This study investigates the impact of risk-based internal auditing (RBIA) on the effectiveness of risk management in medium-sized enterprises (MEs) within the Delhi-NCR region. Adopting an inferential analytical framework, the research tested three hypotheses to examine the relationship between RBIA adoption, organizational characteristics, audit maturity, and risk management outcomes. Data analysis using correlation and regression confirmed a strong positive relationship between RBIA implementation and the effectiveness of risk management practices. Enterprises with mature internal audit structures demonstrated enhanced capabilities in anticipating and mitigating financial, operational, and compliance risks. The study also found that organizational characteristics such as sectoral type, leadership orientation, and audit resource allocation significantly influence the depth of RBIA adoption, with higher maturity observed in healthcare and financial services compared to manufacturing and logistics sectors. Furthermore, audit maturity emerged as a critical determinant of risk performance, as formalized internal audit frameworks were positively correlated with timeliness of risk mitigation and integration of audit findings into business decisions. Challenges including budgetary limitations, lack of skilled auditors, and resistance to change were identified as impediments to RBIA implementation. The findings contribute to both academic and practical discourse by highlighting the strategic value of RBIA in fostering resilient and forward-looking risk governance cultures in medium enterprises.

The shift to the sustainable development requires new strategies that would solve all three problems at once: environmental degradation and shortage of resources, as well as several social inequalities. In this paper, the author analyzes how principles of a circular economy and social entrepreneurship are converging as a new frontier that has the potential to produce systemic and long-term solutions to these global issues. Whereas the circular economy focuses on regenerative production frameworks, waste reduction, and the re-use of materials over and over again, social entrepreneurship focuses on the mission-driven innovation, empowering communities, and the creation of inclusive value. Collectedly, these frameworks provide a complementary route which balances ecological responsibility against social impact. Based on interdisciplinary sources, the paper will discuss the capacity of circular business models, including product-as-a-service, repair and remanufacturing networks, and community-based resource sharing, to become more effective when implemented within socially entrepreneurial programs. The analysis points out the socially driven business potential to achieve circularity by mobilizing the local stakeholders, promoting a change in behaviour, and aligning the economic incentives with the general welfare. The examples of the cases in the industry demonstrate the fact that this integration not only reduces the environmental strains but also opens the possibility of more jobs to perform, strengthens the local resilience, and leads to even more equal distribution of resources. Some of the biggest barriers that hinder a larger adoption are also revealed in the article as regulations restrictions, a lack of financing and ignorance among the consumer and institutions. To help address these issues, it proposes a package of enabling policies that take the form of cross-sector partnerships, supportive policy frameworks, capacity-building approaches, and mission-specific investment systems. Ultimately, the paper comes to the conclusion that the strategic synergies of a circular economy and social entrepreneurship can be utilized as a transformational driver of sustainable development which has a holistic model of environmental regeneration and inclusive socio-economic innovation.

Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) has established itself as an essential functional and ethical requirement for recommendation and decision support systems to effectively promote sustainable consumption without falling into the trap of algorithmic opacity. Recent empirical evidence, in contrast to traditional "black box" models, demonstrates that adequate explanations not only cultivate user trust, but are a direct factor in improving performance in the execution of decision tasks and willingness to follow recommendations (Senoner et al., 2024). However, the effectiveness of this technology is conditioned by the fidelity, conciseness, and action provided by the explanation (Senoner et al., 2024). At the technical level, the uncritical use of widely disseminated model-agnostic methods, such as SHAP (Shapley Additive Explanations) or LIME (Local Interpretable Model-agnostic Explanations), poses substantial challenges related to the instability and collinearity of variables, which demand a methodological approach that incorporates caution and triangulation (Huang et al., 2024; Letoffe et al., 2025). In the European regulatory context, the confluence of the AI Act and the CSRD/ESRS corporate reporting guidelines establish explicit transparency and traceability obligations, linking algorithmic explainability directly to the organization's governance and accountability standards.

Non-financial resources have taken on a more significant role in the social entrepreneurship process of generating sustainable social values, and social capital has turned out to be one of the most highly demanded and least researched resources in social entrepreneurship. This paper evaluates the functioning of social capital as a type of currency that can help social entrepreneurs to transform resources, create legitimacy, and expand influence in community settings. Based on the theoretical approaches and field-based findings, the analysis will examine three related aspects of social capital bonding, bridging, and linking and examine how each of them plays a role in the formation, development of, and the sustainability of social enterprises. Close-knit groups should have bonding relationships that usually offer trust, volunteer support, and first-stage validation, whereas bridging relationships between different networks bypass barriers to accessing skills, partners, and knowledge. The connection between social capital, which crosses either hierarchical or institutional lines, also increases the capacity of social entrepreneurs to have endorsements and negotiate within policy settings as well as to interact with formal systems. The paper also brings out mechanisms in which community networks work as an alternative economic system in which they can exchange resources where conventional financial capital is constrained. They are collaborating in solving problems, collective work, collective community property, and reputation reciprocity. The research also assesses the problem of too thick networks, reliance on informal networks and the disproportions in distribution of social capital in communities. Offering a conceptual framework that traces the process of transformation of social capital into tangible results, the study demonstrates its strategic value in the process of social enterprise design and sustainability. Finally, the paper suggests that viewing social capital as an acceptable and quantifiable type of currency can empower community-based entrepreneurial theories and inform policymakers and practitioners to create more inclusive social innovation ecosystems.

The digital starting up ecosystem is increasingly becoming grown by women entrepreneurs, but their trajectories, tactics, and limitations are still underrepresented in comparison to their male peers. This paper discusses how women founders engage digital resources, technical competence, and personal resources to develop, grow, and maintain startups in a fast- changing environment of innovation. Using the current literature on gendered entrepreneurship and digital transformation, the study investigates the dynamic between the use of technology, the availability of resources, market inclusion, and the socio-cultural obstacle. The article demonstrates the importance of digital platforms, including e-commerce and fintech as well as cloud-based productivity systems, as essential facilitators of women entrepreneurs due to their ability to reduce barriers to entry, increase networking, as well as provide a flexible way of conducting business. At the same time, the paper mentions such problems as the absence of funding opportunities, biases in the algorithms, gender stereotypes, and unequal access to mentorship and technical training, which still persist. The paper take a mixed-methodology approach, which will entail the application of the secondary sources and synthesized facts of the cases in determining the trends of women using digital literacy, community support system, and creative problem-solving to quit the structural constraints. These have made it clear that technology not only helps in improving the performance of the operations but also enables women to re-brand themselves as being entrepreneurial, diversify their markets other than developing socially responsive business models. The paper however claims that it cannot use digital innovations in balancing the existing disparities between the genders without additional policy and ecosystem designing. The research facilitates the additional knowledge on the digital start up space as an opportunity space and a battleground to women. It ends with a suggestion of a template of enhancing inclusivity by narrow skilling, equitable policies of financing and gender sensitive digital infrastructure which would finally have a more diverse and healthy entrepreneurial system.