This study examines the dynamic interaction between head-of-state alternation and structural transformation in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), an issue that has received limited attention compared with the established literature on political alternation and economic growth. Using data from Limi Kouotou and Epo (2019), the Africa Sector Database, and World Development Indicators for 17 SSA countries over 1970–2015, the study estimates a panel vector autoregression (pVAR) model. The study examines structural transformation through two components: structural change and intra-industry productivity. The results show that innovations in head-of-state alternation are more strongly associated with structural change than with intra-industry productivity. The impulse-response analysis further indicates that head-of-state alternation responds positively to structural-change shocks and negatively to…
Keywords: Alternation of heads of state, intra-industry productivity, structural change, panel VAR, sub-Saharan Africa
This paper examines how climate-smart agriculture (CSA) and digital early-warning systems can jointly support household food-security resilience in Chivi District, a drought-prone area of south-eastern Zimbabwe dominated by rain-fed smallholder agriculture. Using a structured qualitative evidence synthesis with a district-centred case orientation, the study reviews 47 academic, policy and institutional sources published from 2021 to 14 September 2026. The study prioritises direct Chivi evidence, while using Zimbabwean, southern African, and wider African evidence comparatively where district-specific studies are limited. The synthesis identifies six interrelated themes concerning climate shocks, CSA adoption, small grains and water management, digital early warning, gender and institutional capacity, and integrated resilience. The findings indicate that CSA can strengthen food…
Keywords: Climate-Smart Agriculture, Digital Early-Warning Systems, Household Food Security, Small Grains, Chivi District
The rapid expansion of digital media has transformed how audiences access and engage with news, yet prior research has emphasised content credibility and information quality while paying comparatively little attention to the gratifications users derive from platform design. Because users judge a news website's usability within seconds, often before reading a single word, design becomes as critical as content in capturing and retaining audiences within a saturated online environment. This study examines the associations among four gratification dimensions (Information Seeking, Entertainment, Social Interaction and Affective) and five design-preference dimensions (Layout Style, Colour Scheme, Navigation, Multimedia and Typography), with User Experience examined as a mediator, based on uses and gratifications theory (UGT) and partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM)…
Keywords: Uses and Gratifications, User Experience, Design Preferences, News Websites, Pakistan
Intercultural communication challenges remain a significant concern in culturally diverse teams because differences in language, cultural norms, pragmatic conventions, stereotypes, and contextual expectations can disrupt mutual understanding and collaboration. This conceptual paper develops an integrated framework explaining how such challenges influence team effectiveness through knowledge sharing and how cultural intelligence shapes this process. Drawing on Social Information Processing Theory, the paper argues that intercultural communication difficulties can impede the interpretation, transfer, and integration of knowledge across cultural boundaries, thereby reducing the effectiveness of collective action. Knowledge sharing is positioned as the mediating mechanism through which communication challenges affect team outcomes, while cultural intelligence is proposed as a moderating…
Keywords: Intercultural Communication Challenges, Knowledge Sharing, Cultural Intelligence, Team Effectiveness, Multicultural Teams
The increasing use of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) in organizational work creates a persistent tension between leveraging machine capabilities and preserving human judgment, autonomy, creativity, and accountability. Drawing on paradox theory, this conceptual paper develops a framework explaining how paradoxical leadership can enable organizations to manage this human-AI tension through a both-and approach. The framework proposes two complementary mechanisms. Human-AI complementarity captures the productive integration of distinct human and AI capabilities, whereas responsible AI agency reflects employees' capacity to use AI while retaining critical evaluation, meaningful decision authority, and accountability. The framework also identifies AI literacy as an enabling boundary condition and AI overreliance as a constraining condition that influences whether human-AI…
Keywords: Paradoxical Leadership, Generative Artificial Intelligence, Human-AI Complementarity, Responsible AI Agency, AI Literacy
This study examines the effects of human capital development and governance institutions on economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa. Using annual panel data from 41 countries covering the period 2010–2022, the study applies the System Generalised Method of Moments (System GMM) estimator to account for the dynamic nature of economic growth, unobserved country-specific heterogeneity, and potential endogeneity. The study measures human capital development with the Human Capital Index and life expectancy, and captures institutional quality through government effectiveness, control of corruption, regulatory quality, political stability, rule of law, and voice and accountability. The findings reveal that the Human Capital Index has a positive and statistically significant effect on economic growth in one model specification, although the relationship is not statistically significant in the…
Keywords: Human Capital Development, Institutional Quality, Economic Growth, Governance Institutions, System GMM
Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is increasingly influencing strategic decision-making, environmental scanning, scenario development, and organizational adaptation. However, existing research remains fragmented across strategic decision-making, managerial cognition, strategic foresight, strategic agility, human-AI collaboration, and AI governance, limiting understanding of how GenAI-enabled managerial processes translate into firm-level strategic outcomes. This conceptual paper develops a Human-AI Strategic Capability Framework by integrating the dynamic capabilities perspective with managerial cognition. The framework proposes that Generative AI strategic capability enhances augmented managerial cognition, which strengthens strategic foresight, facilitates strategic agility, and ultimately promotes strategic renewal. Human-AI strategic complementarity and AI governance are…
UK higher education has become increasingly multilingual, with English used through diverse accents, repertoires, and interactional norms. Although UK universities are not EMI contexts in the same policy sense as English-medium programmes in non-English-dominant systems, English still mediates teaching, assessment, supervision, group work, feedback, and everyday academic participation. This study examined the orientations of postgraduate students’ orientations toward Global Englishes and explored how these orientations related to perceived communication challenges, adaptation strategies, institutional support, and participation in internationalised UK university settings. The study used a sequential explanatory mixed-methods design, combining an online survey with interviews and focus groups. Participants strongly endorsed the legitimacy of diverse Englishes and prioritised…
Keywords: Global Englishes, English as a lingua franca, English-medium higher education, internationalized UK higher education, Asian postgraduate students
In multilingual or bilingual ESL or EFL settings, translanguaging maintains its significant position and is gaining attention among recent language learning approaches. Therefore, in university classrooms, specifically focusing on undergraduate students, this study examines how translanguaging practices influence the speaking skills of low-proficiency ESL learners in the Pakistani educational context. This study uses a quantitative quasi-experimental framework and recruits participants from the Social Sciences and Management faculties of a public university in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan, using purposive sampling. This study used an IELTS-based speaking test to evaluate students’ proficiency, employed an eight-week intervention, and assessed improvement through pre- and post-intervention assessments. During intervention sessions, the experimental group practised…
Keywords: English as a Second Language, Low-Proficiency Learners, Speaking Skills, Translanguaging practices, ESL Speaking Skills
This study examined how elderly Jingpo women in Longchuan County, Yunnan, experienced physical, social, and cultural empowerment through Jingpo square dance in public squares. Drawing on Sklar's theory of embodied knowledge and feminist approaches to embodiment, the study used ethnographic observation from 1 July to 31 October 2025, 12 semi-structured interviews, and small focus group discussions with regular dancers. The data show that square dance strengthened bodily confidence, created sisterhood through repeated co-presence, and sustained Jingpo cultural memory through adapted movement vocabularies described locally as "flavor." These dimensions worked together to produce embodied displacement: a gradual repositioning of elderly minority women from marginal visibility toward recognized participation in community life. Jingpo women were not passive preservers of tradition but active…
