Dear Readers,

Welcome to the first issue of Spark: The Salford Business Journal of Innovation, Societal Sustainability and Education . The rationale behind this Journal was to provide our postgraduate students at Salford Business School, a platform as independent writers or alongside supervisors, to begin publishing their work and interest in scholarship. The published papers in this first edition very much reflect this scholarship, though we also invite contributions from our staff, as a source inspiration.

Notably, the Journal is aimed at supporting contributors to publish expressions of interest and research on how key challenges and innovations in the current global business environment is shaping business and workplace environments, and societies. Certainly, the threat of global geopolitical events seems unprecedented - threatening markets, causing inflationary pressures, and economic uncertainty for business. Digital technological advancements have delivered disruptions, threats (e.g. cybersecurity), and importantly, innovations (e.g. Artificial Intelligence) in workplaces across sectors. Political instability and trade barriers consistently challenge supply chains and the small business and Small and Medium-sized business sector. Significant regulatory barriers have been imposed post-Brexit. Societal expectations, too, are shifting, around the role of institutions, power and politics, the power of collectivism, consumerism and materialism.

The impact to business of these combined challenges is further mirrored in the reduced consumer demand, sustainability concerns, and business competitiveness drivers and challenges. There is, importantly, also negative impact on workers in terms of rising employment relations concerns. Such concerns include the need for a health and wellbeing mandate, questionable (un) employment trends, and a rising culture of workplace unfairness. The scope of this Journal is broad in nature to enable contributions to reflect on the variety of these themes.

We thank our contributors to the first issue (Gender and Female Leadership), for their insights. We also thank Stephen Morrin (The Library), for his support in getting this Journal launched and for his detailed guidance on publishing content on the Janeway platform.

Moving forwards, we are excited about the development of this Journal and look forward to and welcome further contributions from our staff and postgraduate students at the Business School. Please do get in touch with the Editorial team if you are interested in contributing to the Journal or for the purposes of providing feedback.

Thank you.

Fatima Malik