This paper investigates whether philanthropic giving decisions and amount of charitable giving are related to firms’ political connections and ownership type. To this end, Chinese firms listed on either the Shenzhen or Shanghai stock exchange between 2004 and 2011 are examined, where government interference in the business sector is prevalent, state ownership structure is dominant, and corporate political connections prevail. Our analyses show a significant and positive relationship between political connections and the likelihood and extent of firm contributions; a significant (...) and negative relationship between state ownership and extent of firm contributions; and a stronger relationship between political connections and corporate philanthropy in non-state-owned firms. These findings with regard to the relationship between corporate giving, political connections, and ownership type have important implications for understanding corporate giving behavior in China and in emerging markets in general. (shrink)

An esssential work of this enigmatic sage, draws from the ancient traditions of Buddhism, Taosim, and Advaita Vedanta.

While it is widely believed that bribery is ubiquitous among Asian firms, few studies have offered systematic evidence of such activities, and the dynamics of bribery in Asian firms have not been well understood. The research reported here used World Business Environment Survey data to examine some distinct characteristics of bribery in Asian firms and to empirically test 10 hypotheses on determinants of bribery. We find that firm characteristics such as firm size, growth rate, and corporate governance are important determinants (...) of bribery activities at the firm level, and that Asian firms are more likely to bribe when faced with fierce market competition, corrupted court systems, convoluted licensing requirements, nontransparent interpretation of laws and regulations, inefficient government service delivery, and high taxes. (shrink)

Corporate governance is increasingly becoming an issue of global concern, not least because we are more and more living in a corporate world that transcends international boundaries. The main purpose and motivation of this study is to determine how the international community should motivate businesses in fostering exemplary corporate governance, therefore eliminating obstacles to ethically exemplary behavior. The empirical approach utilized here has been applied to 161 businesses, both listed and over-the-counter (OTC) companies, with the results indicating that ethical considerations, (...) corporate governance and organizational performance are inextricably linked and, to an extent, demonstrably proportional. This study also indicates a major finding that family management is a significant mediating variable of the ethical considerations of corporate governance and organizational performance. Finally, this study has developed an operational model of ethical considerations of corporate governance as a consultancy aid for businesses that wish to implement and/or boost their performance in respect to corporate governance. (shrink)

As part of a research project on confrontational maneuvering in the spokespersons’ argumentative replies at the regular press conferences of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs between 2015 and 2018, this article analyzes, within the framework of Pragma-Dialectics, how the spokespersons declare a standpoint at issue unallowed or indisputable in order to avoid having to resolve a difference of opinion as it is, according to the questioning journalist, presented by their immediate opponents. Starting from the various rationales the spokespersons presuppose to (...) be understood and regarded acceptable by the questioning journalist and the international general public, three subtypes of declaring a standpoint unallowed or indisputable are differentiated: the “Necessity Rationale” subtype, the “Desirability Rationale” subtype, and the “Feasibility Rationale” subtype. The confrontational maneuvering by declaring a standpoint unallowed or indisputable carried out by the spokespersons is directed both at the immediate opponent and at the international general public. However, it is the international general public that the spokespersons primarily intend to convince. For this purpose, they make in all three subtypes of the unallowed or indisputable declaration an effort to adapt their response to their primary audience’s demand by making strategic choices from the available topical potential and the available presentational devices. (shrink)

Status updates on social network sites (SNSs) as a new medium for people to express “what is on your mind” on the Internet can provide much information. In the current study, we statistically analysed survey data to examine whether individuals utilize impression management in their status updates on SNSs, whether their attempts at impression management are successful, and whether users who post these status updates can infer how others view them based on these contents, whether the status updates posted on (...) SNSs reflect information about users’ Big Five personality traits. The findings suggested that the meta–perception and perceivers’ judgments of all five traits are quite accurate, despite users’ aim to create different impression of most traits in their status updates. This study offers new empirical evidence about the model of interpersonal perception on SNSs and shows that status updates on SNSs can provide considerable information about their authors. (shrink)

Since the bilateral commerce between the USA and China changes greatly and Chinese government continues to reform and delegate power in the economic field, it is of importance to study the Uniform Commercial Code of the USA. The study specifically studies the features of modal verbs in the UCC through the comparison with the United States Code and Frown. With the help of Antconc, the distribution of modal verbs, the modal value of the three sets of corpora are examined and (...) analyzed based on the theory of Halliday’s systemic-functional grammar. The results show that there are significant differences between the three sets of corpora and the three main features of modal verbs in the UCC are: the high frequency use of may, the relatively lower frequency use of legal modal verb shall, and the much higher frequency of must and may not. The seemingly contrary usages within the UCC are discussed and explained with the background of the legislation and the legal thoughts of the major legislator in a sociosemiotic approach. With both the quantitative and qualitative analysis combining the examples, the study hopes to shed light on the related legal translation and further enhance the understanding of the modal verbs in the UCC as well as legal discourse in a more general context. (shrink)

Humans are born with the ability and the need for affection, but communicating affection as a social behavior is historically bound. Based on the digitized books of Google Ngram Viewer from 1960 through 2008, the present research investigated the affectionate communication (AC) in China and in the US, and its changing landscape along with social changes from collectivist to individualistic environments. In particular, we analyzed the frequency in terms of verbal affection (e.g., love you, like you), non-verbal affection (e.g., hug, (...) kiss), and individualism (indicated by the use of first-person singular pronouns, such as I, me, and myself) in Chinese and in American books. The results revealed a convergent increasing trend of AC over the past decades, although the frequency of affection words was lower in Chinese than in American books. Further, the individualism was found to be positively related to the frequency of affection words in both Chinese and American books. These results demonstrate the effect of cultural changes on AC, in that affection exchange becomes popular in adaptation to individualistic urban environments, which provide the evidence about the cross-cultural difference in love expression and the cultural universality of social change in Eastern and Western societies. (shrink)

Nowadays, many countries are promoting entrepreneurial education or the “innovation, entrepreneurship, and creativity” education. Entrepreneurial education can enhance a nation’s economic competitiveness and give rise to new business. At the moment, entrepreneurial courses are mostly designed by school teachers; however, while school teachers may possess business experience, they lack in entrepreneurial experience. Hence, entrepreneurial education courses call for experts with entrepreneurial experience to contribute to course designs and assist with course teachings. Entrepreneurial education not only improves a student’s entrepreneurial skills, (...) but also enables each student to explore their personal characteristics in order to advance the collaboration efficacy of the team as a whole. This study asked six experts with entrepreneurial experience in the information industry to work with school teachers in course design as well as teaching collaboration. The course design starts with three talk sessions given by professionals who share with students their thoughts and experiences in entrepreneurial products, team organization, fund raising, and profit calculation. Following that, each student is asked to share their own thoughts on entrepreneurial products and start searching for team members and planning their project. During the course, each team receives six individual advising sessions from the professionals, with topics ranging from product modeling, feasibility, product market estimation, fundraising methods, and profit calculation. The experts also provide each team member with personal trait analysis. Last but not least, the course invites five management-level industry professionals to play the role of venture capital investor and evaluate each team’s product modeling based on their presentation. This study reviews the grades given by the experts as well as the evaluations given by the three industry managers to assess whether the entrepreneurial education course’s student entrepreneur teams satisfy the industry’s expectations. (shrink)

The sporadic nature of Alzheimer's disease argues for an environmental link that may drive AD pathogenesis; however, the triggering factors and the period of their action are unknown. Recent studies in rodents have shown that exposure to lead during brain development predetermined the expression and regulation of the amyloid precursor protein and its amyloidogenic beta-amyloid product in old age. Here, we report that the expression of AD-related genes [APP, BACE1 ] as well as their transcriptional regulator were elevated in aged (...) monkeys exposed to Pb as infants. Furthermore, developmental exposure to Pb altered the levels, characteristics, and intracellular distribution of Abeta staining and amyloid plaques in the frontal association cortex. These latent effects were accompanied by a decrease in DNA methyltransferase activity and higher levels of oxidative damage to DNA, indicating that epigenetic imprinting in early life influenced the expression of AD-related genes and promoted DNA damage and pathogenesis. These data suggest that AD pathogenesis is influenced by early life exposures and argue for both an environmental trigger and a developmental origin of AD. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 5, June 2020, Page 38-40.

Food safety problems in China, such as deadly tainted milk, have attracted growing attention from a corporate social responsibility perspective. To examine the forces that potentially drive CSR behavior within the Chinese food industry, our study is organized as follows. First, a review is conducted on the unique history of CSR in China as well as some of the major Chinese food scandals that have taken place. The primary drivers of CSR in China that have been suggested in the literature (...) are then summarized. Next, new institutional theory perspectives are drawn upon to analyze three forces that potentially affect the behavior of Chinese firms: coercive isomorphism, mimetic processes, and normative pressures. Based on a questionnaire survey of 164 Chinese managers and employees, the CSR behavior of firms operating in the Chinese food industry is found to only be significantly affected by the institutional factor of normative pressures. The study concludes with its limitations as well as the implications of the findings. (shrink)

本书对自组织理论进行综合性研究,并探讨了关于自然界自组织演化的自然图景和自然观,关于自然科学自组织演化的科学图景和科学观。.

This article supplements the article by Fubin Yang in vol. 39 (2010) of this journal. The goal is to account for the recent surge of interest in process thought in China.

Contrary to its self-proclamation, philosophy started not with wonder, but with time thrown out of joint. It started when the past has become a problem. Such was the historical situation facing Athens when Plato composed his Socratic dialogues. For the philosopher of fifth century BCE, both the immediate past and the past as the Homeric tradition handed down to the citizens had been turned into problematicity itself. In this essay, I will examine the use of philosophy as memory theatre in (...) Plato's Republic. I shall do so by interpreting Book X of the Republic as Plato's “odyssey” and suggest that such Platonic odyssey amounts to an attempt to re-inherit the collapsed spatial and temporal order of the fallen Athenian maritime empire. In my reading, the Odysseus in the Myth of Er comes forth for Plato as the exemplary Soldier-Citizen-Philosopher who must steer between the Scylla of ossified political principles and the whirling nihilism of devalued historical values, personified by Charybdis. I shall further suggest that Plato’s memory theatre also constitutes a device of amnesia and forgetting. The post-Iliadic Odysseus must drink of forgetfulness from the river Lethe, so that the revenant soldier, Er, and those who inherited the broken historical present during and after the Peloponnesian War, would be enabled to remember in a particular way. Such remembrance, I shall conclude, may be what Plato means by philosophy, a memory theatre of psychic regulation and moral economy that sets itself decidedly apart from earlier tragic and comic catharsis. (shrink)

Chinese culture is a lively and active organism. If we are to get to the real image of Chinese culture, we should take as a starting point the first passage of the Chung-yung [Doctrine of the Mean], which expounds its basic principles: "That which Heaven has decreed is called Nature, to follow that Nature is called tao [way] and to cultivate the tao is called instruction." This passage uses three phrases and one breath; these three phrases have a unified nature (...) which cannot be separated and which constitute one long sentence. Because of this, the words as a whole lead people to think of a richly vital and great tree which has the will of Heaven as its roots, human nature as its shoots, the tao as its trunk, and cultural instruction as its branches, leaves, and blossoms. As for the fruit, in terms of the individual, it is the achievement of a completely beautiful character, and in terms of the masses of the people, it is the ordering of the country and the pacification of the realm, the progression from the era of peace under the ancient kings to the age of the Grand Unity [ta-t'ung]. (shrink)