  The main goal of the ALICE experiment is to study the physics of strongly
interacting matter, focusing on the properties of the quark-gluon plasma (QGP).
The relative production of strange hadrons with respect to non-strange hadrons
in heavy-ion collisions was historically considered as one of the signatures of
QGP formation. However, the latest results in proton-proton (pp) and
proton-lead (p-Pb) collisions have revealed an increasing trend in the yield
ratio of strange hadrons to pions with the charged-particle multiplicity in the
event, showing a smooth evolution across different collision systems and
energies.
  We present the new studies which are performed with the aim of better
understanding the production mechanisms for strange particles and hence the
strangeness enhancement phenomenon in small collision systems. In one of the
recent studies, the very forward energy transported by beam remnants
(spectators) and detected by the Zero Degree Calorimeters (ZDC) is used to
classify events. The contribution of the effective energy and the particle
multiplicity on strangeness production is studied using a multi-differential
approach in order to disentangle initial and final state effects. In the second
study, the origin of strangeness enhancement with multiplicity in pp has been
further investigated by separating the contribution of soft and hard processes,
such as jets, to strange hadron production. Techniques involving full jet
reconstruction or two-particle correlations have been exploited. The results
indicate that the increased relative strangeness production emerges from the
growth of the underlying event, being disconnected from initial state
properties, and suggest that soft (out-of-jets) processes are the dominant
contribution to strange hadron production.
