Guest editorial: Innovative practices in business, trade and commerce – challenges and opportunities

[...]the sixth track was on "Interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary innovations” to provide a holistic understanding of the challenges and opportunities in implementing innovative business practices (Sole, 2021). Special issue – track-wise papers Track I – innovations in financial practices Under this track many topics have been discussed, which include the impact of Covid-19 on the role of rural financial institutions in India, changing attitude towards digital payment system, Fintech, LIC IPO, perception of retail investors about cryptocurrency and the stock market and GST among others. (2023) addresses the growing research on cryptocurrency, which continue to draw significant interest from both investors and researchers despite being banned in many countries due to their perceived adverse impacts on the economy and financial system (Sousa et al., 2022). have discussed these issues in the paper titled, "Crypto-hesitancy: is regulation the answer?” with the objectives to explore and address the possible reasons for the hesitancy in accepting cryptocurrency as an asset class by the various countries governments and central banks in the World. The study found that the government of developed and developing nations and central banks hesitate to regulate and accept cryptocurrency due to various reasons, like no government control and no central bank involvement in the management of cryptocurrency.

Guest editorial: Emerging digital technologies and professional services: current and future research agenda

[...]Pemer (2021) shows that frontline workers in knowledge-intensive professional services are influenced by the fit between technological innovations and type of intelligence their services are built on coupled with their occupational identities and the service climate in their organizations. [...]the indiscriminate adoption of emerging digital technologies by professional services providers may restrict their ability to standardize complex recurring tasks while continuing to offer customized services to address the unique needs of their diverse customer base. [...]we received 23 submissions out of which 15 were rejected due to either a lack of fit with the theme of this special issue or an unclear or poor contribution. Based on their approaches and contributions, we have classified these eight papers into three broad themes, namely (1) Diverse theoretical perspectives, including strategic agility perspective (Liu et al., 2023), theory of resources and capabilities (Marino-Romero et al., 2023) and a multidisciplinary perspective (Panda et al., 2023);(2) Challenges in digitalization process, for professional legal firms (Kronblad et al., 2023) and small professional services firms (Cardinali et al., 2023) and (3) Practical applications of digitalization: the role of transformational leadership and technology-mediated knowledge sharing (TMKS) (Nguyen, 2023), AI usage in CXO decision-making (Kondapaka et al., 2023) and the use of computerized text analysis to predict customers' evaluation of their service experience (Ferreira et al., 2023). [...]the third paper under this theme by Panda et al.

An immunodominant NP105-113-B*07:02 cytotoxic T cell response controls viral replication and is associated with less severe COVID-19 disease.

NP105-113-B*07:02-specific CD8+ T cell responses are considered among the most dominant in SARS-CoV-2-infected individuals. We found strong association of this response with mild disease. Analysis of NP105-113-B*07:02-specific T cell clones and single-cell sequencing were performed concurrently, with functional avidity and antiviral efficacy assessed using an in vitro SARS-CoV-2 infection system, and were correlated with T cell receptor usage, transcriptome signature and disease severity (acute n = 77, convalescent n = 52). We demonstrated a beneficial association of NP105-113-B*07:02-specific T cells in COVID-19 disease progression, linked with expansion of T cell precursors, high functional avidity and antiviral effector function. Broad immune memory pools were narrowed postinfection but NP105-113-B*07:02-specific T cells were maintained 6 months after infection with preserved antiviral efficacy to the SARS-CoV-2 Victoria strain, as well as Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta variants. Our data show that NP105-113-B*07:02-specific T cell responses associate with mild disease and high antiviral efficacy, pointing to inclusion for future vaccine design.

Managing uncertainty during a global pandemic: An international business perspective.

Despite the perennial need to understand and manage uncertainty in international business, there is no comprehensive framework that incorporates different types of uncertainty, their antecedents and outcomes, and the different coping strategies used by managers and their outcomes. This makes it difficult for international business managers to understand the types of uncertainty in their businesses and develop appropriate strategies to deal with it effectively, especially during times such as the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. This paper uses an extensive review of the international business literature to address the above research gap by identifying the different types of uncertainty, their antecedents and outcomes, the coping strategies used to mitigate their impact, and the consequences of these actions. The authors also use examples from the current Covid-19 crisis to assess the firms' responses and their consequences. The paper concludes with some implications for international business managers and directions for future research.

Gender equity and public health outcomes: The COVID-19 experience.

This paper extends the growing research on the impact of gender equity on public health outcomes using the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic as its research setting. Specifically, it introduces a conceptual model incorporating the impact of gender equity and human development on women's representation in legislature and public health expenditure, and their combined impact with human environment (population density, aging population and urban population) on important public health outcomes in the Covid-19 context, including the total number of tests, diagnosed, active and critical cases, and deaths. Data from 210 countries shows support for many of the hypothesized relationships in the conceptual model. The results provide useful insights about the factors that influence the representation of women in political systems around the world and its impact on public health outcomes. The authors also discuss implications for public health policy-makers to ensure efficient and effective delivery of public health services in future.