There is, I think, something ethereal about i —the square root of minus one. I remember first hearing about it at school. It seemed an odd beast at that time—an intruder hovering on the edge of reality.

Usually familiarity dulls this sense of the bizarre, but in the case of i it was the reverse: over the years the sense of its surreal nature intensified. It seemed that it was impossible to write mathematics that described the real world in …

I and i

This paper aims to offer a wider examination of the research concerning entrepreneurship characteristics in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region via a review of recent studies relevant to this topic. Research publications concerning entrepreneurship within the MENA region evidence growing interest in this field of study, with the potential to boost and drive future economic development and growth. This focus within entrepreneurship research is because of the economic development in the region, which is becoming increasingly important for policymakers and businesses.,The author performed a systematic literature review to produce robust information about entrepreneurship in the MENA region, followed by a thematic analysis to identify key research themes within each category.,Despite the growth in entrepreneurship research in the MENA region, research on certain factors is lacking. An analysis of 271 studies published between 2009 and 2019 identifies 9 main research categories, within which 30 themes have attracted significant academic attention. Female entrepreneurship and gender, youth entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship behaviour and orientation are the three key categories influencing perspectives on entrepreneurship in the MENA region. This study highlights research gaps and provides recommendations to guide future research on the sustainable development of entrepreneurship in the MENA region.,This paper highlights trends in entrepreneurship research amongst scholars within the MENA region and suggests paths for future research efforts.

Entrepreneurship research in the Middle East and North Africa: trends, challenges, and sustainability issues

Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) develops communicative competence of the learners in the second/foreign language. It focuses on learners? needs to improve their communicative skills. In recent years, many Asian countries adapted CLT to be used in their English classes. However, CLT implementation faced several challenges in many East Asian countries. By reviewing previous studies in this regard, the researcher found that although it is essential to consider teachers? and students? perceptions as well as challenges and instructional practices of CLT, few studies focused on teachers? and students? perceptions, their challenges and teachers? instructional practices. In this study, Malaysian secondary teachers? and students? perceptions, their challenges and teachers? instructional practices of CLT were investigated. An explanatory mixed method was used for collecting the required data. In the first phase quantitative data were collected by questionnaire, and then for further clarification observations and interviews were conducted. Results of the qualitative part were used to clarify the quantitative results. First, participants? perceptions about the CLT principles were investigated by conducting survey, then teachers? instructional practices were examined by observing the CLT classes, and finally teachers? challenges regarding the CLT were investigated through semi-structured interviews. Participants of the study were 152 teachers and 380 students. Among them a sub-sample of 30 teachers and 30 students were chosen for conducting the semi-structured interviews and finally 30 classrooms were observed to evaluate teachers? instructional practices. Results of the study shows that, overall students and teachers held favourable perceptions about CLT, and several situational constraints like big classes, students? level of proficiency, lack of facilities and lack of in-service trainings hindered CLT implementation in this country. Moreover, based on the results obtained some inconsistencies were observed between teachers? perceptions and their instructional practices. Findings of the study signified the importance of adapting CLT into the Malaysian ESL context.

Esl teachers’ and students’ perceptions towards communicative language teaching in Malaysian secondary schools

Using cluster analysis to explore the engagement with a flipped classroom of native and non-native English-speaking management students

Communication accommodation within global virtual team: The influence of cultural intelligence and the impact on interpersonal process effectiveness

Teaching cross-cultural management: A flipped classroom approach using films

— The study is aimed at understanding the learning trends of students who opt for online language courses and to assess the effectiveness of the same. Multiple factors including use of the latest available technology and the skills that are trained by these online methods have been assessed. An attempt has been made to answer how each of the various language skills is trained online and how effective the online methods are compared to traditional classroom methods when students interact with peers and teaching faculty. A mixed methods research design was followed for collecting information for the study where a survey by means of a questionnaire and in-depth interviews with a number of respondents were undertaken across the various institutes and study centers located in the United Arab Emirates. The questionnaire contained 19 questions which included 7 sub-questions. The study revealed that the students find learning with an instructor to be a lot more effective than learning alone in an online environment. They prefer classroom environment more than the online setting for language learning.

Effectiveness of Online Language Learning

In environments characterized by high cultural diversity, the ability to understand the cultural makeup of the workforce and the environment would equip business owners with knowledge required to innovate, take risks and proactively change their business offerings. Drawing on the upper echelons theory and action-characteristics model of entrepreneurship, the purpose of this paper is to test how competencies of small business owners, namely, cultural intelligence (CQ) and entrepreneurial orientation (EO) contribute to the performance of their firms.,Using a sample of 106 small and medium enterprises (SMEs) from the UAE, the data were collected through structured questionnaires and analyzed using partial least squares–structural equations modeling.,Results showed that CQ of the SME owner has a positive effect on firm performance (FP) through the mediating role of EO. Also, CQ of the SME owner was found to have a direct effect on FP, thus asserting its importance as a valuable competency that SME owners need to cultivate when operating in a multicultural environment.,Skills of the top managers greatly influence the choices and decisions they make, which in turn impact the effectiveness of their organizations. This study focuses on the role of managerial competencies that need to be cultivated among SME owners that would contribute to the growth of their firms.,This research studies the role of an individual’s cross-cultural and entrepreneurial competencies that enable the organization to achieve higher performance.

Impact of cultural intelligence on SME performance: The mediating effect of entrepreneurial orientation

In the contemporary age of high professional requirements such as excellent communicative skills, the need for successful learning of communicative skills of English language suggests communicative ability to be the goal of language teaching. In other words, to teach English language using communicative approach becomes essential. Studies to measure teachers’ classroom behavior indicate that the implementation of communicative approach in the classroom is rare. Although teachers claim to be following a communicative approach, in practice they seem to be following traditional approaches. The proposed study was undertaken to assess the existing situation with regard to the use of communicative approach in the teaching of English language at the secondary level in different schools of Delhi following the curriculum of Central Board of School Examination (CBSE), New Delhi. A Likert-type attitude scale was developed to understand the teachers attitudes towards the communicative approach.

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Implementation of Communicative Approach.

Despite the significant growth of e-commerce in recent years, especially in the business-to-consumer (B2C) online retail sector, its positive and negative environmental implications are unclear fro...

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/23311975.2021.1938377

Shazi Shah Jabeen

Papers

Teaching cross-cultural management: A flipped classroom approach using films

Effectiveness of Online Language Learning

Impact of cultural intelligence on SME performance: The mediating effect of entrepreneurial orientation

Implementation of Communicative Approach.

The e-commerce supply chain and environmental sustainability: An empirical investigation on the online retail sector