Artificial intelligence-based tools are rapidly revolutionizing the field of higher education, yet to be explored in terms of their impact on existing higher education institutions’ (HEIs) practices adopted for continuous learning improvement, given the sparsity of the literature and empirical experiments in undergraduate degree programs. After the entry of ChatGPT -a conversational artificial intelligence (AI) tool that uses a deep learning model to generate human-like text response based on provided input—it has become crucial for HEIs to be exposed to the implications of AI-based tools on students’ learning outcomes, commonly measured using an assessment-based approach to improve program quality, teaching effectiveness, and other learning support. An empirical study has been conducted to test the ChatGPT capability of solving a variety of assignments (from different level courses of undergraduate degree programs) to compare its performance with the highest scored student(s). Further, the ChatGPT-generated assignments were tested using the best-known tools for plagiarism detection to determine whether they could pass the academic integrity tests, including Turnitin, GPTZero, and Copyleaks. The study reported the limitations of the Bot and highlighted the implications of the newly launched AI-based ChatGPT in academia, which calls for HEIs’ managers and regulators to revisit their existing practices used to monitor students’ learning progress and improve their educational programs.

The current study attempted to determine if workforce diversity (inherent or acquired) and its inclusion practices (implementing fairness, belongingness, uniqueness, and diverse workplace climate) contribute to the innovativeness of the organizational climate. It also considered whether organizational characteristics (i.e., type, size, and industry) encourage or moderate innovation in work settings. The self-administered survey was adopted to collect responses from the employees working in different types and sizes of the organizations across the industries in the United Arab Emirates. The responses from five hundred and eleven (511) participants were analyzed using partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The formative and reflective measurement models and structural paths were estimated for quality checks and hypotheses testing, respectively, using Smart PLS-3. The findings confirmed that diversity and inclusion practices in the workplace significantly contribute to its innovative climate. The f ² effect size demonstrated a stronger impact of organizational inclusion practices compared to its diversity in engaging innovation and change at the workplace. Moreover, large size organizations were more engaged in innovative activities compared to small size firms. The findings have implications for policy setters in the governmental bodies and practitioners across industries in multicultural regions, promoting culture of innovation.

The article identifies the motivating factors behind the career preferences of university graduates who chose to engage in sustainable entrepreneurship. In this research, multi-methods—theoretical investigations and qualitative interviews—have been utilized to determine the factors responsible for promoting sustainable entrepreneurship in a developing region. The sample consisted of university graduates who chose to pursue their careers in entrepreneurial activities in Hyderabad, the sixth largest city of Pakistan located in Sindh Province. While determining why young academics choose entrepreneurship as a career choice, entrepreneurial careers are explored as an ongoing process of biographical sequences in which new ways of thinking and communication, new forms of economic and occupational challenges, and necessities as well as ways of success and failure are permanently claimed or raised. Due to these challenges, the youth are confronted with complex social and economic situation to deal with. The study findings provide guidelines on how sustainable entrepreneurship can be developed, engaged, and sustained in the future in developing and under-developed regions.

E-learning was mandated for all the higher education institutions (HEI) in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to encounter the pandemic and practice social distancing in year 2020. This led education institutions to shift from face-to-face traditional classroom settings to online education channels for delivering education to their students despite being less familiar with the real-time remote learning. The current study attempts to measure the success of e-learning systems adopted by the HEIs in UAE. An e-learning system success measuring the framework based on DeLone and McLean (J Manage Inf Syst 19(4):9–30, 2003) was developed including the measures of quality, system use, perceptual benefits and future outcomes from students’ perspective. A survey was conducted from more than 1200 students studying at different higher education institutions of the UAE region. The findings have implications for educators and policy-makers recommending the success factors of e-learning delivery channels in this region.

Purpose: The importance of modeling digital leadership in quickly digitizing countries, like the United Arab Emirates (UAE), is inevitable for building leadership capabilities to lead, engage and motivate remote employees in the digital environment. Using Blake and Mouton Grid, the current study examines the behavioral approach used by the leaders from both public and private sectors while managing their workforce digitally in the period of the pandemic, when 70% of the workforce worked remotely for the first-time in the region.Design/methodology/approach: An online survey was conducted by the managerial employees working in different firms using self-administered questionnaires and adopting the snowball sampling technique. In total, 476 respondents participated in the study from both the Emirates of Abu Dhabi and Dubai.Findings: The analysis using IBM SPSS and Smart PLS software reported that 9 out of 10 leaders positioned their digital leadership style well above the middle-of-the-road management style (5,5) oriented towards team management (9,9); with 7 out of 9 displaying high team management leadership style, while managing remote workers. However, millennials displayed higher task orientation when compared to generation-x leaders, who concentrated more on their relations with the workers.Practical implications: The findings have implications for practitioners in technology driven regions. Also the results highlighting the task-oriented approach of millennials digital leaders have implication for owners and board of directors of the firms that seniority is not the only credible approach for leadership positions.Originality/value: The study reveals the behavioral styles beneficial for digital leaders to develop their leadership capabilities and increase their effectiveness while managing the workforce digitally. Black Mountain Grid and its two-dimensional leadership matrix has been found to be a useful conceptual approach for understanding digital leadership behaviors, and based on study findings, recommendations have been provided to effectively improve its utilization for leading teams. The findings have implications for practitioners in technology driven regions as well as digital leadership field scholars.

Purpose: United Arab Emirates’ (UAEs) commitment to sustainable development is well reflected in its Vision-2021, 2030 and the Green Economy Strategy for Sustainable Development, followed by several initiatives at federal and local level. However, out of seven Emirates, the governments of Abu Dhabi and Dubai are adopting and rigorously implementing green initiatives for conserving energy, minimizing resources wastage and becoming zero-carbon ecology, leaving behind the other five emirates. To promote the implementation of government’s sustainability agenda holistically (including all the emirates), it is important to adopt a systems thinking to diagnose the complex social arrangements and their interactive relations with the larger systems and the environment at each and all recursive levels.Design/methodology/approach: This viewpoint proposes that Viable System Model (VSM) framework can support sustainable planning and configuration evaluation holistically, by diagnosing the region (system-in-focus) together with the present and future environment, at multiple recursive levels of city, emirates and country-wide. To demonstrate the relative strength of the VSM structural framework and its principles to replicate/implement the green initiatives country-wide, the study provides supporting evidence and multiple examples of its application in other parts of the world for managing sustainability-related issues from smallest (town/city) to largest (national) levels in the United Arab Emirates.Findings: The VSM framework has been adopted by several scholars for fruitful utilization of its structural, connectivity, recursivity and complexity principles in the context of sustainability at the organizational, territory and national levels. The discussion has been made on the suitability of VSM framework for implementing sustainable development initiatives county-wide by viewing it in totality and at multiple levels of administration and governance.Research limitations/implications: It has implications for leaders, policy-setters and regulators of United Arab Emirates as well as Gulf region inclusive of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman.Originality/value: No prior work exists in Arab region where VSM has been proposed for the holistic management of sustainable initiatives. It has implications for leaders, policy-setters and regulators of United Arab Emirates as well as Gulf region inclusive of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman.