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The object of this brief paper is to discuss the balance between business content and language proficiency in study abroad programs related to business. When blending these three activities, the challenge is to balance each appropriately. If the study abroad experience contains little or no business content, students lose out on the opportunity to learn elements of international business. If the study abroad experience contains little or no language content, students miss out on the cultural integration that is essential for international interactions. And if “study abroad” becomes too loose (i.e. party on the beach) or too rigid (i.e. no different than taking classes back home), students miss the essence of studying in a foreign location. Of course, there are excellent business study abroad programs that are conducted in English (e.g. see Keillor & Emore for the roundtable discussion regarding English language programs). The focus of this paper is the role of foreign language instruction and student proficiency in foreign language, as it relates to business study abroad programs.

The purpose of this paper is to explore affirmative action policy in higher education (HE) admissions in post-Soviet Georgia.

The study analyzed the effectiveness of the quota system from the perspective of the “minority rights protection” and “diversity” paradigms. The study used content analysis, focus group discussions, and interviews research methods.

Research revealed several important patterns: the problems of minority education are associated with academic achievements as well as social integration; although the importance of diversity is evident in the Government of Georgia, the benefits of diversity are not realized fully through affirmative action policies in institutions of HE. The authors have argued that the shift from the “minority rights protection” to the “diversity” paradigm is necessary to solve minority students’ existing problems and to benefit from the positive effects of diversity on academic and democratic outcomes for all students.

The findings of this study have practical importance. They can be used for the implementation of the affirmative action policy in HE admissions system of Georgia.

The paper is based on original research conducted in Georgia and the study contributes to the development of the field of multicultural and minority education in Georgia.

Most research on language acquisition using technology generally investigates collegiate language learners. However, it is unclear as to how well these findings apply to refugee learners, who sometimes have experienced interrupted schooling and had little exposure to technologies found in the resettlement context. Little research concentrates on the use of technology to aid language acquisition among this population. By better understanding the digital literacies refugees already possess, the author are better able to bridge this digital divide (Thorne & Reinhardt, 2008; Warschauer, 2002) and move toward researching how to capitalize on the technological skills refugees already possess in order to facilitate language learning. Therefore, this chapter reviews available literature on how refugees worldwide use multiple forms of technology, their levels of access to such technology, and considerations for pre- and post-resettlement technological options. It identifies best practices for employing technology to facilitate language acquisition in light of the multifaceted constraints refugees face. It concludes by outlining the suitability of different technologies as a means of facilitating language development within a myriad of contexts and gives recommendations for future research on using technology to facilitate language learning at all proficiency levels.

This methodological paper demonstrates how service firms can use digital technologies to quantify and predict customer evaluations of their interactions with the firm using unstructured, qualitative data. To harness the power of unstructured data and enhance the customer-firm relationship, the use of computerized text analysis is proposed.

Three empirical studies were conducted to exemplify the use of the computerized text analysis tool. A secondary data analysis of online customer reviews (n = 2,878) in a service industry was used. LIWC was used to conduct the text analysis, and thereafter SPSS was used to examine the predictive capability of the model for the evaluation of customer-firm interactions.

A lexical analysis of online customer reviews was able to predict evaluations of customer-firm interactions across the three empirical studies. The authenticity and emotional tone present in the reviews served as the best predictors of customer evaluations of their service interactions with the firm.

Computerized text analysis is an inexpensive digital tool which, to date, has been sparsely used to analyze customer-firm interactions based on customers' online reviews. From a methodological perspective, the use of this tool to gain insights from unstructured data provides the ability to gain an understanding of customers' real-time evaluations of their service interactions with a firm without collecting primary data.

This research contributes to the growing body of knowledge regarding the use of computerized lexical analysis to assess unstructured, online customer reviews to predict customers' evaluations of a service interaction. The results offer service firms an inexpensive and user-friendly methodology to assess real-time, readily available reviews, complementing traditional customer research. A tool has been used to transform unstructured data into a numerical format, quantifying customer evaluations of service interactions.

This study aims to examine the effectiveness of bilingual learning strategies designed to support Chinese undergraduate business students facing significant learning challenges in an Australian university capstone curriculum delivered at their Chinese university. These challenges include the students’ difficulty understanding discipline-specific English terminology, using this terminology to discuss disciplinary concepts with their instructors and stress caused by an abnormally high study load.

In response to these challenges, the project team implemented a suite of bilingual strategies to reduce cognitive load and enhance learning, which included Chinese-English glossaries to build disciplinary-specific vocabularies; a bilingual teaching assistant to enable students to communicate in their language of choice; the use of WeChat to connect students to staff and to provide translanguaging opportunities; and bilateral managerial and academic support for strengthening the institutional cross-cultural relationship through staff exchange and language learning programs. A series of surveys were administered to measure the impact of these strategies on students’ learning, and WeChat logs were analysed to determine students’ linguistic preferences during discussions with staff and students.

The results of this project show strong support for each bilingual strategy, high academic performance amongst the student cohort, the positive contribution to learning and connection provided by social media technology, students’ language of choice preferences and chosen translanguaging styles and the important role of teaching staff in supporting international students’ intercultural learning and adaptation to a foreign university learning system.

This original evidence-based study helps to address the gap in bilingual education in Australian higher education demonstrating a successful strategy for dealing with language and discipline-specific challenges confronting EAL students.

Presents the findings of a study of the use of foreign languages by Irish exporting companies. Suggests that, although a substantial majority of respondents believe that foreign language skills are very important for export success, relatively very few of them actually use foreign languages to any great extent in their day‐to‐day exporting activities. Just over half of the firms contacted claim to communicate frequently in German or French, around 20 percent in Italian or Spanish; only 7 percent use Japanese and less than 3 percent use any other foreign language on a regular basis. The specific tasks conducted in a foreign language are relatively low level basic exchanges of information in telephone calls, fax messages or routine letters rather than activities requiring higher‐level language skills such as negotiating contracts or discussing technical specifications. The implications of the research are discussed in the wider context of export promotion and development in general, and some ideas for further research on this topic are suggested.

A survey of current work on database systems is presented. The area is divided into three main sectors: data models, data languages and support for database operations. Data models are presented as the link between the database and the real world. Languages range from formal algebraic languages to attempts to use a dialogue in English to formulate queries. The support includes hardware for content addressing, database machines and software techniques for optimizing and evaluating group expressions. Mathematical models are used to organize this support. Throughout there is a tutorial component and evaluation, which in both cases is related to the application of database ideas to documentation.

The purpose of this paper is to flesh out a truncated line of analysis in library and information science (LIS) of language analyses of power in the field.

Literature-based conceptual analysis of the problems engendered by neoliberalism in LIS and the productive approach of language analysis of Austin, Habermas, and Smith that allows us to account for neoliberalism’s effects in language and practices – doing things with words.

LIS has engaged a productive postmodern analysis of power relations that reflects social and economic progress, but Austin, Habermas, and Smith offer a sensible, practical explanation for the operation of neoliberal hegemony on the practices of librarianship.

Postmodern analyses are now being deployed in portions of LIS, but they fail to account for the full implications of the dominant public language (and policy and practices) of neoliberalism for librarianship. This is productive exploration of those implications to correct and round out those analyses.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate: how dimensions of tone vary across different forms of corporate accountability narrative; the impact of tone on readability; and the determinants of tone, including consideration of its use in impression management.

Using a multi-year sample of listed companies, the authors measure dimensions of tone across multiple narrative types within the annual report and standalone corporate social responsibility report. Statistical analysis is used to investigate variations of tone across narrative type, each dimension’s influence on readability and the role of antecedent factors.

Analysis reveals that dimensions of tone vary significantly across narrative types (genres) suggesting that tonal patterns form part of the specific stylistic conventions of each genre. Tone is found to be a significant determinant of readability. Little evidence of obfuscation using tone was found, while disclosure type is the most salient determinant of tone.

The study illuminates latent or underlying disclosure norms that can facilitate the identification of “exceptional” cases that do not conform with expected tonal patterns of a particular narrative type and may warrant closer inspection by preparers, auditors or regulators. The issues raised regarding the clarity and balance of textual disclosures highlight the challenges in regulating corporate narratives.

This study highlights that tone is a more nuanced and layered concept than suggested by much of the prior literature. Further, tone ought to be considered in studies examining textual complexity.

This paper presents an interactive system, called POINTY. The goal of this system is to solve problems encountered when a high‐level manipulator lanaguage, as AL, is employed. Those problems are related to the necessity of supplying any manipulation program with a complete description of the objects involved. The object description has an important role in any task description oriented language. In these languages the procedural part, which expresses the assembly steps, is reduced by increasing correspondently the descriptive part, which expresses the knowledge a program has about the physical world. An approach to the generation of object models is presented, and the system based on it is illustrated. The basic idea is to point to the objects with the manipulator for building an incremental model of the world, and then to generate the AL corresponding instructions. The preliminary experiences using it demonstrate that the object model part of an AL program can be easily obtained and tested.