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Library and information science (LIS) is a global academic, intellectual and industrial field with a large international reach. From a human perspective, LIS includes library and information professionals, the information industry people, students, academics and researchers. The field has a strong history of teaching, education and research development, standards, networks and distribution worldwide. Growth and development in the field have taken in all parts of the world. In this monograph we focus on the current trends in teaching, education and research in the Asia-Oceania region. This vast region of the world covers Asia, which is from Korea and Japan in the north to India in the west and Indonesia in the south, and Oceania (Australia New Zealand and neighbouring islands such as Fiji, Papua New Guinea, etc). In this book we have tried to cover as much of the Asia-Oceania region as we could within the chapters presented, but not every country or aspect of LIS in the region has been represented.

Social and economic disparities between racial/ethnic groups are a feature of the American context into which immigrants are incorporated and a key determinant of population health. We ask whether racial/ethnic disparities in diabetes vary by nativity and whether native-immigrant disparities in diabetes vary by race and over time in the United States. Using the 2000–2015 National Health Interview Survey, we estimate logistic regressions to examine the interaction of race/ethnicity, nativity, and duration in the US in shaping diabetes patterns. Relative to their native-born co-ethnics, foreign-born Asian adults experience a significant diabetes disadvantage, while foreign-born Hispanic, Black, and White adults experience a significant advantage. Adjusting for obesity, education, and other covariates eliminates the foreign-born advantage for Black and White adults, but it persists for Hispanic adults. The same adjustment accentuates the disadvantage for foreign-born Asian adults. For Black and Hispanic adults, the protective foreign-born effect erodes as duration in the US increases. For foreign-born Asian adults, the immigrant disadvantage appears to grow with duration in the US. Relative to native-born White adults, all non-white groups regardless of nativity see a diabetes disadvantage because the racial/ethnic disadvantage either countervails a foreign-born advantage or amplifies a foreign-born disadvantage. Racial/ethnic differentials in diabetes are considerable and are influenced by each group’s nativity composition. Obesity and (for the foreign-born) time in the US influence these disparities, but do not explain them. These findings underscore the importance of unmeasured, systemic determinants of health in America’s race-conscious society.

The idea that environmental scanning can be a key factor in sustained competitive advantage calls for the integration of business strategy and the environment. Not surprisingly, environmental scanning is widely viewed as the first step in the process that links strategy and the environment. The main debate over the roles of strategy and environment is nowadays concerned with the primary importance of environmental scanning to strategy formulation and implementation. More specially, effective scanning of the environment is seen as necessary to the successful alignment of competitive strategies with environmental requirements and the achievement of outstanding performance in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). This chapter explores the above relationship in the British electronic manufacturing industry. It is based on the empirical evidence and the findings of a survey of 132 Chief Executive Officers’ (CEO) views on environmental scanning and strategy in SMEs. It is concluded that there is a significant relationship between increasing the environmental scanning of the firm, and the success of small- and medium-sized manufacturing firms in electronic industry. Accordingly, because of the dynamic nature of the electronics industry, obtaining information on environmental factors facilitates alignment between business strategy and its environment.

This paper considers efficient venture capital investment duration for different types of entrepreneurial firms so that on exit information asymmetries between the venture capitalist (as seller) and the new owners of the investment are minimized, and capital gains maximized. We hypothesize that a number of factors are likely to affect investment duration, and our empirical tests confirm the statistical significance of some of these variables (stage of firm at first investment, capital available to the venture capital industry, whether the exit was preplanned, and whether the exit was made in response to an unsolicited offer). However, the fit between our theoretical model and the data is stronger in the United States than in Canada, offering evidence in support of the view that institutional factors have distorted investment duration in Canada.

Enterprise education has been regularly cited as a tool which can be utilised to not only increase the level of entrepreneurship within an economy, but also the success of those enterprises created. This chapter explores the extent to which participation in enterprise education is associated with the adoption of new technology within new businesses since this is one way that businesses can remain competitive, not only within their own countries, but when competing internationally. Using data from the UK Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) survey, the study finds evidence that those firms undertaking enterprise education in the form of university-based schemes or government sponsored training programmes are more likely to be using newer technology. However, this relationship is relatively weak, and brings into question whether many enterprise courses offer effective value for money.