World, Volume 7, Issue 4 (April 2026) – 19 articles

This article examines the geopolitical transformation of the European Union within the context of polycrisis and intensified strategic rivalry following the events of 2022. It addresses the question of whether the EU’s response to contemporary crises represents a mere temporary adjustment triggered by an emergency, or rather a more permanent reconfiguration of European integration. Methodologically, the paper employs a qualitative research design combining conceptual analysis, interdisciplinary theoretical synthesis, and document-based comparative process-tracing of selected post-2022 policy responses, including sanctions policy, energy governance, and geoeconomic industrial policy. The analysis demonstrates that the EU has not evolved into a coherent, sovereign geopolitical actor, but rather into a more strategically adaptive and selectively integrated compound polity. This transformation is characterised by differentiated institutional deepening, expanded executive coordination, and growing tensions between efficiency, legitimacy, and democratic accountability. The article contributes to debates on European integration by conceptualising its current trajectory as a hybrid adaptation to a fragmented global order. Full article

This article deals with the attitudes of residents of the border village of Ubľa toward the arrival of foreign nationals in the Slovak Republic, with a particular focus on individuals who left Ukraine because of the international armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine. The aim of this research is to assess the impact of this migratory movement on the perceived quality of life of local inhabitants living near the border crossing and to identify potential measures for improvement. This study is based on a review of the current state of the issue in both national and international contexts, serving as a theoretical foundation for the empirical part of this study. This study was conducted using the Computer-Assisted Web Interviewing (CAWI) method to examine residents’ attitudes toward foreign nationals in general, toward arrivals from Ukraine specifically, and toward the management of the crisis declared in 2022 in response to their arrival. Data were analyzed using descriptive and analytical statistics. The results indicate significant differences in respondents’ attitudes depending on their level of education, with university-educated respondents being approximately twice as likely to express more positive attitudes toward the arrival of foreign nationals and refugees from Ukraine compared to respondents with secondary education, who tended to hold more negative views. Full article

This study examines how Saudi consumers evaluate the commodification of cultural symbols in fashion amid intensified heritage branding and symbolic market expansion. It addresses a gap in the literature on internal cultural commodification, where tensions surrounding authenticity, legitimacy, and commercialization emerge within the same cultural community rather than across clearly separate cultural groups. Drawing on a culturally grounded application of the Theory of Planned Behavior and related literature on consumer ethnocentrism and moral evaluation, the study investigates how perceived authenticity, perceived cultural appropriation, ethical sense, and consumer ethnocentrism shape attitudes toward cultural commodification and purchase intention in the Saudi fashion context. Data were collected through an Arabic-language questionnaire-based survey of Saudi consumers (N = 552) using a non-probability purposive sampling approach. The measurement model employed reflective scales adapted from prior literature and was assessed for reliability and validity. To strengthen methodological rigor, the analysis also considered common method bias diagnostics. The proposed relationships were tested using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) with bootstrapping. The findings indicate that perceived authenticity is positively associated with attitudes toward cultural commodification and relates to purchase intention primarily through attitudes. Perceived cultural appropriation is negatively associated with both attitudes and purchase intention, suggesting both a direct deterrent effect and an indirect pathway via attitudes. Consumer ethnocentrism shows a negative association with purchase intention and a weaker negative association with attitudes, while its moderating role appears statistically significant but limited in magnitude. Ethical sense displays a more complex pattern, combining negative indirect effects through evaluative pathways with a positive direct association with intention, consistent with qualified rather than purely restrictive participation in symbolic consumption. The study contributes to the literature by clarifying how consumer responses to heritage-based fashion commercialization are shaped by representational, ethical, and normative evaluations in a non-Western setting. Practically, it suggests that fashion brands operating in Saudi heritage markets should manage authenticity claims, symbolic legitimacy, and appropriation risk with greater cultural and ethical sensitivity. Full article

Previous research has shown that the less people trust the media, the less they trust the European Union, but considerations about how trust in new media and trust in traditional media may differently influence trust in European political institutions have remained scarce. Using Eurobarometer data and a methodology combining factor analysis and logistic regression, we find that that trust in new media has a stronger positive association to political trust in the European Union than trust in traditional media. We also consider moderating factors and find that trust in traditional media has a positive association with trust in European institutions via the moderating effects of age, trust in national government, and positive judgments of the European economy, while trust in new media is positively associated with trust in the EU via trust in national governments and the perception of media bias. These findings illustrate the complex interplay between the national character of trust in traditional media and the social-capital-regenerating affordances of trust in new media. Future research exploring the influence of media trust on trust in the European Union should account more clearly for the two distinct types of media trust highlighted in this investigation. Full article

This study examines whether economic diplomacy—proxied by KOF-based indicators of political globalisation and economic policy openness—is associated with multidimensional sustainable development (SD) across 208 countries over the period 2000–2023. Using two-way fixed-effects panel models with Driscoll–Kraay standard errors, complemented by instrumental-variable and dynamic panel checks, we find a positive but modest within-country association between diplomatic embeddedness and Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) performance. The association is driven primarily by political globalisation—reflecting diplomatic networks, international organisation membership, and treaty engagement—rather than trade policy openness. De facto integration exhibits stronger links to SDG outcomes than de jure policy indicators. The relationship is concave, with diminishing marginal returns beyond a diplomacy proxy value of approximately 60. A latent-class framework identifies two institutional archetypes: the association is more pronounced and robust under stronger governance (71 countries), while it attenuates under weaker governance (85 countries). Goal-level estimates reveal systematic trade-offs—gains in inequality reduction (SDG 10) and innovation (SDG 9) alongside adverse associations with climate outcomes (SDG 13)—and a structural breakpoint around 2017 consistent with the onset of slowbalisation. The results suggest that diplomacy can support SD, but its payoff depends on governance capacity and the management of cross-goal externalities. Full article

Environmental sustainability has emerged as a strategic requirement of those organizations that want to remain competitive in the long run, but most companies continue to adopt green human resource management (GHRM) practices and organizational change initiatives individually, thus restraining their potential transformation. This paper constructs and confirms a combined approach of how the fit between GHRM practices and adaptive change management processes results in high performance in sustainable innovation. In this study, 83 organizations from both the manufacturing and service sectors were selected using a purposive sampling method, to ensure diversity across developed and developing countries and varying levels of GHRM integration (low, moderate, and high). The sample was chosen to represent a broad spectrum of sustainability maturity levels, allowing for a comprehensive analysis of how GHRM practices influence green product, process, and business model innovation. This selection, alongside 30 peer-reviewed studies published between 2020 and 2025, underpins the conceptual framework used to activate change preparedness and link GHRM dimensions with innovation outcomes. I demonstrate that organizations with a high GHRM–change management fit have much higher levels of innovation performance—both in terms of the number of green product innovations (485%) and more sustainable performance improvement (90.5 on average)—than low-integration organizations. Findings also reveal that leadership commitment, employee engagement, organizational learning, and systemic reinforcement are key mediating processes that enhance the effect of GHRM activities. Temporal trajectory analysis demonstrates that integrated organizations go through deployment, consolidation, and optimization phases, as well as increasing returns to performance, with an accelerating trend of 36 months. This paper is important in management research as it fills in gaps in the literature, providing an explanation of how human resource practices facilitate organizational change at the system level. In practice, this study offers evidence-based recommendations to managers who want to establish sustainability-oriented innovation capability by implementing a coordinated GHRM and adaptive change management approach. Full article

Malaysia’s aspiration to attain high-income status necessitates not only economic growth but also a deeper understanding of poverty that goes beyond financial indicators. The Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) for Malaysia is designed to be comprehensive, considering a wide range of factors relevant to the diverse population of the country. Unlike traditional income-based approaches, our study goes beyond money to capture how poverty affects households across multiple dimensions. The MPI reveals important insights that standard measures often miss—showing which families struggle with education, health, housing, or digital access, not just income. Therefore, this study aims to enhance the Multidimensional Poverty Index for the Malaysian context by identifying and incorporating new dimensions and indicators to better capture the complexity of poverty in the country based on an empirical study in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The MPI represents a significant advancement, offering a multidimensional framework for poverty measurement. Based on results in Kuala Lumpur, 38.7% of households were found to be multidimensionally poor. This means that nearly 4 out of every 10 households in this study experienced deprivations in multiple basic needs, not just income. Household size also significantly influences the risk of multidimensional poverty, with households of more than six members being over three times more likely to be poor, primarily due to higher dependency ratios and greater consumption burdens. Full article

Organizations increasingly invest in sustainability, yet limited knowledge exists regarding the psychological and leadership mechanisms through which Green Human Resource Management (GHRM) fosters employees’ green innovative behavior. This study addresses this scientific problem by examining how GHRM relates to green innovation through sequential psychological processes and under which leadership conditions these relationships become stronger. Using multi-source data from 300 employee–supervisor dyads across three industries in the Greek private sector, the study tests a serial mediation model linking GHRM to green innovative behavior through psychological safety and work engagement, as well as the moderating role of Green Transformational Leadership (GTL). Structural equation modelling supports all hypothesized associations: GHRM is positively related to psychological safety, which predicts work engagement, which in turn strongly predicts green innovative behavior. GTL strengthens the relationship between GHRM and psychological safety, resulting in a stronger indirect effect on green innovation. The findings provide an integrative understanding of how HR systems, psychological conditions, and leadership jointly support employee-driven environmental innovation. Full article

This study examines female microenterprise entrepreneurship in the city of Juliaca, Peru, as a response to structural conditions of poverty, informality, and limited inclusion in public policies. The research aims to understand and interpret the dynamics of women-led entrepreneurship and its relationship with sustainable local socioeconomic development. A qualitative methodological approach based on an interpretive phenomenological design was adopted. Data was collected through in-depth interviews, direct observation, and document analysis with sixteen microentrepreneurs selected through purposive and snowball sampling. The findings reveal that intrinsic motivations (resilience, leadership, and self-fulfillment) and extrinsic motivations (economic independence, access to financing, and education) are key factors in the entrepreneurial process. In addition, entrepreneurial social capital, expressed through family, community, and institutional networks, plays a strategic role in the sustainability of businesses. The results also show that women entrepreneurs actively and significantly contribute to sustainable local socioeconomic development by strengthening local development ecosystems, generating employment, and promoting socially, fiscally, and ethically responsible practices. Despite their role as agents of change and transformation, women entrepreneurs continue to face structural barriers, highlighting the need for public policies with territorial and gender-sensitive approaches to strengthen their impact and sustainability. Full article

The accelerated expansion of artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping economic systems, labour markets and democratic life, giving rise to hybrid human–AI societies. In this context, education becomes a strategic arena for enabling sustainable and socially just transitions within the Fourth Industrial Revolution. This article examines how digital competence can be reconceptualized to prepare future citizens and educators for these emerging societal configurations, with particular attention to the Ibero-American context. A conceptual framework is proposed that integrates algorithmic literacy, critical data awareness, AI ethics, human–AI collaboration skills, and civic and socio-emotional capacities as core dimensions of “next-decade” digital competence. Methodologically, the study combines three complementary approaches: (a) a structured review of interdisciplinary literature on AI, digital competence and sustainability; (b) an analysis of international and regional policy documents and competence frameworks relevant to Ibero-America; and (c) selected empirical insights drawn from the first author’s doctoral research on digital competence and AI use in teacher education. The findings reveal significant tensions between rapid AI adoption and persistent structural inequalities in the Global South, while identifying key leverage points for aligning teacher education, public policy and institutional strategies with the Sustainable Development Goals. The proposed framework aims to support policymakers, universities and international organizations in fostering inclusive and sustainable AI-driven social change while mitigating new forms of exclusion and dependency. Full article

This paper examines the impacts of climate-related hazards on water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) access and practices in rural Cambodia using a Vulnerability–Exposure–Adaptive Capacity (VEAC) framework. Drawing on survey data with 423 households and 96 local authorities across five climate-vulnerable provinces in rural Cambodia, the study integrates household experiences with perspectives from village, commune, and district authorities responsible for local WASH planning and service delivery. The analysis distinguishes exposure to floods and droughts from underlying socio-economic and environmental vulnerabilities in WASH access and use, and from the social, economic, and geographic determinants shaping adaptive capacity. The findings show that while exposure to climate hazards is geographically patterned, similar levels of exposure do not produce uniform WASH outcomes. Flood impacts on hygiene, sanitation, and health are mediated by village environmental conditions and household economic status, while drought impacts and responses reflect broader locational factors alongside income insecurity and social marginalisation, including disability, older age, and female-headed households. Although awareness of climate risks and adaptative WASH options is relatively high, uptake of adaptation measures remains uneven. Adaptive capacity is constrained less by knowledge deficits than by structural and economic barriers, resulting in short-term coping rather than sustained adaptation. Overall, the study demonstrates that climate-related WASH vulnerability is shaped more by socio-economic vulnerability and mismatches in adaptive capacity across household and authority scales than by hazard exposure alone. Full article

The study uses the emerging science of Mind Genomics to study the prevalence of extremist thought in random samples of online research panel participants, first with 212 respondents in August 2021, and then with another group of 200 respondents in August 2025. The two studies presented each respondent with a unique set of 24 vignettes, comprising 2–4 statements that could be construed as extremist (e.g., Vaccines are a way for the government to control people). Respondents rated the likelihood that either they, their family, or both agreed with the statements in the vignette or disagreed with the statements in the vignette. The respondents were deconstructed by regression modeling and clustering to show the prevalence of agreement with the statements across different types of people (age, gender, political leaning, year) and across mind-sets. The data suggest that respondents easily differentiated the statements and that the distribution of responses to extremist statements did not dramatically change when President Trump succeeded President Biden. The approach is presented as a new way to investigate sensitive topics by creating sets of test stimuli, answers to which cannot be “gamed”. Given all the news and near-news circulating in the fragmented media, this research offers a clear, if complex, view of attitudes and any changes which may have occurred between the Biden and second Trump administrations. Full article

Regional trade liberalization via preferential agreements increasingly shapes economic outcomes in small open economies embedded in overlapping regional frameworks. This study evaluates the short-run economy-wide effects of tariff and non-tariff measure (NTM) reforms under the South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) and the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) using a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model calibrated to the GTAP 10 database. Gravity-based estimates of ad valorem equivalents (AVEs) of NTMs are integrated into the CGE framework, enabling explicit modeling of regulatory barriers alongside tariff reductions. Policy simulations examine scenarios involving a 90 percent tariff cut and a 50 percent NTM reduction, applied individually and jointly, under a short-run closure with fixed factor endowments and a trade balance for Nepal. Results indicate that combined liberalization yields positive macroeconomic adjustments, with real GDP rising by about one percent and exports increasing by over 14 percent, driven primarily by the manufacturing sector, particularly textiles, while agricultural responses vary by exposure to NTMs. These findings provide policy-relevant evidence on the relative effectiveness of tariff and regulatory reforms, informing strategies for deeper regional integration and enhanced competitiveness in small, structurally constrained economies. Full article

Digital maturity (DM) has emerged as a popular concept for explaining how higher education institutions (HEIs) develop digitally supported academic teaching and learning, research, administration, and community outreach (third mission). However, DM is often framed as a technical problem of adopting information and communication technologies (ICTs), infrastructure, and tool deployment. In this paper, we conceptualize DM as an organizational capability that enables HEIs to align digital tools with strategy, governance, and teaching. Building on entrepreneurial orientation (EO) research, we argue that EO is an antecedent of digital maturity, but that this relationship cannot be realized without a change-supportive organizational culture. We develop a conceptual model in which EO is positively associated with DM, both directly and indirectly through the change-ready organizational culture, and present propositions for future empirical research. We provide a preliminary qualitative evaluation of the model through in-depth interviews with stakeholders in a single, digitally advanced university case from the Southeast Europe (SEE) region. Based on the thematic analysis, we identify patterns suggesting that CRC links EO and DM in this case. We use the findings to refine construct boundaries and show possible mechanisms; assessing generalizable effects is left to future quantitative studies on larger national and regional samples. Full article

Living history tourism is traditionally framed through heritage preservation and educational interpretation, yet the mechanisms translating visitor motivation into behavioral intention remain insufficiently theorized. This study develops and empirically tests an integrated structural model combining escape motives, experiential immersion, authenticity construction, educational enrichment, and behavioral intention within a unified framework. Data were collected from 1066 visitors at Skansen (Sweden) between March 2025 and March 2026 using an on-site, self-administered questionnaire with voluntary participation. The sample included domestic and international visitors, predominantly aged 18–44, with high educational attainment. Structural equation modeling was applied. The results show that detachment-oriented motives strongly activate experiential immersion, which emerges as the central mechanism in the model. Immersion significantly strengthens perceptions of historical authenticity and represents the dominant predictor of behavioral intention, while educational motives exert a weaker but significant effect. Mediation analysis confirms that the influence of escape operates indirectly through immersion. The findings indicate that living history tourism functions primarily as an experiential environment enabling temporary disengagement from routine pressures. Although often framed as an educational domain, the results suggest that experiential engagement outweighs cognitive motives in shaping visitor behavior. Full article

Global progress towards the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) remains critically off track, with current trends indicating that only 17% of targets will be met by the deadline. As sustainability transitions increasingly depend on regional and institutional capacity, understanding heterogeneous transition pathways and resilience across territorial contexts is essential. This study investigates whether observed divergence in SDG performance reflects temporary setbacks or persistent structural regimes characterised by distinct institutional and technological configurations. Using panel data from over 160 countries (2019–2024), we employ annual latent class analysis to identify hidden structures in SDG performance across 15 goals, introducing intertemporal volatility as a dimension of development dynamics. We complement this with ordered logistic regression to examine structural determinants of regime membership, including governance quality, digital infrastructure, health investment, and macroeconomic indicators. Our analysis identifies three temporally stable development regimes—lagging, transitional, and leading—with fewer than 15% of countries transitioning between classes over the observation period. ANOVA results reveal that internet access and government effectiveness exhibit the most substantial between-regime differences. Ordered logit models indicate that governance quality and digital connectivity are the strongest correlates of regime membership (government effectiveness: β = 0.943, p < 0.001; internet penetration: β = 0.049, p < 0.001), whereas short-term GDP growth exerts negligible influence (p > 0.10). These findings challenge assumptions of linear convergence in sustainable development and provide a data-driven framework for evaluating transition dynamics across diverse territorial contexts. The results suggest that achieving the SDGs requires that deep structural constraints be addressed—particularly digital divides and institutional quality—through regionally targeted policy design rather than relying solely on incremental adjustments or economic growth. The identified regimes provide a basis for place-based targeting by distinguishing contexts where governance and digital capacity constraints are binding. Full article

Environmental protection and the reduction of carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions are central priorities within European climate policy. This study analyses and forecasts annual CO₂ emissions in Greece using a univariate time-series framework. Annual data from 1960 to 2024, sourced from Our World in Data, enable the analysis to capture both the historical expansion of emissions and the recent decarbonization phase of the Greek energy system. Using the Box–Jenkins methodology, multiple ARIMA specifications were evaluated based on information criteria and diagnostic tests. To examine the stationarity properties of the series, the Augmented Dickey–Fuller (ADF) unit root test is applied. The findings indicate that the ARIMA (1,1,1) model most accurately represents the stochastic dynamics of the emissions series. The estimated autoregressive and moving-average coefficients, 0.9404 and −0.7165, respectively, are statistically significant at the 1% level. Residual diagnostics confirm the absence of serial correlation, approximate normality, and no significant heteroskedasticity. Forecast evaluation for the 2020–2024 holdout period demonstrates satisfactory predictive performance, with a mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) of approximately 6%. Dynamic forecasts for 2025 to 2030 indicate a gradual decline in national CO₂ emissions, reaching an estimated 45.5 million tonnes by 2030. Overall, the study demonstrates that parsimonious ARIMA models offer a transparent and empirically reliable benchmark for national emissions forecasting. These models provide a reproducible tool for monitoring climate policy outcomes and for supporting evidence-based environmental decision-making. This study contributes to the environmental forecasting literature by providing an updated, diagnostically rigorous univariate benchmark model for Greece’s CO₂ emissions that encompasses both the pre- and post-decarbonization phases of the national energy transition. Full article

This paper examines the role of institutional quality in shaping income convergence across European economies over the period 2004–2023. While previous studies frequently assume either linear institutional effects or strong regime-dependent threshold dynamics, this study evaluates whether institutional conditions fundamentally alter the speed of convergence. Using a fixed-effects panel framework with a spline-based specification and an endogenously determined institutional breakpoint, this analysis allows the convergence coefficient to vary across institutional regimes. The results confirm the presence of conditional convergence in the full sample and across regional subgroups. Although an estimated institutional breakpoint marginally improves model fit, formal Wald and bootstrap-based threshold tests do not provide strong evidence of a structural break in the convergence parameter. The speed of convergence remains broadly stable across institutional regimes, suggesting that institutional quality does not function as a binary activation threshold. Instead, institutions appear to operate as conditioning factors influencing the stability and robustness of convergence dynamics rather than triggering discrete regime shifts. Regional estimations reveal heterogeneity in institutional dispersion and growth volatility, particularly in the Western Balkans, yet without fundamental alterations in convergence mechanisms. The findings contribute to the literature by reframing the institutional–convergence nexus toward a moderated nonlinear interpretation, emphasizing structural conditioning rather than regime-dependent convergence. Full article