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The similarities between the developments of the United States (U.S.) and China into global powers (countries with global economic, military, and political influence) can be analyzed through big data analysis from both countries. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether or not China is on the same path to becoming a world power like what the U.S. did one hundred years ago.

The data of this study is drawn from political rhetoric and linguistic analysis by using “big data” technology to identify the most common words and political trends over time from speeches made by the U.S. and Chinese leaders from three periods, including 1905-1945 in U.S., 1977-2017 in U.S. and 1977-2017 in China.

Rhetoric relating to national identity was most common amongst Chinese and the U.S. leaders over time. The differences between the early-modern U.S. and the current U.S. showed the behavioral changes of countries as they become powerful. It is concluded that China is not a world power at this stage. Yet, it is currently on the path towards becoming one, and is already reflecting characteristics of present-day U.S., a current world power.

This paper presents a novel approach to analyze historical documents through big data text mining, a methodology scarcely used in historical studies. It highlights how China as of now is most likely in a transitionary stage of becoming a world power.

The purpose of this paper is to comprehensively examine the influence of formal and informal institutional differences on enterprise investment margin, mode and result.

This paper is based on 2,440 micro samples of large-scale outbound investment from 609 Chinese enterprises from the years 2005 to 2016.

The study has found that formal institutional differences have little impact on investment scale, but significantly affect investment diversification. In order to avoid the management risks brought by formal institutional differences, enterprises tend to a full ownership structure. However, the choice between greenfield investment and cross-border mergers and acquisitions is not affected by formal institutional differences. In contrast, the impact of informal institutional differences is more extensive. Both formal and informal institutional differences significantly increase the probability of investment failure. Further research found that the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) bridges the formal institutional differences.

The study concludes that developing the BRI, especially cultural exchanges with countries alongside the Belt and Road, will help enterprises to “go global” faster and better.

Understanding people’s intentions to be an internet entrepreneur is an important issue for educators, academics and practitioners. The purpose of this paper is to develop and validate a scale to measure internet entrepreneurial self-efficacy.

Based on an analysis of 356 responses, a scale of internet entrepreneurial self-efficacy is validated in accordance with established scale development procedures.

The internet entrepreneurial self-efficacy scale has 16 items under three factors (i.e. leadership, technology utilization and internet marketing and e-commerce). The scale demonstrated adequate convergent validity, discriminant validity and criterion-related validity. Nomological validity was established by the positive correlation between the scale and, respectively, internet entrepreneurship knowledge and entrepreneurial intention.

This study is a pioneering effort to develop and validate a scale to measure internet entrepreneurial self-efficacy. The results of this study are helpful to researchers in building internet entrepreneurship theories and to educators in assessing and promoting individuals’ internet entrepreneurial self-efficacy and behavior.

Before the turn of the century, taking overseas students was more about a diplomatic issue dominated by the state in China, for which reason this section is relatively independent within the higher education system. However, evidence from a series of new policy documents and their impacts suggests that international student mobility (ISM) has been intensively shaped by the central government in the desire to promote its national strategy, namely the belt and road initiative. ISM policy, although with a significant proportion marketized, was introduced for a clear purpose of cultural diplomacy. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Looking beyond the debate of market-driven vs state-dominated, this paper attempts to provide a thorough understanding of this changing pattern based on examination of key changes of policy statements along with official data analysis.

This paper argues that the new pattern must be understood against a context of a hierarchy of higher education institutes in contemporary China: a sector led by a small number of prestigious universities generously funded by the central government with a large number of ordinary universities underfunded and eager to generate income. Prestigious institutes enroll international students to satisfy performance indicators listed by policies like “Double First-rate”; other universities, benefiting from the reputation and momentum generated by the top ones, take self-funded students for profit.

By making good use of both performance indicators and market motives, the country managed to move a state-dominated ISM policy in the twentieth century into the existing state-steering marketization model and made China a major destination for overseas study.

This paper aims to analyse the influence of the cultural sensitivity of tourists on the change in image that occurs for tourist destinations prior to and after a visit; understanding cultural sensitivity as the recognition of and respect for different beliefs, values and customs.

A structural equations model is carried out with a representative sample of 411 tourists from Tenerife (Canary Islands).

Cultural sensitivity directly and positively influences the gap in the global image of the destination, so greater cultural sensitivity improves the post-visit image compared to the pre-visit image at a global level. Likewise, there are significant differences in cultural sensitivity according to the sociodemographic characteristics of tourists.

Although this study is based on a single case (Tenerife) and the generalisation of the results must be treated tentatively, the developed model could be applied in other destinations.

This study contributes to a better understanding of the influence of cultural sensitivity on the image gap in tourist destinations, as there is still little empirical evidence on the subject.

The results of this study represent an advance in the literature, as there are few studies in the tourism marketing literature that studied the effect of the cultural sensitivity on the image of a tourist destination.

El presente trabajo tiene por objeto analizar la influencia de la sensibilidad cultural de los turistas en el cambio de imagen de un destino turístico pre y post-visita, entendiendo por sensibilidad cultural el reconocimiento y el respeto a las creencias, los valores y las costumbres diferentes.

Se utilizó un Modelo de Ecuaciones Estructurales con una muestra representativa de 411 turistas de Tenerife (Islas Canarias).

La sensibilidad cultural influye directa y positivamente en el gap de la imagen global del destino, por lo que la mayor sensibilidad cultural mejora la imagen post-visita frente a la imagen pre-visita a nivel global. Igualmente, se observan diferencias significativas en la sensibilidad cultural en función de las características sociodemográficas de los turistas.

Dado que este estudio se basa en un único caso (Tenerife), lo cual afecta a la generalización de los resultados, el modelo desarrollado podría aplicarse a otros destinos.

Este trabajo contribuye a una major comprensión de la influencia de la sensibilidad cultural en el gap de la imagen de un destino turístico, ya que todavía hay poca evidencia empírica sobre el tema.

Los resultados de este trabajo representan un avance en la literatura ya que existen pocos trabajos en la literatura de marketing turístico que estudien el efecto de la sensibilidad cultural en la imagen de un destino turístico.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the relationship between citizen participation and the level of trust in government’s decisions and policies; as well as examining the impact of disclosure of information on the level of citizens’ engagement with governments’ projects. In addition, testing the real motives behind Egyptian citizens’ participation in financing national projects. The study is applied to the “New Suez Canal,” which was finished in only one year opposing the three years implementation period suggested by some studies.

The researcher depended on secondary and primary data as well in working on this paper. She used secondary data gathered from scholars and from domestic and international institutions. Then, she conducted a field study and collected data through distributing 384 Likert Scale questionnaires containing 34 self-administered among respondents to test the following: 1. Citizens perceptions regarding the level of trust in government’s decisions and policies. 2. The impact of citizens’ trust on their willingness to participate in governments’ projects. 3. Is ‘public service motivation’ (PSM) behind citizens’ willingness of participating in national projects. 4. Is the ‘high expected profit of Suez Canal Investment Certificates’ behind citizens participation in national projects.

H1 and H2 have been accepted as trust, transparency and citizen participation proved to be important pillars of building a participatory government. Moreover, citizens’ participation in national projects encouraged national and international enterprises to invest in the canal provision. H3 and H4 are accepted and the statistical study revealed dual contradicting results regarding the motive of citizens’ financial participation in the New Suez Canal project. The justification for the contradiction is that right after the 2011 up-rise, Egyptian citizens were overwhelmed with patriot emotions and feelings pushing them to participate in national projects. At the same time this patriot drive was moderated by the “performance-based rewards and citizens” self-interests’ pushed by the Egyptian government (offering a high-interest rate for Suez Canal Certificates at that time). Citizens might be motivated to participate in national projects triggered by many factors: public service drive – patriotism or self-interest.

The study needs further deeper investigation and empirical pieces of evidence to answer the following questions: would different participatory actions result differently in other circumstances? Do individuals’ levels of PSM vary over time? Besides, the researcher needs to find ways to test PSM against various motives such as self-interest, which needs to be confirmed empirically.

The author came up with important recommendations for central government and decision-makers in Egypt and is based upon the study’s statistical results. The most important recommendations were: central government and decision-makers should frame a policy designed to promote citizens’ participation in decision-making drawing on the guidelines for civil participation in political decision-making. Decision-makers in the central government should work local and regional authorities to update and improve local and regional regulations concerning the participation of citizens in local public life and promote a culture of democratic participation shared by communities and local authorities. Performance-based rewards (high-interest rate) are moderating the citizens’ public service motivation (PSM – patriot sense) and citizens may be motivated by different factors such as public service drive – patriotism or self-interest.

The study is tackling an important issue, which is civil participation in political decision-making. It is also discussing promoting cultural awareness regarding the importance of democratic participation shared by communities and local authorities. The study came up with certain findings proving Egyptian civil society’s willingness in participating with the government in national projects; believing in its socio-economic benefits.

Finally, the study is of value, as it could be considered a pilot study representing the outcomes of citizen participation in national projects; in addition, it can be considered as a road map to policymakers. Moreover, the findings provide a set of recommendations and policies for governments and decision-makers to undertake tangible actions to accelerate citizen participation in further projects and decisions and be able to establish a democratic system in developing countries.

Francois Quesnay, known as the “Confucius of Europe”, was profoundly influenced by traditional Chinese culture to form his thoughts, which contained strong Chinese characteristics. This paper aims to examine economic thought of Francois Quesnay from the perspective of the construction of socialist political economics with Chinese characteristics.

Moreover, his thoughts also profoundly influenced subsequent economists, such as Adam Smith and Karl Marx. It can be said that Francois Quesnay was at the intersection of Chinese, Western and Marxist thought systems, so it is quite important to examine his thoughts critically and conduct source-tracing in China.

Hence, in the process of constructing and developing socialist political economy with Chinese characteristics, there is an urgent need to focus on exploring the value of excellent traditional Chinese culture at the theoretical level and combining the development and dissemination of the history of thoughts and the historical position of Chinese reality to realize the innovation and development of socialist political economy with Chinese characteristics.

Meanwhile, while absorbing nutrition from excellent traditional Chinese culture, it is necessary to establish scientific coordinates rather than use the discourse systems and paradigms of Western economics to interpret ancient Chinese economic thoughts. It is necessary to adhere to, inherit and develop Marxist political economy and absorb nutrition from Chinese excellent traditional culture to construct socialist political economy with Chinese characteristics.

This paper aims to provide data on the self-perceived state of sustainability consciousness of first-year Hong Kong students.

Within a mixed-method research design framework, the authors conducted 787 questionnaires and collected 989 reflective narratives of first-year students of a university in Hong Kong, who were enrolled in the General Education course.

Attributed to students’ immersion in compulsory sustainability education modules within liberal studies programs in secondary through higher education (HE), the quantitative results revealed an increase in the self-perceived knowledge and behavioral aspects of sustainability consciousness of Hong Kong students and their low engagement in sustainability-related civic, campus or action groups. However, qualitative results revealed three aspects of the students’ sustainability consciousness: intentionality to make a difference; engagement with complex questions about identity, society and nature; and eschatological perspectives, which included imaginative, future-oriented and action-oriented approaches to critical reflection, supported by the rhetoric of hope, promises and commitment for better future.

The study provides insights into the challenge of implementation of the United Nations-based sustainable development model in the Hong Kong educational system through the formal liberal studies curriculum. It advances the field by constructing a momentum for conceptual changes in sustainability education research toward design of the non-linear and culturally sensitive frameworks for sustainability implementation in HE. This allows to utilize universities’ unique capacities for fostering students’ sustainability consciousness in a continuous and systemic way.

This first chapter explores the basic foundation of corporate ethics: the human person in all its dignity and mystery, its corporeality and emotionality, and its cognitive and volitive capacities of moral development. Four fundamental characteristics of the human person, namely individuality, sociality, immanence, and transcendence, will be examined for their potential to understand, live, experience, and witness corporate ethics and morals. We explore the profound meaning and mystery of human personhood invoking several philosophies of the good and human dignity as exposed by Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas in the West, by the doctrine of Dharma in the East as expounded by Gautama Buddha, Mahabharata, and Bhagavad Gita, and by Prophets Confucius and Tao, in the East. Several contemporary cases of great human personhood are analyzed: for example, Peace Nobel Laureate Nelson Mandela from South Africa (1993) and Peace Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaobo from China (2017) – cases of human abuse that turned into triumphs of human dignity.

The aim of this paper is to argue for the values of familial caring and relationships in addition to the provision of social media technology during the COVID-19 pandemic in Hong Kong.

The discussion of this paper has adopted an inter-disciplinary approach by integrating health care system and psychological analysis, based on cultural philosophical argument through the hermeneutic approach of classical texts and critical analysis.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the dilemma between the public health measures for COVID-19 and sustaining elderly social psychological health through familial connection. From a Confucian perspective, the practice of filial piety (xiao, 孝), which demands taking care of parents, is essential for one’s moral formation, and for one’s becoming a virtuous (ren, 仁) person. The necessity of taking care of elderly parents by adult children is not something that can be explained in terms of consequentialism. Indeed, the rising trend of instrumental rationality seems to weaken rather than strengthen the sense of filial obligation. In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic which tends to separate connections between family members, the author argues that we should emphasize the values of familial caring and relationship because it enhances the elderly’s characteristic of resilience.

This paper shows that while social media technology has mitigated the negative effect of social distancing, such online relationships should never replace the bodily connections between the elderly and their family members from a Confucian perspective.