Comparing COVID-19 Control Model Between Iraq and Iran

The coronavirus pandemic has reached almost every country in the world. The pandemic and its response have had several short-term as well as long term impacts on human health, society, economy, and environment. For instance, the severe lockdowns imposed in certain countries have caused a widespread economic and humanitarian crisis. Therefore, it is crucial to draw important lessons from this pandemic to amplify our future preparedness and response capacities to similar situations. In this paper, the response strategies utilized by Iraq and Iran is analyzed with comparison of the impacts and outcomes of each strategy used for controlling the spread of the COVID-19 virus. The results show that travel ban, restrictive containment, and supports from the international community in controlling the spread of the virus had a more positive impact in Iraq compared to Iran.

Quality, Price, and Competition Strategy Effects on Performance of Soft Drink Enterprises in Rwanda

Amidst market performance challenges of declining customer numbers and sales for some soft drinks enterprises in Rwanda, that has caused a big concern for academics and professionals, the study set to empirically investigate the effect of quality, price and competition strategies on sales and customer retention performance for these enterprises. The study was quantitative and cross-sectional where researchers obtained data at a single point in time on more than one case. A sample size of 118 marketing managers was taken from these enterprises in the central districts of Kigali that produce carbonated drinks, mineral water and juice. Due to corona virus pandemic, virtual means of data collection were used through telephone-based questionnaire survey. Despite the positive and significant relationship between quality and price strategies with market performance, ( =0.500, t=1.09, p<0.01) for quality, ( =0.23, t=3.05, p<0.01) for price, results for competition strategies ( =0.23, t=3.05, p=0.281), show nonsignificant relationship with market performance in the studied context. This finding manifests a big gap in managing competition and therefore advise these enterprises to revisit their competition management decisions and make investment in those positioning alternatives that impact on consumer perceptions.

The Adoption of Blue Ocean Strategy to Sustain Competitive Advantage in the Syrian Food Industry

This study aims to detect the extent of adoption of the Blue Ocean Strategy in the Syrian ‎food industry companies and its role in improving its competitive advantage. Syrian ‎Companies need to shape their blue ocean strategy in accordance with consumer value, ‎price, cost, and adoption. This permits them to construct a feasible business model and ‎ensure that profits from the blue ocean is created. The study used descriptive-analytical ‎approach. The data were composed of a questionnaire distributed to 293 personnel ‎working in 85 Syrian food companies. Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS 22) were ‎applied to analyze the data. The result showed there are a substantial interest by Syrian ‎food companies to adopt Blue Ocean strategy indicators in its operations. Also, there was ‎a significant relationship between the adoption of Blue Ocean Strategy and the ‎improvement of sustainable competitive advantage for the investigated companies. The ‎researchers suggested that Syrian companies should emphasize on the importance of the ‎innovation indicator and its role in producing new brands and creating markets free of ‎competition which sequentially contributes to increase in the company's market share. The ‎study achieves a qualitative benefit for both researchers and academics about the concept ‎of BOS because it is the first study that introduces the BOS and its impact on sustainable ‎competitive advantage in Syrian‎.

Ayad Akhtar’s American Dervish: Analysis and Revaluation

Apparently the best and yet the most famous work by Ayad Akhtar is American Dervish which was published in 2012. It has gained quick attention, but not by many, as a debut novel about the identity issue. Yet, no studies have been devoted to studying the novel from an analytical point of view of Pakistani-American migrants’ issues in America, in general. However, the novel has received some attention, there remain some aspects, in our view, and an essential aspect amongst them is the analytical study of the novel, which is not explored yet. In general migrants to new countries will usually face difficulty and especially if they are followers of a different religion. Also, the difference in their culture with culture of the country they migrate to will be an obstacle in integrating themselves into the new culture as seen in the character of Hayat Shah’s father; whereas to some extent different for Hayat himself. Hayat befriends a Jewish girl and neglects Islam and similarly his father becomes friend with a Jewish teacher, Nathan. It is not easy for the migrant people to integrate into the American culture and tolerate the other religious beliefs such as Judaism as it is quite a novel experience for them. The migrants obligingly ignore their surrender to their own Islamic religion and assimilate into the Judaism and American culture, which is very difficult. These are the two key aspects that the paper focuses on by analyzing and highlighting the challenges that Hayat Shah and his family members face in America. Akhtar demonstrates the difficulty for the migrant characters between either choosing Islam or Judaism or secularism to be able to live like Americans.

The Impact of People in Cooperation on Cooperative Management of the Private Sector

Cooperation among employees is one of the main determinants of a successful business because people are the main protagonists of cooperative management. Therefore, organizations have to give more attention to establish a cooperative management. This study examines the impact of people in cooperation on cooperative management. The research also included recommendations for organization managers, as well as a theoretical basis of cooperative management and people in cooperation, based on a management model developed by Mondragon Cooperation. The SMART PLS3 was used to analyze data collected through the distribution of questioners to employees and academic staff at two private universities in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Researchers believe that the presence of integral development and cooperative leadership helps in the implementation of cooperative management by the staff. However, organizations are recommended to strengthening the power of staff and allowing them to practice the role of managing, as well as, being authorized at a certain level in order to increase cooperative conduct between employees and management in terms of organizational management concerns.

The Gender-Biased Wording of Recruitment Advertisements in Iraq

This research studies the nature and the scope of gender discrimination in job advertisements across Iraq’s various business sectors, segments, and hierarchical levels. It also attempts to understand the correlation between the language of the vacancy announcements and the level of the gender discriminatory content in them. This study is conducted with the hope of contributing to gender equality at the workplace in Iraq and the wider region. The current study adopts a content coding and analysis method that depends on the analysis of job advertisements (n=1015) by organizations operating in Iraq published in the leading recruitment websites and social media pages for a period of about four consecutive months from June to October 2017. The analysis is conducted using descriptive statistics and tested using simple cross tabulation method. Although the topic has been studied in various countries and contexts, it lacks academic attention in the Middle East, which can be seen as a unique area for research. Also, this research is the first attempt, as far as we are aware of, to comprehend the correlation between the choice of language (English, Arabic or Kurdish) and gender-biased wording of vacancy announcements. Understanding the relationship between language and gender discrimination in job advertisements might as well unveil a new area of study and aid in the quest for gender equality in the Iraqi workplace. This paper provides scientific evidence that more than 41% of all job advertisements in Iraq commit gender discrimination. The majority of them indirectly favor male candidates. Additionally, the nature of the vacancies for which women are preferred is different from the ones that target men. The adverts generally try to segregate women into non-managerial and administrative jobs. The study also infers a statistically significant correlation between the language of the advertisement and gender discrimination rate.

Social Media, Internet, and Memes Through the Lens of Political Geography

Almost four billion people in the world use the internet which includes forms of social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, etc. Along with the gifts of such developed communication technologies, many hardships and future problems have emerged. Misinformation leaks, internet trolls, and the newer trend of cyber-nationalism all come with these advanced forms of technology. The purpose of this paper is to define what these negative consequences mean for us, and what our government is doing with this new power. To be able to grasp a scope of what is happening, the history of the internet and cyber-nationalism need to be distinguished as well as showing different forms of use and how they affect us in our daily lives. Looking through the eyes of a political geographer it is important to see if cyber-nationalism deserves its own category yet as a topic of study, and how this is similar or different to the use of propaganda in the past such as World War II. This paper concludes with final thoughts on the internet and cyber-nationalism, and future research possibilities that help to interpret the use of cyber-nationalism and further its study.

Kurds Stuck in Pain: A View of Kurdish Identity in the Way of Performativity

Why can Kurds not be happy, peaceful, joyous, and live a lifestyle on the top that they deserve just as many other ethnic identities have already done? Why do Kurds not have an independent state with a healthy and wealthy society just as many other populations, even the smallest, have achieved? Is it the destiny of Kurds? Or is it about behviours? The answer emerges from the pain that Kurds are stuck in. In this paper, Judith Butler’s concept of performativity is used to argue the aggrieved discourse that accompanies Kurdish identity with a tricky position called victim mentality. Analyzing limited and repeated discourses about Kurdish identity is used to attempt to suggest a new way of doing so, discursively. The idea that using a style of linguistic acts with embodied practices enables one to go beyond the current binary political framework for Kurds is explored.

Investigating the Impact of EFL Students’ Misuse of Prosodic Features on their Face-to-face Interactions from University Instructors’ Perspectives

The present study aims at investigating the use of prosodic features by Kurdish EFL undergraduates in their face-to-face interactions inside/outside the classroom from the university instructors’ perspectives. The study hypothesizes that the majority of Kurdish EFL undergraduates are not fully aware of the fact that any misuse of prosodic features would probably affect the emotions, feelings, and attitudes that the face-to-face interaction is intended to convey. Building on an analysis of a questionnaire given to 54 university instructors at 10 Iraqi Kurdistan Region different universities, the study concludes that the majority of problems the students face can be related to the misuse of stress, intonation, and other prosodic features. Therefore, EFL instructors should pay more attention to make students learn how to use prosodic features and enable them to send messages adequately while engaging in face-to-face interactions. This would require special classes about prosodic features so that EFL students can overcome the misuse they have in face-to-face communication. This is inevitable because accuracy and fluency in communication require EFL students to master both features: segmental and suprasegmental. The reason behind this necessity could be attributed to the fact that broken and/or incorrect pronunciation can be considered as one of the most prominent factors behind misunderstandings in communication.

The Impact of Learning Kurdish ‘Mother-Tongue’ in London on Mainstream Education

This study investigates the impact of a group of Kurdish children learning their mother-tongue, in two Kurdish Saturday schools in North London, and particularly the impact on the children’s integration into mainstream schooling. There are some historical issues surrounding ethnic minority children’s education that have been labelled as problematic towards their educational achievements in the United Kingdom. The responsibility of teaching the mother-tongue to those children takes place formally in supplementary or Saturday schools in their community rather than in mainstream schools. Many researches have revealed that learning their mother tongue is beneficial for children in general. In particular, this research focuses on the impacts on Kurdish children in mainstream education, since the number of children from diverse backgrounds is increasing, including the number of children from the Kurdish community. Mixed method research has been undertaken to examine this issue, including a semi- structured questionnaire and group interview used to collect data, as this research depended on students’ as well as parents’ views in integrating their child in some state schools. The findings revealed that learning the mother-tongue is beneficial for children from diverse backgrounds and that supplementary schools play a vital role in learning the mother-tongue on children’s attitude in mainstream education.