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Crystallization calls for the interaction between mind, body and spirit. While the knowledge of the mind is how we are used to see knowledge creation, the body influences the co‐creation and the embodied experience between the researcher and the participant as a human instrument for understanding. Spirit refers to the sensitivity to ethics in preventing the reaffirmation of the stereotypical narratives. The purpose of the article is to demonstrate how body and spirit in addition to mind can provide alternative insights on a research topic.

The current study focuses on the body and spirit. Self‐reflective empirical narratives from China and India evidence interpretive findings that suggest that crystallization help us to create an emic understanding of those studied and affirms our commitment to them.

The interpretive findings demonstrate that with help of body and spirit research can move towards indigenous findings of the research site that can be put into action to improve the life of those studied. Two new quality criteria are established to trustworthiness namely indigenousness and action orientation.

The paper contributes to research methodology by demonstrating how in addition to mind generated findings reflections from body and spirit open new avenues to additional findings. It is proposed that knowledge from body and spirit is particularly important in Asian settings because of the Asian culture's holistic view on life and tolerance for multiple truths.

The purpose of this paper is to study the effects of the choice of database and data retrieval methods on the research performance of a number of selected Asian universities from 33 countries using two different indicators (publication volume and citation count) and three subject fields (energy, environment and materials) during the period 2005‐2009.

To determine the effect of the choice of database, Scopus and Web of Science databases were queried to retrieve the publications and citations of the top ten Asian universities in three subject fields. In ascertaining the effect of data retrieval methods, the authors proposed a new data retrieval method called Keyword‐based Data Retrieval (KDR), which uses relevant keywords identified by independent experts to retrieve publications and their citations of the top 30 Asian universities in the Environment field from the entire Scopus database. The results were then compared with those retrieved using the Conventional Data Retrieval (CDR) method.

The Asian university ranking order is strongly affected by the choice of database, indicator, and the data retrieval method used. The KDR method yields many more publications and citation counts than the CDR method, shows better understanding of the university ranking results, and retrieves publications and citations in source titles outside those classified by the database. Moreover the publications found by the KDR method have a multidisciplinary research focus.

The paper concludes that KDR is a more suitable methodology to retrieve data for measuring university research performance, particularly in an environment where universities are increasingly engaging in multidisciplinary research.

This paper aims to test the differences in the consumer complaint behaviour of Asian and non‐Asian hotel guests in terms of culture dimensions. It also aims to examine the relationship between demographic factors (age, gender and education level) and complaint behaviour.

The paper adopts the Hofstede's typology of culture as a framework to investigate cultural differences and demographic characteristics in the complaint behaviour of hotel guests. A face‐to‐face interview survey is conducted to collect data in this research. Data are then analyzed by various statistical methods such as two‐way contingency table analysis, non‐parametric Mann‐Whitney U and Chi‐square tests.

The survey reveals that older complainants tend to resort to “public actions,” but people with a higher level of education tend not to complain publicly. In addition, Asian guests are less likely to complain to the hotel for fear of “losing face” and are less familiar with the channels for complaint than non‐Asian guests. They are more likely than non‐Asian guests to take private complaint action, such as making negative word‐of‐mouth comments. The findings also indicate that there is a significant relationship between “complaint encouraging factor” and respondents' nationality and between “effective complaint handling method” and respondents' nationality.

Few studies have focused on the cultural differences in complaint behaviour of Asians and non‐Asian hotel guests in the hotel industry. The result will be most valuable in assisting hotel managers and marketers to better understand the customer complaint behaviour and intentions both from the Asian and non‐Asian contexts, and help formulate strategies and tactics to effectively manage the customer complaint.

In this editorial introduction to the special issue, the authors lay out the problem of inadequate qualitative research about markets and consumers in the vast demographic‐economic space represented by Asia and present an integrative view of six articles that tackle this problematique. The aim of this editorial and the rest of the special issue is not so much to redress the imbalance of inadequate qualitative work on Asia's markets and consumers, but rather to begin to address the problem and start offering directions and suggestions that may make strides toward addressing it.

This editorial introduction presents the perspectives of the special issue editors and introduces the six articles that are part of this issue. It is a conceptual piece.

While the authors' main goal here is to summarize and introduce the work of the authors featured in this issue, they also strive to present a meta‐theoretic frame to guide future similar efforts.

The efforts of the authors in this special issue should serve as demonstrable evidence that interesting, well‐executed qualitative research on Asian markets and consumers is possible and publishable, and motivate other researchers – particularly those based in Asia – to undertake further such work.

Qualitative work on Asian markets and consumers, particularly if produced organically in Asia, would help in a rounder and more insightful understanding of this demographically enormous, culturally rich and economically rising space.

The value of this introductory piece lies in its integration of the articles in the issue, and in presenting a meta‐theoretic frame on the central problematique of inadequate qualitative research on markets and consumers of Asia.

This paper aims to explore the holistic picture of sustainability curricula in Asian higher education.

Content analysis was conducted based on Asian management education for sustainability in higher education. Online courses arrangement, teaching methods, instructors’ educational background and cross-referencing data between triple bottom line and sustainability courses have been investigated.

The paper provides empirical insights about the current state of sustainability education in Asia. The results show that there is an opportunity for interdisciplinary integration, as there are imbalanced sustainability courses offered by business, science and engineering schools. It also suggests that Asian universities should add an international connection and active promotion of sustainability education on their Web sites.

Findings are based on web-based sustainability -related courses. Future research could apply method of case study to do a deeper study.

The paper provides an overview of Asian management education for sustainability and curricula analysis through our research, and that this will further assist in the development of interdisciplinary integration in Asian management education for sustainability.

This paper is the first attempt to gain better understanding of sustainability-related courses offered in leading business/management colleges in Asia.

Owing to the fact that the over-the-counter (OTC) market has no organized exchange, the options traded in the OTC market are more likely to be exposed to credit risk, Asian options being one of them. In this chapter we first discuss the pricing of geometric Asian options and the Black–Scholes options model subject to credit risk. We then combine the two models to derive a closed-form formula for pricing a geometric Asian option subject to the credit risk. The numerical analysis reveals that other pricing formulae existing in the literature can cause serious pricing errors when there is a possibility of default in reality.

The purpose of this review is to offer a summary of visual and projective research methods that have been applied or may be applied fruitfully in an Asian context. Examples are provided and a delineation of the strengths and weaknesses of the methods is made.

This is a review article covering a number of different relevant methods and briefly reviewing studies that have been conducted in Asia using these methods.

The paper reviews five different uses of qualitative visual and projective methods in Asian consumer and market research: as archival data for analysis; as direct stimuli for data collection; as projective stimuli for data collection; as a means for recording qualitative data; and as a means for presenting qualitative findings.

It is suggested that Asia contains a rich visual culture and that the research techniques reviewed offer compelling means for enhancing data collection, data analysis, and findings presentations from qualitative market and consumer research in Asia.

The paper brings together a diverse array of prior research illustrating the potential of the methods reviewed. In addition to discussing this research a number of references are provided for those wishing to examine these methods in greater detail and apply them to their own research.

In this editorial viewpoint for the special issue, the authors identify a need to deepen our understanding of the important role that Asian consumer culture plays in the global marketplace of the twenty-first century.

This editorial article discusses the emergence of Asian consumer culture, offers an integrative summary of the special issue and develops several key directions for future research.

The authors observe that Asian consumer culture is not a coherent knowledge tradition that can be described merely as “collectivist” or “Confucianist” in nature. Rather, it is better understood as the confluence of cultural traditions that are characterized by inner differentiation and complexity, various transformations and mutual influences in the Asian region and beyond.

Although Asia’s economic growth has received much recent attention, extant theory regarding Asian consumer culture is still in its infancy. The authors highlight important developments in this area that show the path for future work.

The authors make three contributions to the emerging scholarly interest in Asian consumer culture. First, the authors respond to recent calls to increase the use of qualitative methods in Asian contexts. Second, the authors draw attention to the cultural complexities and mutual influences that characterize contemporary Asian consumer cultures, and subcultures in the Asian region and beyond, through the selection of articles for this special issue. Finally, the authors draw the threads together to provide directions for future research in this area.

Steel price uncertainty exposes pipeline projects that are inherently capital intensive to the risk of cost overruns. The current study proposes a hedging methodology for tackling steel pipeline price risk by deploying Asian option contracts that address the shortcomings of current risk mitigation strategies.

A stepwise methodology is introduced, which uses a closed-form formula as an Asian option valuation method for calculating this total expenditure. The scenario analysis of three price trends examines whether or not the approach is beneficial to users. The sensitivity analysis then has been conducted using the financial option Greeks to assess the effects of changes in volatility in the total price of the option contracts. The total price of the Asian options was then compared with those of the European and American options.

The results demonstrate that the Asian option expenditure was about 1.87% of the total cost of the case study project. The scenario analysis revealed that, except for when the price followed a continuous downward pattern, the use of this type of financial instrument is a practical approach for steel pipeline price risk management.

This approach is founded on a well-established financial options theory and elucidates how pipeline project participants can deploy Asian option contracts to safeguard against steel price fluctuations in practice.

Although the literature exists about the theory and application of financial derivative instruments for risk management in other sectors, their application to the construction industry is infrequent. In the proposed methodology, all participants involved in fixed price pipeline projects readily surmount the risk of exposure to material price fluctuations.