Radical Change Research Articles

FDI and the Triangle “Growth, Inequality and Poverty” in North Africa

The economic literature has shown that the effect of FDI on poverty through these instruments has undergone radical changes which reflect, on the one hand, the growing progress, made by the academic community, in the very complex analysis of interactions with income growth and inequality; and the level of political interest in the topic of poverty reduction.

A.I., FASHION AND RIGHTS

Fashion Design, both in its theoretical foundation and practical application, is experiencing a significant cognitive transformation. This evolution is best interpreted not simply as a mere transition but as a continuous process of adaptation that affects professions, processes, and cultures (Anantrasirichai & Bull, 2022). This ongoing change necessitates a critical re-evaluation and recalibration of current ontological and epistemological frameworks (Dufva & Dufva, 2019; Kraus et al., 2021), emphasizing the need to redefine and reconsider the principles and methodologies in the Fashion Design field. In this context, the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) signifies the onset of an era of evolutions and revolutions in Fashion design thinking and practice, characterized by shifts, advancements, and radical changes (Ozmen Garibay et al., 2023). Fashion, traditionally reflective of societal, cultural, and economic dynamics, is now at a pivotal point due to the integration of AI into its processes. This transformation, both rapid and extensive, is reshaping the entire spectrum of the fashion industry, influencing various aspects such as design, production, customer purchasing experiences, and communication strategies (Särmäkari & Vänskä, 2022; Särmäkari, 2021). 
 The second issue of Fashion Highlight Journal situates itself within this evolving landscape, endeavoring to unravel and comprehend the multifaceted implications of integrating artificial intelligence in the realm of fashion design. Through the diverse perspectives and insights offered by its contributors, this issue aims to delve into the intricate ways AI is reshaping fashion design’s traditional methodologies and creative processes. This issue particularly aims to encourage scholarly discussion regarding the interplay between fashion, artificial intelligence, and rights. It examines how the fashion sector, within a rapidly changing environment, is addressing key concerns related to pri vacy, intellectual property, inclusivity, skills development, and responsibility. A significant area of focus is exploring AI’s potential to maintain diversity, function inclusively, and protect individual identities, highlighting its critical role in the context of contemporary fashion.

BIOECONOMY – PRESENT AND FUTURE

The pressure on ecosystems has intensified as a result of excessive pollution, overexploitation and depletion of natural resources. This imposes the need of a radical change in the existing methods of processing, storage, recycling and disposal of biological resources by establishing sustainable production and consumption models. The need to step up the transition to both clean energy and sustainable, resilient and equitable food systems has never been stronger and clearer. Future implementation of the EU Bioeconomy Action Plan will need to take into account the implications for food and energy prices, as well as the prices of energy-intensive products and global supply chains, and address the resulting additional pressures on natural resources at ecosystem boundaries. Activities in the bioeconomy sectors are especially reliant on healthy ecosystems to ensure a sustained production of biomass, but at the same time activities along the bioeconomy supply chains generate environmental impacts which can damage local and global ecosystems. The bioeconomy is directly related to 11 of all 17 Sustainable Development Goals but though the EU undertakes the steps necessary to achieve sustainability, there is still a wide range of actions to be taken in order to ensure the transition towards bioeconomy and to mitigate and eliminate the negative impacts on the environment. In the study we have focused on three important indicators that give insight about current state and trends in EU and Bulgaria about bioeconomy, respectively employment in the bioeconomy, turnover in bioeconomy, and value added at factor cost in the bioeconomy. The trend in Bulgaria follows that of the EU for those indicators which indicates the continuity of the measures adopted at the EU level and the consistency of the actions at the supranational level. The paper is based on a thorough review of available reports, analysis of official documents as action plans, communications, programs, strategies and data related to bioeconomy at EU level, reviewed in the context of global efforts for achieving sustainability. The main objective of this research is to represent the international efforts aimed at the protection of natural resources and to evaluate the measures taken to stimulate the EU transition towards bioeconomy. Keywords: Bioeconomy, European Union, Sustainability, Sustainable Development Goals JEL: Q01; Q56; Q57

Land Cover Change Detection Using Geo-Spatial Technologies: A Spatio-Temporal Study on Muthurajawela Marsh-Negombo Lagoon Wetland Complex


 Biodiversity conservation and management encompass protecting Earth’s life diversity including species and ecosystems. Conservation efforts involve protecting endangered species and maintaining healthy ecosystems. Muthurajawela Wetland is one of the listed Ramsar sites of Sri Lanka which contains a rich biodiversity and productive ecosystem. Currently, this valuable landscape undergoes a radical change of its form over decades. Therefore, this study aimed to examine land cover changes in this wetland complex over three decades using satellite imagery. For in-depth change detection analysis, both pre-classification and post-classification land cover/use methods were used to assess changes from 1997 to 2023. The study of the Muthurajawela marsh- Negombo lagoon wetland complex used per-classification methods like Normalized Difference Vegetation/Water Indices (NDVI/NDWI) to identify vegetation and water bodies. The Maximum Likelihood Supervised Classification (MLSC) technique categorized the land cover into classes, water, marshland, settlements, vegetation, and barren land. To ensure accuracy, statistical methods such as Confusion Matrix was applied for each land cover class. Furthermore, a detailed post- classification analysis was conducted through Thematic Change Detection, which compared historical changes in land classes to their current status. Thematic Change analysis helped to assess and visualize the changes in each land class over time in relation to the present conditions on the ground. Change detection analysis illustrated that, about 46% land cover of total study has been converted from one land class to another over 3 decades. In 1997, highland vegetation of agriculture, forests, and marshy areas covered 41% of total land while Built-up areas comprised 18% of the land, with agriculture being more prevalent than construction. By 2023, there have been significant changes. Built-up areas make up 38% of the land due to the development of settlements, construction activities and the Katunayake highway project. The study shows a decrease in vegetation and marshland to 6%, possibly due to deforestation. In 2023, bare lands increased due to land reclamation and garbage dumping in the wetland complex. 90% of deep-water areas converted into shallow water. 28.35 km2 of deep-water bodies degraded. Prawn farming also contributed to mangrove destruction in the Negombo lagoon. The study emphasizes the need for sustainable management of valuable ecosystems and eco-friendly human approaches to mitigate wetland degradation.
 
 Keywords: Change detection, Land cover, Muthurajawela marsh, Negombo Lagoon, Wetland

The “EU‐Leash”: Growth Model Resilience and Change in the EU’s Eastern Periphery

Although the EU’s Eastern periphery has been afflicted by a series of crises over the past two decades, the region’s dependent market economies have shown puzzling resilience. Since the global financial crisis, the FDI-led, export-oriented growth models of the Visegrád countries have been reinforced. Meanwhile, the debt-based, consumption-oriented capitalism of the Baltic states has not experienced dramatic shifts either, despite a strengthening of its export component. Scholarly accounts from a comparative political economy perspective explain this resilience as the product of country-specific factors and tend to downplay the role of external influence. Instead, we aim to bridge these approaches with international political economy scholarship by arguing that European integration, in general, and the EU’s transnational regulatory influence, in particular, serves as an external anchoring mechanism for both semi-peripheral growth models. In addition to the region’s structural characteristics, such as deep embeddedness in global value chains, high exposure to trade with the EU, and dependence on external sources of finance, which already limit domestic agency in changing national growth models, we argue that European transnational regulatory integration involves an “EU-leash” that sets the boundaries for domestic economic policies, thereby influencing growth model trajectories. This ensures institutional continuity and prevents sudden and radical changes in semi-peripheral growth models. We demonstrate these mechanisms through two country studies (Estonia and Hungary).

Emotions of Educators Conducting Emergency Remote Teaching during COVID-19 Confinement

The home confinement of the population in Spain caused by the COVID-19 pandemic interrupted face-to-face teaching and led teachers of all educational levels to perform their activities remotely. This represented a radical change in daily tasks. The goal of this study is to analyse and understand the emotions teachers experienced while performing Emergency Remote Teaching during home confinement. We performed a descriptive quantitative analysis and a comparison of the means (ANOVA) related to the independent sociodemographic variables (age, gender, and educational stage). The study sample consisted of 4589 teachers from the Basque Country, and represents the largest study with these characteristics conducted in Spain. The results obtained in the research show that, despite suffering great stress, teachers also felt pride in the work they had done. The study concludes that the teachers in the group who suffered the most negative feelings were women, primary school teachers, and middle-aged educators.

A Hermeneutic Approach to the Formation of a Secular Culture in Modern Israel

ABSTRACT The creation of the state of Israel was the outcome of the Zionist movement, which originated in Europe and was itself inspired by fundamental European ideas—Enlightenment, national self-determination, democracy and socialism. From its earliest days Zionism was primarily a secular movement that rejected the religious establishment and religious way of life of the Jews in the Diaspora. In many respects, however, the founders of the state and the principles on which they founded its institutions—the political, judicial, economic, social, and educational—were rooted in the ethical values and cultural practices of the Jewish tradition which they had apparently rejected. To explain this complex process of secularization of a very ancient religious and cultural tradition—which many see as an unresolved or unresolvable conflict between two opposing systems of thought—I draw on the hermeneutic philosophy of Hans-Georg Gadamer and especially on his Truth and Method (1960). Culture, according to Gadamer, is a continuous flow of tradition within what he called “the horizon.” People, he argued, create and live within a given cultural tradition, but they are at the same time its interpreters, enlarging it by adopting elements from various cultures and ideologies, or “horizons.” From this hermeneutic perspective, the founders of modern Israel and their successors were the active interpreters of the Jewish tradition within the larger historical context of the European Enlightenment. I illustrate this process of cultural interpretation by focusing on the secularization of the Jewish holidays, specifically on the way the Kibbutz movement, a leading symbol of the new Israel, re-interpretated Jewish holidays like Passover, Shavuot (Pentecost) and Yom Kippur, and gave these religious festivals a secular-Israeli content. However, this dynamic pioneering stage of secularization may be said to have ended by the 1980s. From then on, the secular identity of Israeli society has been undergoing a variety of radical changes.

Disposition of improving quality of life in older adults: the case of Lithuania.

Quality of life is a phenomenon that recently required lots of concern, especially for older adults, since healthy aging and longevity have become the focus in life. Most research on the quality of life addresses certain issues of older people having special diseases, health problems, and disorders. Our research is based on holistic quality of life empowering multiple areas of life/domains of older adults without addressing their diseases or health disorders. Our research aims at evaluating the quality of life of the research participants (older people), addressing their problematic areas and suggestions for better quality of life. The conducted research implied mixed methods as quantitative survey and reflection based on interviews. We chose participants from the III age university and the ongoing project "Healthy Aging Program". The research results showed the lowest ratings for emotional and physical health and the highest rating for social health. Also, older adults tend to avoid specifying precise measures to improve their quality of life and demonstrate a more conservative stance regarding the implementation of more radical changes in improving water consumption, exercising, meal planning, and enhancing psychosocial well-being. The overall quality of life rating was lower than the average. Older adults are not sufficiently prepared or educated to make significant changes to develop healthier habits in their quality-of-life improvement, though, they demonstrate concern about their quality of life.

Empirical Study of Employees’ Career Attitudes and Organisational Citizenship Behaviour to Ensure Sound Organisational Health: A Structural Equation Approach

In the era of globalisation, a lot of disruptions have brought about radical changes in how businesses operate. This has led to the changing patterns of employer-employee relationships which are important for the health of the organisation. This has called for the need to understand the career attitude of employees, working in the organisations. The purpose of this article is to investigate the relationship between protean career, boundaryless career attitude, organisational mobility preferences and organisational citizenship behaviour (an important parameter of sound organisational health) of Indian millennials. Data from 204 employees, working in multi-national organisations located in Delhi and the NCR region of India, was used to investigate the relationship between the said constructs and their relationship. The study focussed on multi analytical approach using structural equation modelling to study the relationships among the various dimensions. The results of the study show that protean career attitude, boundaryless career attitude and organisational mobility preferences are significantly related to each other. The study would help the organisations to work on designing career coping strategies for the employees to enhance their productivity at work. The study may add some important perspectives to the literature on career already available and may serve as a basis for further enhancing the psychological contract of the current workforce.

The greatest contribution to medical science is the transformation from studying symptoms to studying their causes-the unrelenting legacy of Robert Koch and Louis Pasteur-and a causality perspective to approach a definition of SLE.

The basic initiative related to this study is derived from the fact that systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a unique and fertile system science subject. We are, however, still far from understanding its nature. It may be fair to indicate that we are spending more time and resources on studying the complexity of classified SLE than studying the validity of classification criteria. This study represents a theoretical analysis of current instinctual SLE classification criteria based on "the causality principle." The discussion has its basis on the radical scientific traditions introduced by Robert Koch and Louis Pasteur. They announced significant changes in our thinking of disease etiology through the implementation of the modern version of "the causality principle." They influenced all aspects of today's medical concepts and research: the transformation of medical science from studies of symptoms to study their causes, relevant for monosymptomatic diseases as for syndromes. Their studies focused on bacteria as causes of infectious diseases and on how the immune system adapts to control and prevent contagious spreading. This is the most significant paradigm shift in the modern history of medicine and resulted in radical changes in our view of the immune system. They described acquired post-infection immunity and active immunization by antigen-specific vaccines. The paradigm "transformation" has a great theoretical impact also on current studies of autoimmune diseases like SLE: symptoms and their cause(s). In this study, the evolution of SLE classification and diagnostic criteria is discussed from "the causality principle" perspective, and if contemporary SLE classification criteria are as useful as believed today for SLE research. This skepticism is based on the fact that classification criteria are not selected based on cogent causal strategies. The SLE classification criteria do not harmonize with Koch's and Pasteur's causality principle paradigms and not with Witebsky's Koch-derived postulates for autoimmune and infectious diseases. It is not established whether the classification criteria can separate SLE as a "one disease entity" from "SLE-like non-SLE disorders"-the latter in terms of SLE imitations. This is discussed here in terms of weight, rank, and impact of the classification criteria: Do they all originate from "one basic causal etiology"? Probably not.

Mental health interventions in Italian prisons: are we ready for a new model? Suggestions from the Parma experience.

Mental health interventions for Italian prisoners with mental disorder remain a problematic issue, despite radical changes in psychiatric care and a 2008 major government reform transferring mental health care in prison to the National Health Service. Indeed, prison has increasingly become a place of severe psychological distress, where also serious mental illnesses sometimes occur. In this contribution, we commented on the recommendations recently proposed by the Emilia-Romagna Region on how structuring mental healthcare interventions in all regional jails. Moreover, starting from the findings reported in recent epidemiological studies examining the prevalence of mental disorders in Emilia-Romagna prisons, we proposed a new treatment model for mental health and pathological addictions in jail, which took into account the current incidence of inmates with severe mental illness, psychological distress due to incarceration, and substance use disorder. Perhaps, this new intervention model (specifically centered on clinical psychology and case management by intramural mental health professionals) requires a vision able to overcome the classical "medical-centered" approach, which still too often permeates many sectors of public mental healthcare services. In our opinion, if we decide to look at the moon, we shouldn't dwell too much on the finger pointing to it.

The Collapse of Beliefs in “Rois Thaumaturges” — The Black Death and the Transformation of French People’s Concepts

In the middle of the 14th century, a plague, the Black Death, broke out across Europe and spread to France in 1348, killing large numbers of people. The old social order gradually collapsed under the impact of the plague and, in the face of radical changes in society, the attitude of the French towards religious power, royalty and the relations of production experienced a major transformation. They no longer set their sights on the distant afterlife, but were more interested in the reality of their own happiness; they rose up against the decadent system under the rule of the old aristocracy; at the same time, they began to reflect anew on their own position in the relations of production. All this symbolized the gradual collapse of the “rois thaumaturges” (the royal touch) that represented the inherent collective belief.

A radical transition in the post-main-sequence system U Equulei

Context. U Equ is an unusual maser-hosting infrared source discovered in the 1990s. It was tentatively classified as a post-asymptotic giant branch (post-AGB) star with a unique optical spectrum displaying rare emission and absorption features from molecular gas at a temperature of about 500 K. In 2022, we serendipitously discovered that its optical spectrum had drastically changed since the last observations in the 1990s. Aims. We aim to characterize the drastic change in the spectrum and analyze the photometric behavior of the object since 1989. Methods. Optical high-resolution spectra of U Equ from the Southern African Large Telescope were supplemented by archival data and near-infrared photometry from the Nordic Optical Telescope. New spectral line observations with the Effelsberg 100 m radio telescope and Atacam Large Millimeter Array are presented. Radiative transfer modeling of multiple epoch spectral energy distributions was performed. Results. No circumstellar molecular features are present in the contemporary optical spectra of U Equ. Nonphotospheric absorption and emission from neutral and ionized species dominate the current spectrum. Some of the observed features indicate an outflow with a projected terminal velocity of 215 km s−1. Broad H&K lines of [Ca II] indicate a photosphere of spectral type F or similar. For the first time, we find SiO J = 1−0 υ=1 maser emission in U Equ. Our collected photometric measurements show that the source has monotonically increased its optical and near-infrared fluxes since about the beginning of this century and continues to do so. The current rise in the optical regime is about 1 mag. Spectral energy distributions at different epochs show dusty circumstellar material that is very likely arranged in a highly inclined disk. Adopting a distance of 4 kpc, informed by the Gaia parallax of U Equ, we find that the source luminosity is about 104 L⊙. This luminosity has likely increased by a factor of a few in the last decades, which is most probably related to the drastic change in the optical circumstellar spectrum of the object. Conclusions. The object has changed considerably in the past three decades, either due to geometrical reconfiguration of the circumstellar medium, evolutionary changes in the central star, or owing to an accretion event that started very recently in the system. Observationally, U Equ appears to resemble category 0 of disk-hosting post-AGB stars reported previously, especially the post-common-envelope binary HD 101584. It is uncertain whether the drastic spectral change and the associated optical and mid-infrared rise in brightness witnessed in U Equ are common in post-AGB stars, but this radical change may be related to the real-time onset of the evolution of the system into a planetary nebula. We find that the post-AGB star V576 Car has undergone a similar transformation as U Equ in the past few decades, which means that the phenomenon is not extremely rare.

In the Mood for Heideggerian Boredom? Film Viewership as Being-in-the-World

In this article, I engage with Shawn Loht’s argument concerning film viewing as being-in-the-world, developed in his book Phenomenology of Film: A Heideggerian Account of the Film Experience (2017), focusing on the aesthetics of mood with particular attention to boredom. I elaborate on a phenomenological ontology of the film experience and its perceptual “rules” which hinge on aesthetic choices: what kind of world does the film open up for the viewer? Loht’s account of viewing Dasein enables us to deepen phenomenological approaches regarding the relationship between (cinematic) moods and (filmic) understanding, and through his engagement with Mitsein, to expand on film spectatorship conceived as a relation with a shared film world. I look at how Heideggerian boredom can elicit spectatorial experiences and disclosure of meaning, as well as allowing characters’ being in the film world. A broader engagement with cinematic moods is also conducive to exploring limits and potentialities of a possible Heideggerian film-philosophy. To illustrate some of these points, I discuss Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car (2021), wherein boredom is consistently awakened through aesthetic strategies of dead-time, silence, slowness and repetition. In the film, the mood of boredom, but also that of love and grief as world-disclosing moods which produce a radical change in our being-in-the-world, is a way to establish a sense of our embeddedness, orient our understanding and disclose our finitude and solitude.

Trends in the development of HR technologies in the context of the development of the digital economy and society

The rapid development of digital technologies, caused by modern challenges, leads to radical changes in the main spheres of society's life, including the work process. Society spends most of its life at work, so many scientists and researchers are looking for ways to increase labor productivity by possibly minimizing labor costs. By implementing digital technologies in personnel management, a large part of managers wants to get the maximum increase in labor productivity, which will ensure an increase in the competitiveness of enterprises. However, comparing the costs of implementing digital technologies with and without personnel management, they conclude that such investments need to be more proficient. Despite the costly investment in digital technology, today's challenges force leaders to digitally transform HR to ensure they can compete among the rest. The purpose of writing the article is to research trends in the development of HR technologies in the context of the development of the digital economy and society. The study of the main trends in the development of HR technologies in the conditions of the digital economy and society was carried out, which would allow a comprehensive classification of modern information technologies used in personnel management. The classification of modern information technologies in HR management is disclosed: Internet and Cloud technologies, Big Data analysis, artificial intelligence, and specialized software. It has been proven that for enterprises, there is a wide range of information technologies in the field of HR management, which allows you to choose the products you need for the program; this will increase the productivity of employees and ensure the competitiveness of economic entities. It is proposed that the organization create its information systems for personnel management based on the primary analysis of Big Data, which will ensure appropriate integration with existing processes. It was determined that using chatbots is promising for most enterprises, allowing customers to evaluate their service or provide feedback. Keywords: HR technologies in personnel management, information and cloud technologies, Big Data analysis, artificial intelligence, chat bots.

Synthesis and Characterization of La2O3–BaO–Na2O–SiO2–Bi2O3 Glass as a Potent Shield Against Ionizing Radiation

In recent years, the scientific community has spent significant effort exploring radiation-shielding glass materials. The present work was conducted by synthesizing a glass series of 20La2O–10BaO –15Na2O–(55−x)SiO2–xBi2O3, x: 0, 5, 15, and 25 wt%. After producing the samples, in-depth studies were performed on the physical, optical, thermal, and radiation attenuation properties of the fabricated glass series. A radical color change from nearly neutral to dark-brown color occurred as Bi2O3 entered the glass network. The density values equaled 2.8324, 2.9511, 3.0992, and 3.3657 g cm−3 for LBSS1 to LBSS4 samples, respectively. According to XRD patterns, neither sharp nor moderate peaks developed; a hump-like formation between 20 and 35 degrees was visible in all glass samples. FTIR measurement revealed transmission as a function of varying wavenumber from 4000 to 400 cm−1 for the prepared glass specimens, and different bond types were noted. The UV–Vis technique removes it displayed that increasing Bi2O3 content blocked light transmission throughout the glass medium. The radiation-shielding parameters of linear attenuation coefficient (LAC), mass attenuation coefficient, transmission factor, and half value layer were calculated with experimental and MC simulation methods for all glass samples at six different energies between 356 and 1332 keV. The results were compared with the Phy-X database, and good agreement was obtained. The highest LACs were obtained at the lowest energy (356 keV) with values of 0.3108, 0.3455, 0.4471, and 0.5486 cm−1 for LBSS1, LBSS2, LBSS3, and LBSS4 glasses, respectively. The photon attenuation ability of the LBSS glasses increased by increasing the Bi2O3 ratio, especially at low energies. Therefore, the authors can conclude that future applications, such as observation window in CT rooms, may efficiently exploit LBBS4 glass system.

DIAGNOSTICS OF MANAGEMENT OF MARKETING BUSINESS PROCESSES IN REAL ESTATE ENTERPRISES

With the rapid development of information technology and the deepening of the concept of value chain management, the enterprise management mode has been liberated from the traditional vertical integration structure, and opened a new chapter of all-round horizontal integration and value management. Many domestic and foreign enterprises have launched business process reengineering plans to strengthen enterprise management and enhance comprehensive competitiveness. This radical change has a huge impact on the traditional real estate sales model, forcing the sales business process must adapt to the new market development trend, and more closely integrate with other business processes to meet the comprehensive needs of modern enterprise management. In order to adapt to the changes of external environment, real estate enterprises must optimize and reconstruct their internal processes. Through business process reengineering, enterprises can break the traditional functional organizational structure, establish a new process organizational structure, eliminate ineffective processes, shorten the time required for processes, improve the execution efficiency of processes, and finally achieve the goal of improving management level and work efficiency, optimizing resource allocation and standardizing management processes. Marketing process management plays an important role in enterprise operation. By effectively organizing and coordinating individual business processes, marketing process management can improve the overall operational efficiency of a company. This paper focuses on the problem of marketing process in the field of real estate. Firstly, it emphasizes the importance of studying business process management. Then, according to the background of China's real estate development, the main links of the marketing process management of real estate enterprises are discussed in a targeted way (analyzing the target market, formulating sales strategies, implementing promotion activities, building sales channels, implementing sales activities, providing after-sales service). On the basis of the above links, this paper comprehensively analyzes the challenges faced by real estate enterprises in the marketing process. These challenges come from many aspects, such as market environment, sales channels, monitoring and evaluation. In order to deal with these challenges, this paper discusses and puts forward some countermeasures. These strategies include perfecting market research, diversifying sales channels, optimizing promotion strategies and strengthening marketing team building.

Same Words, Different Meanings—Same Courts, Different Leanings: How the Supreme Court’s Latest Religious Accommodation Holding Changes the Law and Affects Employers

The Supreme Court dropped several of its most anxiously awaited and controversial cases during the last week of June 2023. While two of the cases, 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis and Students for Fair Admissions., Inc., v. President & Fellows of Harvard College, received most of the press, a third case will likely be the most consequential of the three for the hospitality industry. In Groff v. DeJoy, Postmaster General, the Supreme Court, in a 9-0 decision, rejected a 25 year+ interpretation of a Supreme Court case defining employers’ obligations to accommodate religion. Because the Court released its Groff decision during the same week as the release of both 303 Creative and the Harvard cases, Groff was lost in the shuffle. However, we argue that Groff’s imprecise but radical change of what constitutes an undue hardship for religious accommodations under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 will create confusion, may cause dissention, and will add to an already difficult labor market in hospitality and other industries. To support our proposition, this article examines (a) the development of religious accommodation law before 1977, (b) the 1977 Supreme Court case that the Groff Court rejected, (c) the subsequent precedent of that 1977 case, (d) the passing and development of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and then, (e) the effect of Groff.

Look up! Five research proposals for rethinking marketing in a post-growth society

By focusing on the capacity of marketing to contribute to climate change, biodiversity loss, and strains on natural resources, this article addresses a fundamental concern. Despite the urgency and significance of these issues, the discipline, indeed, lags in recognizing that human activities have geological-scale consequences, to the extent that a new era, the Anthropocene, is being evoked. This reluctance can be attributed, at least in part, to the implicit assumptions of sustainable marketing, which tend to downplay the extent of the crisis and the necessary paradigm shifts. Hence, dominant approaches in “sustainable marketing” struggle to challenge the fundamental principles and ideological foundations of the market system. That is why we are advocating for radical changes in marketing research to envision a truly sustainable future. We put forth five research proposals with the aim of instigating profound transformations in the field.

Blame and Responsibility Assignments in Fast Fashion-Triggered Environmental Injustice: A Case Study of Eco-Documentaries

ABSTRACT This study deconstructs the representations of fast fashion-triggered environmental injustice in three widely viewed eco-documentaries produced by public service media in regard to causal responsibility and treatment responsibility attributions from a multimodal critical discourse analytical perspective. Discursive practices associated with causal responsibility attributions include reinforcing the racialized perpetrator-victim dichotomy between the North and the South, redirecting blame to the generic consumers, and paradoxically justifying the problematized status quo. Discursive practices associated with treatment responsibility ascriptions include portraying individual actions as the solution, presupposing technology as the solution, picturing the Northern actors as the problem-solvers, and legitimizing business-as-usual approaches as the best compromise. These findings suggest that the three eco-documentaries reflect and perpetuate the wider discourse of neoliberal and neocolonial environmentalism, arguably rendering the meaning-making of environmental justice shallow and undermining possibilities of empowerment and radical change. Suggestions for media practitioners and environmental communicators informed by the analysis are offered.