars. In this study, we posit that income inequality within a country is positively associated with the incidence and severity of crime experienced by businesses. Further, we propose that this relationship will be negatively moderated by social cohesion (in the form of greater societal trust and lower ethno-linguistic fractionalization) in these countries, such that social cohesion helps to offset the negative impacts of inequality on crime against businesses. We test these hypotheses using a comprehensive data set of 114,000 firms from 122 countries and find consistent support for our theses. Our findings, which are robust to different alternative variables, model specifications, instrumentation, and estimation techniques, unpack the intricate ways through which inequality affects businesses worldwide and the associated challenges to MNEs. They also offer important managerial and policy insights regarding the consequences of inequality and potential mitigation mechanisms. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1057/s41267-022-00535-5.

L'inégalité croissante est l'un des grands défis sociétaux de notre époque. Pourtant, ses impacts sur les entreprises - y compris les entreprises multinationales - et leurs activités n'ont pas été largement examinés par les chercheurs en affaires internationales. Dans cette recherche, nous postulons que l'inégalité des revenus dans un pays est positivement associée à l'incidence et à la gravité de la criminalité subies par les entreprises. De plus, nous proposons que cette relation soit négativement modérée par la cohésion sociale dans ces pays (sous la forme d'une plus grande confiance sociétale et d'une plus faible fragmentation ethnolinguistique), dans la mesure où la cohésion sociale aide à compenser les impacts négatifs de l'inégalité sur la criminalité contre les entreprises. Nous testons ces hypothèses sur un ensemble complet de données de 114000 entreprises issues de 122 pays et trouvons des appuis cohérents à nos thèses. Nos résultats, robustes aux différentes variables alternatives, spécifications du modèle, techniques d'estimation et à l'instrumentation, dévoilent les manières complexes par lesquelles l'inégalité influe sur les entreprises dans le monde entier ainsi que sur les défis associés aux entreprises multinationales. Ils apportent également d'importants renseignements managérial et politique liés aux conséquences de l'inégalité et aux mécanismes d'atténuation potentiels.

El aumento de la desigualdad es uno de los grandes desafíos sociales de nuestro tiempo. Con todo, sus efectos en las empresas, incluyendo las empresas multinacionales, y sus operaciones no han sido ampliamente examinado por académicos de Negocios Internacionales. En este estudio, planteamos que la desigualdad en un país está asociada positivamente con la incidencia y gravedad de la delincuencia que experimentan las empresas. Aún más, proponemos que esta relación será moderada negativamente por la cohesión social (en forma de mayor confianza social y menor fraccionamiento etnolingüístico) en estos países, para que la cohesión social ayuda a compensar los impactos negativos de la desigualdad en la delincuencia contra las empresas. Probamos estas hipótesis utilizando un exhaustivo conjunto de datos de 114.000 empresas de 122 países y encontramos un apoyo consistente a nuestras tesis. Nuestros hallazgos, que son robustos a diferentes variables alternativas, especificaciones del modelo, instrumentación y técnicas de estimación, desentrañan las maneras intrincadas en que la desigualdad afecta a las empresas de todo el mundo y los desafíos asociados a las empresas multinacionales. También ofrecen importantes perspectivas para la gerencia y política en relación con las consecuencias de la desigualdad y los posibles mecanismos de mitigación.

O aumento da desigualdade é um dos grandes desafios sociais do nosso tempo. No entanto, seus efeitos sobre empresas ­ incluindo empresas multinacionais (MNEs) ­ e suas operações não foram amplamente examinados por acadêmicos de IB. Neste estudo, postulamos que a desigualdade de renda dentro de um país é positivamente associada à incidência e gravidade de crimes vivenciados por empresas. Além disso, propomos que essa relação seja negativamente moderada pela coesão social (na forma de maior confiança social e menor fracionamento etnolinguístico) nesses países, de modo que a coesão social ajude a compensar os impactos negativos da desigualdade em crimes contra empresas. Testamos essas hipóteses usando um conjunto de dados abrangente de 114.000 empresas de 122 países e encontramos consistente suporte para nossas teses. Nossos achados, robustos a diferentes variáveis alternativas, especificações de modelo, instrumentação e técnicas de estimação, desvendam as formas intrincadas pelas quais a desigualdade afeta negócios em todo o mundo e os desafios associados a MNEs. Eles também oferecem importantes insights gerenciais e de políticas no que tange às consequências da desigualdade bem como potenciais mecanismos mitigantes.

What a mix! Volatile organic compounds and worker exposure in small business beauty salons in Tucson, Arizona.

Introduction: Small business beauty salons have volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in their workplace air. VOCs are present as ingredients in beauty or hair products. They may also form because of chemical reactions, where thermal-styling elements accelerate the volatilization of these compounds. Uncertainties remain about the relationship between air pollutant concentrations and the variety of beauty salon activities in a work shift. Investigating these associations can help determine high-risk services, associated products, and at-risk workers. Methods: In this exploratory study, female community health workers recruited beauty salons from target zip codes in predominately Latino neighborhoods, including primarily Spanish-speaking small businesses. We collected salon chemical inventories, business characteristics, and participant activity logs to understand how chemicals and activities influence the total and specific VOC concentrations. We sampled personal total VOCs and specific VOCs from the same shop during the participant work shift. We also measured personal total VOCs for four work shifts per shop. Results: A linear mixed effects model of log VOCs on the fixed effect of activity and the random effects of salon and shift within the salon showed that the variance between salons explains over half (55%) of the total variance and is 4.1 times bigger than for shifts within salons. Summa canisters detected 31 specific VOCs, and hazard scores ranged between 0 and 4.3. 2-Propanol (isopropyl alcohol) was the only VOC detected in all shifts of all salons. Discussion: In this study, differences in VOC measurements were primarily between salons. These differences may result from differences in ventilation, services rendered, and product lines applied.

Factors in the disaster mitigation process for micro and small culinary enterprises in Indonesia.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has predisposed most business activities, including the culinary business. The higher the vulnerability rating of a business, the more significant the risk. This study aims to analyse the vulnerability of businesses based on the dimensions of exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity to determine priority factors in disaster risk mitigation in order to maintain business continuity. This research was conducted in Surakarta City, Central Java province, Indonesia. The sample was selected using purposive random sampling based on business experience of at least two years, and were not hawkers. Data collection was carried out through structured interviews. This study utilised a qualitative approach using an index. The vulnerability model was developed to assess the vulnerability of culinary businesses to COVID-19. COVID-19 is a threat in the health industry from the macro external environment of business. It is considered the exposure dimension. The sensitivity dimension consists of business characteristics, business owner-manager demographics, and product and supplier characteristics. The demographic dimension of the business owner-manager has high vulnerability and has a high contribution to the sensitivity variable as the most vulnerable variable. The adaptive capacity dimension consists of human capital, economic capital, institutional capital, managerial capital, and supply chain capital. Managerial competencies are an adaptive capacity dimension that has a high vulnerability. The vulnerability of business to the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic is a model for culinary business managers and owners in determining priority factors in disaster risk mitigation in order to maintain business continuity. Contribution: This study analysed the vulnerability of culinary businesses for micro and small businesses. Low vulnerability means high resilience. Business resilience is conceptualised as a production function that is predisposed by various combinations of inputs from exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity variables.

COVID-19 Pandemic and Local Cultural Tourism in the Buzau Carpathians and Subcarpathians (Romania).

The COVID-19 pandemic was and continues to be a major challenge for tourist activities worldwide. Cultural tourism was mostly hit because of the social distancing measures, travel restrictions and ban on people gatherings for cultural events. The current study is trying to provide an overall image of the challenges local cultural tourism has faced during the COVID-19 pandemic in a predominantly rural area of Romania-the Buzau Carpathians and Subcarpathians. The area has a high tourist potential stemming from the complexity and diversity of the natural landscapes and the local historical setting. The survey relies on two field campaigns carried out in 2020 when 161 questionnaires were applied to tourists, businesses and residents. The results highlight the significant impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on small businesses during and after the travel restrictions (e.g., revenue losses, temporary business shut-downs and layoffs/technical unemployment), but also on tourists' travelling preferences and sentiment and on residents' attitudes and behaviour.

Capacidad de innovación y su influencia en el nivel de innovación de micro y pequeñas empresas exportadoras de artesanía textil del sur de perú

La innovación es uno de los pilares más importantes para la competitividad sostenible, especialmente en la micro y pequeñas empresas que actúan en un contexto dinámico y complejo en el que vivimos. En este contexto, el objetivo del estudio fue determinar la influencia de las capacidades de innovación humana, organizacional y técnica en el nivel de innovación. Para ello, se desarrolló un modelo econométrico de regresión lineal múltiple. El procedimiento muestral fue probabilístico estratificado de 26 micro y pequeñas empresas exportadoras de artesanía textil del sur de Perú, a las que se les suministró un cuestionario de 52 ítems. Los resultados reflejan que la capacidad de innovación humana, organizacional y técnica influyen con un coeficiente de determinación del 96.7 %, positiva y significativamente en el nivel de innovación. En conclusión, la capacidad de innovación humana influye en mayor medida en la variabilidad del nivel de innovación, debido a la creatividad, la motivación y el conocimiento de las personas para innovar.

Innovation is one of the most important pillars for sustainable competitiveness, especially in micro and small companies that operate in a dynamic and complex context. In this context, the objective of the study was to determine the influence of human, organizational, and technical innovation capacities on the level of innovation. For this, an economic model of multiple linear regression was developed. The sampling procedure was a stratified probabilistic sample of 26 micro and small exporting textile crafts enterprises from the South area of Peru, which answered a questionnaire of 52 items. The results reflect that the capacity for human, organizational, and technical innovation influence with a coefficient of determination of 96.7%, positive and significant in the level of innovation. In conclusion, human innovation capacity has a greater influence on the variability of the level of innovation, due to the creativity, motivation, and knowledge of people.

Immobility and mobility practices in pandemic: Daily experiences of inhabitants of Temuco (Chile) / Prácticas de inmovilidad y movilidad en pandemia: experiencias cotidianas de habitantes de temuco (chile)

RESUMEN Durante el último tiempo, las ciudades de Chile han sido afectadas por las restricciones de movilidad impuestas por las autoridades con el objetivo de frenar el avance de la COVID-19. Considerando esta problemática, el artículo se enfoca en la percepción de habitantes de Temuco, como una de las primeras ciudades del país en afrontar la cuarentena total, respecto a las transformaciones experimentadas a partir de las medidas políticas de limitación de movilidad. Mediante un diseño metodológico cualitativo se analizó la percepción de algunos habitantes en relación con los cambios generados en sus rutinas cotidianas producto de la emergencia de inmovilidades, lo cual se relaciona directamente con la comprensión de la movilidad como una práctica central de las ciudades contemporáneas. Entre los hallazgos destaca la inmovilidad como una categoría que implica diversas encrucijadas cotidianas en las personas, el papel de la movilidad como categoría central para el desarrollo de la vida social, las transformaciones en los hábitos diarios de las personas y, por último, la necesidad de reflexionar el derecho a la movilidad de las personas desde los territorios.

ABSTRACT Innovation is one of the most important pillars for sustainable competitiveness, especially in micro and small companies that operate in a dynamic and complex context. In this context, the objective of the study was to determine the influence of human, organizational, and technical innovation capacities on the level of innovation. For this, an economic model of multiple linear regression was developed. The sampling procedure was a stratified probabilistic sample of 26 micro and small exporting textile crafts enterprises from the South area of Peru, which answered a questionnaire of 52 items. The results reflect that the capacity for human, organizational, and technical innovation influence with a coefficient of determination of 96.7%, positive and significant in the level of innovation. In conclusion, human innovation capacity has a greater influence on the variability of the level of innovation, due to the creativity, motivation, and knowledge of people.

Impact of COVID-19 on the wellbeing of micro and small entrepreneurs of rural Pakistan.

According to the constitution of Pakistan, the state is responsible for the provision of necessities of life to its citizens whenever their livelihood is permanently or temporarily threatened. COVID-19 and its associated lockdowns were a series of events where amenities of life around the world were seriously endangered. Especially, hard hit were the small- and medium-sized entrepreneurs (SMEs) of rural Pakistan. To quantitatively assess the social and economic impact of COVID-19, we interviewed the local microenterprise owners in rural Pakistan from January to February 2021 and then June 2021. Mean comparison tests were estimated for pre- and post-COVID-19 periods. Results reveal that the COVID-19 pandemic has significantly and negatively affected wellbeing of micro and small entrepreneurs in the regions as the income of most of the sampled entrepreneurs significantly decreased during the pandemic. Disaggregated consumption analysis however revealed that nominal consumption of food, clothing, energy, health, and education all increased, except for communication, during the pandemic. Furthermore, the regression analysis revealed that changes in income, occupation, borrowing during COVID-19, and family type of the respondents were significant factors in mitigating the effects of COVID-19. Based on the findings, policy recommendations are also spelled out in the last section.