VUCA - Volatile Uncertain Complex Ambiguous

This conceptual article proposes the use of ethical mindfulness (EM) as a framework to promote more ethical practices among faculty, which can be especially important during times of uncertainty and volatility. First, we address some of the ethical challenges specific to faculty, focusing on the context surrounding academic work. Second, we highlight ethical sensemaking and the reasons why it may be difficult to change our ethical behavior. Finally, we describe the EM framework in further detail using our own experience as examples, and we argue this practice is one way we can try to change our behavior for the better.

This activity is founded upon the authors research and work experience over a number of years. It is used here as an experiential learning component of the executive programme and aimed at executives from diverse sectors, including the public sector. The exercise is usually run over at least two 3-hour sessions to enable teams to get some research and planning carried out before they return to present. The presentation includes some role-playing and a key aim is to place the teams in a business context that is both complex and challenging and which may they may not be familiar with. Some extra, ´surprise´ information may also be presented at times by facilitators, to simulate the unexpected effects of dynamic complexity on resilience of plans and robustness of leadership.

Supply chain management is often associated with disruptions and chaos. This paper intends to explore the factors causing supply chain disruptions and develop a framework for supply chain resilience, highlighting the significance of integrating quality assurance and risk management. With the help of in-depth interviews of management officials involved in the pharmaceutical supply chains in Pakistan, the study finds that a holistic approach towards quality assurance function is indispensable in the supply chain of pharmaceuticals. Drawing on the theoretical framework of chaos theory and complexity theory, the results of this study show that supply chain resilience can be achieved effectively by implementing a proper risk management system identifying the possibilities, and quantifying and mitigating the risks before they emerge. The study also highlights the differences between the supply chain resilience capability of Pakistan's large and small-scale pharmaceutical firms.

Constant shifts, both in global and local spheres, be it in public or private settings, influenced by anything from disease outbreaks, politics, terrorist attacks, or natural disasters can change circumstances instantaneously, which are often described as the characteristic of a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) environment. Hence, to weather the storm that VUCA challenges present, many practitioners as well as researchers are of the view that certain capabilities are vital to be had and developed in a leader for team and organizational success. Learning agility is, thus, seen as an important leadership competency that is crucial in facing the challenges of a VUCA world. Nevertheless, a review of the literature shows that little has been researched or being written on learning agility among educational leaders or within an educational context. Thus, this paper attempts at filling in this gap by bringing together a coherent treatment of learning agility within the context of educational leadership in the VUCA world. For further investigation and future research, a conceptual framework of learning agility which is consequential to a VUCA-ready leadership within the educational sphere is proposed.

The abbreviation of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity is known as VUCA that was first described by Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus in 1987 based on their Leadership theories. VUCA settings has been emerged due to continuous changing business model, innovative technology, updated management style and the ongoing Covid-19 outbreak, where status quo is not an option in leadership. Diversity and inclusion (D&I) is one of those agendas for a leader to be managed in effective manner. A leader, who not just focuses on diversity but makes inclusion as a part of organizational culture, is successfully facing VUCA settings. This exploratory research is conducted to study concept of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA) world, concept of diversity and inclusion in VUCA settings and in between role of an inclusive leader. So, in this study the researchers conducted a systematic review of literature for formulation of a hypothetical research model for future scope. The researchers included studies regarding workforce diversity, D&I in VUCA world, features of VUCA world and required leadership competencies as well leadership challenges.

The most urgent problems of our times – concerning innovation management processes – are complex and turbulent in nature. In this article we define the vucability approach to innovation management. The VUCA refers to volatile (V), uncertain (U), complex (C) and ambiguous (A) times we are today facing. Many innovation management models do not take these Postnormal Era requirements into consideration. Uncertain and complex VUCA conditions are the fundamental reason to elaborate a new approach for innovation management. Our novel approach focuses in three essential dimensions of innovation management: (1) the density of serendipity thinking, (2) platform utilisation (including business model variety) and (3) innovation ecosystem. We claim that in the evolutionary development of science and technology parks (STPs), professionals on innovation management and governance should aim to highest sophistication in these three critical fields of innovation management. In this paper we present the foundations of the 'vucability' approach. We also note that in the development of STPs, professionals should evaluate the sophistication level of serendipity thinking, platform utilisation and innovation ecosystem development. Systemic evaluation and development activities will lead eventually to the highest level of vucability excellence. The evaluation and mapping system (EMS-VUCA 1.0) of the vucability approach will be presented in a robust form in our article.

Proposal Development
In this document we will present in the best possible way, with the information and knowledge that we currently have from our research, about the challenges of systemic integration of the study of labor and education systems in Uruguay, which can serve as a basis for develop reform proposals based on a renewed vision of the changes required according to the new paradigms.
We consider that the main aggregate values of having such an approach, in a world that is changing rapidly, leading to certain rethinking that seems to be better aligned with the third Tofflerian wave, which expand across the planet, at different rates, in the hands of a VUCA context that conditions what we can develop.
We will show that the productive and social assistance systems should be appreciated as part of a larger system, since the decisions made in the work systems are not independent of those related to the pension systems. And of course, we propose the need to revalue education as something properly integrated with the rest of the systems we consider.
We will show that it is necessary to visualize the Labor Market as a subcomponent of a complex system in which the Productive System, the State, Corporations, Regional and International Markets participate, among other subcomponents operating with high interconnectivity and interdependence, to which we add repeatedly, to the education system.
Researchers have collected evidence that at least productive systems, the labor market, pension systems and health systems must be able to coevolve. This coevolution is necessary in order to better develop the purposes of each of the systems involved and the education system cannot and should not be marginalized from these integrative efforts.
First of all, we reiterate that we rescue the need to accept uncertainty as something humanly inevitable, in an increasingly VUCA world. In this context, every form of prediction is ultimately an imposture. An imposture that we want to appreciate in systemic terms, aided by the prospective studies that we can develop, based on the basic reference scenarios that we can envision.
It is an imposture that needs to be oriented in some way. For this it is necessary to develop a vision of the desired or unwanted future, which allows us to organize this speculative work on what the future may hold for us. The slogan we rescue from our teachers is clear, facing the 21st century. All countries should be clear that ongoing social changes will accelerate and also that jobs will require more and more knowledge and skills.
These are new types of skills that will also change over time, which is not a novelty. What is new, different is the speed of the changes. Therefore, we must learn to detach and quickly. The challenge for futurists is to "discover the mystery" that holds the future. A mystery that must be discussed as something that is about to unfold. This is important because it can help us be more proactive about the future.
But anyway, it is important to keep in mind that this “mystery” about the development of the future will always be part of a way to go, because clairvoyance is not usually among the faculties of futurists. Consequently, that future will always remain a mystery about which we must conjecture knowing our human limitations. That is why we think of the need to develop prospective scenarios, rather open.
Faced with an uncertain future, what we can do is work systematically to be as well prepared as possible to react proactively, to a future that challenges us strongly. Of course, we think that this is a better option in the face of the alternative of waiting resigned for what “the future holds for us”. Precisely our approach is a call for intelligent action, based on a strategy oriented by a Prospective approach.
We believe that in a sphere of control that looks more trimmed, resilience is one of the collective characteristics that seem to be more important to develop with the idea of surviving and prospering within the framework of a set of labor changes, where productive technology meets a very important disruptive role, which is generating changes in legacy labor paradigms, with very hard effects on the quality of work of the active population.
No matter what we do anyway, the future does not exist as such. It is a speculative conception of what has not yet happened. It is defined in each way and in different ways, to which of course, we can act. The first is the way in which we conceive the challenges because this will condition the measures we develop, to achieve the productive and labor results that we test in each projected scenario.
Of course, the ability to develop options for these challenges is in itself a great source of opportunities and threats that will be necessary to face, with a more active approach to our role in society. On these bases, the proposal will be framed in a set of general contributions of approach and in some considerations about the scope of productive developments and their impact on the labor market.
This work of prospective studies with three possible delineated scenarios, will be complemented later with the basic Roadmap and Framework proposals that we have prepared to support the development of the transformation projects, which are addressed for each demand scenario. We will not go into instrumental details, in order to focus on the general aspects of the future so that the conceptual approach is well articulated.
As a complementary instrumental contribution related to Roadmap and Framework, the reader can find in greater detail the suggestions that we timely develop to address the strategic reference proposal in the coming years, whose anchors we have outlined in this instance but that we have continued to present to third parties during the Run from 2019, with the idea of deepening the debate about what should be done in the coming years.

The concept of application-oriented higher education institutions (A-HEI) in China has something in common with that of cooperative education or dual education institutions. The changes in education system led to more challenges of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA) in the present situation. Based on synergistic leadership theory and the VUCA approach, this paper synthesizes a framework of situation analysis and solution strategies. The situational leadership theory and the synthesized framework analyze the situation of developing China's A-HEI, including the synergistic leadership factors and the VUCA challenges, and provides essential solutions. Presidents may adapt leadership styles by applying corresponding strategies to address VUCA challenges in the current situation of China's A-HEI. This paper offers references and implications to presidents of China's A-HEI while adapting leadership styles to present situation and to further research on the educational leadership in China's A-HEI.

The paper aims to present the latest finding of the role of innovation and digital transformation of organisations in the VUCA world and the planned strategies that will enable companies to survive in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous business environment. We used a comparative automated content analysis approach for the presenting findings of the recent scientific works.