Vol. 4 (2) Dec. 2022
Article ID. JHSSR-0010-2022
FOREWORD
|
|
I would like to welcome you to Horizon Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences Research’s concluding issue of 2022. JHSSR is a peer-reviewed open-access and broad-scope scholarly journal that aims at bringing innovative research to both academics and practicing professionals. It is published rapidly by BP Services. The journal is independently owned, and runs on a not-for-profit basis for the benefit of the world-wide social science community.
Original articles of archival value covering research and development topics, which span all areas of humanities and social sciences, are published by this journal. In addition to new advances in traditional and more established areas of humanities and social sciences, we strive to include findings on both emerging and interdisciplinary issues.
This issue Vol 4 (2) Dec. 2022 consists of twenty-five articles including two invited articles from our prestigious international advisory board members, Professor Dr. Claudia Zucca’s article makes a contribution to both studies in the translingual and linguistic contact studies. The second paper is by one of our prominent and distinguished professors, Dr. Kirpal Singh. He shares his thoughts on “Re-thinking Leadership: Current and Future Challenges”.
The Review article is significant because, “it discusses the matter concerned to every human to know what is consciousness which makes human to think about his environment around and inside of the body, how a person is declared dead, and if there is reincarnation and existence of soul in the body. The paper should be of interest to readers in the areas of philosophy, science, and to the Sikhs including other major religions. It indicates that Sikhi (philosophy of Guru Nanak composed about 552 years ago is somewhat comparable to science of today.
In addition, the issue has fifteen research articles, two opinion pieces and five concept papers. These articles are written by authors that come from 13 different countries, such as Canada, China, Germany, India, Iran, Italy, Jordan, Malaysia, Nepal, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
This remarkable statistic clearly shows that this journal is truly an international journal with diverse authorship as well as editorship. The articles in this issue span a wide range of topics, including issues of Business and Finance, Financial Management, Human Resource Management, Literature, Comparative Literature, Linguistics, Music, Personal Development and Empowerment, Pragmatics, Psychology, Religion, Sex education, Sociology, Social Studies, Urban Studies, and also interdisciplinary studies.
The first research paper investigates the service quality in the banking system in the European context. It discusses service quality, consumer retention and loyalty programs in the banks in Europe. The findings propose that banks should concentrate on enhancing the efficiency of their offerings in order to increase consumer retention and customer loyalty.
The next paper is significant as it intends to act as a resource to educate and empower today’s youth to make better life choices for themselves. The researchers utilised the concept of self-love with the research data. It provides information and materials to educate and empower today’s youth to make better life choices for themselves, and that these choices ought to be guided by the principle of self-love and self-awareness providing valuable insights into raising awareness of social issues and application into the field of education and public health. It also seems to improve awareness amongst adolescents to prevent early pregnancy in Malaysia.
The third paper is significant because it focusses upon employee engagement. It suggests that employee engagement is impacted for a variety of reasons, including bullying, harassment, and undesirable behavior. Using organizational support and workplace interventions for well-being, it is possible to increase employee engagement.
The fourth paper of this issue is meaningful because, it discusses Du Ke theatre heritage of Khmer people in tourism development in Vietnam. The solutions mentioned in this article act as a resource for local leaders, scientists, Du Ke artists and companies to carry out tourism promotion or as a resource for travellers’ and helping in maintaining the living land for Du Ke’s theatrical art in Vietnam.
The fifth paper is a rich source of materials for management agencies and leaders on conceptual models to orient the renovation and development of alley spaces in the context of urbanization and adaptation to climate change based on real case studies with ethnographic surveys at a specific location. The paper should be of interest to readers in the area of Urban Studies.
The sixth focuses on the cruelty of colonization as represented in George Orwell’s Burmese Days. It exposes the atrocities of colonialism in Burma and demonstrates the fallacies of colonial ideology. The study also shows the book’s setbacks and inconsistencies in its anti-imperial discourse as evident in the use of racist language, and the stereotypical representation of the natives. The paper should be of interest to readers in the areas of Postcolonial literature.
The seventh research paper describes the natural symbolism as depicted in the hymns of the holy Sikh scripture Sri Guru Granth Sahib. The poetic compositions of Sri Guru Granth Sahib are notable for their usage of symbolism as a literary device. Herein, various images and symbols have been used to describe its authors’ mystical and spiritual experiences. Moreover, as symbols can be timeless, culture-free, and language-free, these can bridge the barriers of communication that often exist between ages or cultures. Such understanding can play a significant role in finding apt solutions to the contemporary world’s critical issues. With these facts in view, I believe the readers particularly in the areas of Sikh Philosophy or Sikh theological studies will be interested to read this research article.
The eight research paper reports that the speech act of responding to criticism is extremely under-researched. The Iranian celebrities’ speech acts have not been brought under scrutiny so far. It is hoped that this paper will help us gain a clear understanding of the speech act in question. The paper also contributes to the field of pragmatics.
The next paper is significant because “COVID 19 has a great impact on almost every aspect of the society”. The paper adds to the literature with regards to the efficiency of the microfinance institutions during COVID 19. The paper contributes to the body of knowledge with regards to the impact of covid on economic issues. In fact, the paper shows why pandemic reduces the economic efficiency of MFIs, while improving the social efficiency of MFIs. The paper should be of interest to readers in the areas of social science, and financial management.
The paper on tennis points out that Tennis Play-and-Stay can improve teaching methods, enrich teaching means and improve the learning atmosphere, which can effectively improve the teaching quality of university tennis general classes and promote the healthy development of tennis in China.
The eleventh research paper on music tackles the issues of Application of Chu Wanghua’s Chinese Folk Song Arrangement in Piano Impromptu Accompaniment Teaching. This study discusses three representative impromptu accompaniment courses in normal universities in China, aiming to improve the lack of Chinese harmony and folk song accompaniment content in the current classroom. Its purpose is to enhance students’ abilities of impromptu accompaniment for folk songs and better protect intangible cultural heritage.
The next paper of this issue discusses the perspective of course thinking politics, proposing strategies to strengthen the construction of course thinking politics, improve students’ learning effect, innovate online teaching mode and build an emotional bridge between teachers and students. It is expected that this research will help improve the quality of online teaching.
Thirteenth research paper talks about the integrated curriculum of physical education in Chinese colleges. This kind of curriculum is in accordance with the rapid development of colleges and universities, which makes up for the insufficiency of the dimension of this research field and provides the feasible scheme and model for the management system and operation mechanism of integrated curriculum construction for Chinese college sports administrators.
Fourteenth paper elaborates Research on “Jiacuo Dance” form of Mosuo Ethnic Group in China. It discusses the humanistic culture of the Mosuo ethnic group, the dance form and cultural connotation of Jiacuo Dance through field investigation, observation, interviews, etc.
The last research paper in this issue shares classification and research of Dazu folk songs in Chongqing City, China.
The next two papers are opinion pieces; first paper is meaningful because of growing importance of human rights, which somehow remain unrealised in societies across countries due to declining human values. However, religious texts endorse human rights in true earnest and herein lies need to stress on understanding such text. Sri Guru Granth Sahib manifests human rights profoundly. The paper should be of interest to readers in the areas of Religious Studies and Political Science. The second piece is a comparison of Chinese and foreign flower elements patterns. The difference between Chinese and Western aesthetics is only in their characteristics. Both are a part of the world culture. They have their own independent aesthetic system and rhyme direction, and also have some commonalities. Read to find out!
We conclude this issue with five concept papers. The first paper talks about the growing importance of human rights, which somehow remain unrealised in societies across countries due to declining human values. The paper attempts to search for possibility to introduce new tax scheme for social enterprise in Malaysia. The paper should be of interest to readers in the areas of commercial law and taxation. The second paper on literature attempts to analyse Mamet’s play with the help of Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy. The last three pieces are related to music; the history and inheritance of Qingyang Opera; the diversity of the spread and development of new folk songs in Guangxi, China. The concluding article in this issue examines and studies the display of cultural heritage elements in Salar music of Qinghai Province through the intangible cultural heritage perspective of ‘Belt and Road’.
I believe this issue would be intriguing, thought-provoking and useful in reaching new milestones. I would be grateful if you recommend the journal to your peers and students to make this endeavour more meaningful.
I am glad to share with you that as of now JHSSR has surpassed a total of about 1,000 articles from across the globe for intended publication in JHSSR, of which only 155 got accepted and published. Which also means an acceptance rate of only about 16%. The reasons for this high rejection rate are mainly the manuscript failing the technical screening, manuscript not falling within the journal’s scope, weak hypothesis, poor methodology, and high Similarity Index.
Our Quality
All the papers published in this edition underwent the journal’s stringent double-blind peer-review process involving a minimum of three reviewers comprising internal as well as external referees. This was to ensure that the quality of the papers justified the high ranking of the journal, which hopes to be one at par with one of the renowned and heavily-cited journals not only by authors and researchers in Malaysia and America but by those in other countries around the world as well.
While I hope this issue will have particular appeal to new readers across this region and beyond, I am confident that the articles published will raise interest among our regular readership of scholars and postgraduate students elsewhere, thanks to the relevance and diversity of contributions on a region whose future bears central importance to us all.
I would also like to express gratitude to all the contributing authors for their trust, patience, and timely revisions, who have made this issue possible, as well as the reviewers and editors for their professional contribution. Last but not least, the assistance of the journal’s editorial office in Texas, particularly Jessica Whitsitt, Lucy Fernandez, and Judy Meester—my adorable assistants, is greatly appreciated.
We continue to welcome article submissions in all fields of humanities and social sciences. Horizon JHSSR is currently accepting manuscripts for its first 2023 issue based on original qualitative or quantitative research that opens new areas of inquiry and investigation. Empirical articles should demonstrate high rigor and quality. Original research collects and analyses data in systematic ways to present important new research that adds to and advances the debates within the journal’s fields. The editors hope that the authors publishing in this journal can support the noble cause of JHSSR in reaching its goals.
Let me conclude by saying that with the publication of this issue, we are now leaping into the fifth year of publication and have completed four years of successful scholarly publication of Horizon JHSSR. Changing publishing norms and expectations have given rise to a new wave of publishing standards that we’ll be riding into 2023 and beyond. I am confident that the upcoming year will bring yet another challenging year of emerging scholarly articles.
Only time will tell what the next decade has in store, but one thing for sure is we will likely see greater innovation in all areas of scholarly publishing. If you are observing other scholarly publishing trends, please do share your thoughts with the Chief Executive Editor!