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An introduction is presented in which editor discusses various articles within the issue on topics including role of women in the nation-building project; desire for emigration and nostalgia that results in the sadness and combination of political propaganda and anthropological texts.

A deeper understanding of what factors influence metacognition has never become more pressing than in today's digital era, in which information flows constantly and quickly. To this end, the present study explored the role of culture in mediating how individuals experience metacognitive phenomena. For this purpose, the International Group on Metacognition (IGM) developed a rigorous standard international protocol to measure metacognition in Spanish-speaking university students (N = 1,461) in 12 cultures in Latin-America and Spain, employing both a subjective measure of metacognitive awareness (the Metacognitive Awareness Inventory [MAI]) and various metrics of objective metacognitive monitoring across three domains of learning—vocabulary, probabilities (mathematical reasoning), and paper folding (visual-spatial reasoning). Data were subsequently compared across the various cultures with subjective metacognitive awareness and the raw frequencies of the four mutually exclusive cells of the 2 × 2 performance/judgment array as outcomes. Results revealed significant differences regarding both macro-level components of subjective metacognitive awareness, knowledge and regulation of cognition. Further, significant and meaningful differences emerged for the raw frequencies of the four mutually exclusive cells as a function of culture, especially for vocabulary, in which differences among cultures emerged for all four cells. Implications for metacognitive research, theory, and practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article titled "Intercultural Dialogues: Cultures of the East - Introduction" explores various aspects of Eastern cultures from different angles. It discusses topics such as the interpretation of the Qur'an, the concept of "zuo wang" in Zhuangzi text, the notion of matriarchy in ancient Japan, the role of culture in shaping language concepts in Persian, and the reception of Eastern cultures in European painting and art during the late 19th century. The authors aim to provide a complex understanding of these cultures and challenge simplistic assumptions. The editors have carefully selected papers that focus on specific research problems, avoiding an orientalist approach. [Extracted from the article]

For synergistic interactions between humans and artificial intelligence (AI) systems, AI outputs often need to be explainable to people. Explainable AI (XAI) systems are commonly tested in human user studies. However, whether XAI researchers consider potential cultural differences in human explanatory needs remains unexplored. We highlight psychological research that found significant differences in human explanations between many people from Western, commonly individualist countries and people from non-Western, often collectivist countries. We argue that XAI research currently overlooks these variations and that many popular XAI designs implicitly and problematically assume that Western explanatory needs are shared cross-culturally. Additionally, we systematically reviewed over 200 XAI user studies and found that most studies did not consider relevant cultural variations, sampled only Western populations, but drew conclusions about human-XAI interactions more generally. We also analyzed over 30 literature reviews of XAI studies. Most reviews did not mention cultural differences in explanatory needs or flag overly broad cross-cultural extrapolations of XAI user study results. Combined, our analyses provide evidence of a cultural bias toward Western populations in XAI research, highlighting an important knowledge gap regarding how culturally diverse users may respond to widely used XAI systems that future work can and should address. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Like Rachel's paper, the next paper expresses hope for reconciliation through forgiveness. His paper highlights the challenges Christians have faced as they migrate from one region of Indonesia to another (as diaspora communities within Indonesia). This issue highlights the writings of some of the 18 paper presenters in the Interfaith and Mission Track of the International Association for Mission Studies' (IAMS) 15th Assembly in Sydney. [Extracted from the article]

This critique engages with the article titled "The Question of the Nature of God from the African Place," by L. Uchenna OGBONNAYA published in Vol. 11. No.1 of this journal. This critique will employ a focused argumentative methodology to assess its contributions to the discourse on African Philosophy of Religion. It will also evaluate the article's strengths and weaknesses, emphasizing the articulation and support of key arguments. Through a systematic examination of the presented evidence and methodological approach, the critique aims to shed light on the nuanced perspectives on the nature of God within the African philosophical framework. Further, this assessment will provide a comprehensive understanding of the article's implications for contemporary religious studies and intercultural dialogue, contributing to the ongoing conversation surrounding diverse perspectives on divinity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Miscelánea: A Journal of English & American Studies is the property of Miscelanea: A Journal of English & American Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Knowledge has become a central problematic in recent work on cross-cultural encounters and the processes of empire building. In an array of contexts—from Spanish America to colonial South Africa, from Ireland to occupied Egypt, the American West to British India—anthropologists and historians have highlighted the ways in which “colonial knowledge” facilitated trade, the extraction of rent and taxes, conversion, and outright conquest. This scholarship has demonstrated how these new forms of understanding produced on imperial frontiers facilitated the actual extension of sovereignty and the consolidation of colonial authority: for Tzvetan Todorov, Bernard Cohn, and Nicholas Dirks alike, colonialism was a “conquest of knowledge.” Scholarship on empire building in the Americas has placed special emphasis on the place of literacy in the dynamics of conquest. Walter Mignolo in particular has argued that European understandings of the power of literacy encouraged Spaniards in the New World to discount the value of indigenous graphic systems and disparage Mesoamerican languages as untruthful, unreliable, and products of the Devil. For Mignolo, the dark side of the new knowledge orders born out of the Renaissance was a new interweaving of literacy, knowledge, and colonization in a new cultural order he dubs “coloniality.” In the North American literature, too, literacy has been seen as a crucial element in imperial intrusion and conquest. James Axtell, for example, has argued “The conquest of America was in part a victory of paper and print over memory and voice. The victors wrote their way to the New World and inscribed themselves on its maps.” [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A growing scholarly interest focused on new media and cross-cultural adaptation research, but a bibliometric analysis with VOSviewer software still needs to be improved. The paper aims to review the literature on new media and cross-cultural adaptation during the past two decades, analyse the current research on new media and cross-cultural adaptation, get an overview of current research, identify the heated topics, and propose future directions. This paper examined 1,1518 English-language articles published in the Web of Science database from 2003 to 2023 using bibliometric techniques and the VOSviewer software. The methodology analysed the variables such as development time, Top 10 countries, organisations, authors, articles, journals, and co-occurrence keywords in the bibliometric analysis. A review of the past 20 years shows a significant increase in excellent research publications on new media and cross-cultural adaptation. Regarding the region of publications, the number of publications in the United States is the absolute leader, followed by China, the United Kingdom, Australia, Spain, and Germany. However, the highest average number of citations is for Germany. As seen from the five categorised clusters, cross-cultural studies on social media use, Internet addiction, psychological health issues, and international students have become a growing concern in recent years. Future research on new media and cross-cultural adaptation may move toward exploring international students' social media usage and psychological adaptations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to present a theoretical approach to studying argumentative study, also known as modern rhetoric; the paper follows a limpid path, moving between the various definitions of argumentation using the descriptive-analytical method. Firstly, it differentiates the two types of argumentation: the logical and the linguistic. Then, it deals with the most well-known contextual definitions of argumentation in both Arabic and Western argumentative studies. Aristotle was the first to refer to the types of argumentation. Hence, the paper shows his endeavors in this respect. The article advances Arabic language and teaching by providing theoretical foundations, pedagogical insights, cross-cultural understanding, historical context, methodological applications, relevance to modern scholarship, and validating Arabic rhetorical traditions. This study aims to give a brief and easy idea of Aristotle's efforts in the field of argumentation, especially the logical arguments and the subjective moral arguments, and the functions of these moral arguments of benefit, influence, and enjoyment, whether they relate to the orator (Aetos), the audience (Pathos), or the speech itself (Logos). Then, the research concluded with examples of these self-created arguments. The study results showed a comprehensive concept of the arguments in Arab and Western thoughts. Moreover, the researchers proved that Aristotle's topics and thoughts were one of the most significant sources of nourishment for the modern argumentative lesson; Arabic rhetoric did not lag behind the Western lesson in its care for argumentations and its methods of analysis, and they demonstrated the applicability of the mentioned concepts in the study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: In the post-pandemic era urban ecosystem planning has become critically important. Given the emphasis on relevant issues concerning the complex interactions between human civilizations and natural systems within urban environments in the new normal, this article aims to enrich the field of knowledge management developing a cross-cultural analysis for clarifying the role of knowledge in planning and urban ecosystems. Design/methodology/approach: This paper is conceptual in nature. Based on a theoretical foundation built by a critical literature review and data from the China Statistical Yearbook and China's National Bureau of Statistics, this paper introduces some emerging real-impact topics regarding the connections between humanistic knowledge and urban planning. A comparative analysis between the capital city of Chang'an in the Tang dynasty of China and the capital city of Athens in Ancient Greek was used for explaining the influence of knowledge on successful urban planning. Findings: The understanding the role of cross-cultural differences in knowledge management and practices for urban ecosystems offer the opportunities for rethinking consolidated approach to the interaction among social, economic, and environmental dimensions in urban settings. Originality/value: This paper implies a new inter-disciplinary research field of great interest for the real impact KM community by illuminating how knowledge management is central in urban planning and across cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Milky Way's name and role in ancient Egyptian culture remain unclear. One suggestion is that the Milky Way may have been a celestial depiction of the sky goddess Nut. In this work, I test this association using an interdisciplinary approach. In the first part of this paper, I combine astronomical simulations of the ancient Egyptian night sky with primary Egyptian sources to map the goddess Nut onto the Milky Way. With her head and groin firmly associated by primary texts with the western and eastern horizons, respectively, I argue that the summer and winter orientations of the Milky Way could be construed as figurative markers of Nut's torso (or backbone) and her arms, respectively. In the second part of this paper, I situate Nut within the global, multicultural mythology of the Milky Way. Specifically, I show that Nut's roles in the afterlife and the autumn bird migration are consistent with similar roles attributed to the Milky Way by other cultures. Finally, I show that Nut's identification with the Milky Way may even have echoes in contemporary African conceptions of the Galaxy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Marketing Science & Inspirations is the property of Comenius University in Bratislava, Faculty of Management and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Aim/Purpose This paper aims to investigate and understand the intentions of management undergraduate students in Hangzhou, China, regarding the adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies in their education. It addresses the need to explore the factors influencing AI adoption in the educational context and contribute to the ongoing discourse on technology integration in higher education. Background The paper addresses the problem by conducting a comprehensive investigation into the perceptions of management undergraduate students in Hangzhou, China, regarding the adoption of AI in education. The study explores various factors, including Perceived Relative Advantage and Trialability, to shed light on the nuanced dynamics influencing AI technology adoption in the context of higher education. Methodology The study employs a quantitative research approach, utilizing the Confirmatory Tetrad Analysis (CTA) and Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) methodologies. The research sample consists of management undergraduate students in Hangzhou, China, and the methods include data screening, principal component analysis, confirmatory tetrad analysis, and evaluation of the measurement and structural models. We used a random sampling method to distribute 420 online, self-administered questionnaires among management students aged 18 to 21 at universities in Hangzhou. Contribution This paper explores how management students in Hangzhou, China, perceive the adoption of AI in education. It identifies factors that influence AI adoption intention. Furthermore, the study emphasizes the complex nature of technology adoption in the changing educational technology landscape. It offers a thorough comprehension of this process while challenging and expanding the existing literature by revealing the insignificant impacts of certain factors. This highlights the need for an approach to AI integration in education that is context-specific and culturally sensitive. Findings The study highlights students' positive attitudes toward integrating AI in educational settings. Perceived relative advantage and trialability were found to impact AI adoption intention significantly. AI adoption is influenced by social and cultural contexts rather than factors like compatibility, complexity, and observability. Peer influence, instructor guidance, and the university environment were identified as pivotal in shaping students' attitudes toward AI technologies. Recommendations for Practitioners To promote the use of AI among management students in Hangzhou, practitioners should highlight the benefits and the ease of testing these technologies. It is essential to create communication strategies tailored to the student's needs, consider cultural differences, and utilize the influence of peers and instructors. Establishing a supportive environment within the university that encourages innovation through policies and regulations is vital. Additionally, it is recommended that students' attitudes towards AI be monitored constantly, and strategies adjusted accordingly to keep up with the changing technological landscape. Recommendations for Researchers Researchers should conduct cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural studies with qualitative and longitudinal research designs to understand factors affecting AI adoption in education. It is essential to investigate compatibility, complexity, observability, individual attitudes, prior experience, and the evolving role of peers and instructors. Impact on Society The study's insights into the positive attitudes of management students in Hangzhou, China, toward AI adoption in education have broader societal implications. It reflects a readiness for transformative educational experiences in a region known for technological advancements. However, the study also underscores the importance of cautious integration, considering associated risks like data privacy and biases to ensure equitable benefits and uphold educational values. Future Research Future research should delve into AI adoption in various academic disciplines and regions, employing longitudinal designs and qualitative methods to understand cultural influences and the roles of peers and instructors. Investigating moderating factors influencing specific factors' relationship with AI adoption intention is essential for a comprehensive understanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although cross-cultural interactions and cultural bubbles have been researched extensively in tourism, these issues have often been viewed one-sidedly. More precisely, in contemporary literature, cultural bubbles are mostly considered one-sided biases that prevent tourists from fully enjoying the culture of their hosts. Besides that, it is important to bear in mind that a tourist offer itself is also formed from the perspectives of tourism experience designers and tourism managers. Therefore, it is important to consider how the perception of a tourist offer is distorted by looking from inside the bubble of tourist culture. This paper highlights managers' cultural biases in designing tourist experiences, which have often been overlooked in cross-cultural tourism studies. It is crucial to have this discussion now so that the global tourist industry can continue to provide local experiences, as tourism managers and employees in the sector are increasingly interacting with people from diverse cultural contexts. This might be beneficial for the cultural expression of destinations, on the one hand, as well as for providing more valuable experiences for tourists, on the other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose of paper: This research paper examines the expectations of Generation Z (Gen Z) in relation to today's labor market in a case study sample comparing peers from Poland and Croatia. This article aims to analyze this generation's unique expectations, values and aspirations for the workplace. An additional goal of the article is to identify differences and similarities between Gen Z representatives in Poland and Croatia and to propose new model of HR dedicated for Gen Z. Design/approach: In order to achieve the intended purpose, a quantitative survey was conducted on Polish and Croatian management students. The article consists of 3 parts. The first deals with the theoretical context - as a brief review of related literature to recognize Generation Z in a brief description of the local (Polish and Croatian) labor market context. The second part includes a brief assumptions of the adopted methodology and presentation of research results related to the recognition of careers and workplace expectations of Polish and Croatian Generation Z on a preliminary research sample. The last part is the conclusions and an attempt to conceptualize our own proposal for a new HRM model for this new, non-examined so in depth generation. Practical implications: The study's primary outcomes revealed that Generation Z members value job security and financial stability, exhibiting a preference for employment within large corporations. Despite being commonly referred to as those proficient in digital technology, they must establish solid interpersonal connections with their colleagues and express their thoughts and opinions openly. Despite the cultural variations and various national identities, the representatives of Generation Z from Poland and Croatia had very similar outcomes regarding their aspirations and perspectives. Therefore, it can be deduced that the most recent cohort of individuals joining the workforce in the surveyed student population possesses a perception of a widespread and consistent comprehension of their occupational obligations. Social implications: There can be assumed some implications of the findings for employers, policymakers, and educators in both countries. Provide insights into how organizations can better attract, retain, and support the career development of Generation Z in light of their unique expectations, in particular in a lack of social competency in perspective of employeers. Findings: This study offers empirical evidence that supports the prevailing notion of Generation Z as a universally homogeneous cohort about their attitudes and behaviours within the workplace context. Originality/value: Comparing the expectations of the Polish and Croatian Generation Z entering the labor market could offer a valuable contribution to the field of cross-cultural studies, labor market research, and generational dynamics. Here are some potential points of originality and value for such presented results of research: cultural differences in work values between Poland and Croatia, educational systems and career preparedness, technological influences by how technology, digitalization, and connectivity have influenced the expectations of Generation Z in both countries, implications for employers and policymakers in both countries in proposition of 10 factors approach to new model of HCM dedicated to expectations of Gen Z. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

‘Food scaping’ seeks to understand how meaning is made through humans’ interaction with food in particular environments through a multimodal and interdisciplinary analytical lens. As part of a food scaping project, researchers often interpret food environments to which they are not intimately ‘local’. This presents cross-cultural limitations in the production of analysis. Most pertinently, how can personal interpretation be divorced from locally salient and meaningful discourses? This paper presents the findings of a pilot food scaping analysis using the box notation style of Kim’s Korean Segmented Film Discourse Representation Structures (K-SFDRS). K-SFDRS notation, developed to provide both coarser- and finer-grained formal transcription for South Korean multimodal film discourse analysis, is tested as an analytic tool for an authentic South Korean food scaping experience. This paper aims to ascertain whether the formal nature of K-SFDRS transcription is a useful aid to the analysis of a foodscape, which otherwise risks relying heavily on personal interpretation. This pilot study presents an introduction to both food scaping and (K-)SFDRS, outlines the potentials of (K-)SFDRS notation within a food scaping context, offers a stepby-step outline for constructing K-SFDRS box notation using an exemplar South Korean foodscape, and finally demonstrates how this box notation may be used in the support of food scaping analysis in various interdisciplinary channels. During this pilot study, the authors make a novel methodological development in the form of what they term ‘cluster structures’, which overcome the problems presented by the lack of cinematic narrative editing in spontaneous discourse, segmenting meaning into logical forms within which structures of meaning are hierarchised without requiring the discourse relations to structure the logical forms themselves in narrative discourse following the original K-SFDRS methodology. The paper concludes that K-SFDRS, alongside the aforementioned methodological development, has potential to help food scaping researchers constrain interpretation to salient discourses and direct food scaping analysis down meaningful avenues. Through its culinary scope, this chapter adds a new disciplinary dimension to discussions of metalanguage and makes an innovative contribution to the current corpus of multimodal research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Racially and ethnically diverse populations from minoritized backgrounds are often exposed to research methodologies that amplify structural racism and negate their sociocultural reality. Although cross-cultural validation of measures is considered a requisite step to multigroup comparisons, researchers apply measures validated and standardized in the dominant White culture to under-researched populations (without assessing measurement equivalence first). Seeking to align with calls for more culturally sensitive measures, an argument is made to leverage youth participatory approaches in the cross-cultural validation of study instruments. Using an illustrative case study, this paper describes how 16 youth researchers (predominantly Hispanic) partnered with an academic team to examine the validity of the Prosocial Behavior Scale. A new tool, the Key Informant Validity Index, is introduced to determine if items maintain adequate levels of content validity when applied to populations that differ from the original norming and validation study samples. Youth researchers rated items on relevance, clarity and coverage, and use a guided protocol to conduct cognitive interviews with 32 youth participants. Recognizing the inherent challenges of reducing hierarchal power dynamics within youth-adult relationships and/or alleviating insider/outsider tensions across lines of cultural difference, an intentional focus is placed on naming key strategies that facilitated the collaboration process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the decades, one of the continuing debates has been around the role played by market research at the boardroom level, and how it influences the strategic direction of the business. The papers in this issue include a new approach to eliciting "meaning" using semiotic methods from the United Kingdom, a further perspective on the academic-practitioner divide in marketing research from the United States. The author contends that Peircean semiotics, based on meaning being created through icons and indices (and their combinations), provides a more appropriate basis for a new research model, qualitative semiotics, that fuses qualitative methods with semiotics, rather than the two being complementary, which can be used for describing how qualitative market research methods decode consumer behavior. The new data-centric world adds a further dimension to the debate; LinkedIn, for example, has identified that "statistical and data mining" is the second most sought after skill by recruiters, but as Nunan and Di Domenico demonstrated, this is not yet a universal module in marketing research courses. [Extracted from the article]

Volunteers play an indispensable role in several major events and activities. The purpose of this study is to review studies on volunteer motivation from 2000 to 2021 and to discover the development trends in this field. The Web of Science Core Collection is the main literature data resource, from which 162 papers on volunteer motivation published in the SSCI were selected. Using two visualization analysis tools, CiteSpace and VOSviewer, this study conducts bibliometric analysis and systematic review from multiple dimensions, identifying the authors, countries, institutions, and journals with high productivity in this field. Additionally, we explored highly cited papers, authors, and journals in this field. This study aims to find the research hotspots and theoretical basis through co-occurrence analysis and cluster analysis of keywords and explore the evolution through the time zone map drawn with CiteSpace. Moreover, we focus on the influence of Chinese and Western cultures (represented by China and the United States) on volunteer motivation. It was found that Chinese volunteers were more affected by collectivism, whereas American volunteers were more affected by individualism. The conclusion of this study constructs a clear framework for research on volunteer motivation, which provides researchers with a deeper and thorough understanding of the connotation of volunteer motivation, providing guidance and support for future research in this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]