This study investigates the role of agricultural exports as a potential engine of economic growth in South Africa, employing a cointegration and error correction model (ECM) framework on time series data from 1980 to 2023. The results confirm a long-run equilibrium relationship between agricultural exports and economic growth, with lagged total exports and employment significantly influencing GDP growth in the short run. However, other factors like foreign direct investment, gross capital formation, and population growth did not exhibit a statistically significant impact. These findings underscore the importance of agricultural exports in driving South Africa’s economic growth. To further enhance this potential, the study recommends establishing a consistent and transparent policy environment to foster investor confidence and long-term planning in the agricultural sector, expanding the range of agricultural exports to reduce vulnerability to external shocks and enhance overall economic resilience and streamlining customs procedures, reducing trade barriers, and improving logistics to enhance the competitiveness of South African agricultural exports in the global market. These policy recommendations, grounded in empirical evidence, offer a roadmap for harnessing the full potential of agricultural exports to drive sustainable economic growth in South Africa.

In the intricate realm of contractual law, the condition precluding action serves as a critical safeguard, ensuring that specific legitimate interests are protected within contracts and wills. This research examines this condition’s validity when based on a legitimate motive and for a reasonable duration. The study highlights a case involving an owner who violates this condition by engaging in acts such as sale or gift, raising important questions regarding the legal penalties associated with such violations. The primary objective of this research is to provide a comprehensive understanding of the legal consequences of breaching preventive clauses and to analyze how Egyptian, French, and Palestinian laws protect the interests of the stakeholders involved. The methodology adopted in this study is comparative in nature, involving a thorough analysis of the legal texts from Egyptian, French, and Palestinian laws. This involves a review of legal scholars’ opinions and relevant judicial rulings to highlight the differences in penalties and applications associated with preventive clauses. The findings reveal that both Egyptian and French laws advocate for the invalidity of actions carried out in violation of these preventive conditions. However, there is a divergence among scholars regarding the nature of this invalidity, with some arguing for absolute invalidity while others suggest relative invalidity. Conversely, the Palestinian legal framework prescribes specific penalties, indicating a variance in legislative approaches. The research concludes that the current legislative treatment of preventive conditions is insufficient and requires reform to ensure effective legal protection for affected parties. This leads to policy implications emphasizing the need to strengthen legal frameworks and enhance the clarity of legislative intentions in formulating laws related to preventive clauses. By doing so, the study aims to facilitate the achievement of legitimate interests for parties involved and ensure the enforcement of preventive conditions in a manner that upholds contractual integrity.

As the global ecological and environmental problems become more and more serious, the concept of green finance and sustainable development has been advocated by more and more domestic and foreign experts, scholars and investors, and the Environmental Responsibility, Social Responsibility, and Corporate Governance (ESG) rating has gradually become a hotspot of attention. ESG is a kind of investment concept and a comprehensive assessment criterion of corporate performance for systematic evaluation of enterprises, and it has become an important indicator of the ability of measuring the sustainable development of enterprises. It has become an important indicator of corporate sustainable development capability. In this paper, we investigate the relationship between ESG ratings and cumulative abnormal returns of listed companies’ stocks under the impact of sudden risk events. The outbreak of the New Crown epidemic as an exogenous risk event provides an opportunity for this paper. This paper examines the role of firms’ ESG ratings and the three sub-dimensions of ratings on the cumulative abnormal returns of listed firms’ stocks during the New Crown Epidemic outbreak and verifies the role of ESG ratings on firms in times of crisis. The final regression results prove that under the impact of sudden exogenous risk events, listed firms’ ESG ratings have a positive effect on the cumulative abnormal stock returns during the event window. Finally, this paper provides recommendations to help firms and investors prevent and mitigate risks.

This study sought an innovative quality management framework for Chinese Prefabricated Buildings (PB) projects. The framework combines TQM, QSP, Reconstruction Engineering, Six Sigma (6Σ), Quality Cost Management, and Quality Diagnosis Theories. A quantitative assessment of a representative sample of Chinese PB projects and advanced statistical analysis using Structural Equation Modeling supported the framework, indicating an excellent model fit (CFI = 0.92, TLI = 0.90, RMSEA = 0.06). The study significantly advances quality management and industrialized building techniques, but it also emphasizes the necessity for ongoing research, innovation, and information exchange to address the changing problems and opportunities in this dynamic area. In addition, this study’s findings and recommendations can help construction stakeholders improve quality performance, reduce construction workload and cost, minimize defects, boost customer satisfaction, boost productivity and efficiency in PB projects, and boost the Chinese construction industry’s growth and competitiveness.

The potential role of self-regulated learning as mediator has been deeply investigated by researchers in recent years. There is limited systematic literature review being done to investigate the role of self-regulated learning as mediator in the students’ academic learning. Therefore, searching studies in the databases WOS (Web of Science), SCOPUS, APA (American Psychological Association) PsycInfo, and ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), the present study conducted a systematic literature review on 32 studies published between 2015 and 2024 to summarize what kind of psychological factors influence students’ academic performance through self-regulated learning and assess the potential mediating role of self-regulated learning in this process. The results show that self-efficacy, emotions and motivation are significant predictors of academic achievement and self-regulated learning act as an important mediator in this relationship. An important implication was obtained that researchers can probe into the influence of specific dimensions of self-efficacy on learning performance through self-regulated learning and the influence of positive emotions such as resilience on learning outcomes with self-regulated learning as mediator.

The aim of this paper is to develop a methodology for determining the size of the unified land tax in agriculture based on the results of the economic assessment of agricultural land to form the foundation of a new effective system of macroeconomic instruments for state regulation of the innovative development of the agro-industrial complex of the Republic of Kazakhstan. There were used gatherings of facts and summaries, induction and deduction, analysis and synthesis, historical and logical, normative, comparison, index and modeling methods in the research. The article provides an overview of various scholarly perspectives on the challenges and strategies for improving the tax system. The base rates of the unified land tax per hectare of arable land have been calculated to establish equal conditions for all land users. This unified land tax rate is expected to encourage the efficient utilization of land resources and enable the optimization of production structure. The article addresses avenues for improving water management relations in agriculture, aimed at fostering a shared interest and creating incentives for adopting innovative technologies in both agriculture and the water management sector. An essential condition for achieving the effective functioning of Kazakhstan’s agro-industrial complex is its transformation to an innovative development model. This necessitates the development and application of a new system of macroeconomic tools for its implementation, aimed at creating a favorable environment for entrepreneurial development.

The scientific discourse on university towns (UT) has progressed for a long time, with a surge of interest in recent years. However, a global overview of the research conducted on this topic have yet to exist. This paper aims to re-examine the relationship between UT and urbanization in literature. Built environment and people are often the most talked aspects in UT literatures. The variety of definitions remains largely uncharted. Policies behind UT development are also rarely studied. This article used an R studio-based bibliometric literature review to synthesize findings from various scientific literature. Keywords related to university towns and urban were used in digital search engines to examine and analyse the literature. Results revealed a significant gap in scientific research on critical theoretical concepts that planners can use as a guide in creating, formulating, and evaluating UT, especially in developing countries. This study promotes simplification of existing literature by examining the impact of UT on the stakeholders involved.

The present research focuses on researching the impact of the diverse communication media that facilitate or develop Student Motivation and Engagement in the educational systems of the states in the Gulf, especially Oman. The main goal of this work is to determine which type of method is most effective in encouraging students in view of cultural and technological factors present in the region. Comparisons using hypothesis testing and structural models which provided higher T value for Technology-Based Communication Methods (TBCM) and Human Face-to-Face Communication Methods (HFtFCM). Next, the research hypothesis H2 that TBCM has a direct positive relationship with SMaE was supported by the following regression coefficients: β = 0.177, t = 4.493; p = 0.000. On the other hand, there was no effect of HFtFCM on SMaE as indicated by a regression coefficient of 0.056 (p < 0.124) for this hypothesis and therefore, this hypothesis was rejected. The analysis using the mediator of Student Perception of Communication Effectiveness (SPoCE) only partly mediates TBCM and SMaE (β = 0.047, t = 3.737, p = 0.000). However, SPoCE was found not to moderate the relationship between HFtFCM and SMaE (β = −0.01, t = 1.125, p = 0.005). The present study underlines the efficiency of TBCM in the area of student engagement, while face-to-face conversation does not play significant part in this process. The obtain results conclude that, the traditional and technological evolution in the Gulf region supports the adoption of TBCM in educational systems. Such approaches support with the technological learning and likings of students, offering greater flexibility and engagement. Educational systems must highlight TBCM to better meet the growing needs of their student, while identifying that face-to-face remains important, though secondary, in energetic motivation.