Successful governance of a country requires sustainable development, the benefit of future generations, clear assignment of roles and responsibilities, accountability of decision-making, accuracy and transparency of information, sound performance and the rule of Law. It is built upon cooperation and participation between its government, its institutions and its citizens. The slow pace of establishing these governance priorities and the inability of any government, such as the Lebanese, to formulate and implement sound legal and institutional policies, plus the lack of awareness of corporate governance, as people remain attached to their old traditional ways of managing their companies, are critical challenges to any good governance effort and to any reform. The purpose of this study is to shed light on the urge to rethink governance and institutional change in Lebanon. Based on five axes, a multimodal design helped us investigate and tackle the Lebanese multi-level CG Bundles. The study found that in a complex social context, such as Lebanon, shifting to a new standpoint requires different factors. A new and sound Lebanese economic model coupled with proper governance and stability in the country may emerge from a bottom-up reform, if well implemented. The challenge is to find if this may be another missed opportunity.

Purpose: Education is foundational for creating caring sustainable leaders and organizations. This paper aims to investigate whether historically eminent Lebanese universities are integrating sustainability courses and practices in their curriculum, and to discern whether these universities’ administrators are currently providing, or plan to provide, positive educational experience through addressing sustainability concepts and tools in their respective universities. Design/methodology/approach: The authors based their qualitative study on a multimodal design for explorative and recommendation purposes. The review of literature and online search facilitated setting standards and benchmarking. Face-to-face interviews and observation corroborated the findings and provided insight. The information was systematically ordered to tackle sustainability as a product and as a process on different campuses. All research was subject to ethical clearance from the studied subjects. Findings: Compiling the input from all participants revealed that there is an urgent need to reform universities’ products and processes, in addition to a necessary call for support from governmental entities. The seeds of environmental sustainability are present in varying degrees in universities that have been continuously functional in the service of higher education in Lebanon for a period of 50 years or more. Research limitations/implications: The lack of contextual, comprehensive models, toward which change can be geared, presents a limitation to this work. Another limitation is that this study was restricted to historically prominent universities with the valid assumption that they play a leadership role in higher education. More universities should be investigated to further validate the findings, to complement this project and to allow for generalizability and comparison with initial findings. Practical implications: More focus is needed to prepare present students and the future community to rely on available resources. The paper outlines the need to change the educational approach in Lebanese universities. It addresses a call to the administrators of all universities to provide the right policies, tools, materials and other resources to help sustainability. Social implications: Universities are called to play a major role especially in inspiring and teaching sustainability concepts. It is worth noting that education can be seen as a social good. If education is well served, it can create jobs, generate high revenues and raise standards of living. But serving the education “well” may require disruption of the status quo, which, if done creatively, will lead to novel approaches and solutions that outweigh the disruption itself. Originality/value: This paper has exposed the status quo of universities vis-à-vis sustainability, but it has also challenged “what is”, and opened up possibilities of what “could be”. Educational projects should be adapted with the participation of the private sector to stimulate innovation, and experience the lived dimension of sustainability. Implementing such a change represents the bridge between current and needed ways of thinking required by the new environment.

Purpose: This paper aims at shedding light on the entrepreneurs' perception towards crowdfunding as a new mean for raising capital, and their willingness to send appropriate signals to the potential fund providers/backers.Design/methodology/approach: The research strategy is based on three methodological approaches: desk research on online sources, a map of the crowdfunding phenomenon, and a quantitative approach with a survey performed between June and December 2020. The survey covers a sample of 147 Small and Medium enterprises (SMEs) and startups, in addition to semi-structured interviews with 10 entrepreneurs.Findings: The study reveals that between losing their work and losing part of their firms' equity, entrepreneurs are keen on sending positive signals to backers. Moreover, they are willing to adopt a new way of thinking, as their primary goal is to save their firms, their jobs, and their source of income. The research highlights the concern of entrepreneurs of losing reputation, losing intellectual property, losing control, and of becoming only shareholders in their enterprises.Research limitations/implications: The main limitation in this paper is that no single study in Lebanon adequately covers the topic and thus extensive research has been carried out on crowdfunding across the world and analyzed in the Lebanese context.Practical implications: Overcoming funding challenges can reduce brain drain, promote a culture of entrepreneurship, serve the economy, combat poverty, achieve more equitable society, increase the levels of expectations, and turn the flywheel. Moreover, the paper presents clear implications for the field of policy-making both in developing and developed countries.Originality/value: Considering the serious financial disintermediation and liquidity shortage Lebanon faces, the findings of this study show how important changing entrepreneurial culture and behavior is, and the crucial role crowdfunding could play in providing funds for the SMEs that form 95% of the total business sector in Lebanon.

The purpose of this paper is to study governance practices in non-financial enterprises in Lebanon, and it is the first time that such enterprises are studied in the Lebanese context. Only three non-financial institutions are listed in the Beirut Stock Exchange (BSE), which constitute the whole population of this research. Built on Principles, Governance is based on transparency and on accurate, relevant, and timely information in order to support the Board members’ decision-making (OECD, 2015). Balanced between Jensen and Meckling’s (1976) agency theory and Donaldson and Davis’ (1991) Stewardship theory, the results of our Qualitative study showed that the main problems faced by the enterprises are not in the quality of information but rather in its selection and filtering, which opens doors to “Governance Myopia”. Face-to-face interviews showed that the primary conflict in our case is between the non-financial enterprises and the BSE, since the BSE is controlled by the enterprises and is not controlling them. The main reason of such practices come from the fear of the BSE of losing a potential position in the MENA Exchange Market, doubled with the fear of losing potential investors. All these reasons weigh heavily on the Administrators of the BSE in Lebanon, forcing them to choose the “Laisser passer” way. Referring to the soft Law when dealing with the companies, the BSE is playing the double role of a marketer and a controller, thus not willing to impose restrictions. A need for “harder laws”, for “Privatization” of the BSE, and a call to the Capital Market Authority (CMA) to put more restrictions on Corporations should be observed.

This paper studies the lack of gender diversity at the board level in Lebanese banks following Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) principles. It also addresses women’s reactions and behaviours towards this issue. The employed methodology is multi-modal and uses both quantitative and qualitative tools. The data was collected via survey and semi-structured interviews from 42 managers in 21 banks, which according to their websites, follow the CSR principles. The quantitative data revealed the relevant trends, while the qualitative data provided comprehensive explanations and in-depth understanding of the related issues. The findings of this paper shed light on the personal disappointment women interviewees felt about their lack of progress as well as their inability to assume a place on the board. They also address the contribution of the four main causes of board-level gender discrimination in Lebanese banks, namely the limitations imposed by the patriarchal culture, CEO succession planning, Human Resource (HR) diversity management practices, as well as those due to women themselves. They found that women react to these challenges by relying on their emotional intelligence. However, they tend to overestimate themselves for self-protection in the male dominated financial world. This study is not without its limitations, but it recommends further research concerning related policies and strategies of the administrative boards, legislating entities, and controlling entities, such as the Central Bank of Lebanon (Banque du Liban, BDL), in order to explicitly explore strategies that affect gender discrimination. This study creates value for banks that are genuinely interested in implementing CSR in order to benefit their corporate governance (CG) practices as well as the society at large.

The purpose of this paper is to study the benefits of the Blockchain, if properly applied in the near future in Lebanon. It sheds light on why collaborative governance against corruption is needed. The research is built on an analysis of reports and on face to face interviews with key managers in all 14 Lebanese alpha banks. Due to the sovereign debt composition, we found out that the Blockchain technology can represent a vital tool to disrupt corruption, but the decision of implementing it, is up to the Central Bank governor. The research offers an added value as it is the first to describe the positive effects of implementing the Blockchain technology in a country that is ranked 180 out of 209 on WB’s control of corruption index