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This chapter highlights the characteristics of Asia through the analysis of policy-related documents by five donor countries, namely Japan, South Korea, China, India and Thailand. It will also examine the roles played by regional bodies such as the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO) and ASPBAE (the Asia South Pacific Association for Basic and Adult Education) as the horizontal channels influencing aid policies in respective countries. Together with the analysis of the national and organizational policies, the regional process of building consensus on the post-2015 agenda is examined, with a particular focus on the Asia-Pacific Regional Education Conference (APREC) held in August 2014.

The analysis reveals that the region has two faces: one is imaginary and the other is functional. There is a common trend across Asian donors to refer to their historical ties with regions and countries to which they provide assistance and their traditional notions of education and development. They highlight Asian features in contrast to conventional aid principles and approaches based on the Western value system, either apparently or in a muted manner. In this sense, the imagined community of Asia with common cultural roots is perceived by the policymakers across the board.

At the same time, administratively, the importance of the region as a stage between the national and global levels is recognized increasingly in the multilateral global governance structure. With this broadened participatory structure, as discussed in the chapter ‘Post-EFA Global Discourse: The Process of Shaping the Shared View of the ‘Education Community’’, the expected function of the region to transmit the norms and requests from the global level and to collect and summarize national voices has increased.

The purpose of this study is to examine likeable executional techniques in advertising across five Asian countries and their impact on purchase intentions.

A total of 1,000 urban young adults in five Asian countries (HK, China, Indonesia, Thailand and India) were telephone interviewed on their thoughts about the TV advertisement/s that they liked, product that was being advertised and purchase intention. Their responses were summarised into seven likeable executional techniques and product categories.

There is not a specific likeable executional technique that influences a purchase in four of the five countries. India is the only country where significant but weak overall model fit observed. These results demonstrate that, while there are differences among the countries, people in the same cohort broadly share the same values. For product categories, our findings demonstrate that product nature may moderate cultural influence on advertising effectiveness.

International advertisers who are vying for a share of the largely‐untapped Asian market can benefit by understanding the target country's cultural values and using it as a guideline for creating effective executional techniques in advertising.

This study extends the existing knowledge which demonstrates that, in Asia, persuasive executional techniques differ depending on the product category.

The purpose of this research is to understand the importance of value orientation on conspicuous consumption in the youth market segment in Southeast Asia. In particular, the focus is to understand three different types of value orientation (specifically cultural values, material values and religious values) and its effects on conspicuous consumption behaviour.

An integrative theoretical model is proposed based on Hofstede's cultural dimension, the materialism value scale and religious commitments to predict the relationship for the value orientations of Generation Y's (Gen Y's) conspicuous consumption behaviour. The data was collected from undergraduate students enrolled in general education courses in three universities in Malaysia. Using cross-sectional data, 262 sets of valid questionnaires were used to perform the statistical analysis for the measurement and structural model using partial least squares equation modelling (PLS-SEM) path modelling.

We position our study by raising the pertinent question of “Seriously, Conspicuous Consumption?” to establish a clear understanding of whether Malaysian Gen Y individuals are conspicuous consumers and, if they are, which of the three values matter the most. In order to answer the question of whether Malaysian Gen Y engages in conspicuous consumption, we arrive at an understanding that, given multi-value orientations, conspicuous behaviour can be motivated and impacted by one value orientation and constrained by others. Hence, value orientation offers an insightful explanation of one specific type of consumer behaviour in the context of Asia as an emerging global market. Thus, our study provides two key theoretically significant findings. In general, our findings provide insights into how the multi-value orientations (i.e. cultural, material and religious orientations) contribute to several bodies of literature—namely, conspicuous consumption, international marketing and transcultural marketing. The results revealed that collectivism and materialism were positively and significantly related to conspicuous consumption. Uncertainty avoidance, although significant, had a negative relationship with conspicuous consumption. The other values (masculinity, power distance and religious values) were not significantly related to conspicuous consumption.

Purchasing luxury goods is becoming an emergent phenomenon in Asia, particularly among young consumers. This paper provides marketing managers, particularly brand owners, with practical and realisable examples of how to plan and execute their marketing plans. A more profound understanding of this relationship may also serve to aid marketing managers in devising more focused marketing strategies and thus allocate marketing resources more efficiently. Hence, marketers could develop an effective communication strategy so that the target consumers will be aware of their goods because the purchase of luxury goods is likely to be motivated by social, cultural and personal factors.

This article examines the impact of value orientations on conspicuous consumption behaviour in Malaysian Gen Y consumers. The model proposed in this study is useful in predicting conspicuous consumption among Gen Y. By identifying the factors influencing this emergent type of consumer behaviour, global retailers will be informed about this particular market segmentation in terms of its preferences and desires. The article discusses the research findings and concludes with managerial implications and limitations.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of marketing communication factors (specifically advertising viewing and responses to marketing promotions) as well as social influence factors (specifically influences from peers and media celebrities) on adolescents' endorsement of materialistic values in Singapore. As the Asian culture is said to be collective when compared with the Western culture, it is expected that social relations, both personal and celebrity‐mediated, play an important role in the establishment of consumption values.

A survey of 190 high school students’ aged 13 to 18 was conducted using a structured questionnaire. Constructs were measured using established scales.

The paper finds imitation of media celebrities and perceived peer influence were positive predictors of materialistic consumption values while marketing communication factors were not significant predictors.

The data in the paper came from a convenience sample of one high school and may not be representative of adolescents in Singapore.

The paper found that in fact advertising regulation may not impact adolescent levels of materialism to the degree previously assumed. Visual literacy courses may be a better strategy of reducing the level of materialism through discouraging the desire to imitate media celebrities. In turn, this training and heightened awareness could potentially help to diminish some of the negative peer influences in relation to materialism. Media educators should help young consumers to reflect on how their purchase decisions can be influenced by their social relations, including both personal interaction and celebrity‐media communications, while simultaneously providing them with the tools to critically assess the images they view.

The paper offers insights about the complex patterns of how consumption values develop in an Asian society. It is also a pioneer work on the study of the influence of media celebrities on materialistic value orientations.

This article examines how cultural values influence managerial styles. Differences between Western and Asian cultures are discussed. Managerial practices in companies in Hong Kong that are run by both local Chinese and by Western management are discussed, and compared with American and Japanese style of management. The relative importance of cultural values and the level of industrialisation in the society is considered, and the influence of the level of technology on management style, with particular reference to changes that have taken place in management of Hong Kong enterprises as they have developed, is also discussed. The general conclusion appears to be that the management style is a function of the level of industrialisation, but is tempered by cultural characteristics.

Despite contrary evidence, much management research treats Asians as culturally homogeneous. This study seeks to explore how managers from four Asian nations differ in conflict management and whether observed differences are linked to cultural attitudes.

A questionnaire assessed conflict management practices and cultural attitudes of managers from four nations with considerable historical, geographical, and economic differences. ANOVA and ANCOVA were used to test hypotheses about groups differences in preference for three conflict management styles – competing integrating, and avoiding – controlling for differences in demographics and cultural attitudes.

Statistically significant differences were found on all three of the conflict management styles, although the hypotheses were only partly supported. Controlling for differences in demographics and cultural attitudes had little impact on the main findings. Some similarities among the nationalities were found: “integrating” was the most preferred style, and showed the least variation, among the groups. However, there was less similarity among the nationalities regarding “competing” and “avoiding”.

Since the hypotheses – based largely on national culture differences among the nationalities – were only partly supported, future research should attempt to identify variables that better explain differences among nationalities in conflict management style.

The information on conflict management style preferences in these four nations will be valuable to those wishing to do business there. Further, refuting the common assumption of cultural homogeneity among Asians will better prepare Westerners for doing business elsewhere in Asia.

This paper demonstrates that national differences in conflict management style were not based on demographic differences in the sample or differences in cultural attitudes.

The purpose of this eight-country study is to examine what drives performance at the individual worker’s level and compare the explanatory power of such drivers between emerging, newly developed and developed markets around the globe.

The study combines established behavioural theory developed in a Western context with three factors anticipated to be most relevant in Asia (competitive attitude, willingness to serve and speed) as drivers of workforce performance. Four thousand working and middle-class respondents from eight countries were sampled. The associations were tested using structural equation modelling, and workforce performance was measured using univariate analysis.

Three country clusters emerged from the research: emerging economies in Asia (Indonesia, India), where the three factors powerfully explain performance; “Confucian orbit countries” (China, Japan, Korea), where the factors explain 81-93 per cent; and highly developed Western countries (the USA, the UK, Germany), where the factors account for only 20-29 per cent.

As well as providing a framework for modelling workforce performance, particularly in Asian countries, the findings indicate that workforce performance should be incorporated in performance indexes. The findings as to which drivers best explain workforce performance in each country can inform workforce recruitment and management, as well as the location of businesses and outsourcing.

For the first time, the study addresses the anomaly between economic growth and development experienced by Asian countries and their relatively low rankings in global competitiveness indexes by making the link between workforce performance and country performance.

The term success in this paper is measured by the yardstick of both material and non‐material ones. This study attempts to examine the success story behind Malaysia's development with evidences drawn from both the conventionally used criteria together with the Islamically motivated universal values and ethos. Of the conventional factors, political consolidation of the first Prime Minister in the presence of dynamic enterprising ability of the Chinese as well as South Indian Community based on family values played a pivotal role in creating a foundation for development. The majority Malays, on the other hand, being the victim of colonial legacies and multi‐farious historical phenomenon were by‐passed. Subsequently, the big bargain of 1957, the year of independence by way of securing Malay special rights in the constitution laid the foundation for new strategy of development based on distributive justice. The New Economic Policy with the twin objetives of eradicating poverty and restructuring society could not have been implemented in the absence of universal values such as loyalty, tolerance, sympathy, caring and sharing being demonstrated by all the races regardless of socio‐economic and political superiority. This paper thus argues that from the very beginning the committed and pragmatic leadership, policy continuation, policy dynamism and policy flexibility, among many others, acted as a catalyst for the success story behind Malaysia's development.

In the aftermath of the global economic crisis, the pursuit of new perspectives and different growth models is imperative. One of the most significant trends of our time is the rise of Asia in the world economy. After centuries of Western economic dominance, China, India, and the rest of the East, alongside emerging economies more broadly, are beginning to challenge the West for positions of global industry leadership and underlying managerial philosophies and perspectives. In this paper, I review some key philosophical insights from Asia that have underpinned the success of many Asian businesses for generations, hoping that it will encourage more efforts – conceptually, theoretically, and empirically – leading the discourse on fresh new perspectives on business in emerging economies in general, and on Asian management in particular.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the fact that investors in the Asian region are shifting their investments from one country to another, in this case, from India to Dubai, in the real estate and infrastructure industry. While countries compete to get investments, competing “values” at the workplace may also influence in attracting the investments. This paper makes use of competing values framework (CVF) to understand this phenomenon and to provide research evidence about differences in workplace cultures in India and Dubai. It is proposed that differences in workplace cultures, besides other non-cultural factors, may influence this phenomenon of shifting of investments between the two countries.

It is an inductive study to investigate why investors are shifting investments from India to Dubai in the real estate and infrastructure industry. This paper further explores literature to support our claim that workplace cultural differences may be responsible for the shifting investments. Next, this paper identifies the instrument called organizational culture assessment instrument using CVF to collect data and plot the cultural profiles at the two country sites.

The findings suggest that workplace cultures in the two country locations are different and could be a reason for Indians to shift their investments to Dubai in the real estate and infrastructure sector. There are both cultural and non-cultural factors, which are responsible for the shift in global investments.

The study has several research implications. It highlights the possibility of a shift in global investments because of cultural and non-cultural differences at the workplace. Specifically, it provides evidence that workplace cultures are different in the two countries and could play a role in the competitiveness of firm and countries. This finding has implications for research in the fields of both strategy and international business.However, this is a preliminary study to explore a recent phenomenon and uses data from only one organization in two countries. Therefore, this paper accepts this as a limitation; however, it creates a potential for further exploration in many directions for future research.

Managers in multinational firms have to deal with subsidiaries in different countries with different cultures. While culture is not traditionally considered an important factor, the study highlights that it may have far-reaching influences on financial decisions. Therefore, managers need to understand cultures and create strategies to deal with diverse cultures.

It is perhaps the first attempt to investigate the workplace culture across India and Dubai in the real estate and infrastructure industry through empirical evidence. Further, in the context of shifting global investments across the two countries, it highlights the importance of workplace cultures towards economic and financial implications for countries in the Asian subcontinent.