This article examines how human values, media engagement and sociopolitical events shape immigration attitudes across Europe, with a particular focus on understanding the immigration attitudes of European managers, using other workers as a comparison group. Drawing on European Social Survey data from 2016–2023 (rounds 8–11), this study integrates Schwartz’s theory of basic human values with media sociology to explore the interactive effects of value orientations and information exposure. Using multilevel linear modelling, the analysis reveals that self-transcendence values and structured political news consumption are consistently associated with more inclusive immigration attitudes. While managers generally hold slightly more positive views than other workers do, these differences become more pronounced in contexts of high political media engagement. The impact of general internet use varies across countries, highlighting the importance of national media environments. Temporal fluctuations – particularly during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic and the war in Ukraine – further demonstrate how crises interact with value–media dynamics. By combining individual, occupational and contextual factors, this study contributes to understanding how inclusive attitudes are shaped and reinforced within Europe’s evolving information landscape.

ABSTRACT This study investigates the nuanced relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI) and firm performance, addressing the heterogeneity of FDI's impact across countries with different levels of development. While FDI is widely recognized as a catalyst for economic growth, technology transfer, and enhanced competitiveness, particularly in developing economies, its effects remain contingent on the host country's specific context. Drawing on the theory of systemic competitiveness, this research examines how institutional, economic, and cultural factors shape the influence of FDI on firm performance. The selection of Nigeria, Ghana, and France as case studies enables a comparative analysis that contrasts the role of FDI in driving structural transformation in developing African economies with its function in market consolidation and technological partnerships in a developed European context. By differentiating the impact of FDI according to the level of development, this study seeks to enrich the existing literature, deepen understanding of the systemic dynamics of competitiveness, and offer relevant managerial and policy implications for optimizing the benefits of FDI across diverse national environments.

ABSTRACT Existing research often frames firms with a prospector orientation as integrating corporate social responsibility (CSR) to enhance reputation and competitiveness. However, this perspective typically relies on the resource-based view (RBV) and overlooks the institutional context that influences CSR. Addressing this gap, we examine how national philanthropic environment (NPE), a component of the normative institutional environment, moderates the relationship between prospector orientation and CSR. Drawing on institutional theory and RBV, we analyze cross-country, firm-level data from 262 companies across 10 countries. Using hierarchical linear modeling, we find that in countries with high NPE, prospector orientation is positively associated with CSR, whereas in low-NPE countries, the relationship is negative. These findings contribute to strategic marketing and CSR literature by demonstrating that the normative institutional context shapes when prospectors align strategies with CSR. The study also underscores the value of integrating institutional and resource-based perspectives when examining firm-level strategic decisions across national environments.

Ensuring real-time situational awareness in national security operations is increasingly challenging due to the growing complexity of multi-domain threats and the diversity of intelligence sources. Existing analytical and centralized fusion approaches struggle with data scarcity, privacy constraints, and limited adaptability to evolving scenarios. To address these challenges, this study proposes a novel Generative AI–driven situational awareness framework that integrates multi-modal data fusion, generative anomaly simulation, and autonomous response optimization within a unified architecture. The framework leverages diffusion models and Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) to generate high-fidelity synthetic anomalies, enabling robust detection of rare events. A federated multimodal fusion mechanism ensures secure cross-agency collaboration without exchanging raw data, while a reinforcement learning (RL) and multi-agent RL (MARL)-based decision intelligence module delivers machine-speed response strategies. Furthermore, explainable AI (XAI) and conformal uncertainty quantification enhance system transparency and trustworthiness. Extensive experiments are conducted on benchmark datasets, including xView and xBD for geospatial intelligence and UNSW-NB15 and CIC-IDS2018 for cybersecurity. The results demonstrate that the proposed framework significantly outperforms baseline methods, improving F1-scores by up to 10.6%, achieving 15.4% higher fusion accuracy, and reducing response latency by 42.9%. Additionally, XAI-based explanations reduce analyst verification time by 23%, ensuring compliance with the NIST AI Risk Management Framework. These findings confirm that the proposed approach provides a scalable, trustworthy, and adaptive solution for enhancing real-time situational awareness in mission-critical national security environments.

ABSTRACT In recent years, with the promotion of the national common language and the widespread adoption of English education in China, Putonghua and English have become integrated into the daily lives of Mongolian communities. Mongolian families now face diversified language choices and urgently require scientific, practical guidance for language planning. This study employed Spolsky's language planning theory as its framework, selecting representative primary and secondary schools in Naiman Banner, Tongliao City, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region as research sites. Using a mixed-methods approach combining questionnaires and in-depth interviews, we systematically collected data on language use and planning from 1319 Mongolian households. The findings demonstrate that language planning among Mongolian families in Naiman Banner, examined through the tripartite framework of language awareness, practice, and management, exhibits diversified patterns shaped by the combined influence of national policies, social environments, school education, and intra-family factors. Building on empirical evidence, this study proposes a ‘policy-society-family’ tripartite coordination mechanism designed to provide both theoretical foundations and practical guidance for: national macro-level language policymaking, multilingual competence development among Mongolian youth, and family language planning in pastoral communities – ultimately contributing to national talent cultivation, reinforcing the Chinese national community consciousness, and promoting the co-prosperity of diverse ethnolinguistic traditions.

ABSTRACT This paper discusses experiences of sub-national (place) leadership in transnational partnership working. It explores transnational collaboration between two twinned cities: Birmingham (UK) and Leipzig (Germany). Using semi-structured interviews with sub-national leaders, we examine enabling factors and barriers facing transnational partnership working over three decades in the context of changing national and regional partnership environments. The paper surfaces the significance of rapport in relational working between leaders and recognises the need to situate associated discussions within an understanding of the dynamics of structure and agency.

Recent advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) pose a new challenge to existing frameworks in communication and media studies. The new area of inquiry called Human-Machine Communication (HMC) emerged in response to this challenge. HMC, however, is still often declined in the singular form, with relatively little consideration of the fact that communication is always situated in specific cultural, linguistic, and national environments. This special issue of Global Media and China aims to contribute to ongoing efforts to fill this gap by interrogating the plurality of human-machine communication cultures. In this introduction, the guest editors illustrate how a perspective more sensitive to situating these technologies, their impact and functioning across the globe will help develop more effective pathways to study and understand AI. The introduction discusses key theories, methods, and approaches in communication and media studies that can help pursue and advance this endeavor.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) is essential for economic development and business sustainability, and understanding the business conditions that attract it remains a key policy concern. This study adopts a decomposition approach by examining the impact of various B-READY indicators on FDI inflows in separate models, using cross-sectional data from 45 countries. To ensure methodological rigor, it applies three Robust Least Squares (RLS) estimation techniques: M-type, S-type, and MM-type. The findings reveal that six out of ten B-READY indicators exert a positive and statistically significant influence on FDI inflows. The significant B-READY indicators, such as business insolvency, dispute resolution, international trade, labor, market competition, and taxation, highlight critical factors that businesses consider when entering or expanding in foreign markets. These insights offer valuable guidance and practical implications not only for policymakers seeking to strengthen national investment environments, but also for businesses evaluating market readiness and investment risks in foreign economies.

Information technologies (IT) and its software engineering branch are an important part of the modern economy and its ongoing digitalization. At the same time, they are influenced by the economy as well and have formed their own economic and business fields with plenty of specifics in the recent past. However, this area still remains risky for investments and, in some areas, poorly studied. Especially one of the economic principles, models, techniques, and their specifics in some local national environments like the Slovenian one. Understanding them can significantly improve the operation of the area and work there as well as reduce the number of problems and issues arising. For this reason, it is important to conduct structured studies of the theme both on the global and national levels. The research presented is of a consecutive qualitative nature. The first part is represented with a scoping literature review of global software engineering economics, its trends, and specifics. Then following the second part: a narrative literature review of the selected topics in the Slovenian environment based on the findings of the first part. The results has shown both similarities and deviations in national economy. Some of the latter, like public sector-related specifics, need additional particular consideration on the local level, and some of them, like digital piracy- and sustainability-related cause worries and identify challenges for the future of the software engineering sector in the country. The findings of the research can be utilized by professionals employed in the sphere to improve their understanding and knowledge about the economics of the business area both globally and locally. Also, they can be used for the promotion and improvement of the studied concepts in Slovenia and as a good starting point for continuing research works on the topics analyzed.

ABSTRACT This article explores the complex relationship between digital constitutionalism and democracy, focusing on how individuals navigate governance both as citizens of nation-states and as users of digital platforms. Drawing on the concept of quantum superposition, it argues that individuals exist simultaneously in multiple governance frameworks, influencing the legitimacy and democratic stability of both digital and national environments. It adopts a societal constitutional approach recognising digital platforms as transnational loci of power entangled with national constitutional systems. Within this scope, it investigates how digital constitutionalism intersects with the governance of and by platforms and advocates for a republican approach that better reflects the contingency and complexity of transnational governance environments. The argument is further corroborated by a quantitative analysis of the public comments submitted to Meta’s Oversight Board between 2020 and 2023, highlighting the asymmetries of users’ active engagement in content moderation practices and how this may impact the platform’s attempt to enlarge internal and external legitimacy and democratic politics.

Electoral campaigns are one of the key moments of democracy. In recent times, the circulation of disinformation has increased during these periods. This phenomenon has serious consequences for democratic health since it can alter the behaviour and decisions of voters. This research aims to analyse the features of this phenomenon during the 2024 European Parliament elections in a comparative way. The applied methodology is based on quantitative content analysis. The sample (<em>N</em> = 278) comprises false information verified by 52 European fact-checking agencies about the campaign for the European elections in 20 EU countries. The analysis model includes variables such as time-period, country, propagator platform, topic, and the type of disinformation. The results show that the life cycle of electoral disinformation goes beyond the closing of the polls assuming a permanent nature. In addition, national environments condition the profiles of this question, which is more intense in Southern and Eastern Europe. Furthermore, although multiple channels are involved, digital platforms with weak ties are predominant in disseminating hoaxes. Finally, migration and electoral integrity are the predominant topics. This favours the circulation of an issue central to the far-right agenda and aims to discredit elections and their mechanisms to undermine democracy. These findings establish the profiles of this problem and generate knowledge to design public policies that combat electoral false content more effectively.

Abstract Despite governments investing considerable resources in the establishment and use of expert bodies, not all expert groups are able to successfully fulfill their role, facing limitations to different aspects of operation. Drawing on a politics of expertise approach, we explore how the setup of expert bodies affects their daily functioning. We contend that, to successfully perform its expert role, a body’s expertise in practice must indeed match the expertise it needs to perform its duties. To measure a body’s expertise, we build upon existing categorizations of expertise, and we additionally develop two new typologies: resource-centered and task-related expertise. We illustrate our argument with an analysis of National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs), key actors in the multilevel governance of human rights. Acting as a bridge between the national and international levels, NHRIs provide independent expertise, facilitating states’ participation in international human rights governance mechanisms, like the United Nations Universal Periodic Review (UPR). We analyze original documentary and survey data on NHRIs in the Asia Pacific and show that, despite working in hostile national environments, these bodies have been able to successfully fulfill their expert role to a larger extent than we originally expected.

Abstract Contrary to the expectations many urban scholars had after the end of socialism, it has taken almost thirty years for gentrification to become a significant urban development trend in Central and Eastern Europe. The reason for this delay is that there are massive ‘commodification gaps’—institutional barriers to the valorization of land and housing—which could only be overcome with great difficulties. In this article, which is based on an empirical study of gentrification in two second‐tier cities in East Germany and Poland, we pick up on this issue and focus on policies that have affected the likelihood of gentrification. We compare two different trajectories of post‐socialist gentrification, finding that the course of gentrification has been deeply embedded into the dissimilar political‐economic framework of transition in East Germany and Poland. This has led to considerable differences in the timing and geography of upgrading and displacement. We distance ourselves from ‘diffusionist’ views, which portray gentrification as a generalizable trend in which post‐socialist cities are ‘latecomers’, based on a model that has been pioneered in Western cities and emphasizes the specificity of gentrifications as well as their embeddedness in national, regional and local political environments.

The COVID-19 pandemic had an immediate impact on employees in the European airline industry. The crisis shifted concerns from the usual goals, such as improving working conditions, immediately towards job security and protection against dismissal. This paper analyses the negotiations on the initial personnel measures after the onset of the crisis in 2020 in the context of national institutions and firm-specific factors. Empirically, the study is based on four case studies of airlines with different business models in two different national institutional environments. The results indicate that the crisis was handled differently across airlines, although firm-specific factors were found to affect the quality of industrial relations in European airlines in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis more than national institutional settings. The paper suggests furthermore that the role of the respective national governments has been important during the crisis.

ABSTRACT The global, regional, and national strategic environments are getting more dynamic and complex, bringing new threats and opportunities for Indonesia. In Asia, the threats that could spark instability in the region among others are the South China Sea, Korean Peninsula, and China-Taiwan conflicts. The newly formed defense agreements such as QUAD and AUKUS also heat up the situation. Indonesia is aware that such threats not only involve land, maritime, and air domains but also cyber and space domains. Therefore, this research assesses the use of space assets in the doctrine of Indonesian defense. The research uses a strategic formulation framework introduced by the US Army War College, which defines the Ends, Means, and Ways. For Indonesia, the Ends are to change the defense doctrine where information gathering and telecommunication currently use aerial and terrestrial assets into the ones using space assets. The Means are the current national technical capacity, national institutions, and national space policies. The ways are closing the gap between the national capacity, which is mostly designed for civilian usage, to serve defense missions; developing national industry to ensure the sustainability of technology; and developing military space institutions to develop and retain human resources for technology utilization and development.

This paper examines the crucial role of culture within small businesses and its broader implications for understanding national business environments and societal values. Small businesses, comprising 99.9% of American companies and employing 46.4% of the private sector workforce, are vital to economic growth and innovation. While financial motivations are often prioritized in assessing these businesses, non-financial factors, particularly organizational culture, are equally significant. This study explores the impact of culture on various aspects of small business operations, drawing on existing literature that highlights the influence of culture on competitive advantage, leadership, strategic objectives, and innovation. The research analyzes different cultural patterns (paternalistic, laissez-faire, participative, and professional) and their effects on business outcomes. Furthermore, the paper investigates the relationship between organizational culture, business excellence, and the moderating role of information and communication technology. It also considers the influence of innovation culture on innovation performance, ethical business cultures, green organizational cultures, and the impact of gender-role orientation and entrepreneurial culture on entrepreneurial activities. Keywords: Small Businesses, Innovation, Culture, Economic Growth.

Privacy in India has seeped into the understanding and dimension of rights and liberties recognized by law and the social, legal and technological dimensions associated with it. These represent a timeline of the tussle between age-old values of the Indian context and present contemporary issues, the foundation on which the evolution of privacy in the nation is built. The advent of new digital technologies, including artificial intelligence, biometrics and the Internet of Things, is permeating even the most intimate, private and public facets of everyday life — opening the door to complexities in the protection of personal data that are perhaps more interwoven than those seen in scope and scale. And while this empowered connectivity has no precedent, these advancements have exposed vulnerabilities in data security, ethical governance and individual autonomy. This is a study on privacy in India, surveying its evolution, contemporary debates and prospects, and analyzing different judicial readings and legislation. Here, significant cases such as Kharak Singh v. State of Uttar Pradesh, 1964 (1) AIR SC 332 and Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) Union of India to the recognition of privacy as a fundamental part of the right to life and liberty guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution of India. This paved the way for legislative changes, such as the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill of 2023, to govern personal data processing for users' transparency and empowerment. Conversely, the Act has posed challenges regarding data localization requirements and compliance obligations, especially for multinational entities. Such national and technological environments suggest a new wave of privacy threats as data breaches, corporate surveillance, and insecure digital ecosystems become ubiquitous in the digital environment. This study explores the consequences of these attacks, with a focus on their influence on democracy, individual freedoms, and public trust. Major data breach case studies demonstrate the need for more robust cybersecurity measures, better enforcement mechanisms, and higher public awareness to address the weaknesses of digital transformation. The study also addresses potential ethical challenges related to emerging surveillance technologies and the growing use of data-driven ecosystems. This post advocates for privacy-by-design principles, in which privacy measures are introduced during tech development from its early stages. It highlights the need for clear and accessible privacy policies that enable users. Indeed, it highlights the necessity for an agile legal landscape that can evolve in pace with the swift currents of technological advancements, while navigating the delicate dance of upholding privacy rights and facilitating societal forward momentum.

ABSTRACT When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, some of the timeliest intelligence was provided not by intelligence agencies, but by private actors. Open-source intelligence is an increasing focus in intelligence studies; however, little systematic attention has been paid to the vendors that collect, analyze, and operationalize intelligence outside of classified national security environments. This research addresses this gap through a new dataset that seeks to capture the expanding array of intelligence providers that serve the private sector. This paper examines how vendors apply intelligence tradecraft to support corporate risk mitigation, including travel security, executive protection, and geopolitical risk analysis.

Abstract This paper uses new data on the removal of local, sector-specific barriers to firm entry across 1,800 municipalities in Peru to estimate the impact on firm productivity and markups. New legislation in 2013 strengthened the national competition authority's mandate to enforce the elimination of local entry barriers, providing a quasi-experimental setting to identify the impact of competition on productivity within the controlled institutional environment of a single country. We find that the elimination of local entry barriers boosted productivity, pointing to the critical role of subnational market entry barriers in explaining countries’ laggard productivity performances despite liberalized national regulatory environments.

The unprecedented and multi-faceted challenges health and care workers faced during the COVID-19 pandemic inspired the world's health ministers to call for a new Global Health and Care Worker Compact at the 74th World Health Assembly in 2021. The Care Compact identifies key areas where governments can use law and policy to prevent harm, provide support, ensure inclusivity, and safeguard rights of health and care workers toward improving population health. Using policy surveillance methods, we conducted an empirical analysis of the national law and policy environments on health and care workers' protection and rights in 182 countries. Across 10 indicators, 1,262 laws and policies were identified and analyzed for their alignment with the international legal standards. Analysis shows significant gaps. 62% of all national laws are aligned. Nearly every country has multiple areas where national laws are not yet aligned with the Care Compact. Though alignment is feasible. In 5 of 6 regions at least one country has laws aligned on all indicators. Geographic region was not a significant predictor of alignment, while income level was only weakly associated. Comparing the key legal issues facing health and care workers, well over half of countries studied are fully aligned with the Care Compact on occupational health and safety, fair remuneration, enabling work environments, freedom of association, and collective bargaining. Approximately 50% of countries studied are fully aligned on protections against violence and harassment in the workplace and whistleblower protections. But less than 25% are fully aligned on access to health services in occupational settings and equal treatment and non-discrimination. Together this analysis highlights the need for, and opportunity of, law reform in countries throughout the world to elevate and protect the rights and well-being of health and care workers and, in doing so, improve health systems.