The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between workplace bullying and employee silence as well as its mechanism. This paper collects data from 322 employees of three Chinese enterprises in two waves, with a 2 months interval between the two waves. Moreover, this paper uses confirmatory factor analysis, a bootstrapping mediation test, a simple slope test, and other methods to verify the hypothesis. We find that: WB is positively correlated with ES; psychological safety and affective commitment mediated (...) the relationship between WB and ES, respectively, and these two variables have a chain mediating effect in the above relationship; and a forgiveness climate moderates this chain mediating effect by weakening the negative impact of WB on PS. Our findings can effectively guide organizations to ultimately adjust their management style, pay attention to employees’ cognitive and emotional resources, and formulate some measures to curb WB in organizations. (shrink)

This study explores whether or not a firm’s ownership status, as state-owned enterprise or private-owned enterprise, will influence its likelihood of engaging in illegality in China. We build our arguments on the institution-based view, positing that firms rationally pursue their interests in the distinct institutional context of China. Compared to SOEs, POEs have limited access to institutional resources, the lack of which threatens their development or even survival, forcing them to “break rules” to overcome institutional barriers. We thus suggest that (...) POEs demonstrate a higher propensity to engage in illegal actions than SOEs do. However, if POEs could gain access to more institutional resources, their motivation to engage in illegal actions is likely to decrease. Following this logic, we suggest that political connections and market development will mitigate the likelihood that POEs will engage in illegal actions. We find support for our predictions using evidence from Chinese listed manufacturers. Our research contributes to the literature by revealing the institutional aspects of corporate illegality in transitional economies. (shrink)

This study explored the correlation between mental toughness and physical activity, and the moderation role between PA intention and subsequent behavior among college students and wage earners. Five hundred ninety-one college students aged from 19 to 24 and 285 wage earners aged from 27 to 58 recruited from seven colleges and five cities in China. A Theory of Planned Behavior questionnaire, MT Inventory, and the International PA Questionnaire was completed online. Results showed that attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control (...) explained 46.5 and 38.3% variance in PA intention among college students and wage earners separately. Intention predicted PA behavior significantly among college students and wage earners. Structural equation modeling indicated that the TPB model and the moderation model have an adequate to good fit except the TPB model among wage earners. MT was positively correlated with PA among college students and wage earners and had a significant moderation role in intention-behavior gap among college students and partially affected the transfer of PA intention to behavior among college students. Individuals with high MT had high levels of PA regardless of intention, while PA of those with low MT was low and unstable. Future research should further explore the correlation between intention and PA and the moderation role of MT in different populations using a longitudinal study in order to better understand the correlation between intention and PA, and the transition from intention to PA and better guidance PA intervention to promote PA. (shrink)

Studies have shown that internal whistleblowing could be utilized as an effective way to stop an organization’s unethical behaviors. This study investigates the relationship between ethical leadership and internal whistleblowing by focusing on the mediating role of employee-perceived organizational politics and the moderating role of moral courage. An analysis of data collected at three phases indicates that employee-perceived organizational politics partly mediates the relationship between ethical leadership and internal whistleblowing. Also, moral courage is found to moderate the effect of employee-perceived (...) organizational politics on internal whistleblowing and the indirect effect of ethical leadership on internal whistleblowing via employee-perceived organizational politics. Theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed. (shrink)

Standard animalists are committed to a stringent form of restricted composition, thereby denying the existence of brains, hands, and other proper parts of an organism . One reason for positing this near-nihilistic ontology comes from various challenges to animalism such as the Thinking Parts Argument, the Unity Argument, and the Argument from the Problem of the Many. In this paper, I show that these putatively distinct arguments are all instances of a more general problem, which I call the ‘Too Many (...) Candidates Problem’ . Given my formulation of the problem, it is evident that standard animalists are mistaken in believing that restricting composition is the only solution. I show that there is another option for solving the TMC. The advantage of such a position, which I call ‘unrestricted animalism’, is that it is compatible with unrestricted composition and the existence of brains and other proper parts of an organism. I conclude by sketching several strategies one can take regarding this latter solution to the TMC. (shrink)

The target article by David Alfandre et al. offers a new ethical framework to guide COVID-19 contingency surge planning and response, and applies this ethical framework to three case example...

In trying to establish the view that there are no non-living macrophysical objects, Trenton Merricks has produced an influential argument—the Overdetermination Argument—against the causal efficacy of composite objects. A serious problem for the Overdetermination Argument is the ambiguity in the notion of overdetermination that is being employed, which is due to the fact that Merricks does not provide any theory of causation to support his claims. Once we adopt a plausible theory of causation, viz. interventionism, problems with the Overdetermination will (...) become evident. After laying out the Overdetermination Argument and examining one extant objection to it, I will explicate the relevant aspects of an interventionist theory of causation and provide a characterization of overdetermination that follows from such an account. From this, I will argue that the Causal Principle that undergirds the Overdetermination Argument is false and hence the argument is invalid; and I claim that the only other available characterization of overdetermination would render a key premise in the argument false. Thus, the Overdetermination Argument fails to provide us with any reason to deny the causal efficacy of macrophysical objects, and therefore provides no reason to doubt their existence. (shrink)

At the crossroads of poetry and philosophy: Francis Ponge and Maurice Merleau-Ponty The aim of the present article is to clarify the place of the sensitive dictionary in the work of Francis Ponge and to show how it denotes human's relationship to nature. To achieve that, we will use the body question as a measure of the human–nature relationship and apply the phenomenological method that Ponge took over from Merleau-Ponty. It should be noted that Merleau-Ponty rarely makes reference to Ponge's (...) poems, except for a few incisions in his Causeries. As for Ponge, he uses explicitly only the notion of phenomenological reduction to explain his project of sensitive dictionary. However, we will argue that there are many similarities of thought between the philosopher and the poet, which are still unexplored. (shrink)

Governing boards utilize executive compensation contracts in an attempt to align executive actions with corporate goals. The objective is to ensure that executive performance provides value to the organization in terms of successful outcomes. A key performance criteria typically specified in CEO compensation contracts is earnings targets. However, using earnings as a performance evaluation may be problematic because some firms exhibit robust and sustained earnings over time (high earnings persistence), and other firms, such as high growth oriented firms, exhibit weak (...) or sometimes negative earnings over time (low earnings persistence). Our study reveals that the effect of high earnings persistence results in firms that focus more heavily on cash compensation (salary and bonus) rather than on equity compensation (stock options, etc.) to compensate executive performance. Additionally, for firms characterized by low earnings persistence, our study indicates that cash flows from operations act as a supplementary performance measure to accounting earnings, and become increasingly important as a means to justify executive cash compensation. (shrink)

This research explores how consumers respond to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in China with a multiproduct, comparative survey. Empirical results conclude that (1) Chinese consumers, who show a high level of awareness and trust of CSR, are more likely to transform a good CSR record into positive corporate evaluation, product association, and purchase intention; (2) Consumer responses to CSR vary across different product categories. Those firms selling experience products (vs. search and credence products) are more likely to gain consumers' positive (...) product associations and purchase support through CSR practices; and (3) The relationships between consumer demographics and their CSR responses are not linear, and those consumers with a middle level of age and income would respond to CSR more positively. Managerial implications are provided. (shrink)

PurposeAsian Americans comprise 21% of matriculating medical students in the United States but little is known about their mental health. With the growing focus on addressing the mental health of medical students, this systematic, nationwide survey assesses the relationship between anxiety and depression symptoms and coping skills among Asian American medical students.Materials and methodsA survey tool comprised of Patient Health Questionnaire-9, General Anxiety Disorder-7, and questions related to coping were emailed to members of the Asian Pacific American Medical Students Association (...) enrolled in a United States medical school during the 2016–2017 academic year. We evaluated associations between anxiety and coping as well as depression and coping.ResultsA total of 511 Asian American medical students completed the survey. Anxiety symptoms were positively correlated with an increase in negative coping skills. Depressive symptoms were not correlated with an increase in negative coping skills.ConclusionProfessionals and medical schools that aim to improve the mental health of medical students should be aware of the needs of specific populations. Asian American students who experience anxiety were more likely to utilize avoidant or negative coping strategies. In addition, Asian American students who experience depressive symptoms were not more likely to utilize these negative coping strategies. Further research must be done to evaluate the factors that influence the use of negative coping strategies to better address anxiety within the Asian American medical student population. (shrink)

This paper first shows that some versions of the logic R of Relevance do not satisfy the relevance principle introduced by Anderson and Belnap, the principle of which is generally accepted as the principle for relevance. After considering several possible (but defective) improvements of the relevance principle, this paper presents a new relevance principle for (three versions of) R, and explains why this principle is better than the original and others.

This study seeks to understand how consumers make unethical decisions and how unethical consumer behavior is formed in a relational society. By taking a relational interactive perspective and adopting a grounded theory approach, we have developed a theoretical framework for examining UCB’s developmental process in a relational society. The framework reveals 4 levels and 12 paths of UCB formation. Importantly, this study finds that UCB in a relational society is influenced by guanxi-oriented social culture so deeply that it cannot be (...) considered the result of a purely individual behavior choice. (shrink)

The global signal, which was once regarded as a nuisance of functional magnetic resonance imaging, has been proven to convey valuable neural information. This raised the following question: what is a GS represented in local brain regions? In order to answer this question, the GS topography was developed to measure the correlation between global and local signals. It was observed that the GS topography has an intrinsic structure characterized by higher GS correlation in sensory cortices and lower GS correlation in (...) higher-order cortices. The GS topography could be modulated by individual factors, attention-demanding tasks, and conscious states. Furthermore, abnormal GS topography has been uncovered in patients with schizophrenia, major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, and epilepsy. These findings provide a novel insight into understanding how the GS and local brain signals coactivate to organize information in the human brain under various brain states. Future directions were further discussed, including the local-global confusion embedded in the GS correlation, the integration of spatial information conveyed by the GS, and temporal information recruited by the connection analysis. Overall, a unified psychopathological framework is needed for understanding the GS topography. (shrink)

Social Trinitarianism is a family of views that bear some resemblance to each other in a way that distinguishes them from other Trinitarian accounts. In this paper, we address recent objections by Carl Mosser against ST, objections which have not received much attention by defenders of ST. Mosser claims that proponents of ST offer a narrative that is historically inaccurate, employs concepts of personhood and perichoresis that are incompatible, upholds dubious hermeneutical assumptions, and is unable to preclude Mormon theology within (...) its fold. We argue that all four criticisms fail, especially for a specific version of ST: Perichoretic Monotheism. (shrink)

It can be a great challenge for second language learners to comprehend meanings that are implied in utterances rather than the surface meaning of what was said. Moreover, L2 learners’ attitudes toward pragmatic learning are unknown. This mixed-methods study investigates L2 learners’ ability to comprehend conversational implicatures. It also explores their beliefs about and intentions to develop this ability using Ajzen’s theory of planned behavior. A total of 498 freshmen from a public university in China participated in the study. Data (...) were collected using a web-based test, stimulated recall tasks and semi-structured interviews. Results show that the participants differed in recognizing the intended meanings. Complicated factors account for the variations. In addition to the types of implicature, learners’ beliefs about developing pragmatic comprehension also influence their learning intention, and subsequent performance. These beliefs include learners’ multi-layered, complex attitudes toward the outcomes of pragmatic learning, perceived self-efficacy beliefs regarding language proficiency and L2 cultural knowledge, actual behavioral control over opportunities and resources for pragmatic learning, and perceptions of less social pressure on pragmatic learning. The use of TPB may help language teachers and test designers to understand learners’ beliefs about L2 pragmatic learning in the English as a foreign language context. Understanding the factors influencing learners’ intention will help design more effective teaching curricula that may integrate pragmatic instruction and testing in the future. (shrink)

In China, many private entrepreneurs have obtained political offices in the government. In this study, we argue that Chinese private entrepreneurs who are formally connected with government institutions, compared to other Chinese private entrepreneurs, tend to contribute more to philanthropic causes not only for instrumental concerns but also out of altruistic values. We submit this argument to an empirical test through a secondary data analysis of a representative sample of Chinese entrepreneurs collected by a coalition of government and industry groups. (...) The results of this analysis show that politically connected entrepreneurs are more likely to make major philanthropic donations and, at the same time, hold a stronger sense of the responsibility for doing so. The most important contribution of this research is that it reveals the ethical basis of the philanthropic activities of Chinese private entrepreneurs, especially those with political connections, that has been unappreciated by extant literature. (shrink)

A new venture barely makes a profit in its initial stage, and its success depends on innovation. Innovation is related to the work environment, and the innovation behavior of employees is of great significance to the performance improvement of new venture. Based on the previous research, in this study, hypotheses on the correlation between work environment, employee innovation behavior, and corporate performance are put forward first. Then, with team cooperation, organizational incentive, leadership support, sufficient resources, and work pressure as the (...) factors of the work environment, the bosses, middle and senior managers involved in entrepreneurship, and the main members of the entrepreneurial team of 202 newly established enterprises in developed regions are surveyed online or in scene. Multivariate hierarchical regression analysis is performed to analyze the data collected from the questionnaire. The results show that the effective recovery rate of the questionnaire is 86.4%; the number of traditional enterprises is 108, and that of R&D enterprises is 68 ; teamwork, leadership support, and work pressure are all correlated with employees’ innovative behavior ; employee innovation behavior is positively correlated with enterprise performance ; the working environment and employee innovation behavior promote enterprise performance ; and the working environment affects the relationship between employee innovation behavior and enterprise performance. The study theoretically enriches the research on the relationship between innovation behavior, work environment, and enterprise performance of new ventures. In practice, it is suggested that start-up enterprises provide good working environment for employees and attach importance to innovation activities at the individual level of employees, which provides useful guidance and reference for the development of Chinese start-up enterprises. (shrink)

Stanovich & West (S&W), following all relevant others, define the rationality debate in terms of human performance on certain well-known problems. Unfortunately, these problems are very easy. For that reason, if System 2 cognition is identified with the capacity to solve them, such cognition will not enable humans to meet the cognitive demands of our technological society. Other profound issues arise as well.

Leading Chinese and Western philosophers work alongside one another to explore the writings of one of the twentieth century’s most perplexing and original ethical and metaphysical thinkers. Comparative discussion of Lévinas on phenomenology, ethics, metaphysics and political philosophy within European philosophy and with Chinese philosophy Innovative accounts of Lévinasian themes of surpassing phenomenology, post-Heideggerian philosophy, the philosophy of saintliness, transcendence and immanence, time and sensibility, desire, death, political philosophy, the subject, and the space of communicativity.

Since 1952, Spanish has been included as a Degree in the Foreign Language Studies in the higher education system of China. The number of Spanish students has gradually increased and, until March 2020, with 6 Universities recently approved by the Chinese Ministry of Education, there are 102 Chinese universities that teach Spanish as a university degree. In 2017, the MOE of the People's Republic of China published the Curriculum Plan in the Higher Secondary Schools, which incorporated the teaching of Spanish (...) as a teaching option along with other languages, such as English, Japanese, Russian, German, and French. In the following year, during the Chinese President's state visit to Spain, a cooperation agreement was signed between the Royal Spanish Academy and SISU, under which a RAE-SISU Joint Research Centre was established. This study aims to publicize the situation of Spanish teaching in China, showing how a language can become a cultural and language tourism resource for Spain. An empirical study of student profiles was carried out at one of the most prestigious universities with reference to Spanish teaching in China, SISU. The data were obtained through primary sources employing a survey sent to the Chinese students studying their bachelor's degree of Spanish Philology, obtaining a sample of 159 students. The results revealed information on the studies carried out, also reviewing the most popular universities among the Chinese students in Spain, their stay period, and the destination image that the students have. The data will serve to show the opportunities for Spain as a destination for language tourism for the Chinese market. One of the implications of this study would be that it helps to explain how Spain can design a product for a niche market that demands Spain as a destination for language and cultural tourism. (shrink)

Conceptual metaphor is characterized by two important features—systematicity and complexity. This article is primarily concerned with IDEA metaphors in Chinese and attempts to explore how systematicity and complexity have structured the IDEA metaphorical hierarchical system. Four principal IDEA metaphors are investigated, namely, “IDEAS ARE PEOPLE”, “IDEAS ARE PLANTS”, “IDEAS ARE OBJECTS”, and “IDEAS ARE FOOD”. It is found that the relationship between metaphors and human thought is systematic as well as complex and that systematicity and complexity of IDEA metaphors intertwine (...) with each other. (shrink)

Leading Chinese and Western philosophers work alongside one another to explore the writings of one of the twentieth century’s most perplexing and original ethical and metaphysical thinkers. Comparative discussion of Lévinas on phenomenology, ethics, metaphysics and political philosophy within European philosophy and with Chinese philosophy Innovative accounts of Lévinasian themes of surpassing phenomenology, post-Heideggerian philosophy, the philosophy of saintliness, transcendence and immanence, time and sensibility, desire, death, political philosophy, the subject, and the space of communicativity.

Motivation has an effect on the rate and success of second language (L2) learning. However, little is known about its role in students’ levels of L2 pragmatic awareness. This study investigated whether and to what extent students’ L2 motivation influences their pragmatic awareness. A total of 498 Chinese university students completed a two-part web-based survey (an appropriateness judgement task and a motivation questionnaire), of whom 12 were subsequently interviewed. The quantitative results show that pragmatic awareness correlates positively with attitudes towards (...) the L2 community and the intended learning efforts. Moreover, a model combining the intended learning efforts, attitudes towards the L2 community and attitudes towards learning English can significantly predict pragmatic awareness. The analysis of semi-structured interviews reveals a mismatch between students’ immediate needs when learning English and outcomes of pragmatic acquisition, which may contribute to the absent correlation between overall levels of L2 motivation and pragmatic awareness. (shrink)

This article investigates Kripke-style semantics for two sorts of logics: pseudo-Boolean and weak-Boolean logics. As examples of the first, we introduce G3 and S53pB.G3 is the three-valued Dummett–Gödel logic; S53pB is the modal logic S5 but with its orthonegation replaced by a pB negation. Examples of wB logic are G3wB and S53wB.G3wB is G3 with a wB negation in place of its pB negation; S53wB is S5 with a wB negation replacing its orthonegation. For each system, we provide a three-valued (...) Kripke-style semantics with and without star operation . We prove soundness and completeness theorems in each case. Note that wB logics may be equivalent to logics with Baaz’s projection Δ. We finally introduce the G3 and the S53pB both with Δ and show that they are equivalent to G3wB and S53wB, respectively. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis study examined the performance of sixth graders in Hong Kong on a number sense three-tier test and identified their possible misconceptions about number sense. The NSTTT compri...

The cement industry is one of the most energy-intensive industries and among the largest CO2 emitters. Cement industry emissions in China have attracted particular attention, due to the country’s rapid growth. Yet few local Chinese cement companies have corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs, and even fewer have environmentally related CSR programs. This paper studies the environmentally related CSR practices in mainland China of two companies: Lafarge, a multinational cement company, and Shui On, a Hong Kong-based construction company and developer. We (...) are interested in examining if there are differences in their environmentally related CSR practices, especially those related to emissions, in industrialized countries and Hong Kong on the one hand andin mainland China on the other—given that environmental regulations on the mainland are lax and an awareness of global climate change is largely nonexistent. Our intention is to investigate the influence of the CSR practices of multinational enterprises (MNEs) on the local Chinese cement industry, because they could be regarded as an effective vehicle to improve CSR awareness and practice in the Chinese cement industry and to help alleviate the industry’s impact on global climate change. We found that beneficial knowledge transfer from MNEs to local companies has not gone beyond improving production technology and management methods to the point of influencing CO2 emissions. Lafarge China and Shui On Cement announced a joint venture partnership during the course of our case study, and we examine whether this venture may have an impact on emission-related CSR practices in the Chinese cement industry. (shrink)

Accurate prediction of battery quality using early-cycle data is critical for battery, especially lithium battery in microgrid networks. To effectively predict the lifetime of lithium-ion batteries, a time series classification method is proposed that classifies batteries into high-lifetime and low-lifetime groups using features extracted from early-cycle charge-discharge data. The proposed method is based on a smooth localized complex exponential model that can extract battery features from time-frequency maps and self-adaptively select the time-frequency resolution to maximize the discrepancy of data from (...) the two groups. A smooth localized complex exponential periodogram is then calculated to obtain the time-frequency decomposition of the whole time series data for further classification. The experimental results show that, by using battery features extracted from the first 128 charge-discharge processes, the proposed method can accurately classify batteries into high-lifetime and low-lifetime groups, with classification accuracy and specificity as high as 95.12% and 92.5%, respectively. (shrink)

In this paper, the notions of Fα-categorical and Gα-categorical structures are introduced by choosing the isomorphism such that the function itself or its graph sits on the α-th level of the Ershov hierarchy, respectively. Separations obtained by natural graphs which are the disjoint unions of countably many finite graphs. Furthermore, for size-bounded graphs, an easy criterion is given to say when it is computable-categorical and when it is only G2-categorical; in the latter case it is not Fα-categorical for any recursive (...) ordinal α. (shrink)

Individuals with narcissism are, by definition, self-centered, focus on self-benefit, and demonstrate less prosocial behaviors. Trusting strangers is risky, as it can result in exploitation and non-reciprocation. Thus, the trust may be antagonistic to narcissism. However, how narcissists make the choice to trust remains to be elucidated. The current study examined 44 participants playing as trustors in one-shot trust games, and their electroencephalograms were recorded. Individuals high in narcissism exhibited less trust toward strangers, especially following gaining feedback for their trust. (...) In addition, narcissists exhibited a larger N2 following distrust and a stronger negatively-valanced difference in feedback-related negativity after trustee feedback. Our findings provide insights into how individuals with narcissism trust strangers. The results also shed light on the temporal course of brain activity involved in trust decision-making and outcome evaluation in individuals with narcissism. (shrink)