The study acknowledges empirical, conceptual, and policy-driven papers that address emotional assertiveness, assertive communication, and assertive training as means of improving employee performance in Chinese banking, which is a significant contributor to the Chinese economy. Most banking enterprises have suffered from poor performance and a lack of aggressiveness in operation. It can be used by both managers and employees to create a good interaction process and a favorable work environment, which can help elevate performances. The research employs a quantitative approach, utilizing a questionnaire survey and simple random sampling. The sample comprises 381 employees from the Chinese banking industry, with a response rate above 70%. The regression analysis confirms that emotional assertiveness, assertive training, and assertive communication significantly impact employee performance. In conclusion, this study contributes to academia and industries by addressing the importance of assertiveness in improving performance. The policy-driven evidence on the conceptual framework of HR literacy in emotional, training, communication, and job performance should be adopted and reviewed in the country’s existing management by objective policy and legal framework in resolving employee job performance and training that are still underutilized and have a great deal of potential to satisfy the employees and management needs by establishing and emerging nations.

COVID-19 has amplified existing imbalances, institutional and financing constraints associated with a development strategy that did not take sufficient account of challenges with emissions, environmental damage and health risks associated with climate change in a number of countries, including China. The recovery from the pandemic can be combined with appropriately designed investments that take into account human, social, natural and physical capital, as well as distributional objectives, that can also address commitments under the Paris agreement. An important criterion for sustainable development is that the tax regimes at the national and sub-national levels should reflect the same criteria as the investment strategy. Own-source revenues, are essential to be able to access private financing, including local government bonds and PPPs in a sustainable manner. Governance criteria are also important including information on the buildup of liabilities at all levels of government, to ensure transparent governance.
Despite differences in political systems, the Chinese experiences are relevant in a wide range of emerging market countries as the measures utilize institutions and policies reflecting international best practices, including modern tax administrations for the VAT, and income taxes, and benefit-linked property taxes, as well as utilization of balance sheets information consistent with the IMF’s Government Financial Statistics Manual, 2014. The options have significant implications for policy advice and development cooperation for meeting global climate change goals while ensuring sustainable employment generation with transparency and accountability.

Effective small and medium enterprise (SME) leadership demands creative solutions to ensure organisations survive and thrive during the turbulent times that COVID-19 continues to bring. This paper explores how SME leaders (in micro and small organisations) prioritise and access the skills and development needed to provide effective and sustainable leadership to organisations, focusing on the role of resilience and the benefits it provides. Participants were selected through purposive and snowballing sampling. Online surveys and semi-structured interviews were conducted and provided qualitative data that contributes to an understanding of the role of resilience and the view of participants as to what is needed to effectively respond to a dynamic environment. Evidence shows that SME leaders prioritise learning and development opportunities that provide demonstrable benefits throughout the organisation. Building business resilience remains a fuzzy concept; however, viewing resilience as a multi-level construct offers benefits when designing and delivering development opportunities. It has been found that networking, partnerships, and relationship building promote resilience and may offer a solution to how to embed resilience building into development opportunities that SME leaders value and wish to engage with. This article contributes by illustrating and exploring leadership development within SMEs during a period of unexpected and untested uncertainty. The pandemic caused major shock waves within business communities, and SMEs were significantly affected. The research is limited in that it is expected to be a once-in-a lifetime event, and as such conditions may not be replicable, learning opportunities for other ‘shock’ events are possible. The findings of this paper have relevance to practice in that, while the event may be one-off, shocks to the business environment are not.

Every production day in Nigeria, and in other oil producing countries, millions of barrels of produced water is generated. Being very toxic, remediation of the produced water before discharge into environment or re-use is very essential. An eco-friendly and cost effective approach is hereby reported for remediative pre-treatment of produced water (PW) obtained from Nigerian oilfield. In this approach, Telfairia occidentalis stem extract-silver nanoparticles (TOSE-AgNPs) were synthesized, characterized and applied as bio-based adsorbent for treating the PW in situ. The nanoparticles were of average size 42.8 nm ± 5.3 nm, spherical to round shaped and mainly composed of nitrogen and oxygen as major atoms on the surface. Owing to the effect of addition of TOSE-AgNPs, the initially high levels (mg/L) of Total Dissolved Solids (TDS), Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD) and TSS of 607, 3.78 and 48.4 in the PW were reduced to 381, 1.22 and 19.6, respectively, whereas DO and COD improved from 161 and 48.4 to 276 and 19.6 respectively, most of which fell within WHO and US-EPA safe limits. Particularly, the added TOSE-AgNPs efficiently removed Pb (II) ions from the PW at temperatures between 25 ℃ to 50 ℃. Removal of TOSE-AgNPs occurred through the adsorption mechanism and was dependent contact time, temperature and dose of TOSE-AgNPs added. Optimal remediation was achieved with 0.5 g/L TOSE-AgNPs at 30 ℃ after 5 h contact time. Adsorption of Pb (Ⅱ) ions on TOSE-AgNPs was spontaneous and physical in nature with remediation efficiency of over 82% of the Pb (Ⅱ) ions in solution. Instead of discarding the stem of Telfairia occidentalis, it can be extracted and prepared into a new material and applied in the oilfield as reported here for the first time.

The debate on relocating Indonesia's national capital from Jakarta stems from critical issues such as overpopulation, social inequality, environmental degradation, and natural disaster risks. These challenges highlight the need to reassess Jakarta's viability as the nation's administrative center. This study evaluates Indonesia's readiness to address the complexities of relocation by analyzing Jakarta's socio-economic, political, cultural, and geographical conditions. Using a systematic literature review (SLR) with a qualitative approach, the research explores key questions: Do Jakarta's conditions necessitate relocation? What challenges might arise from the move? How prepared is Indonesia to tackle these challenges? The SLR process includes defining questions, sourcing literature from reputable databases, applying inclusion/exclusion criteria, and synthesizing data for analysis. Findings reveal Jakarta's multifaceted challenges, including social disparities, environmental degradation, disaster risks, and governance issues, which emphasize the urgency of considering relocation. However, the study also identifies significant hurdles, such as high costs, logistical complexities, potential social conflicts, and environmental risks at the new capital site. Relocating the capital is a strategic and complex undertaking that requires meticulous planning. Indonesia must weigh Jakarta's current issues, address potential relocation challenges, and ensure readiness for risk mitigation and sustainable development. Comprehensive and thoughtful planning is essential to achieve a successful and balanced transition.