Global epidemic crises, such as the coronavirus (COVID-19), usually expose small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to various kinds of challenges and may put their lives at risk. This study aims to develop a theoretical model to provide insights about the association between innovation practices and the SMEs’ performance and survival while underlining the auxiliary role of external support in such a relationship. Online questionnaire has been used to collect the data from 259 randomly selected SME managers in Saudi Arabia, and the data was analyzed using the SmartPLS3 software. The structural equation modeling results showed that the innovation practices adopted by SMEs to face the repercussions of COVID-19 had a positive impact on the performance and likelihood of business survival. PLS-SEM bootstrap results indicated that external support aids strengthen the positive impact of SMEs’ innovation practices on business survival rather than its performance. The study has several significant practical implications for SME managers, governments, and policy makers that have been stated.

This study extends theorisation of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) in the social entrepreneurship context by introducing firm performance as a construct for examining social enterprises (SEs) EO. Drawing on EO and firm performance research indicating that EO is related to a better firm performance, this paper argues that EO in SEs is positively related to organisational performance. This research empirically studies 303 social enterprises in Saudi Arabia and develops three hypotheses that examine the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and social entrepreneurs’ firm performance. The results show that innovativeness and proactiveness, but not risk-taking, are positively associated with firm performance. Thus, whilst SEs cover a wide range of business activities there is generally a positive effect of EO across the contexts investigated. Also, this research found that EO can be used as a mechanism to overcome constraints imposed by limited resources in an environment where new opportunities rarely occur.

Drawing upon the theoretical foundations of the resource-based view, the current research aims to examine the mediating role of open innovation between entrepreneurial orientation, total quality management, and SMEs performance. Open innovation is not new, but SMEs operating in the developing economies are unaware of it importance and need. A structural equation model was used in the study to evaluate the relationships between the data collected from 270 SMEs with the help of adopted questionnaires. The results confirmed the impact of entrepreneurial along with total quality management on open innovation as well as the performance of SMEs. Second, the indirect impact of entrepreneurial orientation along with total quality management via open innovation has also been established which is proven as significant. Owners and managers of SMEs should consider customer-driven practices in an entrepreneurial manner to achieve elevated levels of performance based on the study’s findings.

Environmental social governance (ESG) is a framework that assists global financial services in developing strategic ways to hedge operating and financial risks and move toward achieving United Nations’ SDGs. Stakeholders consider ESG as a core value while strategizing their investment decisions in the capital market as these factors have the leveraging potential for risk return trade-off, although they are difficult to measure in financial terms. In the volatile capital markets across the globe, the ability of corporate business models to adapt to changes in the economic environment demands the consideration of ESG reporting by the external stakeholders. Thus there is rising demand for ESG reporting and analysis by external stakeholders, including stock exchanges, investors, financial analysts, and corporations, because they have the leveraging potential for risk return trade-off and for sustainable development. The present study analyzes the ESG scores for all the shares listed in the Tadawul All Share Index (TASI) based on selected ranking tools. The analyzed result reveals the current sustainability landscape of businesses in KSA and suggests how responsible investors can uncover value of investment through ESG and how the benefit of this reliable, consistent, and relevant metrics fosters long-term stock market sustainability. The results of the study will enable investors to strategize their capital market-related investment decisions. The result of analysis reveals the current sustainability landscape of businesses in KSA and suggests how responsible investors can uncover value of investment through ESG scores as they consider the material components that affect corporate and investment performance.

Several kinds of research from both global and local perspectives have discussed social entrepreneurship and inclusive development. Accordingly, this article aims to highlight the key contributors (authors, institutions, countries, journals) and knowledge structure (co-authorship analysis and cooccurrence-of-keyword analysis) of this research domain. Utilizing the bibliographic data of 300 articles extracted from the Scopus database, we primarily employed Biblioshiny software, resulting in 673 authors from 69 different countries and 496 different institutions. Furthermore, the yearly publication of the 300 documents rose from 1 in 1996 to 24 in 2022, with an average age of 6.08 years and a citation rate of 13.79 yearly. Remarkably, the number of publications on this subject accelerated in 2014. According to the study’s findings, the most productive country in line with research publishing is the USA. The most productive institution has been recognized as the Amrita School of Engineering. The most active author is reported to be Kadol N. The most prolific journal is Entrepreneurship and Regional Development. In addition to this, the top three most frequent terms are ‘social development’, ‘economic development’ and ‘entrepreneur. ‘Social entrepreneurship’, ‘social and economic effects’, ‘sustainable development’ and ‘social development’ are the latest keywords in this field that predict future trends. Taken collectively, this review is an expedient resource for gaining a thorough grasp of the state of the art and prospective routes for future research.