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The aim of this paper is to answer the question: What stimulates artisan entrepreneurs to act as responsible leaders?

A qualitative research method was employed and semi-structured interviews with 30 artisans working in four different artisanal activities were used to gather the data. Thematic analysis was subsequently applied to the interview transcripts.

The findings suggest that the main factors causing artisan entrepreneurs to act responsibly are as follows: autonomy (the authority artisans exercise in managing their businesses; preserving socio-cultural identity is an artisan’s main duty; proving an individual competency in implementing society-related priorities), competence (adhering to generally accepted business practices; simplicity of developing and maintaining the social agenda of artisan enterprises; meeting the clients’ desire in exercising a social awareness) and relatedness (returning social favours; necessitating involvement with different stakeholders; contributing to the common good).

This paper contributes by filling a gap in the literature on artisan entrepreneurship, responsible leadership and research in tourism and hospitality, in which empirical studies on the responsible practices of artisan entrepreneurs have been limited so far.

This paper aims to explore how female academics use cronyism to cope with the lack of emancipative support resulting from their intense teaching and research duties, poor representation at senior administrative levels and their exhausting familial commitments.

Qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted with 32 female academics working full-time at four public universities in Egypt.

The findings showed that the low action resources (considering their unreasonable teaching loads, research requirements and supervision engagements), emancipative values (the unfair representation of female academics at senior administrative levels) and civic entitlement (universities not serious about promoting gender equality) are perceived by female academics as a lack of empowerment that necessitates their adoption of cronyism as their main coping strategy. Moreover, in male-dominated societies, female academics who do not have the power to shape their work-related status tend to use undesirable behaviours such as cronyism to mitigate the negative consequences of the shocks they encounter.

This paper contributes by filling a gap in human resources management in which empirical studies on the relationship between cronyism, emancipation and career shocks have been limited so far.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how cronyism is employed by some married female faculty to secure workplace rights and privileges.

A qualitative research design is employed and interviews were conducted with 32 female academics working at four different universities.

The narrative demonstrates the gendered use of cronyism at work – pre-COVID-19, during which female academics had to work full-time and be present on school campuses, and after COVID-19 pandemic, when academic working conditions changed due to the lockdown of university campuses and the reliance on remote online protocols to fulfil academic duties. The paper shows an increased use of cronyism as a mechanism to reduce heavy workloads. This type of cronyism is known as the expectation of mutual favour cronyism, which means that benefits are exchanged between a female academic and the chair of her department and/or the school rector, but the interests of the university they work in are not taken into consideration.

Virtually, no research exists on the sociocultural determinants of nepotism that undermine the professional performance of female academics at work. The authors draw on social exchange theory and the norm of negative reciprocity to identify the conditions under which social capital is undermined. The results have important implications for theory, practice and future research.

This paper aims to explore the extent to which women’s entrepreneurship in conflict zones is an influential catalyst for liberalising traditionally conservative gender norms. This purpose is achieved by focussing on women entrepreneurs in Gaza and how they actively renegotiate their multiple gender roles and navigate the social order through entrepreneurship.

This paper adopts the interpretivist approach where individual in-depth interviews were conducted with 16 Palestinian women entrepreneurs operating in Gaza.

The findings demonstrate that the context of conflict itself and its impact on gender norms is a prime motivator for women to engage in entrepreneurial ventures. Some gender roles were constraining and other enabling women to initiate and sustain their ventures to contribute to their families’ well-being. In spite of the fact that the conflict context and entrepreneurship have contributed to enhancing the agency of women and their ability to navigate the conflict and its consequences, the gendered practices and assumptions are still used as guidance for legitimising women’s entrepreneurship.

This paper contributes to the gender and entrepreneurship literature by giving greater visibility to women entrepreneurs operating in conflict zones, which remain under researched. This paper also demonstrates how prolonged conflict instigates social and economic changes that can empower women entrepreneurs while simultaneously reinforcing gendered norms.