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The implicit assumption underlying the work of most anti-corruption agencies (ACAs) is that they need to change public attitudes toward corruption to ensure a cleaner future. The means of achieving this objective usually rest on sanctions, prevention, and sermons. Changing attitudes is seen to be largely a matter of prosecuting the corrupt, putting preventive measures in place, emphasizing the negative social and criminal consequences of corruption, and exhorting the public to achieve higher moral standards. Engaging the public is rarely undertaken directly. If it were, it would entail a community relations approach based on face-to-face, decentralized interaction between the ACA and the public. In principle, this approach might have three significant advantages. First, it could enable the anti-corruption message to be communicated more directly and, possibly, more effectively. Second, it might assist the ACA in identifying groups within the community which have developed, or are developing, attitudes which are potentially antithetical to its objectives. Third, it could serve as a springboard for local anti-corruption initiatives which might help to embed desired practices in the community or groups within it. In this chapter, we examine the extent to which one of the few agencies to adopt a full-blown community relations strategy – Hong Kong’s Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) – has been able to achieve those benefits.

This chapter aims to explore the novelty and utility of political economy discourse, termed “neo-statism,” as an analytical lens for comparative research in higher education. Analysis is framed within the context of Hong Kong’s transition from a British colony to a Special Administrative Region under China’s sovereignty, and its shifting academic paradigms from a more or less spontaneous philosophy rooted in liberal capitalist economy to embracing neo-statism, which involves market-conforming and state-sponsored approaches to economic and social restructuring whereby the state regulates higher education in support of national integration and global power projection. The statist regulation depends heavily on its deployment of discursive legitimacy, strategic distribution of resources, organizational synergy, and elite cohesion articulated through higher education policy, research projects, and cross-border academic exchange and cooperation. The Hong Kong case suggests that comparative research in higher education should advance from the methodological aspects of the comparative approach to exploring wider theoretical spectrum, for understanding emerging politico-economic factors shaping academic paradigm in comparative contexts. Moreover, scholars who engage in the trendy internationalization in higher education should move beyond the logics of neo-liberalism, and pay closer attention to the new geopolitical realities that are changing the normative and interactive dimensions of international higher education at large.

Smart card-based E-payment systems are receiving increasing attention as the number of implementations is witnessed on the rise globally. Understanding of user adoption behavior of E-payment systems that employ smart card technology becomes a research area that is of particular value and interest to both IS researchers and professionals. However, research interest focuses mostly on why a smart card-based E-payment system results in a failure or how the system could have grown into a success. This signals the fact that researchers have not had much opportunity to critically review a smart card-based E-payment system that has gained wide support and overcome the hurdle of critical mass adoption. The Octopus in Hong Kong has provided a rare opportunity for investigating smart card-based E-payment system because of its unprecedented success. This research seeks to thoroughly analyze the Octopus from technology adoption behavior perspectives.

Cultural impacts on adoption behavior are one of the key areas that this research posits to investigate. Since the present research is conducted in Hong Kong where a majority of population is Chinese ethnicity and yet is westernized in a number of aspects, assuming that users in Hong Kong are characterized by eastern or western culture is less useful. Explicit cultural characteristics at individual level are tapped into here instead of applying generalization of cultural beliefs to users to more accurately reflect cultural bias. In this vein, the technology acceptance model (TAM) is adapted, extended, and tested for its applicability cross-culturally in Hong Kong on the Octopus. Four cultural dimensions developed by Hofstede are included in this study, namely uncertainty avoidance, masculinity, individualism, and Confucian Dynamism (long-term orientation), to explore their influence on usage behavior through the mediation of perceived usefulness.

TAM is also integrated with the innovation diffusion theory (IDT) to borrow two constructs in relation to innovative characteristics, namely relative advantage and compatibility, in order to enhance the explanatory power of the proposed research model. Besides, the normative accountability of the research model is strengthened by embracing two social influences, namely subjective norm and image. As the last antecedent to perceived usefulness, prior experience serves to bring in the time variation factor to allow level of prior experience to exert both direct and moderating effects on perceived usefulness.

The resulting research model is analyzed by partial least squares (PLS)-based Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) approach. The research findings reveal that all cultural dimensions demonstrate direct effect on perceived usefulness though the influence of uncertainty avoidance is found marginally significant. Other constructs on innovative characteristics and social influences are validated to be significant as hypothesized. Prior experience does indeed significantly moderate the two influences that perceived usefulness receives from relative advantage and compatibility, respectively. The research model has demonstrated convincing explanatory power and so may be employed for further studies in other contexts. In particular, cultural effects play a key role in contributing to the uniqueness of the model, enabling it to be an effective tool to help critically understand increasingly internationalized IS system development and implementation efforts. This research also suggests several practical implications in view of the findings that could better inform managerial decisions for designing, implementing, or promoting smart card-based E-payment system.

The Dim Sum bond market in Hong Kong, which allows China to regulate the amount of offshore yuans that flow back into the mainland, has grown steadily since its inception in 2007 and is expected to surpass in 2013 the threshold level that would attract insurers and long-term issuers to the market. Yet, the market has not matured sufficiently relative to the yuan deposit market in Hong Kong that has grown at a much faster pace on account of trade liberalization and the use of yuans in China’s international trade settlements. Even though Hong Kong has fulfilled its role as an offshore currency center for the yuan, it is being challenged by Taiwan, Singapore, and London in terms of being the premier location for the issuance of yuan-denominated bonds outside of Mainland China.

This chapter discusses the social mobility and the political consequences of three education events in Hong Kong: the extension of free and compulsory schooling in 1978, the construction of universities after the Tiananmen repression amid popular unrest, and the creation of two-year degree programs after Hong Kong became a Special Administrative Region. The chapter shows the repercussions of these events for civil society organizations and political parties. The chapter first reviews the historical context for state-society relations created by the current Special Administrative Region and the former British Crown Colony. It presents two alternative perspectives on the impact of higher education for civic development and social mobilization, perspectives rooted in neo-functionalist and in neo-Weberian sociologies of education. Next, the chapter discusses the actors and agents of political change in Hong Kong. Inferences are drawn about the social integration of new immigrants from Mainland China, as well as the opportunities for women and for lower-income students, based on analysis of 35 years of Hong Kong Census data (1971–2006). The chapter concludes by raising questions about the future ability of governments and parties to define the postsecondary policy agenda, an agenda that now threatens to escape from government control and become a flash-point of popular mobilization.

Sustainable economic growth is a major policy target of many governments over the world; Hong Kong also has no exception after its sovereignty handover on 1^st July 1997. Hong Kong has also been inertly receiving more than one hundred Chinese immigrants every day for several decades which mainly serves the purpose of family reunion through One-way Permit scheme. There exists a public voice in relation to Chinese immigrants' intentions of migrating to Hong Kong; some people argued Chinese immigrants are not simply aimed to reunifying their family but purposely grasping public resources of Hong Kong; public resources include public healthcare benefits and subsidized public housing; such hidden motivation and immigrants' economic contribution are not theoretically mutually exclusive. This chapter summarizes literature in relation to various concerns about immigrants' contribution towards economic growth, also consolidates immigrants' survey results which regularly conducted by Hong Kong Home Affairs Department and Immigration Department, and utilized Hong Kong census and by-census datasets to empirically compare the return rates of schooling and work experience between Chinese immigrants and natives over the past forty years, and investigate the causality between Hong Kong economic growth rates and these two return rates.

Hong Kong is a significant market with a strong economy, unique geography, and ongoing trade activities in the Asia Pacific region. This city keeps changing after the sovereignty returned to China 1997. Facing this historical change, how do Generation Z adopt these changes? This chapter draws a comprehensive picture of the context for Generation Z in Hong Kong, including political issues, their communication with families and peers, their opinions on consumption, and their preferences in relation to jobs. Instead of saying that ‘they are too young’, we try to understand more about this generation and its specific characteristic

The leaders of the Association of the Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) announced to negotiate a Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RECP) in November 2012, which is comprised of 10 ASEAN Member States (Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar) and its six FTA partner countries (China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and India). Embedded in the ASEAN Charter and implemented in all existing ASEAN + 1 FTAs, the ASEAN Centrality has been a corner stone principle in ASEAN-centric economic initiatives. Emerging discord in the region, complicated security climate and the rise of China, among others, have put the ASEAN Centrality under challenge. The development of the RCEP provides a timely case to assess ASEAN’s leadership role in creating the world’s most populous Free Trade Area. The RCEP may enhance ASEAN’s central role, but ASEAN needs to address challenges facing the regional integration now and beyond 2015. On the country/economy level, the chapter reviews some ASEAN Member States and their FTA Partners how they practice their ASEAN policy and seek leadership role in ASEAN. The three major players in ASEAN-Indonesia, Thailand, and Malaysia have reiterated the importance of the ASEAN Centrality in their foreign policy in the past, but debates emerge whether, such as in Indonesia, ASEAN Centrality best suits the national interests. The chapter also explores how the major powers, including China and the United States, respond to and collaborate with the group of smaller developing country players.

Drawing upon new institutional economics and contracting theory, this chapter extends the concept of headquarter (HQ)–subsidiary relationships to capture unconventional types of subsidiary organizations in transition economies. A conceptual framework is first developed to examine how the interplay between institutions and subsidiaries shapes HQ–subsidiary relations in rapidly changing institutional environments. It is then applied to study contractual joint ventures in China, an important, yet often misunderstood, form of multinational subsidiary operation. The research sheds new light on how parent firms design contract provisions, credible commitments, and contract renegotiation mechanisms for the effective management of joint venture subsidiaries. These findings have important implications for future inquiry into the interplay between institutions and organizations in safeguarding subsidiary operations in transition economies.

In late April 1973, Charles P. Sutcliffe, the Commissioner of the Royal Hong Kong Police Force (RHKPF), received confidential information that Chief Superintendent Peter F. Godber, Deputy District Police Commander for Kowloon, was remitting money abroad. This information was transmitted to James J. E. Morrin, the Director of the Anti-Corruption Office (ACO), for investigation. By the end of May 1973, investigations by the ACO officers revealed that Godber had deposited in Hong Kong banks or remitted overseas HK$650,000 (US$128,332) since 1968 (Blair-Kerr, 1973a, pp. 3–4).