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The author attempts to examine the existence and pattern of coalitions in international relations across countries, and investigates whether international relations of coalition partners influence a country's enaction of agricultural non-tariff measures (NTMs).

The author adopts a machine learning technique to identify international relation coalition partnerships and use network analysis to characterize the clustering pattern of coalitions with high-frequent records of global event data. The author then constructs a monthly dataset of agricultural NTMs against China and international relations with China of each importer and its coalition partners, and designs a panel structural vector autoregressive (PSVAR) model to estimate impulse response functions of agricultural NTMs with regard to international relation shocks.

The author finds countries to establish coalition partnerships. Two major clusters of coalitions are noted, with one composed of coalitions primarily among “North” countries and the other of coalitions among “South” countries. The United States is found to play a pivotal role by connecting the two clusters. The PSVAR estimation reveals reductions of NTMs against China following improved international relations with China of both the importer and its coalition partners. NTM responses are more substantial for measures that are trade restrictive. These results confirm that coalitions in international relations lead to coordination of agricultural NTMs.

The author provides international political insights into agricultural trade policymaking by showing interactions of NTM enaction across countries in the same coalition of international relations. These insights offer useful policy implications to predict and cope with hidden barriers to agricultural trade.

As a profession, public relations has become a global enterprise. Public relations education is only now beginning to catch up with the global nature of the profession. It is quite widely acknowledged that as far as public relations education is concerned, the USA is the leader in the number of universities that offer public relations courses as well as in the breadth and depth of the public relations curriculum. In its October 1999 report on the status of education in the USA, the Commission on Public Relations Education constituted by the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), called for curricula that prepared students to be effective communicators in the “age of global interdependence”. This paper argues that educators around the world are being hampered by the lack of an established body of knowledge (based on empirical evidence) about public relations practices in different parts of the world. This lack of evidence is preventing educators from preparing their students to become useful professionals who can meet the challenges of the “age of global interdependence”. The paper reviews literature identifying environmental variables that should help one understand public relations practices in different given countries. Based on this review, the paper operationalises these environmental variables as a next step towards cross‐national research. The paper also stresses the need to gather appropriate case studies in international public relations. Future researchers should be able to use this framework for conducting crossnational comparisons of public relations, thereby providing educators with the necessary empirical evidence to prepare the public relations professionals of the future.

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of family firms’ types of social networks on internationalisation. By investigating the mechanisms and the process and complexity regarding the operation, function and impact of social networks, this paper aims to gain insights and understand the dynamism concerning the content, and process as well as build rich and detailed construct analysis.

This study used a qualitative case study as a research strategy to examine the impact of social networks on family firm internationalisation. A qualitative research strategy was used as the impact of networking relations and structure is challenging to be measured statistically.

The findings suggest that family firm internationalisation was gradual and characterised by an incremental learning process. This process facilitated the networking relations and structures that helped firms improve their quality, product diversification and set competitive prices.

This study’s first limitation is that it focused mainly on low technology manufacturing firms. This paper recommends examining how high technology firms maximise social networks. Secondly, this paper examined family firms; therefore, this paper recommends comparing and contrasting networking relations and family and nonfamily firms' social structure. Thirdly, being limited only to social networks, this study did not focus on the impact of ownership; this paper suggests future studies to examine family ownership and involvement in firm internationalisation.

Understanding how firms’ social network types influence family firms’ internationalisation in a transition economy is critical to ensuring family businesses’ expansion. This study explains how family firms use social networks to internationalise, extending the current understanding of family business literature in transition economies. It also provides implications for policymakers and family firms managers for improving the growth prospects of family businesses.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

This paper aims to study individuals in international relations especially private individuals in global politics. Therefore the paper focuses on analyzing the case of Mark Zuckerberg the founder and chief executive of Facebook who affects the international arena. The paper illustrates Zuckerberg’s strategies to assert wide influence and power within Facebook’s network and through multiple networks.

The paper follows new theories of studying the human agent in international relations, concentrating on private individuals as new actors in international relations (IR). Thus, depending on “network making power theory” and the “three-dimensional power perspectives; (discursive, structural and instrumental)”, the paper illustrates the case of Mark Zuckerberg as a private entrepreneur and his authority in the era of social media dominance with a focus on: Zuckerberg's discursive/ideational power strategy. Zuckerberg’s strategy to work as a switcher through multiple networks. The most obvious one is the Facebook network, through which he can assert global influence.

Formal state officials are not the only type of individuals who can affect international relations. Technological evolution has empowered private individuals as influential actors in international relations (IR). Interdisciplinary approaches became essential tools in studying new actors affecting IR. There are new patterns of power linked to individuals without formal positions. Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook and global philanthropist, is considered an influential actor in IR depending on programming and switching strategies to assert his power in a networked world.

This paper is able to prove that there are new forms of power which belong to private individuals in a networked world.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the role of public relations, conceptualized as a strategic management function, in foreign policy making, and implementation. This research study emphasizes the relational perspective and seeks to examine its applicability to the practice of public relations in foreign policy settings.

This qualitative research study was based on in-depth interviews with nine individuals who were in charge of public relations aspects of a particular foreign policy issue in Latvian government institutions. The examined foreign policy issue was development cooperation.

The research findings revealed that public relations contributed to the strategic management of the foreign policy process to a certain extent. Public relations built and cultivated relationships, researched and scanned environments, built communities around a foreign policy issue, facilitated dialogic encounters and socialized foreign policies. However, the public relations function was not involved in the entire strategic management process: analysis, planning, implementation, and evaluation. Although the relational perspective may be applicable to foreign policy settings and relationships that are cultivated by public relations practitioners in these settings bring outcomes on three different levels – national, organizational, and personal – this study found that public relations is not the only function that deals with relationships between an organization and its key publics.

This research study investigated two areas that are little explored in the public relations research literature: the strategic management role of public relations in government institutions and public relations contributions to policy, especially foreign, making.

Public relations (PR) education has not kept pace with the rapid globalisation that has occurred since 1992. The existing PR body of knowledge, and PR curricula around the world, have a US bias. In order to prepare PR students in various parts of the world to become effective multicultural professionals it is essential for experiences and perspectives from other continents to be integrated into PR education. The complexities of societal factors such as culture, political systems and media systems make Asia a challenging place to conduct strategic PR. It is time for educators to integrate experiences from other continents into the PR body of knowledge, thereby building PR curricula that contribute to training truly multicultural PR professionals.

International relations are involved in an undesirable order at the present time. It is emphatically necessary to propound firm principles to regulate the relationships among states and nations, and new laws and regulations are to be enacted at the international level. The purpose of this paper is to enumerate some of the main guide stones for development of Islamic thoughts in the fields of international humanities.

The authors enumerate the principles of Sufi foundations of international relations in Islam by introducing the theosophical standpoints of Islamic Sufism.

The paper introduces 95 principles in three categories of public international law, foreign policy, and diplomacy.

As long as the essence of all religions has a unique root which is their spiritual paths and understandings based on their mystical views. To popularize and internationalize this proposition, comparative researches in other religions' Gnosticism will be essential.

Putting several principles forward, on the next phases, they can be used as the basis for many applied debates in the field and may be ended to a new international declaration/law.

Delicateness, truthfulness, and righteousness of Islamic Sufism, which is the gist of thoughts of humankind's elites who are divine messengers/guardians during millenaries, may turn the attentions of scholars and researchers to this viewpoint, and consequently a new set of thoughts/doctrines for regulating international relations to be defined and codified.

International relations scholars have not touched the topic from a Sufi point of view. This paper brings this approach to a new challenging arena for those who are engaged in international relations related subjects of laws, politics, institutions, and organizations.

This paper uses a social network approach to explore converging world‐systems hypotheses regarding the effects of increasing integration of socialist countries into the capitalist world economy since the height of the Cold War. Research on interdependence and other power relations among states in the world order cite the development of Intergovernmental Organizations (IGOs) and their expanding numbers as evidence of an evermore sophisticated network in which countries have unique positions related to their functioning in the world order. Theories of International Development and International Relations suggest that at the beginning of the Cold War, capitalist states and socialist states functioned in effectively mutually exclusive realms. The balance of power between the US and the USSR perpetuated a world order in which, for the most pan, capitalist states did not engage in political or economic relations with socialist states and vice versa.

The subject of part‐time work is one which has become increasingly important in industrialised economies where it accounts for a substantial and growing proportion of total employment. It is estimated that in 1970, average annual hours worked per employee amounted to only 60% of those for 1870. Two major factors are attributed to explaining the underlying trend towards a reduction in working time: (a) the increase in the number of voluntary part‐time employees and (b) the decrease in average annual number of days worked per employee (Kok and de Neubourg, 1986). The authors noted that the growth rate of part‐time employment in many countries was greater than the corresponding rate of growth in full‐time employment.