Modernisation Agenda Research Articles

Актуализация проблематики Чужого в ценностно-смысловом контексте по материалам русской культуры конца XVIII – первой четверти XIX вв.

The scientific interest in the problematic of the ‘Other’ remains relevant, particularly in light of ongoing globalization processes. Modern cultures confront, alienate or adopt the values of those with whom they communicate. Questions concerning whether to accept the ‘Other’ and their experiences, the potential for their transformation, and the necessity of openness towards the ‘Other’ constitute a significant modern agenda in intercultural communication. This article presents an effort to synthesize models of reception of the ‘Other’ as articulated by both domestic and European thinkers, including the author’s original scheme of the value-semantic system “Self – Other”. The concept of the ‘Other’ is examined through phenomenological and civilizational approaches. The author notes a spectrum of characteristics attributed to the ‘Other’ and proposes a value-semantic lens for their consideration. A central question that persists to the present day is the possibility of understanding the ‘Other’ or Alien. An analysis of this issue through a value-based optic has revealed the factors of identification and consolidation of the ‘Self’ in relation to the ‘Other’. The author explores this problematic through culturally-historical examples of Russian-French interactions in the late XVIII – first quarter of the XIX centuries. The given examples and cultural and historical experience can be used in the analysis of the current cultural situation.

EXPERIENCE IN IMPLEMENTING ESG-STRATEGY IN CHINA: TRENDS AND RISKS

The article reflects the importance of intro-ducing ESG principles into the policies of Chinese organizations and presents the main problem of applying the ESG model. The authors reviewed statistical data on key indicators and studied the main devel-opment trends of Chinese enterprises that encourage the use of ESG strategies. The work examines the features of integrating ESG models into the policies of Chinese companies, reveals the main risks associ-ated with the modern agenda, and analyzes ESG strategy as a mechanism for reducing business risks, with an emphasis on the experience of organizations representing the Chinese market

Unpacking the agricultural innovation and diffusion for modernizing the smallholders in rural China: From the perspective of agricultural innovation system and its governance

Innovation is perceived as a crucial tool for addressing the serious global challenges faced by the agriculture sector. This paper focuses on a new local public agricultural innovation project in the context of rural China, and intends to capture the embodied agricultural innovation and dissemination network for modernizing the smallholders. Through integrating the concepts of Agricultural Innovation System and Agricultural Innovation Governance, we develop a comprehensive framework for understanding the partnerships between agri-technicians and small farmers within the network structured by innovation governance practices. In-depth interview and network analysis methods were used to scrutinize the linkages among actors engaged with the agricultural innovation programme in case area and detect the achievements in enabling smallholders to upgrade technical trajectories in production and fostering modern farmers at the local levels. Our empirical analysis suggests that the single-center and multi-level network produced in the agricultural innovation practices, which is distinctive to the previous simplistic linear model for technology transfer, demonstrates obvious effectiveness in diffusing the new knowledge both vertically and horizontally, and that the grassroots sub-network generates the interaction space between agronomic experts and farmers for building mutual trust and co-producing technologies suitable for local conditions. Through allocating financial resources and supervising the public agricultural innovation projects, the provincial government indirectly dominates the directionality of local agricultural innovation for enabling smallholders to learn emerging technologies and cultivating the new generation of professional farmers. Nevertheless, the current agricultural innovation practice in case area has not completely avoided the social selection bias due to the clear marginalization of some vulnerable smallholders, and the duration of innovation projects imposed negative influence on the persistent collaborations between agri-technicians and smallholders in places. It is argued that for meeting the national agenda of agricultural modernization and common prosperity in rural area, how to reform the management measures of public innovation projects and enable the vulnerable farmers to equally engage with the innovation activities and share the interests brought by new technologies are the urgent challenges need to be addressed in the future.

КОНЦЕПЦИЯ ESG В БРЕНДИНГЕ ЛОГИСТИЧЕСКИХ КОМПАНИЙ

The article discusses the main approaches to the implementation of branding using the basic principles of the ESG concept. The largest international and domestic logistics companies that have taken into account the modern agenda in the field of sustainable development are analyzed. Recommenda-tions are given on how to evaluate the effec-tiveness of the ESG concept in the branding of logistics companies.

Education modernization in rural China: exploring temporality in education policy

ABSTRACT Temporality is a relatively new conception in the field of education policy. Drawing upon historical sociology, this article aims to contribute to the field by deconstructing China’s policy discourse – education modernization. It traces the history of the discourse (1904–2012) to analyze how Chinese rurality is interwoven into the nation’s pursuit of modern country status. Two temporal threads are identified: the rural as a problem and the rural as a modernization plan. The article reveals how the threads forms a paradoxical position of the rural in China’s current modernization agenda: the problematized rural as a potential empowering force. The findings illuminate how the policy constructs a history narrative thereby constructing a unified destiny of the nation for the future, which entrusts education policy with moral significances. China’s case demonstrates how education policy inherits and utilizes historical and cultural assumptions as a governing technique, while being shaped and constrained by them.

Promising Directions for the Development of the Transport and Logistics Infrastructure of the Northern Sea Route

Relevance. The modern global agenda dictates new rules and principles of building international relations, including international trade. Under these conditions, the reorientation of foreign trade flows becomes an obvious step. This reorientation plays a significant role for Russia in terms of stabilizing the economy, increasing competitiveness and defending national economic interests. The purpose is consideration of the direction of reorientation of Russian foreign trade flows in the context of anti-Russian sanctions.Objectives: describe the composition and tasks of the functioning of the transport and logistics infrastructure of the Northern Sea Route; identify the problems and prospects for the development of the transport and logistics infrastructure of the Northern Sea Route.Methodology. The research methodology included the use of methods for analyzing quantitative and qualitative characteristics, theoretical analysis and generalization of scientific literature, methods of mathematical statistics, analysis of the expert method in open sources, generalization of the analyzed information.Results. The geographical position of Russia and its dominant position in the Arctic makes it promising to use the Northern Sea Route to develop its own transport potential, provided that all the problems that currently prevent an increase in the cargo turnover of this route are solved. Despite the advantages in the length of the route and speed, the meteorological features and complexity of the northern waters, as well as the technological backwardness of the port infrastructure of the Northern Sea Route, make it necessary to make serious investments in the development of both the transport and logistics infrastructure itself and in the creation of a fleet that will carry goods and ice wiring.Conclusions. The creation of an appropriate technological infrastructure for the development of cargo transportation involves the creation of new hub ports. In addition to improving technological infrastructure systems for improving loading and unloading capacities, the expansion of the container fleet is also relevant. To connect the ports of the Northern Sea Route with the railway infrastructure, the implementation of the projects "Northern Latitudinal Passage 1" and "Northern Latitudinal Passage 2" should be continued.

Pesantren Resistance to Indonesia's National Curriculum to Defend Its Curriculum Model

Purpose: This article explores the challenges faced by pesantren (Islamic boarding schools) in Indonesia in reconciling the national curriculum with their traditional religious education while preserving their identity. Methods: The research employed a qualitative approach, utilizing multiple case studies conducted in two pesantren in Indonesia. The study involved observations, interviews, and documentation collected from January to December 2023. Result and Conclusion: The findings reveal a contestation between the national curriculum and the curriculum offered by pesantren. While many pesantren have integrated formal education, they exhibit resistance by focusing on Islamic teachings and values. Pesantren often modify the national curriculum to align with their religious identity. This study underscores the complexity of integrating formal education with pesantren's values and emphasizes the necessity of an inclusive approach from the government to ensure the relevance of education. Furthermore, it highlights pesantren's resistance to the dominance of the national curriculum, reflecting tensions between the government's modernization agenda and the traditional values upheld by pesantren. Research Implications: This research contributes to understanding the dynamics between formal education and traditional Islamic education within Indonesia's pesantren context. It sheds light on the challenges pesantren face in maintaining their identity while conforming to national educational standards. The findings have implications for policymakers, educators, and stakeholders involved in shaping the educational landscape of Indonesia. Originality/ Value: This study offers original insights into the interaction between the national curriculum and pesantren's curriculum, which have not been extensively explored in existing literature. This research contributes to a deeper understanding of educational dynamics in Indonesia by examining pesantren's responses to government policies and state control. Additionally, it underscores the significance of preserving the unique identity of pesantren amidst efforts to modernize the educational system.

“To the elements be free”: Carnivalising the legacy of Shakespeare in Margaret Atwood’s <i>Hag-Seed</i>

In her addition to the tradition of rewritings of The Tempest, Margaret Atwood makes Shakespeare travel through time, well beyond the confines of his desert island: Hag-Seed takes place inside a penitentiary in landlocked Ontario, Canada, thus prompting us to ponder how the Shakespearean text can yield new meanings for the contemporary postcolonial world. This essay shows how, in this intertextual novel, Atwood articulates a powerful reflection on freedom and imprisonment thanks to subversive Bakhtinian devices such as carnivalisation and dialogism. Indeed, the inmates of Fletcher Correctional, through their performance of a parodic version of The Tempest, subvert the authority of the Shakespearean text through a carnivalesque reversal of established rules of behaviour. The novel thus posits the importance of theatre as an educational and therapeutic tool. Further, Atwood enlists the help of popular culture as the prisoners reinterpret the Shakespearean model through a series of provocative rap numbers. Moreover, thanks to the imaginary scenarios Hag-Seed’s inmates write about the afterlives of the Shakespearean characters, the monologic authority of The Tempest is dialogised into a cacophony of unruly voices. Playful carnivalisation paradoxically enables a deeper emotional aspect of the novel: the ability of Atwood’s Prospero figure to come to terms with the trauma of the death of his daughter. In that sense, HagSeed can be seen as a long process of atonement and mourning. From an aesthetic point of view, the carnivalised performance of The Tempest illustrates Atwood’s use of metatheatricality and magical realism, the latter being rooted in a carnivalisation of the parameters of conventional realism. All in all, Hag-Seed can be construed as a novel at the crossroads between modernism and postmodernism: if it relies on a postmodern parodic gesture, it nevertheless foregrounds the epiphanic modernist agenda of achieving social justice and spiritual regeneration.

Метаморфозы ценностей в современной системе образования и воспитания

The relevance of the discourse of values in modern social agenda justifies the need to address the philosophical problematization of values. Analyzing normative documents and the practice of functioning of the education system, the author forms a list and identifies the specific features of values of modern Russian society, the interpretation of which excludes the evaluative aspect. At the same time, the activities of the education system are characterized by targets and indicators of their achievement. The author determined the modes of existence of values both as an ideal and value orientations, which makes it possible to preserve the ideal and material components of values and to see their dynamic projection. The practice of operationalization of values, their internalization in the public consciousness is shown on the example of the analysis of the value “patriotism”. Attention is focused on the retrospective orientation of the value discourse in the education system. The necessity of paying attention to the reflexion of the value bases of educational activity and to the formation of a prognostic attitude when working with values in the educational system as a condition for preserving their viability is substantiated. Increased attention to the retrospective line of interpretation of values is proposed to be supplemented with a perspective vector.

RESEARCH STREAMS IN THE DOMAIN OF OMNICHANNEL IN MARKETING MANAGEMENT: BIBLIOMETRIC REVIEW

Omnichannel is viewed as a new approach to the company’s marketing activity in an integrated environment that combines online and offline channels. For now, the omnichannel environment is actively transforming. The article has outlined the extant areas of omnichannel research in marketing management to form a whole view of omnichannel. To achieve this goal, a bibliometric performance analysis provided by the SCOPUS database, scientific mapping utilizing the VOSviewer program, and exploring the most cited papers have been conducted. Based on a study of 1125 documents regarding omnichannel within the 2013–2023 period, the bibliometric field of omnichannel research has been conducted and visualized, including total documents produced, subject areas, most productive sources, most impactful authors, top relevant institution affiliations, production of papers by country, thematic clustering, and review of the most cited articles. The scientific interest in the omnichannel issue appeared in 2013, and since then it has been steadily increasing maintaining “Business, Management and Accounting” as the top position. The majority of docs were published in the USA, China, and India. There has not been identified a strong concentration of publications at any university as well as the most productive source. Six high-ranking thematic clusters have been identified, i.e. managing sales online and offline, dimension of marketing and marketing strategy, commerce, retailing, customer experience and satisfaction. The earliest topic is related to commerce, and the latest one is connected to customer satisfaction. The issues of competition in the omnichannel environment, impact of the omnichannel on retail operations, metrics for monitoring omnichannel marketing, creating a positive service experience, and logistics as an off-topic have been highlighted in the most cited articles. The obtained results allow substantiating the modern agenda of omnichannel issues and the most priority areas of its research, to determine the sources of its scientific and methodological support on the way to further development.

THE MODERN BREXIT AGENDA: SOME CONSEQUENCES OF “TAKE BACK CONTROL”

Brexit, the historically unique process of the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union, has continued to dominate the global conversation for several years and its significance has not waned. The withdrawal of a state from the EU happened for the first time in more than half a century of its history. Despite the formal completion of Brexit, many related issues regarding the implementation of the EU-UK Withdrawal Agreement, the status of Northern Ireland, the implementation of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement between the two parties, the place of EU law in the British national legal order, are still not finally resolved. The adopted legal decisions influence the current development of both the EU and especially the UK’s legal order. All this allows us to talk about the actual continuation of Brexit and the formation of its modern agenda.

Migration as a building bloc of middle-class nation-building? The growing rift between Germany’s centre-right and right-wing parties

ABSTRACT Over the past twenty-five years, Germany has seen substantial shifts towards more robust and expansive migration and integration policies addressing immigration primarily as a socio-economic resource and an irreversible reality defining contemporary German society. Yet, the idea of Germany as a ‘country of immigration' has remained contested and polarizing in electoral politics particularly on the political right: While the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) under Chancellor Merkel's leadership has gradually endorsed immigration as an integral part of its socio-economic modernization agenda, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has embarked on a nativist rejection of all forms of immigration and cultural diversity. Based on a frame analysis, the article argues that the idea of middle-class nation-building through immigration has allowed the Christian Democratic Union to move away from its traditional anti-immigrant stand and integrate related issues into its market-driven political agenda. The key hypothesis is that the Christian Democrats have been able to modernize the party’s middle-class nation-building ambition by adopting its basic rationale to the recruitment and integration of immigrants into German society. In contrast, the AfD has embarked on an opposing trajectory as the political advocate for identity-driven, anti-immigrant sentiments and an exclusionary nationalism.

Developing The World By Teaching Domestic Consumption: Swiss Supermarkets And The Emergence Of Development Aid Policies In The Early Postwar Period

In the early post-Second World War period, Migros of Switzerland was the first European retail business to adopt the American supermarket model. Its success, however, has not only been a matter of technological and logistical innovation. Migros’ founder, Gottlieb Duttweiler, was convinced that consumer education was part and parcel of a new style of selling consumption. This conviction was at the basis of a strategy entering foreign markets and of exporting the Migros model abroad. Similar to post-World War II economic rehabilitation programs, Duttweiler pursued an indigenous modernization agenda, based on a new principle of “rational consumption”—he did not hesitate to label this as a genuine version of entrepreneurial development aid. Against the backdrop of the establishment of Migros’ activities in Turkey, this article discusses the participation of entrepreneurs in the international development policies after the Second World War. The history of Migros Türk sheds light not only on the entrepreneurial approach to modernization policy, which was often different to that adopted in government programs, but also on how this influenced critical consumerism inside and outside Switzerland over the long term.

Reducing the Negative Impact on Atmospheric Air: An Overview of Economic and Administrative and Legal Tools

Solving the problem of atmospheric air pollution has been one of the most pressing topics on the modern agenda of sustainable development for more than a decade. Every day mankind emits significant amounts of greenhouse gases and toxic substances such as SO2, particulate matters, benzene, lead, etc. The low quality of atmospheric air caused by high degree of contamination entails significant negative consequences for the environment and human health in the long term. A steady increase in greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere provokes an increase in average temperature and, consequently, serious climate changes. Governments of different countries are developing a wide range of state programs to protect the environment and are implementing various initiatives to eco-modernize industrial enterprises that are the largest emitters of emissions. However, despite the measures taken, the situation with atmospheric air pollution remains acute in most countries of the world. The purpose of this study is to review and analyse the most common economic and administrative-legal instruments used to reduce the negative impact on atmospheric air. Based on the results of the study, the most effective tools were identified and recommendations for their further improvement were proposed.

Reorientation of trade between the European Union and the Russian Federation under sanctions

The issue of the sustainability of the Russian economy, which is under unprecedential geopolitical pressure, is one of the main and most sensitive in the modern agenda of both Russian and foreign scientific research. The task of identifying the effects and effectiveness of trade restrictive measures faces scientists on both sides of the confrontation. Some need to demonstrate the achieved effect, others need to be convinced of adequate containment and overcoming. Solving this problem is accompanied by a search for new channels of foreign economic relations, both in trade and in the investment, which inevitably raises questions about the possibilities of reorienting Russian foreign trade, which for many years was focused on the EU as the main supplier of material and intangible resources. Since February 2022, the European Union has developed and introduced a significant number of large-scale trade restrictive measures. The purpose of this article is to analyze the impact of trade restrictions of EU member states on trade with Russia from the point of view of reorienting European trade flows to other countries in the context of circumventing sanctions and identifying product items for which trade substitution and reorientation to other markets is possible. To achieve this goal, a methodology has been developed and proposed for identifying those product items for which such substitution has not occurred and a certain dependence of European countries on Russian supplies still remains, which means that retaliatory restrictive measures can be applied to these items. The analysis made it possible to identify a significant change in trade flows from EU member countries, replacement of trade due to reorientation to other neutral countries, as well as groups of goods that currently could not be replaced.

Business Ecosystem Finance: Modern Agenda and Challenges

The relevance of the research is confirmed by the fact that, with the widespread distribution of ecosystems as high-tech heirs of clusters and platforms, the issues of financing business ecosystems are rarely studied in the scientific literature and do not receive the necessary theoretical generalization. The purpose of the research is to systematize the available forms of financing in industrial business ecosystems within a united digital space. The objectives of this research are defined as clarifying the need to include financing functions in the toolkit of emerging industrial business ecosystems and revealing the possibilities of using selected financing methods. The methods of research, on the one hand, are based on the emerging theory of ecosystems, which develops both as a firm’s theory and as ecosystem management, and on the other hand, on a new concept that can be formulated as a fusion of finance, industrialization and digitalization. The results of the research show that there are several approaches to the organization of ecosystem finance. Ecosystems are reported to be equally susceptible to decentralized and centralized (traditional) financing, providing opportunities to create their own decentralized financial environment as well as collaborating with current cryptocurrency-based services. Several forms of financial organization in ecosystems have been identified: a) compensating costs by forming budgets for the creation and ongoing activities; b) attracting ecosystem participants’ own funds to various forms of lending (including on the basis of financial technologies). It is concluded that the development of financing instruments depends on three factors: 1) government policies to regulate the financial aspects of business ecosystems; 2) the efficiency of using the resources of ecosystem participants; 3) ecosystem interactions with supply chains. It is determined that a completely new theory of business ecosystem finance will be completed only after the exit from the experimental mode of financing business ecosystems.

ЭТНИЧНОСТЬ И МЕЖКУЛЬТУРНАЯ КОММУНИКАЦИЯ В СМИ: ОПЫТ НОРВЕГИИ

One of the main problems on the world agenda remains the problem of international relations. The processes of globalization in the modern world lead to the expansion of cultural contacts at different levels: from everyday life to political. Recently, there has been an increase in interest in the problems of intercultural communication, which actualizes the study of the role of the media in such communication as one of the areas of journalism science. This article explores the issues of intercultural communication in the mirror of the largest media in Norway. The theoretical foundations of the study were the ideas of academician V. A. Tishkov about the ethnic and religious diversity of the modern multipolar world, the dialogical model of the media approach in the formation of society’s tolerance, proposed by I. M. Dzyaloshinsky, as well as theoretical approaches to the study of modern communication processes, presented in foreign and Russian journalism works. Based on the content analysis method, the article analyzes the representation of intercultural topics in three Norwegian leading TV-programs related to the coverage of international and domestic news – “Dagsrevyen”, “Urix”, “Debatten”, as well as in the materials of Norway’s largest online-media “Aftenposten”. Much attention is paid to the study of Norwegian legislation and media codes in relation to groups of migrants and refugees. It is noted that Norway, being initially a predominantly ethnically homogeneous state, has turned into a multicultural one, on the territory of which people from more than two hundred countries of the world live. It is concluded that the Norwegian media play an important mediating role in the field of interethnic interaction. Following the spirit and letter of the Immigration Act of 2008 and the Norwegian Code of Ethics for Journalists, publications try to maintain the level of quality journalism in covering issues of ethnicity and intercultural communication. Of course, the direction of the modern agenda of the Norwegian media has changed, shifting after February 2022 towards coverage of situation in Ukraine, which the whole world is following today. But despite the modality of some materials, we note that in the analyzed materials much attention is paid to explanatory journalism.

Critical assessment of medical devices on reliability, replacement prioritization and maintenance strategy criterion: Case study of Malaysian hospitals

AbstractThe Biomedical Engineering Maintenance Services (BEMS) is a comprehensive maintenance program that ensures the safety and reliability of medical devices. Significant and crucial devices are identified and prioritized for best practice prior to the equipment life cycle to mitigate functional problems, alarmed by the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) underlying the modernization agenda. A model of multi‐criteria decision‐making (MCDM) to prioritize medical devices according to their criticality is presented in this paper, with the utilization of quality function deployment (QFD) and fuzzy logic in the development of the model through a quantitative survey of experts from all regions in Malaysia. As a result, a customized version of the Asset Criticality Assessment (ACA) is developed and is recommended for use in more than 144 Ministry of Health (MOH) hospitals. Subsequently, real data of four selected devices are pulled from the Asset and Services Information System (ASIS) to demonstrate a relevant and comparable end‐result using the QFD and fuzzy logic. In essence, the key contribution of the customized ACA model is that it assesses a promising evaluation with a broader range on both the performance of medical devices and the appropriate asset replacement choices. This leads to an effective maintenance strategy for each device and the modernization of reliability computation metrics.

Political Decision-Making in the Context of the Migration Process in Russia at the Present Stage (Problems and Prospects)

Relevance. The genesis and conjuncture of the development of the modern migration process on a global scale and at the level of individual states are accompanied by the dynamization and intensification of most political risks and threats in the actualized conditions of increasing international and interstate interdependence and interdependence. In turn, this requires the development and coordination of optimal mechanisms and tools for making political decisions on migration issues, taking into account national specifics. For Russian political realities, the most preferable option is to operate with the terminology of socio-political stability and security. Accordingly, it is necessary to transform the system of approaches to understanding the modern migration agenda adopted at the level of the Russian political leadership.Purpose. The main purpose of writing the article is to offer the author's methodological recommendations for making political decisions on migration problems.Objectives: determination of the features of the migration process in Russia at the present stage, formulation of the main problems and prospects for the development of the modern Russian migration process.Methodology. The author mainly used the following group of methods in the process of writing the article: secondary analysis of information data, content analysis, event analysis, sociological analysis, formal legal analysis, statistics.Results. Taking into account, firstly, the peculiarities of the migration process in Russia at the present stage, and secondly, the main problems and prospects for the development of the modern Russian migration process at the present stage, some author's methodological recommendations for political decision-making are proposed within the following key blocks: ideological and value design, normative activity, the work of specialized state authorities, the implementation of monitoring of political decision-making.Conclusion. At the present stage of Russia's political and socio-economic development, there is a rather serious and extensive block of unresolved issues and problems in the field of migration, requiring the appropriate joint active participation of various social groups and forces. It is assumed that within the framework of Russian national realities, when making political decisions, a practice-oriented approach based on full consideration of cultural characteristics and maximum provision of socio-political stability is most appropriate.

In the shadow of state-led agrarian reforms: smallholder pervasiveness in rural China

Agricultural modernisation is a longstanding goal of China’s Party-state. Since the early 2000s, it has pursued this goal through policies designed to facilitate land consolidation and support the expansion of large agricultural enterprises – ‘New Agricultural Operators’ (NAOs). In this paper we explore the effect of these policies on the livelihoods of a cohort of smallholder orange growers in the mountainous regions of Hubei province and the local political economy. An analysis of data from a 2019 survey of 266 households and interviews with villagers, agribusiness executives, cooperative leaders, and government officials, we find smallholder farmers are earning good incomes as independent commodity producers, withstanding attempts by local officials at land consolidation, and bypassing NAOs to self-determine their own modes of production and exchange. Our results speak to the ongoing debate about the future of smallholder farming in China, identify the strengths and limitations of recent state-centric analyses of agrarian transition, and re-iterate the pitfalls of the central government’s agricultural modernisation agenda.