Global Tech Management Digest is an open access book series dedicated to publishing high-quality, practice-oriented work at the intersection of emerging technologies and modern management. The journal bridges the gap between academic insight and real-world application, enabling organizations to effectively adopt, manage, and scale technological innovation. It publishes rigorous yet accessible contributions that demonstrate methodological integrity, practical relevance, and clear implications for decision-makers. All submissions undergo a structured editorial evaluation process aligned with recognized international standards. Journal Name: Global Tech Management Digest Publisher: Federation for Integrated Arts & Management Studies Domain: Multidisciplinary Language: English Year Established: 2025 Type: Book Series Publishing Format: Online Frequency: Continuous ISSN: Applied
Federation for Integrated Arts & Management Studies
Horizon Scanning: Mitigating Climate and Resource Risks Through Strategic SDG Planning
To date, global greenhouse gas emissions have risen to an unprecedented level, according to the United Nations Environment Programme, which records 57.1gTEq of CO₂ equivalent on 2023 own-road operations, a 1.3 cent increase over 2022. The worrisome trend calls for immediate measures such as the transformation of energy systems, industrial processes, and frameworks for the management and use of resources. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) offer a roadmap informed by a common view of the world that needs to be guided by better core principles of climate action, SDG 13, and affordable clean energy, SDG 7, to ensure that such navigation and leadership achieve greater equity and development. This paper discusses the use of horizon scanning as a method of systematic anticipation of new climate and resource challenges and how this can contribute to strategic SDG planning at national and regional levels. We highlight through real-country data of key emitters like India, Brazil, Nigeria, and Indonesia how emissions reduction and sustainable development can be done simultaneously [4].
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The Green Premium: Quantifying the Long-Term ROI of SDG-Aligned Capital Investments
This paper investigates the existence of a measurable and persistent return premium for capital portfolios explicitly geared towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) compared to conventional benchmarks. We use ten years of annualised performance data (2013-2023) from six economies (Germany, Denmark, China, US, Brazil and Kenya) to draw a cross-national empirical comparison of SDG-aligned and conventional asset classes, such as green bonds, offshore wind infrastructure, ESG equity products and forestry REDD+ investment products. After risk-adjustment, our analysis estimates a strong, asset-type and political-jurisdiction independent ‘green premium' of +2.2 percentage points per year. We embed these findings within the existing literature on ESG alpha, cost-of-capital reduction as well as climate-adjusted version of the DCF model and recommend an architectural model for institutionalising SDG-aligned capital allocation. The findings undermine the prevalent story of a sustainability performance relationship and have implications for pension fund trustees, sovereign wealth managers, and emerging-market development banks.
Closed Loop Commerce: Lessons from the Field on Scaling Circular Economy Business Models
The circular economy is no longer just a vision to discuss at different conference tables, but has quickly come to be considered a business imperative [1]. In the Netherlands, manufacturers are converting post-consumer plastics into high-quality packaging. Japanese electronics companies are trying to recover rare-earth minerals from urban waste streams; they are cheaper to recover from the wastes than to mine. Today, construction businesses in South Korea get 20% of their total inputs from demolished structures. That's revenue lines — not sustainability side-projects. What our vanguard companies have seen, and at high-Ish cost – is that creating scale in a circular economy requires a new commercial logic in which the end of a product's life is also the start of another value creation cycle.
Disruption for Good: How Next-Gen Technology is Solving Trade's Biggest Sustainability Bottlenecks
Global carbon emissions from goods transport are about 11% of total global carbon emissions (WTO, 2023) while global trade of merchandise reached more than USD 25 trillion in 2023 [5]. In this article, authors take a closer look at the convergence of blockchain traceability, artificial intelligence (AI) route optimisation and green finance instruments that challenge unsustainable trade practices. The article shows potential emissions reductions of up to 28%, significant costs reductions of up to 35% in compliance across borders and billions of dollars in sustainable trade finance using country-level data from the EU, China, Singapore, Brazil, and the United States. The Policy implications as well as an architectural framework for next generation sustainable trade ecosystems are presented.
Inclusive Innovation: Empowering Diverse Leaders in Volatile Markets
Global markets are becoming more volatile because of many things such as political unrest, rising prices, rapid technological change, disruptions to supply chains, and evolving consumer expectations. As a result, companies that work in this environment must have both competitive and innovative advantages. Due to this environment, inclusive innovation has emerged as an important business and leadership strategy. Inclusive innovation involves including the voices of many different groups when making decisions, innovating, and changing business models or processes. Recent studies continue to show that companies with diverse leaders outperform their less diverse counterparts on creativity, adaptability, and profitability over the long term. This is because diverse leaders provide different viewpoints, have better problem-solving skills, and can adapt effectively in crisis situations. Inclusive leadership also helps organizations identify underserved customers, develop socially aware products, and create an engaged workforce. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how inclusive innovation allows diverse leaders to successfully respond to a volatile market environment. This paper will provide an analysis of the relationship between diversity and innovation performance, present the challenges faced by organizations today, and suggest how to create inclusive leadership ecosystems. This paper includes one conceptual figure, two analytical graphs, and recent citations to support the discussion.
Copyright (c) 2025 Global Tech Management Digest
Digital Resilience: Innovative Leadership for Supply Chain Crises
Today’s global economy continues to be disrupted as a result of many different factors including a worldwide pandemic, increased political uncertainty, and climate change. As a result of all the above, organizations continue to face increasingly severe supply chain disruptions and need to make a fundamental transition from reactive risk management to proactive risk and disruption management. To survive and thrive in this environment, organizations now require Digital Resilience: a structural capability to rapidly anticipate and adapt their operations in real-time to new market conditions while maintaining complete operational continuity. Achieving Digital Resilience will require organizations’ leadership to become transformation-oriented. In this article, we will outline both the architecture of digitally resilient global supply chains and the strategic framework for transformative operational leadership as well as provide empirical evidence of how many of the world’s leading organizations have successfully turned disruption into competitive advantage [2].
Geopolitical Agility: Steering Teams Amid Global Tensions
The way the world operates has changed dramatically due to Geopolitical Agility and how organizations can adapt quickly and effectively to changing political climates. Changes in the world have led to geopolitical uncertainty being the greatest challenge in the 2020's for global leaders. In this article we will discuss how you, as an organizational leader, need to prepare your teams for the arrival of geopolitical disruptions by being geopolitically agile. A geopolitically agile organization can be identified if it can read, internalize, and adjust its strategy quicker than its competitors based on changes in the geopolitical environment. Through research from Harvard Business Review, McKinsey & Company, the World Economic Forum, and MIT Sloan Management Review, we will demonstrate that organizations that are geopolitically agile have three main defining characteristics: their teams maintain a high level of cohesion during periods of distraction, they are able to quickly adjust their strategy when market conditions change, and they have a continued ability to innovate during periods of disruption. A four-pillar framework will be established to describe these characteristics as well as two empirical studies to provide evidence of the how/having foreign currency impact the ability of an organization to maintain agility.
Hybrid Workforce Mastery-Leadership in the Post-Pandemic Era
A multi-faceted transformation of work has taken place due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The remote work experiment that began in earnest in early 2020 is becoming the new normal across virtually all organizations around the globe by the end of 2025, as the traditional office and home work environments become the hybrid workplace, where employees will spend part of their time in physical offices and part of their time remotely. As such, the hybrid workplace, originally thought of as a temporary measure during the pandemic, has become a defining characteristic of today’s organizational life. This report explores how leaders can adapt their mindsets, skill sets, and organizational practices to succeed with the hybrid workforce. Using the most up-to-date academic research and empirical data from multiple surveys, we identify critical competencies that are unique to effective hybrid leaders when compared to those who are struggling. In addition, we provide a framework for developing these capabilities on a large scale. We argue that the post-pandemic world will not only require leaders to do more than they did before but will also require leaders to lead differently [1].
Sustainable Strategies: Leading Through Climate and Trade Shifts
The world trading system of the mid-2020s is vastly different from the rules-based multilateral system that was established after World War II. Competition is being reshaped by two seismic shifts: the mainstreaming of climate policy into trade law, and a structural shift in supply chains due to geopolitical fragmentation. Sustainability is not a subset of corporate social responsibility for business leaders; it is the main topic on which competitive advantage is won or lost. Since 2015, trade-related climate measures have grown by more than 300%, with the European Union's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) coming into force in 2023 and driving a strong rise in climate measures covering trade. Since 2015, trade-related climate measures have more than tripled, with a significant acceleration since the implementation of the European Union's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) in 2023 [4]. At the same time, according to the Global Risks Report 2024 by the World Economic Forum (WEF), failure to act on climate change and natural disasters is among the top five most dangerous risks to the world economy over the next decade [2]. All of these macro-level changes are demanding organizations to reimagine sourcing, production, logistics, and governance – simultaneously.
Navigating AI-Driven Leadership in a Fragmented World
Beginning in 2025, the economic environment will become increasingly fragmented and complex due to two concurrent trends: ongoing geopolitical fragmentation and an increasing level of AI (artificial intelligence) integration into company operations and executive decision-making processes. Global companies were designed and built over many decades to maximize the benefits of a globalised world through centralised supply chains and a regular flow of goods and services. However, recent geopolitical instability, formation of regionalised trading blocs, introduction of export controls, and diverging regulatory regulations have all radically altered how companies conduct business on a global scale, resulting in a fragmented and rapidly changing global marketplace. In conjunction with these changes, the use of artificial intelligence has evolved from simply being a tool used to drive efficiencies to being the foundation for how organisations are leveraging data and information to assess and predict potential risks, and to enable organisations to make informed decisions, while maintaining their competitive advantage. In this new and rapidly changing environment, leaders will be required to blend the capability of leveraging the insight generated from data and information captured through AI into their organisations’ governance, strategy, talent management and operational resilience. Organisations that have successfully institutionalised the use of AI within their leadership practices are showing improved speed of decision-making, improved capacity to adapt to disruptions in their supply chain, improved compliance and enhanced speed of innovation. This new competitive advantage can be referred to as the “AI Leadership Premium”. This article looks at the fragmentation phenomenon in the global economy, explores how leadership is changing in an age of AI, and introduces a three-pillar model that an organization should implement to be resilient and competitive in the coming year, as well as provide practical advice with the use of figures, graphs and strategic analysis.
High-Impact Management Practices for Overcoming Trade Barriers
The world of international trade has become increasingly erratic with the introduction of globalization and the impact of COVID-19; barriers such as tariffs, non-tariff barriers, fragmented globalization, and differences in regulations are all combining to mitigate the competitive advantage that companies currently have in doing business worldwide. This paper will establish five high-performance management practices that have been defined through secondary research data from the World Trade Organization (WTO), World Bank research, and scientific studies and are intended for use by executives and policymakers to build global trade resilience. To demonstrate how the five best practice models interact within an organization's system, we will provide a general architecture diagram and empirical evidence on how each practice contributes to export resiliency, cost competitiveness, and long-term market access.
Future-Ready Management for Sustainable Trade Success
Digital infrastructure is embedded in global trade and they go hand in hand. Economies with digital technologies in their trade systems have generally been superior in all the performance indicators. The export growth rate for Singapore was 8.2% in 2023, with a score of 92.4 on its Digital Trade Readiness (DTR) Index, compared with 1.8% for Nigeria, which scored 41.3 on its DTR Index (World Bank, 2024). This is an indication of the cumulative benefit of being digitally prepared. On the organisational side, managers need to make e-invoicing systems a priority, implement AI tools for demand forecasting and embrace blockchain-based documentation to lower the costs and delays in transactions. According to the OECD (2023) estimates, the benefits of digital trade facilitation measures reach up to 14.3% reductions in the cost of international trade, with the largest gains coming for SMMEs. This is now part of South Korea's approach on the Customs and Logistics Payments (CLP) front, as the DTR score stood at 85.3, which includes support for customs, logistics, and payment settlement, with export growth at 6.8%. Germany provides a good example of a developed model which digitalisation is applied throughout the value chain. Germany has a DTR score of 88.7 and 85% of its exporters use e-commerce, which results in USD 1.591 trillion in merchandise exports in 2023 (WTO, 2024). Future-ready managers need to regard digital investment as a key enabler for market access and volume, rather than an overhead.
Strategic Decision-Making in the Face of Global Trade Constraints
Cross-border trade’s risk assessment has changed significantly because of increasing tensions among countries, reversing protective policies and breaking up global trade supply chains created during the pandemic as well as changing foreign currency rates. The frameworks for making strategic decisions used when trade was relatively uninterrupted by these types of issues are largely ineffective in managing the multiple issues. The authors of this paper present an integrated strategic decision-making trade framework, using four integrated strategic layers, drawing on dynamic capabilities’ theory, global value chain analysis, and real-time commercial market intelligence [4]. Using data from the World Trade Organization (2024) and the Baker, Bloom, and Davis Economic Policy Uncertainty Index, they show that firms whose governance structures incorporate adaptive governance principles, scenario-planning capabilities, and delegation of decision-making authority outperformed firms that do not have such practices systematically during periods of trade constraints. Finally, this article provides a roadmap of practical implementation for senior trade executives and strategy directors.
AI-Based Strategic Decision-Making in Trade Operations
The way global trade has been managed and run has been traditionally based on late data, manual processes and leadership based on experience and not real-time data. This paradigm is in the midst of a reconfiguration. The workings of how and when to trade and the risk attitude are now being driven by AI (Machine, Deep, Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Autonomous decision systems). Bughin et al., (2018) This is a measurable change. Less than 30% of the companies in the Fortune 500 that reported exposure to foreign trade were using AI in strategic trade decision workflows in 2019. That increased to 71% by 2024, powered by competitive pressure, the speed of data available and the proven value of AI-based decision processes in minimising miscalculation costs throughout the customs, logistics, pricing and market-entry processes [3]. Governments have been working in parallel with each other, having each created national AI trade decision platforms that use real-time trade flows, competitor prices, tariff schedules and regulatory signals to provide actionable intelligence for both trade negotiators and exporters. In this article, AI's role in strategic decision-making for trade operations is explored by conducting a comprehensive analysis of six national cases, quantitative data analysis, and conceptual integration. The analysis also deliberately focuses on the strategic dimensions of decision-making, such as market selection, negotiation positioning, risk calibration and pricing intelligence, but not just on operational AI applications in logistics or customs clearance, which are discussed only insofar as they contribute to strategic decision-making (World Trade Organization, 2024).
Management Innovation for Cross-Border Trade Resilience
Trade volatility has changed so much that a leader must now lead rather than manage risk. The decline of merchandise trade in 2023; the increasing number of trade regulations; and the increasing fragmentation of global supply chains all require leaders to anticipate disruption, move quickly to respond to changes, make implementation decisions quickly, and continuously learn via feedback and other methods. The LFTVN model set forth in this paper provides leaders with a solid framework for developing these abilities because it is based on the theory of dynamic capability, the science of leadership, and several pieces of current empirical evidence. The six leadership types described in this paper (transformational, adaptive decision-making, redesigning supply chains, financial options strategy, creating talent, and digital intelligence) do not represent either/or leadership choices; rather, these are complementary capabilities that can be used more effectively together in a unified portfolio of leadership approaches that is appropriate for the organization’s unique risk profile and strategic timing. Future research should explore the applicability of LFTVN performance across multiple industries and the extent to which LFTVN can be applied to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and emerging markets, where portfolio resources may be limited.
Predictive Management Strategies for Trade Resilience and Growth: AI Management Innovation in Volatile International Markets
Since 2019, the international trade scene has been shaken to its core. The current COVID-19 pandemic, the growing US–China trade tensions, the Ukraine conflict and increasing climate change related disruptions have made the concept of rule-based trade governance no longer adequate in today's climate to control the current volume of commercial risks. Static tariff schedules, bilateral negotiation and reactive logistics are no longer effective for countries that are now confronted by a complex ecosystem of interlocked risks that cannot be managed using these traditional methods. AI and predictive analytics are now key enablers of a new paradigm in trade management. Governments, multinational corporations and logistics providers are now using machine learning models, natural language processing (NLP) algorithms and real-time data feeds to forecast and prepare for shocks, pre-position stocks and adaptively reroute supply chains. Trade impacts are huge: according to World Trade Organization [4], trade disruptions cost the world economy about USD 4.3 trillion of foregone trade from 2020 to 2022 alone. This article explores how AI-powered predictive management is transforming trade resilience and driving sustainable export expansion in key economies such as China, the United States, Germany, Singapore, India, Vietnam and Brazil. The paper, based on five key sources of academic research, intergovernmental reports and industry analyses, provides empirical evidence, frameworks and policy implications for practitioners and policy makers working in today's dynamic global markets.
Leadership Approaches to Navigating Global Trade Volatility
The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed an unfortunate truth: since the early 1990s, there has not been enough trust or cooperation between countries to make global trade a viable option. The growth of merchandise trade has greatly declined, with total trade expected to drop from a 9.8% growth rate in 2021 to -1.1% in 2023, with a modest recovery of 2.6% forecasted for 2024 [3]. The reasons for this are structural (e.g., increased competition due to geopolitical tensions, re-nationalisation of industrial policies, supply shocks due to climate change, erosion of WTO processes for dispute resolution) and suggest an era of ongoing uncertainty regarding trade. In this new volatile environment, the quality of organizational leadership has transitioned from "soft" metrics to "hard" performance metrics. Organizations led by executives who can synthesize real-time novel data, build adaptive cultures, and successfully execute organizational pivoting are much more resilient than those that rely only on procedure-based governance. Kotter (2012) has long posited that leading change requires two distinct structures (a traditional hierarchy for efficiency and an agile network structure for sensemaking and responding). His insight is particularly relevant today due to the anticipated disruptions to global trade. These contributions provide insights into leadership theory as a means of understanding the dynamics of global trade volatility. First, this paper contributes to the literature by situating the leadership literature within the context of trade volatility. Second, the author introduces the Leadership Framework for Trade Volatility Navigation (LFTVN), which consists of four levels of leadership (Sensing, Strategy, Execution, and Outcomes). Third, the author identifies six empirically supported leadership approaches with defined impacts and horizon levels (see Table 1). The author's argument is supported by a combination of Bass and Riggio (2006), Teece et al. (1997), Ivanov and Dolgui (2020), and current data from the WTO and the IMF [1][2][4][5].
AI-Enabled Leadership in Dynamic Global Trade Environments
In the last ten years, the international trade climate has changed dramatically, as economic dynamics shift, the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted supply chains, and artificial intelligence (AI) has proliferated in business decision-making. The current trading environment is unprecedented and the information, velocity and complexity are increasing as leaders of trading organizations such as national trade ministries, multinational corporations and regional export agencies are increasingly confronted. (Brynjolfsson & McAfee, 2023) The traditional systems of leadership, established by human experience and precepts are proving to be increasingly ineffective in situations where trade volumes can fluctuate hourly; regulations can be enacted in dozens of jurisdictions simultaneously; and vulnerabilities in the supply chain can impact continents. AI is not just an add-on feature, but a foundational component of any businesses' strategy for global competitiveness in the trade landscape. World Economic Forum, (2023) For example, Singapore MTI implemented AI-powered market intelligence platforms in 2022 which cut the time it takes for the country to respond to trade policy negotiations from 14 days to less than 48 hours, allowing negotiators to adjust policy positions in real-time during the discussions on expanding the CPTPP (Singapore MTI, 2023). In a similar fashion, China's Ministry of Commerce has incorporated machine learning into the monitoring system for BRI, analyzing real-time data from more than 140 partner countries to fine-tune logistics corridors and proactively mitigate potential tariff flashpoints [3]. The developments represent a paradigm shift: AI is not just changing the way trade is done; it is changing the way people think about trade leadership. Based on empirical evidence from six major trading countries, two quantitative analyses and a conceptual framework that combines the core aspects of this transformation, this article explores the ways in which AI-powered leadership can generate competitive advantage in global trade. The analysis does not follow the typical academic structure of abstract and literature review, but rather focuses on direct interaction with the practical evidence and the implications for strategy.
Smart Management Frameworks for Sustainable Trade Performance
The world of trade is rapidly becoming a complex one. The traditional linear model of trade is structurally weak because of multiple factors, including geopolitical stress, climate change's impact on a fragile supply chain, etc. The greater the number of countries that maintain single-lever policy mechanisms, the further behind they are in terms of the effectiveness of integrated, adaptive management mechanisms. An answer is obviously that the ability of the trade to sustain a certain performance is not a side-effect, but rather a design feature [1]. Smart management frameworks (SMFs) are not only a paradigm shift in trade governance from 'silo' to systems thinking approach, but also a set of three instruments: digital infrastructure, regulatory coherence, and environmental accountability and human capital development. One of the most striking examples of the progress in which Singapore has emerged as the world's leading trade hub is the country's TPI score of 92 in 2023. The performance gains in the city-state's TradeTrust platform are illustrative of the various compounding efficacy that can be delivered from the underlying digital architecture that is 'built into sovereign trade policy' [2]. The current paper contains an empirical study on SMFs in eight countries (three continents and five income groups) including Germany, Singapore, South Korea, Vietnam, Brazil, Kenya, Nigeria and Argentina. The analysis includes quantitative performance data (2015-2023) and a qualitative framework assessment to bring to light, at a structural level, the drivers of sustainable trading performance.
AI Management Innovation in Volatile International Markets
The world of today's trade is characteriseds by the structural volatility of geopolitical decoupling, fragmentation of supply chains, a proliferation of regulations and a very dynamic demand structure. In this environment, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) has become a management lever of first choice that can encompass predictive forecasting, regulatory compliance, supply chain optimisation, financial risk management and much more. This article looks at the impact of AI on real country-level innovation in managers in turbulent global markets using empirical evidence and real country-level data. It presents an AI Management Innovation Framework (AMIF) consisting of six application domains, and evaluates their competitive impact in key markets such as the United States, China, UAE, Singapore, Germany, India, the United Kingdom, and Brazil. Results suggest that higher AI investment and usage levels in countries and firms are measurably correlated with improved adaptation to trade volatility, while a growing AI gap between economies is a systemic risk to inclusive trade growth [3][4].
Intelligent Management Systems for Overcoming Global Trade Barriers
Despite the fact that global trade remains the lifeblood of economic growth, there are still numerous obstacles to the movement of goods and services between countries. These barriers take two main forms, namely, tariff barriers (taxes imposed on imports) and non-tariff barriers (NTBs) such as regulatory standards, customs procedures, sanitary requirements and administrative requirements. World Trade Organization (WTO) estimated that non-tariff barriers cost the world traded goods as much as 10-20% ad valorem tariff, which is unfairly burdened on the developing countries [1]. As shown in Graph 1 below, Brazil experiences trade barriers costs of over 24% of trade value, and when adding non-tariff costs Brazil comes to 27.7% – much higher than Germany's 5.0%.
AI-Driven Management Models for Cross-Border Trade Competitiveness
AI technology has revolutionized international trade management and influenced competitiveness across borders. This article discusses some of the most prominent trade management systems used in key economies such as USA, China, Germany, Singapore, Brazil, India and Nigeria, to provide a deeper understanding of how AI is being implemented in their trade systems. This study examines five key references and real-world trade data from the World Trade Organization (WTO), the World Bank and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to explore the benefits that AI brings to supply chain visibility, real-time customs processing, logistics route optimization and predictive risk management. The influence of AI application in various economies is shown in the two empirical charts below as well as the conceptual chart. Summary performance figures are contained in a comparative table of data. It is observed that more use of AI technology has resulted in shorter customs clearance times, improved logistics operations, and higher exports. Recommendations for emerging and developing economies are provided.
AI Management for Strategic Resilience in Global Trade
Geopolitical tensions, supply chain disruptions at the time of the pandemic, and rapid technological advancements have all highlighted key shortcomings in the global trading system. This article explores the ways in which AI management frameworks can contribute to strategic resilience in global trade networks. Based on World Trade Organization, 2024, McKinsey Global Institute (2023) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) World Economic Outlook (2025), we examine patterns of AI adoption in 47 multinational companies in Asia-Pacific trade corridors between 2021 and 2025. The results show that companies that adopted AI-based supply chain risk management tools reported a 34% cost savings in disruption related costs and a 28% increase in demand forecast accuracy over non-AI adopting companies. We propose a three-pillar Strategic Resilience AI Framework (SRAIF) of predictive analytics, autonomous supplier diversification and real-time trade compliance monitoring. Policy implications for policy makers, trade practitioners and management scholars are discussed.
Managerial Strategies for Sustaining Competitiveness in Trade Disruptions
As global trade began facing turbulent conditions in 2020 due to COVID-19 pandemic, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, shipping disruptions in the Middle East, and heightened trade tensions between the US and China; by the end of 2023, the Catholic Global Church had already witnessed a notable 1.2% drop in world volume of merchandise traded in the world, this has been the first annual drop in volume of merchandise traded since 2009 [3]. In the same period, the number of new trade restrictions implemented around the world increased from approximately 1,100 in 2019 to almost 3,200 at the end of 2022 [6]. This has created an existential threat for organizations that had built their business models around a stable, rules-based multilateral trading system. Historically, organizations' responses to disruptions in trade have alternated between reactive cost-reduction measures and opportunistic market repositioning. However, the current trade environment requires companies to develop and implement a more systematic and anticipatory approach. According to Sheffi (2005), resilient organizations recognize that it is far better to invest in flexibility before a disruption occurs (embedding flexible working within the DNA of their organizations), rather than relying on improvisation in times of crisis. Chopra and Sodhi (2004) add that effective supply chain risk management requires a combination of various mitigation strategies, which are calibrated to both the probability of risk occurring as well as the level of risk when it does occur [1][2].
Blueprint for Balance: A Step-by-Step Framework for Aligning SME Operations with Global Goals
The importance of SMEs as the cornerstone of global economics cannot be overstated, with SMEs making up more than 90 percent of total firms and nearly 70 percent of total global employment [6]. However, despite their economic importance, SMEs have not yet been integrated into structured sustainability systems. Where multinational organizations have been developing their own ESG architecture over the last two decades, most SMEs have yet to be systematically oriented towards the UN SDGs, due to a lack of resources, information asymmetries, or simply because there is no available framework on how to integrate them within their operations.
Adaptive Management Frameworks for Resilient International Trade
International trade has long been seen as the most dependable source of improving the economies of both poorer and richer countries; however, recent developments suggest that the current international trading system is now in a prolonged period of structural instability. For instance, between late 2018 and the end of 2024, the global trade system has experienced: 1) The US-China trade dispute; 2) The COVID-19-induced shock to demand and the logistics systems responsible for handling global shipping volume; 3) Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and the numerous sanctions placed on the latter as a result; and 4) A large number of nations affecting the flow of global goods through the implementation of industrial policies (i.e. the US's CHIPS and Science Acts, and the European Union's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism). The net result of these events is a global trade system that has become more interdependent and more challenged than at any point since World War II. As a result of these changes, the strategic management literature has responded to this environment by increasing interest on resilience as a fundamental goal of the individual organisation. However, resilience is viewed by many to be a stable characteristic of an organisation; that is, an organisation either possesses resilience or does not [6]. This paper calls for a more comprehensive definition to describe resilience in organisations, and proposes an Adaptive Management Framework (AMF) to identify how organisations can: 1) detect early warning signals of a trade disruption; 2) choose appropriate strategies to deal with the disruption; and 3) continue to evolve the way they conduct operations to adapt to the environment.
Strategic Management Responses to Emerging Global Trade Barriers
The form of dull and traditional trade that post-war liberalism had painstakingly waged through successive rounds of GATT and WTO negotiations faces sustained and arguably structural challenges. Between 2018 and 2024, global tariff interventions surged at a pace not recorded since the Great Depression. During the bilateral trade war between the US and China alone, retaliatory tariffs affected over US$700 billion in goods [1]. This dynamism of the US and China, regardless of the interpretation, is only the tip of the iceberg of wider movements: the CEBAM launched by the European Union, India's increasingly assertive import substitution policies, and the US CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act contain restructuring subsidies. All these developments point toward the centrality of trade policy as an instrument for industrial strategy, rather than a tool of comparative advantage. For those with a technical grasp of corporate strategy, this change is simply no longer an academic notion; it invites a sobering rethinking of value chain architecture, sourcing logic, market entry assumptions, and financial hedging frameworks. The relevant managerial question is no longer whether trade barriers will remain, but how firms can create durable strategic postures that consciously and decisively outperform competitors in a world of continuously changing trade policy settings. This article contributes to that practical agenda by synthesizing recent empirical research, strategic management theory, and practitioner case evidence into an integrated framework for trade barrier response.
Beyond Philanthropy: Why True SDG Integration is a Fiduciary Duty, not a PR Move
The issue about institutional investors' portfolio alignment with the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has, for a very long time, been perceived as the choice between ethical investing and profitability. This paradigm is old-fashioned – and more and more becoming legally indefensible. From Amsterdam to Tokyo, the regulatory authorities have narrowed down the gap from voluntary commitment to legal requirement, while growing empirical evidence shows that portfolios misaligned with the SDGs pose material risks, which have yet to be priced into investments. It is not a matter of whether the alignment must be achieved. It is a matter of how soon.
Strategic Responses to Global Trade Barriers and Policy Shifts
Geopolitical competition, supply chain disruptions due to COVID-19, and a wave of new industrial policy legislation have come together over the past two years to create an environment where the liberal trade consensus that ruled for 30 years after the establishment of WTO has broken down. This paper identifies and describes the current environment of trade policy activism—including tariff increases, export controls, investment screening, and digital regulatory barriers — quantifies the cumulative effect of these activities on the global economy through early 2025 using data from Global Trade Alert, WTO, and IMF, and suggests a four-dimensional strategic response framework for companies that operate in fragmented markets. This paper emphasizes that businesses must begin to move from a reactive approach to compliance toward an architecture of proactive trade strategy, embedding as part of their permanent strategy competencies of market diversification, technology robustness/resiliency, regulatory intelligence—as well as stakeholder diplomacy.
Navigating the Green Tape: How Emerging SDG Regulations are Reshaping Supply Chain Compliance
Whereas lean manufacturing has transformed the global supply chain to a certain degree, it is one of the most complete changes to the supply chain in recent years. This time, however, it is not happening due to geopolitical shocks or logistics failures caused by the pandemic — it's happening because of regulation. In virtually all parts of the European Union, the United States, China, India, and more, governments are incorporating Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) requirements into the compliance ecosystem in which multinational corporations operate on a day-to-day basis [6]. Out of this comes a growing wall of "green tape" that procurement, legal and C-suites are just starting to comprehend.