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The issue of export instability exerts an enduring fascination for economists with an interest in the area of economic development. Over several decades a voluminous literature has emerged embracing debates on the domestic consequences and on the causes of export instability. The purpose here is to examine these debates and an attempt is made to set out different theoretical stances, to classify and examine empirical findings, and to indicate the directions in which the debates have moved. Such a statement of a review article's purpose is, of course, incomplete without more specific delineation of the boundaries within which the general objectives are pursued. Here that delineation has three facets.

The aim of this chapter is to survey present globally present societal trends in the era of globalization, which are creating a new context for education and for the field of Comparative and International Education. The trends include the ecological crisis, the population explosion and demographic dynamics, increasing mobility, the technological revolution, especially the ICT revolution, growing affluence, the neo-liberal economic revolution, the rise of a knowledge society, the fourth industrial revolution, changing social relations, democratization, the demise of the once omnipotent nation-state, the persistent but new presence of religion, and the rise of the Creed of Human Rights. These powerful, interrelated set of societal changes, which are getting spread worldwide on the wings of globalization, is creating a new world, of (in Comparative Education nomenclature) an unprecedented new context, forcing the scholars in the field to tread unknown territory. These forces depicted in this chapter constitute a framework for subsequent chapters in the book, where the response of humanity in the education sector, to meet the challenges these forces constitute, will be the theme.

Presents over sixty abstracts summarising the 1999 Employment Research Unit annual conference held at the University of Cardiff. Explores the multiple impacts of globalization on work and employment in contemporary organizations. Covers the human resource management implications of organizational responses to globalization. Examines the theoretical, methodological, empirical and comparative issues pertaining to competitiveness and the management of human resources, the impact of organisational strategies and international production on the workplace, the organization of labour markets, human resource development, cultural change in organisations, trade union responses, and trans‐national corporations. Cites many case studies showing how globalization has brought a lot of opportunities together with much change both to the employee and the employer. Considers the threats to existing cultures, structures and systems.

Studies on trajectory and trends of democratic growth frequently dominate scholarly debates. These studies are led by two distinct points of view. On the one hand, scholars believe that the prevalence of democracy is inevitable and thus marks an era of prosperity and of human rights. Such an era is dominated by the cultural values of independence, individuality, and freedom (Inglehart & Welzel, 2005) and leads to the end of the world's history and the end of the last man (Fukuyama, 1992; Mandelbaum, 2008). A contrasting point of view, on the other hand, is expressed by scholars who studied the crises of modern liberal democracies believing that democracies are failing and hence, the time of worldwide democratization is coming to an end (Mouffle, d’Angerville, 1994, The private life of Louise XIV. Cited in Thomas, Vagueness in law and language the concept of despotism. Oxford: Oxford University Press). This study adds to the ongoing debate by determining which of the trends prevails worldwide across the past two centuries and especially in the beginning of the 21st century. Moreover, it sheds light on existing knowledge about democratic paths and trends by suggesting that a comprehensive investigation of democratization processes requires both regional and worldwide analyses, and investigations of historical events and regional characteristic effects are more beneficial for long-term longitudinal studies.

Maritime transportation plays an important role in facilitating both the global and regional merchandise trade, where accurate trend prediction is crucial in assisting decision-making in the industry. This paper aims to conduct a macro-level study to predict world vessel supply and demand.

The automatic autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) is used for the univariate vessel supply and demand time-series forecasting based on the data records from 1980 to 2021.

For the future projection of the demand side, the predicted outcomes for total vessel demand and world dry cargo vessel demand until 2030 indicate upward trends. For the supply side, the predominant upward trends for world total vessel supply, oil tanker vessel supply, container vessel supply and other types of vessel supply are captured. The world bulk carrier vessel supply prediction results indicate an initial upward trend, followed by a slight decline, while the forecasted world general cargo vessel supply values remain relatively stable. By comparing the predicted percentage change rates, there is a gradual convergence between demand and supply change rates in the near future. We also find that the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the time-series prediction results is not statistically significant.

The results can provide policy implications in strategic planning and operation to various stakeholders in the shipping industry for vessel building, scrapping and deployment.

Lucrative employment in agriculture is fundamental to poverty alleviation in Africa. The paper examined employment along gender, impact of materials and proportion of female employment in African agriculture.

Time series econometrics was employed in the framework of production function analysis involving 36 years of data.

Results show that world labour in agriculture decreased from 49.77 to 40.04% but increased from 12.43 to 16.94% in Africa. World female employment in agriculture ranged from 40.56 to 42.81% and from 40.40 to 43.02% in developing economies, but decreased from 40.39 to 36.08% in developed economies. Total agricultural labour in Africa was negatively and significantly related to agricultural gross production index number (APIN).

Interaction of cattle stock and females employed in agriculture was positive and significant at pooled African values. Interaction of irrigation facilities and female labour was positive and significant in West Africa. Interaction of cattle stock and total labour in Southern Africa had negative relationship with APIN. Interaction of total labour and irrigation had negative relationship with APIN in Africa. Insufficient agricultural facilities in terms of cattle stock and irrigation infrastructure for the populace exist. It recommends increased investments to expand irrigated lands and livestock.

African governments need to use good political will to effect the needed transformation in agriculture. It is possible for agriculture to offer lucrative employment to both males and females in less developed world as in developed economies.

The paper noted very limited agricultural facilities in terms of cattle stock and irrigation facilities for the populace engaged in agriculture. It recommends investments to expand irrigated lands and livestock.

The Large Scale Engineering (LSE) industry operates in a global market place and during recent years it has been the scene of major political and economic changes resulting in increasing market pressures. The paper outlines findings from Workpackage 1 of the European Union funded Esprit eLSEwise project. The eLSEwise project has an objective of contributing to improving the competitiveness of the European LSE industry. The paper focuses principally on trends in the LSE global industry market place and the challenges facing European LSE contractors in adapting to these changes. The paper outlines the research methodology; world market trends and LSE industry structure; critical success factors and enablers for LSE projects; the forces shaping the LSE industry and the necessary contractors' core competencies and competitive advantages for continued success.

The purpose of the article is to analyze the contradictory trends in the development of the modern world economic system. The relevance of the topic is due to the multifaceted and ambiguous nature of regionalization, glocalization and fragmentation tendencies formed as the most important trends in the crisis of globalism.

Based on the classical methods of historical and functional analysis, system approach and comparative studies, the authors realized the research potential of modern methodological tools, alternative forecasting methods and comparative modeling, as well as special methods of economic globalistics and global political economy. Heuristic possibilities of the methodological–theoretical concept of glocalization of international economic relations are used.

New directions and opportunities for attaining regional and global geo-economic leadership are revealed and demonstrated. It is justified that glocalization does not lead to economic isolation in previously known historical forms but to priority realization of the interests of local economic entities included in the processes of globalization and subordinated to its patterns. Glocalization causes an increase in the role of local factors in the global development of the society, in particular of the global economy.

It is established that the so-called equilibrium zones (enjoying the advantages of an intermediary role in the interrelationships of large areas of the world economy, which are headed by geo-economic leaders) possess the potential for novelty in the dynamics of a globalizing economy. The article predicts the formation of a multidimensional and multilevel geo-economic multipolarity due to the reshaping of the global system of leadership in the world economy and due to the contradictory competitive relationships of its main centers.

The purpose of this paper is to explore challenges and opportunities in knowledge management (KM) research trends in China.

The literature review presents the status quo of China KM research from a world‐wide perspective and China's economy today. Then the paper explains theoretical analysis of KM development and future trend in the West. The third part of literature review addresses the debate of KM practices followed by the way how KM trend is discussed in Western research. Empirical evidences from the journal literature, the web sites of consultancy companies, and in the presentation of research centres are examined. A triangulated methodology include data from two well known management database searching results for “China” and “Knowledge Management”; two KM surveys in China and other web site and journals.

The paper is an initial exploration of the KM research trends in China. The research explains the opportunities and challenges facing KM researchers and provides useful guidance for KM practice in China. In general, China has relatively newly developed KM awareness. The importance of KM, however, has not yet been fully explored in research. One the one hand, the lack of access to China practitioners, the scarceness of related comparative study and the arguable KM domain are three major reasons that lead to insufficient research in KM. On the other hand, given the rapid development of China's economy today, there are questions and phenomena with specific Chinese characters need to be examined from KM perspective. Two major challenges of China economy, i.e. reforming in the process of development, and the privatization as well as the regional difference need to be reflected in China KM research. Comparative approaches in the research are needed. Although KM is arguably undergoing fast development in recently years and China is becoming one of the important spotlights, China‐related KM research is still at its very early stage. Challenges and opportunities are presented for further research guidance.

This paper shows that KM research in China has its own characters if compare with the West. Future directions and opportunities for China‐related KM researches are discussed by a triangulated approach. The findings present future trends of KM research in China that help practitioner to reinforce KM practice. This paper suggests important areas that researchers need to address as new challenges and opportunities in the KM trends in China context.