Working women face various challenges regarding work‐family balance due to societal, cultural, family, and gender norms. These challenges have become more difficult since the emergence of COVID‐19 worldwide. This qualitative research addresses work‐family issues of working women in the distinct Bangladeshi socio‐cultural context. Guided by a thematic analysis, this study explores various driving forces and challenges faced by working women, and strategies adopted by women to manage work‐family obligations. The findings reveal flexibility and homeworking, family and spousal support, and organisational support as key driving forces for women's work‐life balance during the COVID‐19. Lack of available time, socio‐cultural and family norms, and gender stereotypes are key challenges women face in a Muslim patriarchal societal context. Effective time management, stress management, keeping husbands and family members happy, sustainable management of professional and personal lives, and listing out priorities are useful techniques women adopt to integrate work‐family commitments. The findings provide potential solutions for women to effectively manage work‐family responsibilities in a patriarchal societal context.

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Precision agriculture technologies (PATs) are promoted as part of both economically efficient and environmentally sustainable agriculture practices. Available PATs are generally classified into two groups; namely, embodied-knowledge and information-intensive PATs. Adoption levels of embodied-knowledge PATs are high relative to information-intensive PATs. Previous studies on the adoption of PATs do not differentiate between embodiedknowledge and information-intensive PATs. Additionally, most studies focus on the adoption of one or two of the available PATs rather than on adoption intensity-defined as the total number of individual PATs adopted. This study fills this gap in the literature by focusing on PAT adoption in general, and adoption intensity of embodied-knowledge and information-intensive PATs in particular. The study uses data from 198 farm-operator respondents in eastern South Dakota from a 2017 survey and employs descriptive statistics and probit and Poisson regression models for the analyses. As per the study, GPS guidance, yield monitor, and automatic section control systems are the most popular PATs, each with adoption rates of over 50%. Overall, findings from the study show that the effect of cropland size, producers' perceptions of profitability, and operator off-farm income are similar for both adoption and adoption intensity of embodied-knowledge and information-intensive PATs. However, there are differences in the effect of land productivity and familiarity with computer use between adoption and adoption intensity and between embodied-knowledge and information-intensive PATs. The effect of producers' perception of the environmental benefits of PATs is inconclusive and needs to be investigated in future research. The results indicate that analyzing PATs as a group of technologies masks differences in determinants between embodied-knowledge and information-intensive PATs. The study provides insights for developing programs, policies, and outreach efforts that encourage the adoption and adoption intensity of both embodied-knowledge and information-intensive PATs. Findings from the study will also be of interest to precision agriculture researchers, extension personnel, agribusinesses, and policymakers who may consider PATs as tools for improving agricultural sustainability and food security.

This study aimed to explore and address the employability challenges of business graduates in the higher education sector in Bangladesh. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and analysed applying thematic analysis (N = 35, 77% male, mean age = 34 years). Findings revealed that skill gaps, lack of quality education system, quality teachers, industry-university collaboration, backdated course curriculum, and corruption are important challenges for graduate employability in Bangladesh. The study suggests improving communication skills, updating course curriculum, curbing institutional corruption, limiting student-teacher politics, hiring and promoting quality teachers, and industry-university collaboration as strategies to improve graduate employability. The findings may help employers, managers, graduates, academics, and policymakers in the higher education sector to identify and address graduate employability challenges in an emerging economy such as Bangladesh.

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