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In this chapter, we will review the history, deregulation, policy reforms, and airline consolidations and mergers of the Chinese airline industry. The measurement of airline competition in China’s domestic market will also be discussed. Although air deregulation is still ongoing, the Chinese airline industry has become a market-driven business subject to some mild regulations. Then, we will review the impressive development of the high-speed rail (HSR) network in China and its effects on the domestic civil aviation market. In general, previous studies have found that the introduction of HSR services has a significant negative impact on airfare and air travel demand in China. The rapidly expanding network of HSR has important policy implications for Chinese airlines.

This chapter provides an empirical assessment of the effects of infrastructure provision on structural change and aggregate productivity using industrylevel data for a set of developed and developing countries over 1995–2010. A distinctive feature of the empirical strategy followed is that it allows the measurement of the resource reallocation directly attributable to infrastructure provision. To achieve this, a two-level top-down decomposition of aggregate productivity that combines and extends several strands of the literature is proposed. The empirical application reveals significant production losses attributable to misallocation of inputs across firms, especially among African countries. Also, the results show that infrastructure provision has stimulated aggregate total factor productivity growth through both within and between industry productivity gains.

New technology tends to invite speculation on the future of societies, inspiring visions of both hope and horror. This chapter continues that tradition, exploring the application of emerging technology, such as artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing, and the Internet of Things (IoT) to processes of governance and learning in education. Drawing on both utopian visions and twin nightmares of machinic-dystopias, the analysis reflects on the application of new technology designed to fulfill the UN’s post-2015 agenda in education. In highlighting divergent traditions, the analysis then shifts to the application of the same technology in China as part of the Chinese Dream, under which the Chinese government aims to become the world leader in AI while revitalizing the nation’s cultural traditions. These ambitions are explored through the introduction of Smart Cities, a system of Social Credit, and Smart Schools. Finally, the chapter reflects on these visions of twenty-first century pedagogy and possible resources for thinking about a future that cannot be fully apprehended.

This chapter examines China’s corporate governance and accounting environment that shapes the adoption of internationally acceptable principles and standards. Specifically, it examines international influences, including supranational organizations; foreign investors and international accounting firms; domestic institutional influences, including the political system, economic system, legal system, and cultural system; and accounting infrastructure. China’s convergence is driven by desired efficiency of the corporate sector and legitimacy of participating in the global market. Influenced heavily by international forces in the context of globalization, corporate governance and accounting practices are increasingly becoming in line with internationally acceptable standards and codes. While convergence assists China in obtaining legitimacy, improving efficiency is likely to be adversely affected given that corporate governance and accounting in China operate in an environment that differs considerably from those of Anglo-American countries. An examination of the corporate governance and accounting environment in China suggests heavy government involvement within underdeveloped institutions. While the Chinese government has made impressive progress in developing the corporate governance and accounting environment for the market economy, China’s unique institutional setting is likely to affect how the imported concepts are interpreted and implemented.

This study investigates how direct cultural interaction between a supplier country’s personnel and host country purchasing decision makers (HCNs) occurring during the exporting of professional, high-contact services can help shape the latter’s perception of the image of the supplier country and their willingness to buy its services or products. The article develops a theoretical framework that identifies those key drivers and their relationship.

This is a conceptual paper based on a comprehensive review of the literature complemented by a pilot study with offshore executive MBA programs.

A conceptual model is developed with a series of testable propositions.

The framework should help companies and organizations involved in the exporting of such services devise programs to bolster the image of their country as a provider of these and other services and products.

Trade in services is becoming a lifeline for many developed countries that have seen their manufacturing industries relocate to low labor-cost countries. Thus, it is imperative for these countries to bolster their COO to gain competitive advantage. Developing countries can also use such a framework as a means of improving the overall image of their own country and its products.

This research complements those rare studies done on the acculturation of HCNs by examining, for the first time, this process in the context of the exporting of professional services and on how it can lead to changes in the perception of the HCNs vis-à-vis the image of the supplier country.

Since the beginning of the new millennium, Confucian doctrines on one’s self-cultivation have been re-introduced to curriculum in China. The revived cherish of the Confucian legacy in the twenty-first century is a reverse from the official rejection of Confucianism in the Mao era (1950–1976). It also appears as a counterweight to the individualism proliferating among the Chinese youths born at the beginning of the new millennium (Gen Z). The re-introduction of Confucianism is thus ideologically purposeful. Yet how does the mixed exposure to Confucius’ legacy and the modern idea of self-awareness impact this cohort of young people, in particular their way of learning? This chapter focusses on Chinese Gen Z studying in Australia. Using the Bourdieuan theory of human habitus, this chapter examines how these students negotiate between the ideas of self-cultivation and self-awareness, and what implications such experiences have in an intercultural academic community.

Adequate, reliable, and efficient urban infrastructure systems (UIS) are fundamental to sustainable development, social mobility, and economic vitality. As communities continuously rely on basic infrastructure services to support their daily communal functions, major components of UIS are subject to heavy use, and thus rapidly deteriorate over time; hence, it is critical that efficient infrastructure management strategies practices are in place. As current strategies remain confronted with various limitations including adaptability to changing conditions, lack of public engagement, and cost-effectiveness, this study explores social media data mining as an approach to revitalise and support current urban infrastructure monitoring strategies by extracting valuable insights from public opinion. Twitter messages or ‘Tweets’ pertaining to public infrastructure in The Philippines were collected and analysed to identify recurring issues in public infrastructure, emerging topics in public discussions, and the overall perception of the public on infrastructure services. This study presents a topic model that extracts dominant topics from aggregated social media data and a sentiment analysis model that determines public opinion sentiment in relation to different urban infrastructure components. The findings of this study highlight the potential of social media data mining to surpass the limits of conventional data collection techniques and the importance of public opinion as a key driver for a more user-involved decision-making in infrastructure management and as an important social aspect that can be utilised to support planning and response strategies in routine maintenance, preservation, and improvement of UIS.