The metaverse is emerging as a class of persistent, networked digital environments that combine immersive interfaces, platform infrastructures, data-intensive services, economic exchange, and social interaction. Research increasingly spans technological, economic, social, governance, and sustainability dimensions, but remains unevenly integrated, limiting consistent analysis of how developments in one domain affect others. This conceptual framework article examines how relationships among the economic, technological, social, political-regulatory, and environmental dimensions of metaverse development can be structured within a cross-domain socio-technical framework and which structural tensions arise from those relationships. The framework is developed through a structured integrative synthesis of interdisciplinary academic literature and selected policy-oriented sources. The metaverse is treated as an ecosystem or governance arrangement built around persistent, multi-user, spatially or immersively mediated digital environments and their supporting infrastructures. Extended reality, artificial intelligence, digital twins, blockchain, and advanced connectivity are considered enabling technologies rather than universal defining components. The synthesis identifies three convergence patterns—institutional coordination, responsible innovation, and interoperability—and five provisional tensions: innovation versus regulation, value extraction versus inclusion, centralized versus distributed governance, interoperability versus platform enclosure, and geopolitical fragmentation versus global coordination. Cross-domain pathways illustrate how interoperability, personalisation, environmental impacts, and regulatory fragmentation propagate across domains. Two illustrative configurations, an industrial digital-twin ecosystem and a consumer social metaverse platform, demonstrate the framework. The contribution lies in making socio-technical dependencies, spillovers, and governance trade-offs explicit and comparable.
Due to rapid increase in technological advancement, dynamic labour markets, performance-oriented forms of work and globalisation, training and development have experienced substantial and far-reaching changes. This has led renewed challenges in the provision of training and development. Although extant research has linked training and development to various organisational outcomes, challenges associated with its execution have not been adequately investigated. Therefore, guided by Human Capital Theory and Social Learning Theory, the current study to explore the training and development complexities at the workplace. The current study used a qualitative approach, grounded in an inductive approach and guided by thematic analysis, to explore participants’ personal meanings as shaped by their lived experiences. The study utilised purposive and snowball sampling techniques to select participants who met the researchers’ predefined criteria and aligned with the study’s objectives. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews conducted with 22 participants, comprising a mix of human resource personnel as well as both new and existing employees drawn from various sectors. This study engaged in thematic analysis with differentiated analysis across participant groups to explore the contextual dynamics shaping the training and development challenges of corporates in South Africa. The findings of this study indicated that the training and development faced by HR personnel include identification of training needs obstacles, unwillingness of employee to participate in training, limited time allocation for training, incompetence of the trainer, difficulties in keeping abreast with accelerating technology, and poor financial and resource support. While veteran employees encounter training and development challenges such as poor execution of the training, poor alignment between training programmes and employees’ personal goals, and poor management communication channels, new employees indicated that poor structure and ineffectiveness of induction training. Thus, the study makes a theoretical contribution by showing that employee constraints and management hindrances are not independent phenomena, but deeply intertwined mechanisms shaping training and development. In addition, the study extends Human Capital Theory and Social Learning Theory by demonstrating that workplace training and development challenges are shaped by the interaction between organisational investment in employee capabilities and the social and managerial environments in which learning occurs.
Indian dairy farms exhibit marked heterogeneity in scale and the constraints they face. This study examines the additive effects of farm size while determining the association between these constraints and profitability, and whether cooperative marketing channels are positively linked to returns. Using household survey data from 384 dairy farmers across three districts of Kerala, India, we employ Ordinary Least Squares and Quantile Regression to examine heterogeneous effects across the distribution of profitability. The findings reveal that constraint effects vary systematically by profitability level. Feed price volatility is associated with lower profitability across all farms but shows the strongest negative association with low‑profit operations. High‑profit farms demonstrate greater sensitivity to output market fluctuations, whereas low‑profit farms face stronger socio‑familial constraints, notably unreliable family labor. Cooperative channel participation shows a robust positive association with profitability across all quantiles. These results indicate that farm size really matters for economic resilience and that uniform policies are unlikely to be effective. Hence, tailored interventions are needed to improve productivity and ensure equity in India’s dairy sector.
Pandemic preparedness and response often overlook the realities of fragile and conflict-affected settings. Violence dismantles health systems, displaces populations, and at times erodes trust. This paper highlights the important link between peace and effective pandemic control, arguing that global health security cannot be achieved without integrating a peacebuilding lens into health programming. We highlight the structural, immediate, and long-term determinants through which conflict fuels disease emergence, transmission, notification, and care. Restricted mobility and breakdowns in social cohesion further render disease response strategies difficult from notification, case management, public health control measures, and coordinated responses. Current global agreements, such as the pandemic accord, risk limited impact in unstable contexts unless operationalized alongside locally driven peace initiatives. In an increasingly fragile and conflict-affected world, pandemic preparedness and response must be reimagined through an inclusive and proactive peacebuilding lens. Carefully rethinking the role of communities in the pandemic preparedness and response frameworks, and fostering collaboration across health, humanitarian, and peace actors remain critical. We propose practical approaches to mainstream peace into pandemic response, including training community and frontline health workers in conflict mediation, leveraging service delivery models of care as neutral spaces, and engaging cultural and religious leaders to foster trust and social cohesion. By deliberately addressing both health and security dynamics, pandemic preparedness and response can become more resilient, equitable, and effective, particularly in the settings most vulnerable to future outbreaks. Without peace, efforts to control or end pandemics will remain incomplete.
Abstract Background Financial inclusion and internet access are important drivers of women’s socioeconomic empowerment, yet evidence from fragile and low-resource settings remains limited. In Somaliland, nationally representative evidence on formal financial participation and digital connectivity among women is scarce. This study assessed the prevalence and determinants of formal bank account ownership and internet access among women of reproductive age in Somaliland. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted using data from the 2020 Somaliland Demographic and Health Survey (SLDHS). The analysis included 15,827 women aged 15–49 years. Descriptive statistics were used to estimate the weighted prevalence of formal bank account ownership and internet access. Bivariate associations were examined using Pearson’s chi-square test, and multivariable logistic regression models were fitted to identify factors independently associated with each outcome. Adjusted odds ratios (AORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were reported, with statistical significance set at p < 0.05. Results The weighted prevalence of formal bank account ownership was 1.43%, while 6.92% of women reported internet use. Formal bank account ownership was positively associated with being aged 35–39 years (AOR = 6.28, 95% CI: 1.24–31.88), secondary education (AOR = 2.42, 95% CI: 1.20–4.84), belonging to a rich household (AOR = 1.75, 95% CI: 1.30–2.37), and residence in Sool region (AOR = 2.20, 95% CI: 1.41–3.43). Internet access was significantly associated with primary (AOR = 2.29, 95% CI: 1.75–3.01) and secondary education (AOR = 8.29, 95% CI: 5.75–11.95), literacy (AOR = 4.65, 95% CI: 3.49–6.20), middle (AOR = 5.86, 95% CI: 3.25–10.58) and rich household wealth (AOR = 23.30, 95% CI: 13.95–38.91), and mobile phone ownership, whereas older age was associated with lower odds of internet use. Conclusions This study found that formal bank account ownership and internet access were low among women of reproductive age in Somaliland. Educational attainment was consistently associated with both outcomes, while age, household wealth, mobile phone ownership, and region of residence were associated with one or both measures of financial and digital participation. These findings suggest that socioeconomic, demographic, and geographic disparities are important correlates of women’s access to formal banking and internet services. The results provide baseline evidence that may inform future research and support the development of context-specific strategies aimed at improving equitable access to financial and digital services among women in Somaliland.
