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This paper aims to contend that populism is damaging to both domestic and international politics; not only does it erode liberal democracy in established democracies but also fuels authoritarianism in despotic regimes and aggravates conflicts and crises in international system.

The research is divided into two main sections. First, it examines how populist mobilization affects liberal democracy, and refutes the claims that populism is beneficial and reinforcing to democracy. Second, it attempts to demonstrate how populism is damaging to domestic politics (by undermining liberal democracy and supporting authoritarianism) as well as international relations (by making interstate conflicts more likely to materialize). Theoretically, populism is assumed to be a strategy used by politicians to maximize their interest. Hence, populism is a strategy used by politicians to mobilize constituents using the main features of populist discourse.

The research argues that populism has detrimental consequences on both domestic and international politics; it undermines liberal democracy in democratic countries, upsurges authoritarianism in autocratic regimes and heightens the level of conflict and crises in international politics. Populism can lead to authoritarianism. There is one major undemocratic trait shared by all populist waves around the world, particularly democracies; that is anti-pluralism/anti-institutions. Populist leaders perceive foreign policy as the continuation of domestic politics, because they consider themselves as the only true representatives of the people. Therefore, populist actors abandon any political opposition as necessarily illegitimate, with repercussions on foreign policy.

Some scholars argue that populism reinforces democracy by underpinning its ability to include marginalized sectors of the society and to decrease voter apathy, the research refuted these arguments. Populism is destructive to world democracy; populists are reluctant to embrace the idea of full integration with other nations. Populists reject the idea of open borders, and reckon it an apparent threat to their national security. The research concludes that populists consider maximizing their national interests on the international level by following confrontational policies instead of cooperative ones.

The main purpose of this paper is to discuss the suitability of moral and ordre public clauses, and to advance the view that ethical reflection within patent systems is valuable.

This is a conceptual paper that draws upon the present situation in Europe to illuminate a discussion of the different views about the morality patents, with particular emphasis on criticism of authors who have espoused a narrow interpretation of moral clauses, such as that adopted by the European Patent Office.

This research found that the claim that patent systems are not appropriate places in which to evaluate moral matters and, therefore, they cannot inform us about morality is false. This is because inventors do not need to wait for authorizing legislation prior to making use of their technology. Hence, moral implications can be evaluated.

These ideas also lead to important theoretical consequences, especially regarding the debate on value-laden science and technology. However, further efforts are needed to address other patent regimes, such as the non-European.

It is shown how the bioethicist community can be incorporated into patent offices. The responsibilities of examiners and businesses in the process are also discussed.

There have been a limited number of studies that examine the value of ethical considerations within the patent system. This paper provides a thought-provoking discussion of moral clauses in Europe. The author also suggests new ways of incorporating ethical scrutiny into patent systems.

The world is increasingly threatened by climate change. As the dimensions of this danger grow, it becomes essential to develop the most effective policies to mitigate its impacts and adapt to these new conditions. Technology is one of the most crucial components of this process, and this study focuses on examining climate change adaptation technologies. The aim of the study is to investigate the entire spectrum of technology actors and to concentrate on the technology citation network established from the past to the present, aiming to identify the core actors within this structure and provide a more comprehensive outlook.

The study explores patent citation relationships using social network analysis. It utilizes patent data published between 2000 and 2023 and registered by the US Patent and Trademark Office.

Study findings reveal that technologies related to greenhouse technologies in agriculture, technologies for combatting vector-borne diseases in the health sector, rainwater harvesting technologies for water management, and urban green infrastructure technologies for infrastructure systems emerge as the most suitable technologies for adaptation. For instance, greenhouse technologies hold significant potential for sustainable agricultural production and coping with the adverse effects of climate change. Additionally, ICTs establish intensive connections with nearly all other technologies, thus supporting our efforts in climate change adaptation. These technologies facilitate data collection, analysis, and management, contributing to a better understanding of the impacts of climate change.

Existing patent analysis methods often fall short in detailing the unique contributions of each technology within a technological network. This study addresses this deficiency by comprehensively examining and evaluating each technology within the network, thereby enabling us to better understand how these technologies interact with each other and contribute to the overall technological landscape.

This study aims to focus on public policy concerning the implementation of public procurement policies in Nigeria and Ghana toward achieving value for money in the procurement of goods, services and works. It specifically analyzes some major administrative challenges Nigeria and Ghana are faced with in the administration/implementation of public procurement policies toward achieving value for money. It looks at the relationship between the state (regulatory authorities) and substate (procurement entities) in the public sectors of Nigeria and Ghana.

A comparative case study approach is adopted, where the two countries are compared in terms of achieving value for money. Data was collected from multiple sources, including in-depth interviews. The use of official documents and direct observations at the procurement regulatory authorities and entities’ premises.

This study found Nigeria often used the four Es – economy, efficiency, effectiveness and equity while Ghana mainly used the traditional five rights (right quantity, right quality, right price, right place and right time) as their criteria for ensuring value for money. The major administrative challenges found include corruption, low capacity of procurement personnel and poor knowledge of the procurement laws.

It recommends effective collaboration between government and civil society groups in the fight against corruption in procurement-related activities, with the implication that there is a need for periodic training for public procurement officials.

It adds to the field of public procurement in terms of value for money in the procurement of goods, services and works in developing countries context.

This paper aims to provide authorities managing free trade zones, business enterprises, financial institutions and dedicated free zone customs, police and immigration command assigned to deal with aspects of movement of goods and persons in and out of the free zones with a clear understanding of the cross-border financial crime risks associated with the African Continental Free Trade Area and the risk control measures that combines human intelligence with advanced technology to combat cross-border financial crimes in the African Continental Free Trade Area.

A range of research activities would be used in this study. In addition to a sweeping literature review of academic, official studies and media writings, the main focus is on critically evaluating and analysing primary data by searching and collecting statutes, court cases, administrative rules and regulations and policy documents.

This paper identified bribery and corruption; modern slavery; and trade-based money laundering as the financial crime risks that are of priority concern to African Continental Free Trade Areas and demonstrated how countries can assess and mitigate these risks through adequate policies, procedures and controls including appropriate compliance management arrangement and adequate screening procedures to ensure high standards when hiring employees; corporate transparency; training on managing incidents of modern slavery, forced labour and third-party exploitation; and appropriate monitoring framework for trade-based money laundering activities.

While many authors have written research papers on intra-African trade, none of those research papers explained how countries can assess and mitigate financial crime risks in free trade zones. This research paper describes the ways in which cross-border financial crime risks can be assessed and adequately addressed by the authorities managing free trade zones. This research paper analyses the risk assessment topic in line with the African Continental Free Trade Area with a focus on free trade zones in Nigeria. This research paper would help authorities managing free trade zones, commercial organisations and business enterprises to identify, prevent and mitigate cross-border financial crime risks. Zone managements and business enterprises that implement the risk-based approach, in line with the guidance given in this research paper, will be well-placed to avoid the consequences of inappropriate de-risking behaviour.

This study aims to assess the awareness and knowledge level of procurement officers (POs) in Ghanaian tertiary educational institutions regarding sustainability in general and specifically on environmental sustainability in the Public Procurement Act 2003 (Act 663) as amended.

Through purposive sampling technique and face-to-face interviews using semi-structured open-ended questions, qualitative data was collected from 19 POs who are well vested in the procurement profession and willingly agreed to partake in the research. The qualitative data were analyzed using content analysis technique to help organize and elicit meaning from the data collected and to draw realistic conclusions from it.

The results showed that most POs were aware of the Public Procurement Act 2003 (Act 663) as amended, primarily through seminars and workshops organized by the Public Procurement Authority. The interviewees demonstrated a good understanding of sustainable procurement, considering its social, environmental and economic aspects. However, one respondent primarily associated sustainability with only environmental issues. The POs were, however, of the view that the Amended Act 914 (2016) does not give detailed highlights on environmental sustainability, making implementation very difficult, especially regarding the procurement of goods. Overall, the findings indicate a positive level of environmental sustainability awareness and knowledge among the interviewed POs regarding the Public Procurement Act 2003 (Act 663) as amended.

The findings from the study could be used by policymakers to strategize educational campaigns by using the POs’ knowledge and awareness to the implementers of Act 663 (2003) as amended to effectively ensure environmental sustainability in procurement practices. The findings from the study have also contributed to the literature on procurement policy by drawing the attention of policy formulators to give equal attention to all the sustainability pillars, i.e. social, economic and environmental. This would consequently help the implementers to contribute to achieving sustainable development.

This study is one of the few empirical qualitative types of research seeking the views of POs in tertiary educational institutions in Ghana on sustainability and environmental sustainability as enshrined in the Public Procurement Act 2003 (Act 663) as amended. The findings give positive feedback to policymakers on the knowledge and awareness level of the POs on environmental sustainability and highlight the importance of awareness programmes and educational initiatives by the Public Procurement Authority and other stakeholders to ensure compliance with the Act.

Country comparative studies especially in Africa on public procurement reforms toward financial control and accountability of public expenditure are limited. Meanwhile, these kinds of studies have potential for providing useful insights on how value for money through public procurement is being ensured across Africa. This paper attempts to provide this. The purpose of this paper is to highlight several policy recommendations for public management aimed at improving public procurement and public financial management (PFM) systems in Africa.

The paper adopts a qualitative case study using secondary data drawn from Global Integrity Index (GII) of the Transparency International and the World Bank’s Country Policy and Institutional Assessments databases to investigate variables that influence public procurement practices in three purposively selected African countries. The comparative approach for presenting some of the experiences of countries in public procurement methods is used in this paper.

The findings suggest three main variables, namely, government structure and economic variables, complicated by socio-cultural values interact to influence public procurement and PFM systems in the case study countries.

Data for the GII indicators used were only available from 2013, which restricted the discussion of those indicators to a short span (2013–2015).

The socio-cultural milieu within which public procurement takes place has implications for how governance structures function to deliver value-for-money public procurement.

This study adds value by comparing three countries within Africa to reveal common variables which influence public procurement and PFM systems.

This interdisciplinary study aims to analyze how service organizations communicate sustainable beliefs in their social media narratives and use them to generate brand awareness, customer recognition and ongoing demand for sustainable service.

A two-phase exploratory analysis of 10,342 tweets from 2019–2020 was conducted by sustainable global corporations to identify best practices for their social media teams operating within a service-based business model. First, the significant themes were identified using an unguided machine learning approach of three types of firms: services, goods and mixed. Next, the full set of tweets with linguistic sentiment analysis was analyzed followed by a deeper view of the services-based organizations based on their strategic focus (business-to-business [B2B] versus mixed).

The findings indicate that tweets that appear to create the highest customer engagement are characterized as having high levels of analytical language, high clout (i.e. are socially relevant), a positive tone, a high number of words and a high number of words per sentence. On the other hand, having complex language in terms of six-letter words does not seem to associate with customer engagement. The last level of analysis shows that B2B services-based corporations with positive tone and higher word count exhibit higher levels of retweets. Implications include providing rational and informational tweets to increase engagement and highlight societal relevance.

Climate change has negative consequences on human and physical capital, and ecosystems across the globe. This study provides specific recommendations for how services corporations can increase their sustainable communications and actions.

The key implication of our research is that corporations must strategically design social media narratives about climate change as part of their online branding and communications process.

The COVID-19 pandemic was an eye-opening experience that put to the test our crisis management competencies across many institutions, including those offered by institutions of higher education. This study aims to review the literature on international business (IB) risks and IB education (IBE) to question whether business graduates are equipped to make decisions in today’s volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) marketplace.

While the IB literature has discussed the importance of various sources of risks on global business operations, IBE did not effectively adopt an integrative approach to building the needed risk management competencies related to those risks into our education. The authors argue that this integrative approach to teaching IB is critically needed to prepare future global managers for addressing crises, like that of the pandemic and others. Specifically, this study proposes that this integrated risk management competency can be developed through the building of “synergistic mindsets”.

This study presents a conceptual framework for the components of the synergistic mindset, with intelligence that directly links to present IB risks. These components are cultural intelligence (CQ), emotional intelligence (EQ), public policy intelligence (PPQ), digital intelligence (DQ) and orchestration intelligence (OQ).

Insights related to IBE effectiveness in addressing today’s VUCA market demands and IB risks are discussed.

COVID-19 has affected the economies adversely from all sides. The sudden halt in production has impacted both the supply and demand sides. It calls for analysis to quantify the impact of the reduction in economic activity on the economy-wide variables so that appropriate steps can be taken. This study aims to evaluate the sensitivity of various sectors of the Indian economy to this dual shock.

The eight-sector open economy general equilibrium Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) model has been simulated to evaluate the sector-specific effects of a fall in economic activity due to COVID-19. This model uses an economy-wide accounting framework to quantify the impact of a shock on the given equilibrium economy and report the post-simulation new equilibrium values.

The empirical results state that welfare for the Indian economy falls to the tune of 7.70% due to output shock. Because of demand–supply linkages, it also impacts the inter- and intra-industry flows, demand for factors of production and imports. There is a momentous fall in the demand for factor endowments from all sectors. Among those, the trade-hotel-transport and manufacturing sectors are in the first two positions from the top. The study recommends an immediate revival of the manufacturing and trade-hotel-transport sectors to get the Indian economy back on track.

The present study has modified the existing GTAP model accounting framework through unemployment and output closures to account for the impact of change in sectoral output due to COVID-19 on the level of employment and other macroeconomic variables.