Sustainability has turned into a critical focus for businesses, drawing considerable interest from the commercial sector and scholarly environments. While empirical investigations have been conducted regarding sustainability reporting within small and medium enterprises, only a limited number of companies are subjected to increased pressure to adopt sustainability reporting practices, thereby ensuring enhanced transparency and disclosure in their financial and sustainability disclosures. This research, framed by Institutional Theory, delves into how challenges in sustainability reporting obstruct organizations from properly evaluating and sharing their progress on sustainability aims. With an explanatory research framework in place, we circulated survey questionnaires to 400 participants, who were randomly drawn from a population of 28,927 registered SMEs in Metro Manila, Philippines. The application of Interpretative Structural Modelling and MICMAC Analysis revealed that the absence of regulatory frameworks, governmental assistance, and sustainability infrastructure constitutes the most critical obstacles impacting other determinants. In contrast, neither the deficiency in sustainability awareness nor the inadequacy of training and skills demonstrated a considerable impact on the other identified barriers. This study clarifies the complex interactions and interrelations among the obstacles to sustainability reporting, thus providing significant perspectives for organizations aiming to overcome these difficulties. The findings suggest that business leaders and stakeholders can formulate targeted strategies and interventions to facilitate the adoption of sustainability reporting practices within organizations. The application of the institutional theory framework highlights that pressures arise from a diverse array of institutional actors, including regulators, customers, and local communities, which collectively shape corporate behavior and reporting methodologies.

 Entrepreneurial intentions, considered to be the best predictor of entrepreneurial behaviour, have attracted extensive attention among academics, practitioners, and policymakers. This study examines the mediating role of the theory of planned behaviour between university students’ proactive personality, entrepreneurship education, entrepreneurial opportunities, and entrepreneurial intentions. The results of this study showed that both attitudes toward entrepreneurship and perceived behavioural control mediated these relationships, except that perceived behavioural control did not mediate the effect of entrepreneurship education on entrepreneurial intentions, and subject norm did not mediate any relationship. Lastly, this study guides universities, policymakers and practitioners to fully focus on developing attitude entrepreneurship and perceived behaviour control through education and training among graduates and employees. Suppose there is a presence of good entrepreneurial opportunities. In that case, they will form stronger intentions to start new businesses and expand their businesses to drive socio-economic growth, innovation and job creation among graduates.

Decentralized cryptocurrencies, such as bitcoin, use peer-to-peer software protocol, disintermediating the traditional intermediaries that used to be banks and other financial intermediaries, effectuating cross-border transfer. In fact, by removing the requirement for a middleman, the technology has the potential to disrupt current financial transactions that rely on a trusted authority or intermediary operator. Traditional financial regulation, primarily based on the command-and-control approach, is ill-suited to regulating decentralized cryptocurrencies. The present paper aims to investigate the policy option most suitable for regulating decentralized cryptocurrencies. The study employs content analysis method to effectuate the purpose of the study. The paper argues that the combination of both direct and indirect regulatory approaches would be a feasible option for regulating decentralized cryptocurrencies. The absence of centralized authority and the borderless nature of decentralized cryptocurrencies would make them antithetical to centralized direct regulation. Therefore, the findings of the study suggest that regulators should focus on regulating intermediaries bridging the connection between the online world (crypto ecosystem) and the physical world (the point of converting crypto into fiat money). These intermediaries can work as passive actors or surrogate regulators who are indirectly responsible for implementing policy options on behalf of the central authority.

The centers of trade and economic activities in the region of Southeast Asia rank from a huge and modern to a small and traditional pattern. Malacca and Singapore have been cases in point for huge and modern patterns, while the border areas in eastern Indonesia, East Malaysia, and the Philippines are the cases for small and traditional centers. This paper will argue that with global connectivity and regional dynamics, the small and traditional trade and economic centers could shift to modern ones. History records that the introduction of the Southeast Asian region by the outside world, especially in relation to trade and economic activities, was largely derived from the significant role played by the people in the mainland of Southeast Asia regarding the silk roads route and the role of the people in the insular or islands of Southeast Asia regarding the spice trade route in the premodern time. Later in the modern time in Southeast Asia, the role of Islam, the Europeans and the center trade of Malacca around the 17th and 18th centuries played a significant role. Indeed, huge trade centers like Malacca in the 17th C and 18th C and later by Singapore in the 9th C have been very important throughout the history of trade in the Southeast Asian region. However, we must not ignore the roles of the border areas in the Southeast Asian archipelago, especially in eastern Indonesia, East Malaysia, and the border region of the Philippines which have played a dominant role in trade and economic activities. These activities have been smaller and more traditional than the Malacca and Singapore cases, but economic activities could develop rapidly with the global connection and its interconnectivity. Besides, those border areas have also become an important key for security issues not only in the Southeast Asia region in particular but also in the Asia Pacific or Indo Pacific region as well. The security of the region of Southeast Asia and even Indo Pacific could be affected by the situation in those border areas. Interconnectivity is a challenge as well as an opportunity for these border areas to become the future of trade and economic activities within the region of Southeast Asia that also connects with the region of Indo Pacific, especially China, South Korea, and Taiwan. The planning of Indonesian capital movement to East Kalimantan will add opportunities for those border areas located near the proposed new capital. About the above issues, this paper will address several issues: firstly, the history of trade and economic activities in Malacca, Singapore, and the border areas in eastern Indonesia, East Malaysia, and the Philippines; secondly, the different patterns of trade and economic developments of the Malacca, Singapore, and the border areas in eastern Indonesia, East Malaysia, and Philippines; thirdly, the challenges and opportunities of the border areas in eastern Indonesia, East Malaysia, and the Philippines to develop bigger trade centers in the future; fourth, the interconnectivity of those border areas to Asia Pacific region. This paper uses an interdisciplinary approach in the fields of social sciences and humanities. With this study, it is hoped that a better understanding of regional dynamics will be obtained, especially in the border areas. The period that we use is from 1998 until present time regarding if there was changing policy due to the end of Old Order to the Reformation period of Indonesian government. As a result, the development of border areas had been in existence before the colonial time in which people moved freely and had trade contacts. Even though they used to have the same ethnic linkage, after the formation of a modern state where they have different citizenships, in reality they can relate to each other in harmony and peace because of the similarity of ethnic linkages they had in the past. Colonial powers intended to replace the powers of traditional kingdoms with the idea of civilizing the colonializ

The urban solid waste (USW) emanating from the increasing urbanisation calls for concern. Integrating cart pushers into the private sector participation (PSP) may bridge the lacuna in sub-urban planning and PSP truck inefficiencies, especially in developing countries. There is a paucity of studies concerning cart pushers’ role in sub-urban and issues hindering them from achieving Sustainable Development Goals (1 and 11) in developing countries. Thus, the study seeks to appraise cart pushers’ role in Nigeria’s sub- and urban areas, investigate their challenges, and propose measures to improve the achievement of the Goals by integrating them into PSP waste management systems. The researchers utilised a qualitative approach using face-to-face interviews and observation. The study covered seven of Nigeria’s major cities, including Lagos, Kano, and Abuja. Forty semi-structured interviews were conducted. The participants include selected waste managers, NGOs in waste-related matters, cart pushers, legislators, households, environment and housing experts, and solid waste government agencies/regulators. The researchers adopted a thematic approach to analyse the collected data and presented it in a theme pattern. Findings reveal that despite the significance of cart pushers to the three pillars of sustainable development, including stimulating support for potential employment creation and sustainable cities and communities in Nigeria, they face challenges in their daily operation. The study proposed a revised USWM policy, where the informal waste sector should be embraced and recognised with specific rules and regulations. This is germane to improve achieving SDGs 1 and 11. This study holds significant implications for USWM policymakers and other stakeholders in embracing and integrating cart pushers into the formal waste collection process supported by statutory regulations to enhance practice. Also, this concept will increase employment opportunities and improve achieving Goals 1 and 11 in Nigeria.