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The rapid pace of technological developments played a key role in the previous industrial revolutions. However, the fourth industrial revolution (Industry 4.0) and its embedded technology diffusion progress is expected to grow exponentially in terms of technical change and socioeconomic impact. Therefore, coping with such transformation require a holistic approach that encompasses innovative and sustainable system solutions and not just technological ones. In this article, we propose a framework that can facilitate the interaction between technological and social innovation to continuously come up with proactive, and hence timely, sustainable strategies. These strategies can leverage economic rewards, enrich society at large, and protect the environment. The new forthcoming opportunities that will be generated through the next industrial wave are gigantic at all levels. However, the readiness for such revolutionary conversion require coupling the forces of technological innovation and social innovation under the sustainability umbrella.

PurposeThis paper focuses on social innovation dynamics in extreme contexts where institutional volatility is deeply rooted and enduring. In other words, the authors focus their discussion on the challenges that social innovators are facing in their endeavor of solving wicked social problems within an extreme institutional environment. This research is guided by the following question: How does an extreme institutional environment influence social innovation processes?Design/methodology/approachThis qualitative research builds on the unique case of the Palestinian non-governmental organization (NGO) sector, a rarely studied context in organizational studies. The authors combine archival sources with 24 semi-structured interviews with Palestinian NGOs.FindingsThe authors theorize three barriers that hinder social innovation in such contexts: institutional trap, effectiveness trap and sustainability trap. The authors also theorize five mechanisms through which these barriers influence each other dynamically: mingling, surviving, undermining, binding and reinforcing. Taken together, these barriers and mechanisms shed light on social innovation processes taking place within extreme institutional environments.Research limitations/implicationsThe main limitation of this study is the methodological design, based on an extreme single case-study which, on a bunch of features, is quite unique in the world. The authors argue that the results are all the same transferable to other relatively similar contexts.Practical implicationsBy theorizing the institutional barriers to social innovation in an extreme institutional context, the research thus sheds light on how social innovation could be sustained and stimulated in Palestine and other contexts that face similar institutional challenges.Social implicationsFrom an engaged scholarship perspective, studying Palestine cannot be more relevant than today considering the turmoil in which Palestinians are. The research thus provides a deeper understanding of organizational and institutional dynamics with crucial social repercussions.Originality/valueThe social innovation literature has overemphasized success stories to the detriment of the struggles that hinder social innovations in extreme institutional environments. By focusing on the barriers that social innovators experience in these contexts, the authors provide novel empirical insight. Furthermore, this study enriches the understanding of the institutional dynamics of social innovations by proposing a process model that elucidates how an extreme institutional context can influence social innovations.

This study examines the gender gap in financial inclusion (FI) in Palestine, both traditional and digital, in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using nationally administered surveys from 2016 and 2022, this study applies Oaxaca-Blinder and intertemporal decomposition techniques to analyse changes in gender-based disparities in financial literacy and access to financial services over time. Despite overall improvements in FI indicators, results reveal a persistently high and widening gender gap, except in private insurance, where the gap has narrowed. The pandemic's socioeconomic fallout, compounded by intensifying Israeli restrictions and political instability, has exacerbated existing structural barriers, particularly affecting women's economic participation. In a patriarchal context marked by limited employment opportunities and widespread uncertainty, women face compounded challenges and vulnerability. However, the findings also indicate that the gap narrows with age, among women-majority households, and with improved access to digital technology, highlighting the potential of targeted digital and economic empowerment policies to reduce gender-based FI disparities.

This study attempts to examine the dynamic relationships between climate changes, agricultural sustainability and food-water poverty in a panel of MENA countries over the period 1990–2016. A panel co-integration, pooled least squares regression, pooled fixed effects, and pooled random effects models with the Hausman test for model specification are used to relate three proxies for food poverty and two proxies for water poverty to standard weather variables, agriculture productivity indicators, and environmental sustainability variables. The main results of regression analysis indicate that out of the three food poverty models, two food poverty regressions indicate the low agricultural productivity in low- and middle-income countries, while water poverty in terms of access to improved water is found to increase substantially agricultural value added (coefficient is more elastic, i.e. more than the unity). The results further show that high precipitation and temperature, often accompanied by high CO2 emissions, increase food poverty in terms of food deficit and prevalence of undernourishment, whilst having no significant effect on water poverty. The overall findings conclude that there is a substantial requirement to increase agricultural sustainability in low- and middle-income MENA countries without deteriorating environment and water reserves.

PurposeThis paper examines the level and structure of the wage inequality between nonrefugee and refugee workers in Palestine and the extent to which such wage gap reflects any marginalization and discrimination against refugees. It also investigates how the disparities in distribution to individual worker characteristics contribute to the wage inequality in Palestine.Design/methodology/approachThe authors use both Oaxaca and Blinder (OB) (Oaxaca, 1973 and Blinder, 1973) and Fortin et al. (2011) unconditional quantile decomposition approaches to measure the size of the wage gap along with the wage distribution and to decompose the wage differences into productivity (i.e. explained or the composition effects) and wage structure effects (i.e. unexplained or discrimination effects).FindingsResults indicate that most of the wage gap between refugees and nonrefugees is attributed to the wage structure effect (possibly explained by discrimination) against refugees in the Palestinian labor market. The wage gap between refugees and nonrefugees is not uniform throughout the wage distribution and supports the “sticky floor effect.”Practical implicationsThis work introduces important policy implications for the policymakers in the Palestinian labor market. It reveals the economic and social factors, individual worker characteristics as well as labor market characteristics contribute to the wage inequality in Palestine.Social implicationsThis research reveals a crucial social challenge in the Palestinian society, represented by the wage discrimination against refugees in Palestine. This is despite the denial of such discrimination from official bodies, local institutions and many other policymakers. It also captures gender inequality between men and women.Originality/valueThis is the first empirical work in Palestine that contends with a very sensitive issue in the Palestinian society, that is, the discrimination against refugees in the Palestinian labor market. Most of the existing studies have approached this issue from a humanitarian view in order to show the deterioration of social and economic situations in the refugee camps.

The article reviews the literature relevant to innovation in services, which has flourished since the 1990s. We discuss the definition of service and to what extent the characteristics of service output have influenced the conceptualization of innovation in services. Then, based on the literature review, we develop a conceptual framework for innovation in service sector, which classifies innovation in service sector into three main approaches: i) assimilation, where innovation in the service sector is assimilated from innovation in manufacturing sector; ii) demarcation, which differentiates innovation in service sector from the traditional conceptualization of innovation in manufacturing sector; and iii) synthesis, which aggregates both assimilation and demarcation approaches within a common conceptual framework. We discuss the relationship between innovation in services and economic performance using productivity and employment as two indicators of performance.

Morrar and Khalidi offer insights about the economic impact of the Coronavirus pandemic on the most vulnerable micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises. While for once Palestine is confronting a crisis common to all peoples and countries of the world, it is unique in having to do so as a non-sovereign state, under a prolonged Israeli military occupation that empowers a creeping settler-colonial enterprise. The governance record of the Palestinian Authority (PA) has been mixed, stunted by the inherent contradictions of the last decade's effort to fashion statehood under colonial rule and to build a national macro-economy while remaining structurally dependent upon the powerful Israeli economy. Its fledgling institutions are constrained by the limits of self-government arrangements, relentless Israeli settlement policies, and the (imposed) separation and (chosen) political division of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Technological public-private innovation networks, or TechPPINs, enable cooperation between public and private actors in a complex, dynamic, social, and interactive network structure. In this article, the literature on innovation networks is used to construct a conceptual framework that describes the structure and mechanism of interaction in technological public-private innovation networks. In the framework, innovation is created through a dynamic process of interaction between the public and private actors along the network lifecycle. In each stage of network lifecycle, social capital enables various interactions to occur and different modes and quantities of knowledge and technological resources to be exchanged and reinforced. Through a combination of the product lifecycle model and social network analysis, the structure of technological public-private innovation networks are examined at each stage of the lifecycle to reveal information about how the roles of public and private actors are embodied.

PurposeGlobal lockdowns and restrictions linked to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic have affected food environments and consumption patterns. Conflict-affected countries are disproportionately affected from economic and food security perspectives. In this regard, the Palestinian territories (namely West Bank and Gaza Strip), which face a number of issues such as Israeli military and economic control, overcrowded cities and refugee camps (especially in Gaza Strip), rising poverty and food insecurity, are an especially interesting case study. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the effects of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic on the selection and intake of foods and drinks, as well as consumer behavior and attitude toward food in the Palestinian territories.Design/methodology/approachThe paper draws upon an online survey in the Palestinian territories administered in Arabic through the Survey Monkey platform from September 15 to October 10, 2020, with 322 adults. The survey findings were analyzed using descriptive statistics and several nonparametric tests. Particularly, the U-Mann Whitney test was used in dichotomous, categorical independent variables (e.g. gender), while the Kruskal–Wallis test was run to analyze multi-choice responses (e.g. occupation).FindingsThe results reveal that food attitudes and consumer behavior towards food have been widely affected. First, they reveal that Palestinians try to have healthier diets but ate more between meals (e.g. snacks). Second, the pandemic transformed respondents' shopping behavior and induced panic buying, negatively affecting food affordability due to increased prices of some foods (e.g. fruits and vegetables). Some food behaviors were shaped by negative psychological determinants (e.g. depression and anxiety). The pandemic effects are moderated by different sociodemographics (age, education and income). COVID-19 negatively affected food security but also opened a “window of opportunity” to trigger the transition towards more sustainable diets.Originality/valueThe paper results show that the eventual effects of COVID-19 will most likely vary from country to country, based not only on the epidemiological circumstances but also, among other factors, on the baseline socioeconomic situation and shock resilience. The findings contribute to the clarification and critical analysis of the impacts of COVID-19 on food behaviors in the Palestinian territories, which would have several policy implications.