How are exports shaped by digitalization? Scholars debate a global digital divide that impacts internationalization. The pandemic disrupted exports, so the pandemic provides opportunity to examine digitalization as a tool for recovery of exports. Analysis of 47 sampled countries shows that wealth, especially in the West, facilitated early digitalization, but that other regions are catching up, externally enabled by resilience in the pandemic. Analysis of 7073 businesses sampled representatively in several countries shows that early digitalization and especially recent digitalization in businesses form capabilities promoting their exports. Findings contribute to accounting for eco-systemic embeddedness of digitalization shaping exporting.

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) has a desire to include more people in entrepreneurship, especially women, youth, and unemployed. The question here is, how are gender, age, and occupation affecting entry, including entry pulled by opportunity and pushed by necessity? The study analyses a large representative sample of adults around MENA, surveyed by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. Analyses show in detail how occupations depend on gender and age, and show the potential for turning intention into upstarts, especially in disadvantaged segments. Policies for entrepreneurship in MENA may utilise some of the findings. Notably, the study shows that inclusion of women, youth, and unemployed may be potentially be considerably enhanced through policies. These disadvantaged segments frequently intend to become entrepreneurs, but they tend not to enact their vocational intents.

A business may adopt a strategy for sustainability and may implement its strategy in its practice. Our question is, how are strategy and practice coupled and shaped by entrepreneurs and businesses embedded in national eco-systems in the Middle East and North Africa and around the world? Businesses were randomly sampled and surveyed in 2021, and national conditions were assessed by experts in ten countries in the Middle East and North Africa and in Spain and other countries around the world, as part of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. Strategy and practice are found to have a loose coupling but are tighter in the Middle East and North Africa than in Spain. Strategy is promoted by support from businesses and governments, but support depends on national wealth. Strategy and practice by entrepreneurs and businesses are promoted by the entrepreneurs’ human and social capital and the value of making a difference in the world and continuing a family tradition. Findings contribute to understanding business engagement with sustainability, specifically in the Middle East and North Africa, as compared to Spain and in a global perspective.

Family business has recently gained research attention, particularly in specific contexts. We extend the existing literature by exploring the urban and rural context of family business, focusing on a sample of 3935 family and non-family businesses in Egypt, Morocco and Turkey. Family businesses are known to be more self-reliant than non-family businesses. Therefore, we expect them to thrive in a rural environment, where institutions are less elaborate, resources fewer, and networks sparser than in urban eco-systems, which are expected to be better for non-family businesses. We find that businesses governed by families are more frequently seen in rural areas than cities and those governed by non-family more often in urban than rural areas - and this pattern is remarkably similar in the three countries studied here, suggesting that it may well be generalisable globally.

How to develop an effective strategy to improve the employability of young women with higher education degrees in Morocco and promote equal access to the labour market? Morocco, like the other Maghreb countries, is in a specific situation at the global level since obtaining a diploma does not protect against unemployment. Even more alarming, the Moroccan labour market is characterized by a high vulnerability of young female graduates. According to the latest report of the High Commissioner for Planning (Moroccan Women and the Labour Market 2013), only 34.3% of women with a higher level of education are employed (compared to 61% of men, or 1.8 times more). There is therefore an economic and social urgency to reflect gender equality by promoting an innovative approach in active measures to combat unemployment and social exclusion. The new paradigm of employability as an economic integration strategy will be usefully questioned in this regard. On the theoretical level, the aim is to clarify the conceptual content of the idea of employability and its conditions for improvement in the light of the theories of discrimination. On the applied level, it is a question of analysing a series of experiences and field studies: Survey on the development of employability among a panel of 500 Moroccan companies, Empirical study with graduates of the grandes écoles (ENCGs and ENSAs) to test the existence of a ""gender effect"" on the graduate's ability to find a job quickly.

Research investigating the multiple incentives and motivations behind why certain persons opt to pursue entrepreneurship whilst others do not is insufficient. The usefulness of entrepreneurship is undisputed in fostering economic regeneration and job creation in all societies. Individual entrepreneurs are driven to establish a venture out of opportunity or necessity and entrepreneurial mindsets are defined as the willingness of an average person to launch a business. This research explores entrepreneurial motivation amongst different variables and various factors permitting the elicitation and retrieval of the reasons behind the motivations of individuals to undertake a business. To further investigate entrepreneurial motivations, a quantitative study was conducted through statistically analyzed data, using the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor ‘GEM’. The main variables used for this purpose were overall divergent and diversified, in order to be able to approach the subject from different points of view and to analyze it through several perspectives, in this case, education, innovation, or personal background. The results underscore the importance of exploring the complexity of entrepreneurial motivation in order to understand what motivates different types of entrepreneurs.