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Football is at once both a global sport and one that is defined by fiercely guarded local boundaries. For a firm operating within this highly lucrative industry and with ambitions of establishing a strong international presence for itself, a balance must be struck between riding on the game’s global appeal on the one hand and the need to somehow embed itself within particular local spaces on the other. This study aims to analyse how one such firm, the holding company City Football Group (CFG), is going about achieving this.

This is a conceptual paper that adopts a broadly inductive approach, building on an extensive analysis of both theoretical research and publicly available secondary data to develop a framework depicting three key strategies associated with CFG’s internationalisation.

Three factors are identified as being especially pertinent in CFG’s international expansion: the composition of CFG’s top management team; the attempts to establish a unifying “City identity”; and CFG’s forays into more peripheral leagues around the world after having established itself at the “top end” of the game.

The framework presented in this paper is particularly oriented towards a practitioner audience. Managers of firms operating in football, as well as in other industries in which the pressure to be both globally integrated and locally responsive is particularly acute, can draw lessons from both the framework and the broader insights presented here on CFG’s global expansion.

Football is widely regarded as the world’s most popular sport, and fans often take matters very seriously when it comes to the club they support. How football clubs are run is, therefore, a matter of considerable societal interest, as demonstrated by various fan protests over the years. As global, multi-club ownership structures like that adopted by CFG become more commonplace, this study will provide football fans with some insight into the strategies of these companies and how their own clubs fit within these ownership models.

This study addresses an under-researched topic: the international expansion of a prominent football holding company.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the scope for action of local human resource managers, who are employed in foreign subsidiaries of multinational companies (MNCs), for implementing training activities. These managers are situated in relationships to headquarters and the local environment. Related to this is the question whether MNCs contribute to the local skill base by implementing training activities or whether they exploit the existing skill formation system.

This study focusses on German subsidiaries of MNCs with headquarters in the USA and the UK, France, China and Japan. The study is based on 107 expert interviews with subsidiary managers and representatives of local stakeholder organisations, such as educational organisations, chambers, economic promotion agencies and governmental bodies in Germany.

The study reveals that headquarters introduce general schemes for training. In addition to these MNC-internal trainings, local managers use their information advantage over headquarters to implement dual training activities.

The training activities of subsidiaries are dependent on the institutional settings of the host country.

Albeit dual training activities are laborious and tie the local managers down for the medium and long term, the future need of the subsidiary for adequately skilled workforce prompts local managers’ engagement in implementing dual training activities.

Subsidiaries contribute to the local skill base and do not act in a free-rider position, at least in the German variety of capitalism.

The study deepens insights on distanced relations within and how subsidiaries generate scope for action by using this kind of relationships.

This paper aims to ask how the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) has orchestrated a sustainable development (SD) agenda in its international policy since 2020.

By drawing on theoretical ideas around policy orchestration as a key UN governing strategy and applying them to the analysis of the progression of the SD agenda in the EHEA, the paper conducts a thematic analysis of six recent key EHEA international policy documents and 19 interviews with key Bologna stakeholders in France, Germany and Italy.

The resultant analysis uncovers three overarching key themes that show the EHEA has the capacity to mitigate pitfalls in the UN’s SD agenda; some weaknesses of the UN’s orchestration of SD are translated into weaknesses in the EHEA’s formulation of its SD agenda; and the further development of an SD agenda as an essential direction of EHEA’s work. The paper then goes on to discuss how EHEA policies only mention SD discourse, omit concrete plans for its implementation and keep the very meaning of SD ambiguous throughout international policy documents.

The authors offer three original recommendations that the EHEA should adopt in an attempt to mitigate the issues raised in the run-up to its 2030 deadline for implementing its policies: the EHEA should develop an explicit definition of SD; recognise the Euro-centredness of EHEA policies and open them up to other voices; and cite academic research when developing policy documents.

This study aims to examine the symbolic meanings of the local shopping malls inscribed by the shoppers from the sociocultural lens other than merely departing from the economic dimensions.

In this research, Kwai Chung Plaza was adopted as the case study. The author interviewed 12 local shoppers through an in-depth individual interview. All interviewees were selected through convenience and snowball sampling. All names of the participants in this paper are kept pseudonymous to protect their privacy.

An integrated model, which consists of three major levels, namely, the spatial, individual and community levels, has been formed to show that the shopping mall was not merely a place for buy-and-sell transactions but rather a place that could be understood as an extension of the street, a body of collective memories and a place for Hongkongers.

The most significant limitation of this study was the lack of a diversified demographic profile adding that the sample was restricted to the young generation. It is recommended that future research should consider including interviews with middle-aged and old-aged shoppers to ensure the generalizability of results. Future research may also consider examining other small/medium-sized shopping malls for comparison.

The findings demonstrated the diversified social roles and functions of the local shopping malls in a community. In addition, the present study, to the author’s knowledge, is one of the few scholarly discussions on small/medium-sized shopping malls from a sociocultural perspective.

The highly contagious coronavirus and the rapid spread of COVID-19 disease have generated a global public health crisis, which is being addressed at various local and global scales through social distancing measures and guidelines. This is coupled with debates about the nature of living and working patterns through intensive utilisation of information and telecommunication technologies, leading to the social and institutional acceptability of these patterns as the “new normal”. The primary objective of this article is to instigate a discourse about the potential contribution of architecture and urban design and planning in generating knowledge that responds to pressing questions about future considerations of post pandemic architecture and urbanism. Methodologically, the discussion is based on a trans-disciplinary framework, which is utilised for conceptual analysis and is operationalized by identifying and discoursing design and planning implications. The article underscores relevant factors; originates insights for areas where future research will be critically needed, through key areas: a) Issues related to urban dynamics are delineated from the perspective of urban and human geography, urban design and planning, and transportation engineering; b) Questions that pertain to socio-spatial implications and urban space/ urban life dialectics stem from the field of environmental psychology; and c) Deliberations about new environments that accommodate new living/working styles supervene from ethnographical and anthropological perspectives. The article concludes with an outlook that captures key aspects of the needed synergy between architectural and urban education, research, and practice and public health in a post pandemic virtual and global world.

Nowadays, food problems are likely to arise because of the increasing global population and decreasing arable land. Therefore, it is necessary to increase the yield of agricultural products. Pesticides can be used to improve agricultural land products. This study aims to make the spraying of cherry trees more effective and efficient with the designed artificial intelligence (AI)-based agricultural unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV).

Two approaches have been adopted for the AI-based detection of cherry trees: In approach 1, YOLOv5, YOLOv7 and YOLOv8 models are trained with 70, 100 and 150 epochs. In Approach 2, a new method is proposed to improve the performance metrics obtained in Approach 1. Gaussian, wavelet transform (WT) and Histogram Equalization (HE) preprocessing techniques were applied to the generated data set in Approach 2. The best-performing models in Approach 1 and Approach 2 were used in the real-time test application with the developed agricultural UAV.

In Approach 1, the best F1 score was 98% in 100 epochs with the YOLOv5s model. In Approach 2, the best F1 score and mAP values were obtained as 98.6% and 98.9% in 150 epochs, with the YOLOv5m model with an improvement of 0.6% in the F1 score. In real-time tests, the AI-based spraying drone system detected and sprayed cherry trees with an accuracy of 66% in Approach 1 and 77% in Approach 2. It was revealed that the use of pesticides could be reduced by 53% and the energy consumption of the spraying system by 47%.

An original data set was created by designing an agricultural drone to detect and spray cherry trees using AI. YOLOv5, YOLOv7 and YOLOv8 models were used to detect and classify cherry trees. The results of the performance metrics of the models are compared. In Approach 2, a method including HE, Gaussian and WT is proposed, and the performance metrics are improved. The effect of the proposed method in a real-time experimental application is thoroughly analyzed.

The purpose of this study is to address the relationship between multinational corporations (MNCs) and grand challenges. Stressing the moderating impact of stakeholders and governments, it frames and introduces the six contributions of the special issue, equally divided into those illustrating how MNCs contribute to the existence of grand challenges and those exploring how MNCs contribute to addressing grand challenges.

Based on a review of the existing literature on the relationship between MNCs and grand challenges and recent developments in mainstream international business, the viewpoint emphasizes the need to move beyond a one-sided focus on the positive contributions of MNCs to grand challenges.

The special issue contributions reveal that even established MNCs are actively engaged in strategic efforts to perpetuate unsustainable practices and minimize the impact of societal rules and stakeholders. The contributions also highlight the complications when MNCs aim to tackle grand challenges.

Displaying positive practices of how MNCs contribute to the solution of grand challenges should not be considered a functional substitute for regulatory action, contrary to the frequent assertion of MNCs and their political representatives.

This special issue is the first one in IB to address the relationship between MNCs and grand challenges from an empirical vantage point.

This study aims to follow a rigorous approach to identify, critically analyze and synthesize 75 papers published from 2000 to 2022.

The study presents a systematic literature review on identity expressiveness (IE), clarifying and expanding what is currently known about the concept.

To synthesize current knowledge on IE, the study uses the overarching framework of antecedents-phenomenon-consequences, using this same framework to identify gaps and future research directions. The findings show individual and brand-related factors such as the need for uniqueness and anthropomorphism as antecedents of IE, and eWOM/WOM, impulse purchases and upgrading to more exclusive lines as consequences of IE.

The study contributes to theory by synthesizing and mapping current understanding of the state of knowledge on the concept of IE while highlighting gaps in the extant literature and paving future research directions for scholars in the field.

The study offers useful insights for practitioners, broadening marketers’ actionable options in identity-based marketing. Marketers can use insights from this study to inform marketing strategy and communication campaigns for different types of brands.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first of its kind and offers an integrative review of the current literature on IE, thus enhancing understanding of the concept, its antecedents and consequences. The study also contributes to knowledge by highlighting future research priorities for researchers in this field of enquiry.

Drawing on the self-congruity theory and customer engagement literature, this research accounts for the influence of the three dimensions of customer self-congruity on customer engagement with global brands by uncovering the mediating mechanism of brand psychological ownership and moderating mechanism of global connectedness. The research framework is tested across developed and developing country contexts to highlight any cultural differences in the drivers of customer engagement with global brands.

Data were collected from developed (USA; n = 270) and developing (India; n = 273) countries through two online surveys and tested, employing structural equation modeling, across the two markets to investigate cross-cultural variations.

Social self-congruity has the strongest influence on customer engagement for USA consumers, while all three forms of self-congruity are equally important in India. Psychological ownership consistently works as the mediating mechanism across both contexts. While global connectedness accentuates the relationship between self-congruity and brand psychological ownership for Indian consumers, it attenuates the relationship amongst USA consumers.

While prior literature mainly establishes a direct link between self-congruity and customer engagement, this study provides a deeper understanding of the self-congruity–customer engagement relationship by: a) investigating the mediating role of psychological ownership; b) examining the moderating role of global connectedness and c) studying all three forms of self-congruity (i.e. actual, ideal and social) simultaneously. The study, testing the framework in developing and developed country settings, highlights cultural nuances in forming customer engagement with global brands.

Due to the limitations of conventional urban planning, it is essential to develop novel techniques of urban futruing. This paper aimed to use the scenario technique to create four plausible narratives of the future of Isfahan. Also, the authors described the problems of city foresight in the Global South.

This paper chronicles the Schwartzian steps taken to build explorative scenarios of Isfahan City in Iran in 2040. After using a STEEPV (Social, Technological, Environmental, Economic, Political, Value) analysis, the authors prioritized the collected variables by combining influence diagrams, the iceberg metaphor and an expert-based survey. Once the key uncertainties were derived, four scenarios were developed and discussed.

Through thematic analysis of the official visions of Isfahan’s future and the juxtaposition of these narratives with insight yielded in the scenario-development process, the paper concludes that the Northernness of the prevailing urban imaginaries, uncritical mimetic benchmarking, depoliticization of urban futures and the decorative reductionistic visions colonize urban futures in Isfahan/Iran. Critical/deconstructive city foresight and application of discomfort/ignorance criteria in the generation of scenarios can improve the rigor and quality of city foresight in the Global South.

The application of city foresight in the Global South has been limited. The paper is a step toward bridging this gap and providing some recommendations on how city foresight in the Global South might differ from its counterparts in the Global North.