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Article
Publication date: 3 May 2016

Wei Liu

This paper aims to explore the changing pedagogic discourses in China today, using the current wave of English curriculum innovation as a focused case. Given the cross-cultural…

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Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to explore the changing pedagogic discourses in China today, using the current wave of English curriculum innovation as a focused case. Given the cross-cultural nature of foreign language education, the change in the English as a foreign language curriculum in China has served as a fertile ground for different pedagogical ideas to emerge and to cross. The new English curriculum in China has endorsed a more communicative and humanistic view of language teaching, encouraging teachers to adopt a task-based approach to organize their classroom teaching. The new English curriculum has aroused a heated debate among Chinese scholars on the suitability of such a Western curriculum idea in the Chinese educational context on the basis of its relation to the Confucian tradition of education, the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context of China and the danger of post-colonialist imposition.

Design/methodology/approach

A critique is conducted on the three areas of controversies by situating the debate in the larger context of the cross-cultural understanding of the Chinese pedagogic discourse in the process of globalization and internationalization.

Findings

It is important for China to resist the homogenizing effect of globalization and internationalization in the area of curriculum development; however, being defensive and protective of one’s own and dismissive of others has not been and should not be the attitude of Chinese curriculum reform. The evolution of Chinese pedagogy is not only a result of Western influence but also a result of social change in the process of industrialization (Cheng, 2011). Global trends and national traditions should not be taken as extremes in an incompatible and irreconcilable dichotomy.

Originality/value

The three areas of debates on the new English curriculum can serve as a good lens into the evolving curriculum discourses in China. They reflect the cultural–historical, contextual and critical considerations among Chinese educational scholars in the national curriculum innovation efforts.

Details

English Teaching: Practice & Critique, vol. 15 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1175-8708

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 9 March 2015

Dominic Medway, Kathryn Swanson, Lisa Delpy Neirotti, Cecilia Pasquinelli and Sebastian Zenker

The purpose of this paper is to report on a special session entitled “Place branding: Are we wasting our time?”, held at the American Marketing Association’s Summer Marketing…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to report on a special session entitled “Place branding: Are we wasting our time?”, held at the American Marketing Association’s Summer Marketing Educators’ conference in 2014.

Design/methodology/approach

The report details the outcome of an Oxford-style debate with two opposing teams of two persons – one team supporting and one team opposing the motion. The opening speaker of each team had 10 minutes to put their case across, and the closing speaker had 8 minutes. Teams took to the stand alternately, matching up against each other’s arguments.

Findings

The outcome of the debate points towards a need for place brands to develop as more inclusive and organic entities, in which case it may be best for place practitioners to avoid creating and imposing a place brand and instead help shape it from the views of stakeholder constituencies. This shifts the notion of place branding towards an activity centred on “curation”.

Originality/value

The use of a competitive debating format as a means for exploring academic ideas and concepts in the place management field.

Details

Journal of Place Management and Development, vol. 8 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1753-8335

Keywords

Case study
Publication date: 1 May 2005

Judith W. Spain and Gina Vega

SONY Online Entertainment (SOE) was planning to release a new version, EverQuest II®, of its popular online game, EverQuest®. The first EverQuest® game was very successful…

Abstract

SONY Online Entertainment (SOE) was planning to release a new version, EverQuest II®, of its popular online game, EverQuest®. The first EverQuest® game was very successful financially, generating approximately $5 million/month in 2002 for SOE. However, some issues surrounding addictions and corporate responsibility were interfering with the new product launch. These problems revolved around several deaths in which the EverQuest® game had been implicated. The case focuses on the dilemma faced by the Vice President of Marketing prior to the new product release: How far must a company go to protect possible misuse of a product by consumers?

Details

The CASE Journal, vol. 1 no. 2
Type: Case Study
ISSN: 1544-9106

Book part
Publication date: 7 February 2011

Gabriele Lakomski and Colin W. Evers

In this chapter, we present a critical assessment of contemporary organization theory variously described as either multiperspectival or fragmented. We argue that analytic…

Abstract

In this chapter, we present a critical assessment of contemporary organization theory variously described as either multiperspectival or fragmented. We argue that analytic philosophy as one of the major tools used for theorizing about organizations has had a major influence on the development of organization theory and largely explains the current state of affairs. At its core, we argue, is a fundamental methodological fissure in analytic philosophy itself: the distinction between descriptive and revisionary methods. The principal focus of descriptive analysis in organization theory is how agents use everyday language in organizational contexts, often by invoking language games. In contrast, revisionary approaches, concerned about the privileging of theories embedded in everyday language, as well as the complexity and ambiguity of ordinary-language use, aim for explicit theory evaluation and greater clarity by recasting ordinary language in formal systems, such as scientific, especially empiricist, theories, characteristic of the mainstream of theorizing about organizations from the 1940s onward. For a number of theoretical and epistemological reasons logical empiricism or positivism is no longer a widely held view either in the philosophy of science or in the organization theory. We examine some critical issues regarding logical empiricist epistemological foundations and propose a methodological naturalistic framework that supports the ongoing growth of knowledge in organization theory, naturalistic coherentism. In developing this new conception of science we thus opt for a revisionary methodology, but one that is beholden to neither the traditional logical empiricist/positivist conception of (organization) science nor the relativism and conservatism of postmodernist theory, widely considered to be the successor of positivist organization theory.

Abstract

Details

Historical Female Management Theorists: Frances Perkins, Hallie Flanagan, Madeleine Parent, Viola Desmond
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80117-391-9

Article
Publication date: 1 June 2002

Rajneesh Suri, Rajesh V. Manchanda and Chiranjeev S. Kohli

Price is an important variable because it has a direct impact on a company’s profitability. However, there is limited evidence to support the effectiveness of competing strategies…

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Abstract

Price is an important variable because it has a direct impact on a company’s profitability. However, there is limited evidence to support the effectiveness of competing strategies of fixed pricing and discounted pricing. As a result, both strategies are practised extensively in the industry. This paper draws on theories on affect, information processing, and pricing to provide a conceptual framework. The aim is to examine the effect of fixed pricing and discounted pricing on consumers’ affect and evaluation of products. Results from an experiment indicate that a fixed price format elicits more positively valenced thoughts and stronger positive affect than a discounted price format. This affective response, in turn, results in a less thorough processing of price information and, consequently, higher perceptions of quality and value for the fixed price format. Managerial implications of these findings are discussed.

Details

Journal of Product & Brand Management, vol. 11 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1061-0421

Keywords

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