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11 – 20 of 261This paper studies how Chinese consumers respond to foreign goods in the post‐WTO era. Specifically, it examines brand sensitivity as a mediator and product cues as moderator of…
Abstract
This paper studies how Chinese consumers respond to foreign goods in the post‐WTO era. Specifically, it examines brand sensitivity as a mediator and product cues as moderator of purchase intention. Additionally, it examines consumer preferences for different products and consumption plans for the subsequent five years. The survey sample is drawn from a population of foreign product users from 34 cities in 18 provinces in China. Results provide evidence that brand sensitivity mediates the relationship between consumer ethnocentrism and purchase intention; product cues moderate the effect of ethnocentrism on purchase intention. As the first study to link consumer ethnocentrism directly to brand sensitivity and purchase intention, this research provides some managerial implications. Global marketers can offset the negative effect of ethnocentrism by emphasizing brand image of its products, taking advantage of specific product cues, or by providing more comprehensive after‐sale service to reduce the perceived risk of purchasing imports. Also, price is still a hurdle that prevents Chinese consumers from mass consumption of foreign products. Global firms should not overestimate the purchasing power of Chinese consumers. This study represents a “snapshot” of Chinese consumers’ decision making at a time when their economic system is undergoing rapid change.
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Charl C. Wolhuter and Alexander W. Wiseman
Africa’s unique social contexts play a transformative role in the development of higher education throughout the continent. As a geographic giant endowed with substantial natural…
Abstract
Africa’s unique social contexts play a transformative role in the development of higher education throughout the continent. As a geographic giant endowed with substantial natural resources and a growing population, Africa is a dynamic – albeit diverse – world player, and amidst the political pacification and democratization of the continent, is also unfolding as an increasingly strong economic force in the world. These many factors contextualize the history and position of higher education in Africa as well. Despite rapid growth in recent years, higher education in Africa is less developed than anywhere else in the world. Major challenges include expanding participation in higher education, poor infrastructure, isolation from society and communities, internationalization and regional cooperation, and aligning the world of education with the world of work. The chapters in this volume are presented within this framework, with the intention that this volume will contribute to the scholarly discourse guiding the development of higher education in Africa.
Kathleen Lynne Lane, Eric Alan Common, Mark Matthew Buckman and Grant Allen
Tiered systems may hold particular benefit for students with intensive intervention needs, as this continuum of supports is ideally comprised of evidence-based practices. In this…
Abstract
Tiered systems may hold particular benefit for students with intensive intervention needs, as this continuum of supports is ideally comprised of evidence-based practices. In this chapter, we explore three intensive interventions: functional assessment-based interventions (FABI), First Step to Success, and Read 180 as they feature a range of practices and programs to meet students' academic, behavioral, and social needs. We define and describe each intervention, including information on essential features necessary for drawing valid inferences: treatment integrity, social validity, as well as student performance. We also provide examples of supporting evidence, featuring treatment-outcome studies documenting intervention effectiveness. We close with clarifications and considerations for meeting the multiple needs of students requiring intensive intervention efforts.
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Heather J. Swenddal, Mathews Nkhoma and Sarah Joy Gumbley
The quality and market viability of international branch campuses (IBCs) depend upon their integration with university headquarters. Recent trends toward localizing branch-campus…
Abstract
Purpose
The quality and market viability of international branch campuses (IBCs) depend upon their integration with university headquarters. Recent trends toward localizing branch-campus hiring have raised questions about the extent to which non-parent-campus lecturers will support global integration pursuits. This paper aims to examine IBC lecturers’ orientations towards global integration, exploring how they identify themselves and their campuses as part of their wider universities.
Design/methodology/approach
Employing constructivist grounded theory methodology, 37 lecturers and leaders at four Australian branch campuses in Southeast Asia were interviewed, engaging them in semi-structured discussions of their identities and experiences. Interviews were recorded, transcribed and analyzed using NVivo in an iterative process of theory development.
Findings
Branch-campus lecturers interviewed generally construct their individual and campus identities as separate from their wider universities. Barriers to branch campuses’ global integration include low organizational identification of lecturers, challenges in their relationships with headquarters colleagues and perceptions of cross-campus disparities in resources and students. Branch campuses’ organizationally separate identities are enacted in practice, fueling a self-reinforcing “Othering Loop” that could undermine these campuses’ quality and viability.
Originality/value
This research is the first emic exploration of locally-hired branch-campus lecturers’ views toward global integration. These findings provide an important corrective to the existing literature on this topic, challenging assumptions that localizing branch-campus hiring is the primary risk to integration. Multiple points of potential managerial intervention were identified, highlighting opportunities for university leaders to address contextual barriers and improve international branch campuses’ global integration while continuing current trends toward localized hiring.
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The Jason Bourne series of films (2002–2016) are widely acknowledged with helping to successfully re-invent the action thriller genre in the 2000s by focusing more on motivation…
Abstract
The Jason Bourne series of films (2002–2016) are widely acknowledged with helping to successfully re-invent the action thriller genre in the 2000s by focusing more on motivation and plot than over-the-top spectacle. Featuring a profoundly wounded son figure in the titular character, the films are indicative of an awareness of the vulnerabilities and reactions of a fatherless masculinity within a post-Cold War political reality.
This chapter will argue that Bourne's onscreen pain and subsequent violent responses to his various narrative predicaments are a result of being repeatedly betrayed by a series of older males, in many cases, father surrogates. Bourne's experience of this paternal disruption and betrayal is the key psychological motivating factor, with the films and the story arc of the character only being resolved when both he and the audience finally discover and reconcile the role that his biological father played in shaping his destiny and his life. This ‘father hunger’ – in effect a need for a continuative masculinity – that Jason Bourne experiences, and that is arguably at the heart of the franchise, will be analysed and explored within the contexts of post-Jungian screen theory. Alongside the deliberately casting of ‘quality’ actors (such as Brian Cox, Joan Allen, Tommy Lee Jones, David Strathairn) and other formalist elements of the text, archetypal energies and symbolism are also rife throughout the film, and can be, in part, credited with the critical and commercial success of the films. Finally, the films are put in their cinematic context in terms of the influence they subsequently exerted on other action film franchises – particularly James Bond (1962 to present).
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This chapter draws on 17 months of ethnographic observations in the Parade department at an American theme park that I call Wonderland. The Parade department is a homonormative…
Abstract
This chapter draws on 17 months of ethnographic observations in the Parade department at an American theme park that I call Wonderland. The Parade department is a homonormative workplace, numerically and culturally dominated by gay men. I examine how this work culture challenges the dominance of heteronormative masculinity often embedded at work through an exploration of backstage interactions among performers. I also explore the gendered and racialized meanings of the camp aesthetic that performers embody. I argue that while Parade culture undermines workplace heteronormative masculinity, it also reproduces the epistemology of the closet through its reliance on the gay/straight binary.