Before the November-2021 China International Import Expo, the demand of foreign business people for targeted training in negotiating with the Chinese was on the increase. We conducted a survey before the negotiation training, intending to find out the demographic characteristics of the potential trainees, their beliefs in negotiations, their exact needs in terms of negotiating with Chinese business people, and we analyzed the post-training effects and results with an evaluation questionnaire. We administered the survey in three countries – Brazil, Mexico and Germany, and received 57 answers for the pre-training questionnaire, the results of which were analyzed with SPSS26, and 49 answers for the training effect evaluation form. Our major findings are as follows. Regardless of origin, the professionals surveyed attached great importance to negotiation training, and the topics they have foremost interest in are respectively: To develop a negotiation mindset, to deal with contract-related issues; and to build trust and stable relationships. Whereas to the question of negotiating with their Chinese counterparts, the surveyed focused on the following three topics: How to determine VIPs in the Chinese negotiation team, dealing with legal concerns in negotiations, and the typical Chinese wisdom related to business. As for the evaluation, all the trainees gave positive feedback, but with somewhat different preferences. Our general conclusion is that negotiation training is necessary for managers at all times, but the training contents should ideally be targeted towards their specific needs.

Frequent change in government policies affecting the operations of small businesses has been held to account for key impediments to youth entrepreneurship advancement in Nigeria. Hence, this study explores how contextual factors influenced the entrepreneurial intentions of university students. The specific objectives were to inspect the extent to which economic context affects students’ business idea generation and to evaluate how the socio-cultural context affects students’ motivation to engage in critical innovative thinking. The study employed a survey approach to select thirty-one thousand, two hundred and fifty-five (31,255) penultimate and final year students of 3 universities, from which a five hundred and eighty-nine (589) sample size was determined using Godden (2004) formula. The data collected were analyzed using multiple regression and coefficient of determination. The findings of the study revealed that elements of economic context influence students’ business idea generation. Economic development, economic growth, resource control, and market externalities with β’s = .303, .258, .097 and .241 respectively, and elements of socio-cultural context, affect students’ motivation to engage in critical innovative thinking. The socio-cultural elements included societal values, ethics, belief system with β’s = .073, .389 and .346 respectively. The study concluded that both economic context and socio-cultural context, have a significant effect on students’ start-up ideas, students’ motivation, recognizing entrepreneurial possibilities and students’ interest in business start-up. The study recommended that University students should consider their social context and observe the value system or societal value, ethics and belief system in their society. Also, the Government at all levels should try to limit variations in its policies regarding start-ups and also ensure that its policies and laws favor start-ups.

This research examines intercultural practices of an English program taught by international volunteers at a village school in rural Sri Lanka. Viewing learning contexts as complex adaptive systems, this research delineates the multi-layer complexity of intercultural contexts and discusses that intercultural learning practices are intertwined with actors and locations. By conducting two-month field work and 27 in-depth interviews, this research offers fresh insights looking into intercultural practices on a community level which involve international volunteer teachers, village students, their parents and village people. From the perspective of nexus of practice, the results highlight that emotional encounters and social interactions on a community level are central to intercultural learning. The results offer implications for intercultural educators and practitioners considering the recent multilingual landscape of rural villages in developing countries. We call for reflexive understandings of intercultural learning and online space which go beyond the traditional notions of the nation-state.