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Vocational education in Hong Kong suffers from an image problem. Stakeholders often perceive it as a second-best option for those who fail to advance in academic education. In 2016, to promote vocational education, the Hong Kong government launched a publicity campaign and rebranded vocational education and training (VET) as vocational and professional education and training (VPET). This study critically analyzes the new discourse crafted by this campaign and assesses its potential to change VPET’s status.

This study applies critical discourse analysis to the set of television public service advertisements produced as part of the government publicity campaign.

The messaging of the publicity campaign consists of two major discursive strategies. One stresses the ability to find self-fulfillment through VPET. The other stresses the academic ability and middle-class status of VPET students as well as the non-manual and high-end career opportunities for graduates. While the first strategy offers a new basis on which to value VPET, the second recreates assumptions about the value of academic achievement and what constitutes respectable employment, even as it attempts to challenge stereotypes. It reinforces that the ultimate goal of education is financial gain and social status. It overlooks other values of education and the potential value of VPET in enhancing individual choice and agency.

Discourse analysis does not provide information about audience perceptions and interpretations.

The government could consider reframing their messaging in terms of the diverse values and experiences of VPET students. Highlighting the values that VPET students themselves see in their education provides alternative discourses that can better challenge hegemonic ideas.

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first discourse analysis of the government’s publicity campaign to promote VPET.

This study of multinational companies in China focuses on the role culture plays in relationship cultivation. The author interviewed 40 participants from 36 multinational companies in China. The findings revealed that characteristics of Chinese culture, such as family orientation, guanxi, relational orientation (role formalisation, relational interdependence, face, favour, relational harmony, relational fatalism and relational determination) had an influence on multinational companies’ relationship cultivation strategies. Multinationals from Western countries were found, however, to be more persistent in maintaining their own cultural values in relationship building than multinational companies from Asian countries.

Research on relational maintenance of long-distance or cross-residential romantic relationships is limited. Moreover, relatively little is known about relational maintenance among non-marital intimate partners in later life, many of whom prefer to live-apart-together (LAT) rather than cohabit. This research paper examines how older adults from the United States maintain their romantic relationships across residences. The authors conducted a grounded theory study drawing on interviews collected from 22 older adults in LAT relationships. The data revealed that older LAT partners engage in a process of safeguarding autonomy to maintain their partnerships and relationship satisfaction. Two broad strategies were identified: upholding separateness and reshaping expectations. While safeguarding autonomy was paramount, participants also emphasized the importance of having a flexible mindset about the physical copresence of their relationships. The findings have implications for practice, suggesting that creating an interdependent couple-identity may undermine, or at least have little bearing on, the relationship stability of older LAT couples. Future research is needed to determine how LAT experiences among racially/ethnically or socioeconomically diverse samples might differ.

The purpose of this paper is to re-examine the use of the term “culture shock” in international management studies and cross-cultural research and to propose a paradigmatic shift in how the term is understood for future research. The experience of “culture shock” is an established concept within international management studies, engendering an industry of training designed to combat difficulties in relocation. This paper argues that the use of concept is based on a flawed understanding of “culture” and proposes an alternative perspective to help organisations prepare their employees for overseas assignments.

The paper opts for a critical review of literature to examine models of culture shock through time and theories relating to success factors in cross-cultural adjustment. In so doing, the paper revisits the notion of culture shock from a social constructionist perspective within a dialectical framework.

The paper challenges the notion of culture as an essential, reified concept, arguing that culture shock is not about culture, but about the dynamics of context and how individuals deal with life changes to navigate the challenges that they face.

Future research should focus on context-related, interactive behaviour, framed in discourse processes, rather than predetermined a priori typologies based on cultural stereotypes. This would recognise the discursive nature of social interaction within a dialectical framework, where relational tension emerges as a result of disparity.

The paper contributes to an understanding of the complex range of factors influencing the success of relocation to guide international companies in their policies.

This paper proposes a paradigm shift in the treatment of culture shock towards a more discourse-based concept created through universal cultural and dialectical processes.

This paper aims to explore the pertinent issues, barriers and pitfalls of intergenerational communication in business families during their leadership succession period.

Building on relational leadership theory, the paper makes use of an action research approach using a qualitative single case study to investigate communication barriers and pitfalls in business transition.

Through action research, interventions were taken in the underlying case, which increased the consciousness, as well as the personal and social competencies of the business family. Thus, business families stuck in ambivalent entanglement understand their underlying motives and needs within the change process, get into closer contact with their emotional barriers and communication hindrances, which is a prerequisite for any change, and break the succession iceberg phenomenon.

Future research should undertake multiple case studies to validate and/or modify the qualitative methods used in this action research to increase the validity and generalizability of the findings.

Given the large number of business families in transition, our study shows the beneficial effects action research might have on business families’ communication behavior along a change process. The findings might help other business families to understand the value of action research for such underlying challenges and decrease communication barriers.

This is one of the few studies to have addressed intergenerational communication of business families using an action research approach.

The highly contagious coronavirus and the rapid spread of COVID-19 disease have generated a global public health crisis, which is being addressed at various local and global scales through social distancing measures and guidelines. This is coupled with debates about the nature of living and working patterns through intensive utilisation of information and telecommunication technologies, leading to the social and institutional acceptability of these patterns as the “new normal”. The primary objective of this article is to instigate a discourse about the potential contribution of architecture and urban design and planning in generating knowledge that responds to pressing questions about future considerations of post pandemic architecture and urbanism. Methodologically, the discussion is based on a trans-disciplinary framework, which is utilised for conceptual analysis and is operationalized by identifying and discoursing design and planning implications. The article underscores relevant factors; originates insights for areas where future research will be critically needed, through key areas: a) Issues related to urban dynamics are delineated from the perspective of urban and human geography, urban design and planning, and transportation engineering; b) Questions that pertain to socio-spatial implications and urban space/ urban life dialectics stem from the field of environmental psychology; and c) Deliberations about new environments that accommodate new living/working styles supervene from ethnographical and anthropological perspectives. The article concludes with an outlook that captures key aspects of the needed synergy between architectural and urban education, research, and practice and public health in a post pandemic virtual and global world.

Research has shown that creative self-efficacy is an important antecedent of workplace creativity, but recent research indicates that this relationship may be moderated by contextual factors. The current study investigates whether leader dialectical thinking and leader member exchange moderate the relationship between employee creative self-efficacy and employee creativity.

A survey sample of 222 employees in 43 teams from Chinese high-tech companies was collected and HLM was used to test our research model.

The positive association between employee creative self-efficacy and employee creativity was strengthened when a leader displayed a dialectical thinking style. Additional analyses failed to find support for the moderating role of leader-member exchange (LMX).

These findings establish leadership cognitive style as a potential boundary condition of the relationship between creative self-efficacy and employee creativity.

Companies can make an active effort in recruiting and training leaders who have a dialectical mindset as they can play significant roles in facilitating employee creativity.

Technological advancement and innovation is important for social welfare. This paper helps to improve the efficiency of creativity processes and finally benefits the whole society.

This is the first introduction of the leader's dialectical thinking as a moderator of the relationship between creative self-efficacy and creativity.