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The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors that influence Chinese consumers’ purchase of organic products, with a focus on organic tea.

A structured questionnaire was used to survey 202 shoppers in Guangdong Province, China. The data were analyzed using multivariate regression.

The study suggests two significant predictors of organic tea purchase intentions: perceiving organic tea as a healthier alternative to non-organic tea; perceiving the purchase of organic tea as a status symbol. Younger respondents and respondents with higher educational attainment reported greater organic tea purchase intentions. Non-significant predictors of organic tea purchase intentions were respondents’ knowledge of organic tea through media exposure, their gender and income.

The findings help further research on consumer preferences regarding organic foods providing key insights for researchers and marketers as they strive to make informed decisions in the emerging organic food retail environment. Specifically, Chinese consumers perceiving organic tea as a healthy option and as a status symbol are more likely to state organic tea purchase intentions. These results point to the need for extended research on key antecedents of Chinese consumers’ purchase intentions of organic products.

Little was known about the motivations of Chinese consumers for purchasing organic food products, as the psychological and demographic factors that are associated with organic food purchase behavior in China were not well researched. Specifically, there is still a notable gap in the understanding of how consumers in China make organic tea purchase decisions. With organic foods occupying a progressively larger portion of Chinese diets and budgets, this research fills in some of the knowledge gap by examining how the social norms of status symbols influence Chinese consumers’ purchase intentions of organic tea.

This paper compares the work values of the People's Republic of China's (PRC) millennials with their parents.

The Chinese version of the multidimensional work ethic profile (1. productive use of time; 2. centrality of work; 3. hard work; 4. delay of gratification; 5. leisure; 6. self-reliance; and 7. moral reasoning) was used to survey PRC millennials and their parents. A repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used for comparing work values for a subsample of 68 same-gender parent/child dyads. A one-way ANOVA was used for comparing the work values of the total sample of 217 PRC millennials and their parents.

The repeated measures ANOVA found that one of the seven work values for the male dyads and three of the seven work values for the female dyads were significantly different. The one-way ANOVA found that four of the seven work values for males grouping and five of the seven work values for the females grouping were significantly different.

Social norms and socialization by parents may moderate the influences of changing social conditions on personal values formation predicted by the theory of generations. Researchers need to sample across demographic and socioeconomic subgroups to understand subgroup differences when conducting cross-generational research. Taking large samples, aggregating data and drawing conclusions about cross-generational values may not be a valid approach in trying to understand the complexity of cross-generational values differences.

Managers should be wary of broad declarations about cross-generational values differences. The differences in generational values are nuanced.

This paper shows when controlling for same-gender parents, cross-generational values are very similar. This contrasts other findings on cross-generational values.

Man has been seeking an ideal existence for a very long time. In this existence, justice, love, and peace are no longer words, but actual experiences. How ever, with the American preemptive invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq and the subsequent prisoner abuse, such an existence seems to be farther and farther away from reality. The purpose of this work is to stop this dangerous trend by promoting justice, love, and peace through a change of the paradigm that is inconsistent with justice, love, and peace. The strong paradigm that created the strong nation like the U.S. and the strong man like George W. Bush have been the culprit, rather than the contributor, of the above three universal ideals. Thus, rather than justice, love, and peace, the strong paradigm resulted in in justice, hatred, and violence. In order to remove these three and related evils, what the world needs in the beginning of the third millenium is the weak paradigm. Through the acceptance of the latter paradigm, the golden mean or middle paradigm can be formulated, which is a synergy of the weak and the strong paradigm. In order to understand properly the meaning of these paradigms, however, some digression appears necessary.

In September 1990, the U.S. Department of Education's Library Technology and Cooperation Grants Program awarded a three‐year grant to the Florida Center for Library Automation (FCLA), an agency of the Florida State University System, to develop software adhering to the ANSI Z39.50 Information Retrieval protocol standard. The Z39.50 software was to operate over the Open Systems Interconnect (OSI) communications protocols and be integrated with FCLA's NOTIS system, which is shared by all nine state universities in Florida. In order to test the correctness of its Z39.50 software, FCLA sought out other library software developers who would be willing to develop Z39.50 systems of their own. As part of this process, FCLA helped to found the Z39.50 Implementors' Group (ZIG), which has since gone on to improve the standard and promote Z39.50 implementations throughout much of the North American library systems marketplace. Early on in the project, it became apparent that TCP/IP would be a more heavily used communications vehicle for Z39.50 messages than OSI. FCLA expanded its design to include TCP/IP and, by the end of the grant in September 1993, will have a working Z39.50 system that can communicate over both OSI and TCP/IP networks.

Presents the scientific methodology from the enlarged cybernetical perspective that recognizes the anisotropy of time, the probabilistic character of natural laws, and the entry that the incomplete determinism in Nature opens to the occurrence of innovation, growth, organization, teleology communication, control, contest and freedom. The new tier to the methodological edifice that cybernetics provides stands on the earlier tiers, which go back to the Ionians (c. 500 BC). However, the new insights reveal flaws in the earlier tiers, and their removal strengthens the entire edifice. The new concepts of teleological activity and contest allow the clear demarcation of the military sciences as those whose subject matter is teleological activity involving contest. The paramount question “what ought to be done”, outside the empirical realm, is embraced by the scientific methodology. It also embraces the cognitive sciences that ask how the human mind is able to discover, and how the sequence of discoveries might converge to a true description of reality.

Briefly reviews previous literature by the author before presenting an original 12 step system integration protocol designed to ensure the success of companies or countries in their efforts to develop and market new products. Looks at the issues from different strategic levels such as corporate, international, military and economic. Presents 31 case studies, including the success of Japan in microchips to the failure of Xerox to sell its invention of the Alto personal computer 3 years before Apple: from the success in DNA and Superconductor research to the success of Sunbeam in inventing and marketing food processors: and from the daring invention and production of atomic energy for survival to the successes of sewing machine inventor Howe in co‐operating on patents to compete in markets. Includes 306 questions and answers in order to qualify concepts introduced.

The following classified, annotated list of titles is intended to provide reference librarians with a current checklist of new reference books, and is designed to supplement the RSR review column, “Recent Reference Books,” by Frances Neel Cheney. “Reference Books in Print” includes all additional books received prior to the inclusion deadline established for this issue. Appearance in this column does not preclude a later review in RSR. Publishers are urged to send a copy of all new reference books directly to RSR as soon as published, for immediate listing in “Reference Books in Print.” Reference books with imprints older than two years will not be included (with the exception of current reprints or older books newly acquired for distribution by another publisher). The column shall also occasionally include library science or other library related publications of other than a reference character.