This poster explores strategies for small and medium-sized Chinese enterprises (SMEs) to overcome the liability of foreignness (LoF) when entering the markets of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Utilizing multiple case studies, the research examines the role of isomorphism and Transactive Memory System (TMS) strategies to facilitate successful expansion. The study highlights the importance of learning by doing, sharing knowledge, and leveraging market-based resources for overcoming challenges in global markets.

This presentation explores strategies for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) from developing countries to overcome challenges in emerging markets. It focuses on overcoming liabilities of foreignness through institutional adaptation, isomorphism, and transactive memory systems (TMS). The research investigates qualitative case studies of Chinese SMEs expanding to Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, analyzing environmental and firm-based liabilities and offering insights into sustainable market entry strategies.

Safety-critical aviation requires crews to navigate mismatches between standing procedures and unfolding conditions under severe time pressure. Yet accident analysis and adaptation research still under-explain how coordination is maintained, how it is substantially strained yet recovered, or how it is lost as episodes unfold. Building on Dialectical Navigation, this paper conducts a graded empirical stress test by comparing three commercial aviation navigation episodes that differ in coherence trajectory. Using official accident and incident investigation reports, each episode is analysed through three coordination mechanisms: guided elasticity, collective calibration, and mutual recovery. The comparison across maintained, strained-but-recovered, and lost episodes shows that outcome variation depends less on the mere presence of procedures, CRM routines, or technical cues than on when mismatch becomes operationally explicit, whether procedural flexing remains bounded, and whether recovery begins while a viable trajectory still remains. The analysis refines Dialectical Navigation by showing that dynamic coherence is best understood as a trajectory rather than a threshold state, identifying collective calibration as the pivotal hinge between bounded adaptation and a recoverable outcome, and clarifying boundary conditions, including cue ambiguity, authority gradients, monitoring-role overload, and shrinking recoverability windows. The paper concludes with implications for procedure design, communication architecture, monitoring and assertion, and feed-forward learning in safety-critical operations and practice.

This presentation examines how Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) in Guyana, an emerging economy, navigate challenges posed by multinational corporations through strategies like social networking, strategic alliances, and adapting state-of-the-art support systems. It highlights case studies showcasing methods SMEs use to avoid competition, build networks, and engage in strategic partnerships for survival and growth.

Disadvantaged incumbent indigenous firms face significant challenges when competing against comparatively endowed foreign firms. This paper explores how such firms in a fast-growing emerging economy survive by leveraging social networks, adopting strategic alliances, and adjusting governance structures to navigate competitive pressures.

This study investigates how senior directors in multinational corporations coordinate and direct geographically dispersed teams in post-COVID virtual and hybrid work environments. It builds a three-layer framework covering leadership enactment, coordination mechanisms and contextual navigation, drawing on e-leadership, leader–member exchange, media synchronicity, trust and intercultural collaboration research. Using a multiple interpretive case study design with 12–15 interviews of senior directors and supplementary input from team members, analysed through reflexive thematic analysis, it aims to help leaders design coordination mechanisms and build trust across borders.

This paper examines how corporate governance should be conceptualized in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), where formal boards are often absent or play only limited roles. This creates a central board paradox: governance research remains largely board-centred despite the limited relevance of boards in many SMEs. Building on insights from SME heterogeneity and organizational life-cycle research, the paper reconceptualizes governance as a dynamic configuration of formal and informal mechanisms that structure decision-making and accountability. Formal mechanisms include boards, management teams, and reporting systems; informal mechanisms encompass ownership arrangements, relational governance, and founder authority. This perspective shifts the analytical focus from governance structures to governance functions, and accommodates the diversity of SME organizational forms as well as the transitions they undergo over time. The paper contributes by challenging board-centred and agency-dominant approaches and introducing a configurational and dynamic framework that better captures the variety and evolution of governance in SMEs. It also provides a conceptual foundation for future empirical research that moves beyond board-based proxies.

This presentation explores the DBA as a pathway to effective leadership, highlighting program elements that enhance leadership skills. Panelists discuss impactful initiatives, practical applications, and personal insights on the DBA experience.

This study explores how managers can effectively lead and structure work when roles are fluid rather than fixed in hybrid, project-based and AI-assisted environments. Drawing on role theory, identity theory and future-of-work literature, it proposes a mixed-methods design combining semi-structured interviews with managers and employees and a survey of 100–150 professionals across technology, education and consulting. Expected findings suggest that fluid roles increase autonomy but also role ambiguity and stress, calling for a shift from role management to role orchestration.

Blue bonds are increasingly used to close conservation financing gaps, yet their effectiveness depends on governance that links capital to credible outcomes. This study provides the first market-wide characterization of all 139 live blue bonds outstanding as of November 2025, representing over USD 30 billion in aggregate financing. We examine how sustainability objectives are communicated through Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) alignment and test whether disclosure varies systematically with credit quality, using descriptive evidence and multivariate models. The results reveal a highly heterogeneous market with strong environmental dominance centered on SDGs 6 and 14, while social and governance-related goals are comparatively underrepresented and decline over time. SDG disclosure increases sharply after 2021, but the breadth of SDG mapping narrows, indicating growing adoption alongside increasing selectivity. The relationship between credit quality and SDG breadth is non-monotonic: intermediate investment-grade bonds tend to disclose more SDGs than the highest-rated issuances, although this pattern weakens when controlling for issuance year and bond characteristics. Issuance timing emerges as a stronger predictor of disclosure than credit quality. These findings indicate that the blue label currently functions as an incomplete, non-standardized signal of sustainability commitment. Strengthening market integrity requires clearer taxonomies, harmonized disclosure frameworks, and robust verification mechanisms to reduce risks of definitional dilution and bluewashing. A coherent governance architecture is essential for translating blue finance into measurable and equitable outcomes for aquatic ecosystems.