From the Global Risk Society to the Vulnerable Society Towards a Sociological Analysis of the Covid-19 Pandemic?

The article sought to interpret the COVID-19 pandemic through the generalization of social vulnerability, converted into a sociological concept, as it was considered as a social fact caused by the crisis of the labor society, whose basis was the management of risks and dangers, through state welfare institutions, which later, in the neoliberal economic model, it was individualized, diluting the state responsibility to attend to the dangers derived from the pandemic, exercising only its function of surveillance and control over individuals on the part of a neoliberal State, which ceased to consider them as citizens, defined by rights, which were protected with the existence of the welfare state.

Impacts and adaptive strategies of the hotel sector amid the COVID-19 pandemic: A case study of the hotel sector in the Siem Reap province

Purpose: The COVID-19 pandemic had a huge negative impact on the world's hotel industry from the beginning of 2020. As a result of the pandemic, the majority of hotels around the world have decided to close temporarily. It examines the challenges faced by hotel managers and the strategies used to survive. Design: This research can motivate hotel companies around the world to better understand pandemic situations and develop effective anti-pandemic policies. Based on online in-depth interviews with 25 hotel managers, the findings shed light on the various challenges to hotels. Findings: Findings have shown that the hotel industry has been able to adapt their business for the short term with post-COVID-19 strategies still having limitations. To survive the duration of the pandemic hotels have adopted strategies: reducing employees, promotions and discounts and changing the market segment, as well as levels of maintenance of hygiene and cleanliness. The hotel industry can implement opportunities toward change through government support, crisis management, cooperation with travel agencies and technology. Research Implications: The current research is to determine the impact of COVID-19 and the adaptive strategies on the hotel sector in the Siem Reap province by the following objectives: (1) To analyse the impacts of COVID-19 in the hotel sector, (2) To identify adaptive strategies in dealing with COVID-19 in the hotel sector and (3) To explore post-COVID-19 strategies of the hotel sector after the COVID-19 pandemic. A qualitative method was employed in the research online and in-depth interviews were conducted with the owner and general manager. Originality-Value: The study suggests that hotels focus more on survival strategies for the short term, so the topic for future research could be to investigate details of strategies after the COVID-19 pandemic in order to research what the hotels' strategic solutions will be and how they will manage the operation after the COVID-19 pandemic for long-term strategies. © 2022 Sotheara Kham and Sochea Nhem.

Capital flows to emerging economies and global risk aversion during the COVID-19 pandemic

This paper analyses recent changes in the relative importance of the determinants of capital flows to emerging market economies. For this purpose, we estimate vector autoregressive (VAR) models for the period 2009–2021. Based on these models, we estimate the effects on debt flows from shocks to their determinants. Then, we quantify the contribution of each of the variables included in the model to explain the evolution of these flows in each month of the sample through a historical decomposition analysis. The main results indicate that the contribution of global risk aversion to explain the evolution of debt flows increased during March 2020 compared to the past, although its relative importance has decreased since, particularly as central banks in systemically important economies restored liquidity and the performance of financial markets improved. © 2023 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

The International Decarbonization Regime as a Tool for Implementing Risk Society Values

"The coronavirus pandemic has actualised the ""Global Risk Society"" concept. The purpose of this article is to examine the emergence of an international decarbonisation regime in terms of the values of the ""global risk society"" as updated by the coronavirus pandemic. Under the conditions of ""new normality"", new values that determine the sociopolitical development of society are taking shape. Relying on the ""Global Risk Society"" theory, the authors derive its emerging values, the emergence of which is associated with the pandemic and its socio-economic effects. Thus, new values include the abandonment of faith in progress and a focus on crisis management (resilience), global solidarity as a key condition for survival, the search for a balance between freedom and security, effective response and regulation, ""open innovation"" as part of the ""global commons"", rethinking of the value of consumption, and finally, the value of the climate agenda as a global green imperative comes to the fore. These values are of importance for a global climate agenda as well, which has become more acute during the pandemic. A key actor here is the European Union, which, through its policy of normative power and environmental ethics, is shaping a new international decarbonisation regime as an instrument for realising these values. And this ""new ethic"" has no national boundaries. Such international regime aims to create a regulatory framework for responding to climate risks that has the potential to profoundly affect global development and lead to a fundamentally new international climate order."

Memories of the Future. Ulrich Beck, Risk and Prevention: The Difference that Defeats Indifference

The aim of this contribution is to demonstrate the relevance of Ulrich Beck’s thought with regards to the interpretation of complex phenomena such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine. In this perspective, the social function of his thought on risk as a way to think about the future and as a strategy for the anticipation of emerging global problems is explored. The reflection on risk as an intrinsic dimension of contemporary societies is associated with the call for the development of a collective and individual future more attentive to the cultivation of empathy, solidarity and a new humanism as a dimension of the solidity of a society © 2022, Italian Sociological Review.All Rights Reserved.

Subcontracting sterile pediatric and adult chemotherapy preparations activity: A global risk analysis.

Objective: The main purpose of this study was to carry out a global risk analysis (GRA) on the subcontracting circuit to determine and evaluate the risks linked to the future subcontracting process and to propose corrective actions for the most critical risks to ensure safety. This study must allow to conclude in an objective way to the feasibility or not of this project. Methods: A GRA was performed, conducted by a multidisciplinary working group that met in 20 meetings, corresponding to about 50 h of work. Results: We identified 92 scenarios: 13% of scenarios had an initial criticality C1, 40% C2, and 47% C3. The GRA shows that the riskiest scenarios concern the management, material, and equipment with IT system and logistics with transport. The working group identified 25 corrective actions. After implementing those actions, 85% of scenarios had residual criticality C1, 8.5% C2, and 6.5% had residual criticality C3. The working group chose that it was impossible to subcontract part of the activity. Conclusion: The GRA conducted in this study highlighted the risks related to outsourcing this activity, evaluated and prioritized them, and recommended corrective actions. Therefore, we conclude that subcontracting the totality of sterile preparations would be harmful to patient care quality and reactivity for vital medical emergencies, such as macrophage activation syndrome, preparation of clinical trials, graft rejection therapies, preparation of very short stability chemotherapy, and the pediatric graft conditioning chemotherapy.

Dependence Structures between Sovereign Credit Default Swaps and Global Risk Factors in BRICS Countries

This study investigates the tail dependence structures of sovereign credit default swaps (CDSs) and three global risk factors in BRICS countries using a copula approach, which is popular for capturing the “true” tail dependence based on the “distribution-adjusted” joint marginals. The empirical results show that global market risk sentiment comoves with sovereign CDS spreads across BRICS countries under extreme market events such as the pandemic-induced crash of 2020, with Brazil reporting the highest bilateral convergence followed by China, Russia, and South Africa. Furthermore, oil price volatility is the second biggest risk factor correlated with CDS spreads for Brazil and South Africa, while exchange rate risk exhibits very low co-dependence with CDS spreads during extreme market downturns. On the contrary, exchange rate risk is the second largest risk factor co-moving with China and Russia’s CDS spreads, while oil price volatility exhibits the lowest co-dependence with CDS in these countries. Between oil price and currency risk, evidence of single risk factor dominance is found for Russia, where exchange rate risk is largely dominant, and policymakers could promulgate financial sector regulations that mitigate spill-over risks such as targeted capital controls when markets are distressed.

The SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic as a Global Risk: Inequality and Human Insecurity

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has questioned the dominant international security strategies, and also highlighted the immense contradictions in our global way of life. From a human security perspective, this investigation analyses the pandemic as a risk and threat to social life on a global scale. The conceptual categories of human security and global risk are used to understand the inequalities, structural violence and vulnerabilities that accompany the health emergency and make it a total social crisis. Some of the main risk trends that the pandemic represents are quantitatively and qualitatively analyzed. It is proposed that the global pandemic is leading to the suppression of the loopholes of security and certainty provided by modernity, whose contradictions have led us to suffer the most important planetary catastrophe in recent history. Likewise, the pandemic has shown that the strategies anchored to traditional security are not the most appropriate to face the consequences that the current health crisis will have. Therefore, to respond to these risks and threats, it is essential to develop new perspectives on security.

Quantifying the asymmetric spillovers in sustainable investments

Owing to the growing importance of socially responsible investments in the wake of climate change mitigation goals, we estimate the asymmetric time- and frequency-spillovers between global sustainable investments. Additionally, we examine the influence of global risk factors such as US and UK economic policy uncertainties, stock market volatility, US treasury market volatility and infectious diseases related market volatility on the short- and long-run connectedness in these investments. To this end, we use daily returns and volatilities of 14 country-level Dow Jones Sustainability indices from January 2005 to March 2021. By employing the asymmetric versions of Diebold & Yilmaz (2012, 2014) and Barunik & Krehlik (2018) time-frequency connectedness, our study addresses both good and bad contagion among sustainable investments is unexplored in the recent literature. The results reveal significant time-frequency asymmetries in return spillovers across different regions in the short- and long-run. Germany, France, Netherlands, and the UK are the primary transmitters of returns and volatility shocks. We find more intra-regional connectedness among the Asian countries as opposed to inter-regional connectedness. Negative returns propagate more intensely than positive ones, and this contagion is considerably boosted during crises, including the COVID19. The VIX and COVID19 remain influential for financial contagion in the long run. The impact of MOVE is positive in the short-run while negative in the long-run, which shows an overreaction of connectedness to the US treasury market volatility in the short-run. Economic policy uncertainties in the US and the UK increase spillovers more intensely in the short-run. These results are robust to using volatility spillovers, the choice of rolling window and various forecast horizons. Our findings are distinctly important for socially responsible investors as we point out international portfolio diversification opportunities among sustainable investments. Understanding the dynamics of connectedness in sustainable investments can potentially boost financing in this market through portfolio choices and contribute to the climate change mitigation agenda of United Nations.

Impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on the US equity sectors: Evidence from quantile return spillovers.

The aim of this study is to examine the extreme return spillovers among the US stock market sectors in the light of the COVID-19 outbreak. To this end, we extend the now-traditional Diebold-Yilmaz spillover index to the quantiles domain by building networks of generalized forecast error variance decomposition of a quantile vector autoregressive model specifically for extreme returns. Notably, we control for common movements by using the overall stock market index as a common factor for all sectors and uncover the effect of the COVID-19 outbreak on the dynamics of the network. The results show that the network structure and spillovers differ considerably with respect to the market state. During stable times, the network shows a nice sectoral clustering structure which, however, changes dramatically for both adverse and beneficial market conditions constituting a highly connected network structure. The pandemic period itself shows an interesting restructuring of the network as the dominant clusters become more tightly connected while the rest of the network remains well separated. The sectoral topology thus has not collapsed into a unified market during the pandemic.

The COVID-19 shock and long-term interest rates in emerging market economies.

Motivated by a divergent behavior of long-term sovereign bond yields across emerging market economies in the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, we employ the Bayesian model averaging to uncover the country-specific factors that explain those differences. The most pronounced determinants of a country's vulnerability to the COVID-19 shock were: (a) low GDP dynamics and (b) high sensitivity of bond yields to VIX in the period preceding the pandemic. Our results speak to the role of growth fundamentals in building-up the exposure to crises in emerging markets. They also signify a persistent differentiation of emerging economies by international investors.

Globalization and global risk: How risk analysis needs to be enhanced to be effective in confronting current threats.

In the last 20-30 years, technological innovation has enabled the advancement of industry at a global scale, giving rise to a truly global society, resting on an interdependent web of transnational technical, economic and social systems. These systems are exposed to scenarios of cascading outbreaks, whose impacts can ripple to very large scales through their strong interdependencies, as recently shown by the pandemic spreading of the Coronavirus. Considerable work has been conducted in recent years to develop frameworks to support the assessment, communication, management and governance of this type of risk, building on concepts like systemic risks, complexity theory, deep uncertainties, resilience engineering, adaptive management and black swans. Yet contemporary risk analysis struggles to provide authoritative societal guidance for adequately handling these types of risks, as clearly illustrated by the Coronavirus case. In this paper, we reflect on this situation. We aim to identify critical challenges in current frameworks of risk assessment and management and point to ways to strengthen these, to be better able to confront threats like the Coronavirus in the future. A set of principles and theses are established, which have the potential to support a common foundation for the many different scientific perspectives and 'schools' currently dealing with risk handling issues.