Search results

The current study was designed to examine how and why divorced parents use computers and the Internet for communication with their coparent and with their child(ren).

The current study utilized the uses and gratification perspective. A subsample of 178 divorced parents with at least one child aged 25 or younger from a larger research project participated. Parents were recruited to participate in a 15-minute online survey through email listservs with a nationwide and demographically diverse reach.

Analyses revealed that divorced parents are active users of technology, for communicating with their child(ren) as well as with the child(ren)’s other parent. In addition, parents were comfortable using the Internet and accessing online parenting information, citing few barriers to use.

We did not capture the reasons for communicating or the content of communication. Future research should use innovative methodologies and measures to better understand the use of specific technologies and tools to negotiate boundaries between coparents living apart. In addition, a larger, more diverse sample might reveal different patterns of divorced parents’ technology use.

Technology allows for asynchronous communication, staying up to date, making plans, and making decisions with minimal interaction, and thus maintaining boundaries. Our evidence suggests technology could help parents find areas of agreement around their children’s lives in a less contentious environment.

This study provides the essential groundwork for further examination of ways to support coparent communication via technology.

Higher education institutions around the world have increasingly come to see information and communication technology (ICT) as vital to the business of teaching and learning. Institutions invest a considerable amount of time and resources to erecting the appropriate institutional infrastructure, creating policy and practice, instituting strategy, training faculty, and building the capacity of technology staff. However, in under-resourced regions of the world, such as Africa, ICT, the availability and use of, has several challenges to overcome: a lack of institutional infrastructure, sufficient bandwidth, and limited capacity to employ ICT in the research process or the classroom. Universities report inadequate funding, poor management and infrastructure, resistance to change, inadequate training, and high costs associated with effective ICT use. Moreover, critiques of Western technopositivism surface misgivings related to the performance outcomes and appropriateness of ICT adoption in Africa. In this chapter, the author will explore the work of international organizations and regional and national research and education networks in the diffusion of ICT discourse, consider on-the-ground adoptions and innovation at universities in Nigeria, and reflect on the suitability and sustainability of technology adoption, all within an ICT for development (ICT4D) framework that lenses the evolution of technological applications in higher education. This chapter is significant in that it connects African higher education to ICT4D and frames the various discourses, policy landscapes and practice arenas, as they relate to international actors, continental initiatives, networks, universities, and faculty.

This chapter aims to examine the introduction and development of the concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) within a Chinese social, cultural, and political context. It mainly looks at the CSR movement in China in order to explain how the traditional values of Confucianism contributed to the development of CSR discourse which is similar to and differs from some other countries in North America and Europe.

The chapter is primarily theoretical in perspective. It also adopts a discourse approach, specifically Fairclough’s three-step approach by drawing upon a large state-owned corporate group’s website documents and interview data in order to create new meanings of Chinese CSR shaped by Confucian moral philosophy.

The chapter argues that development of Chinese CSR theory incorporates a revival of Confucian moral philosophy into modern Western business management philosophy. It demonstrates a hybrid model for CSR practices which combine aspects of both Confucian business ethics and Western CSR theory.

The research results are valid for state-owned enterprises and may not be generalized to other types of Chinese businesses such as private-owned enterprises and small business enterprises. Further research is needed to develop comparisons.

The chapter suggests a people-oriented leadership style which emphasizes the importance of people in the organization and is proven to be successful in the improvement of employee well-being and organizational productivity.

The originality of introducing interview data offers a benchmark for the study of CSR discourse in Chinese context. The chapter also provides a guide for business managers to design the strategies based on their own countries’ cultural, political, social, and institutional framework.

In recent years, a great deal of work has emerged on eco-cities in China. Specifically, writers have discussed the role of the entrepreneurial state in the construction of eco-cities and have noted the role of these cities in the production of high-end real estate and new forms of capital accumulation and land acquisition. Whilst this chapter supports these arguments, we argue that the emergence of eco-cities in China is tied up with broader socioeconomic and cultural discourses and discourses of governance. We explore these ideas through a qualitative investigation of an eco-city known as the North Lake (Beihu) Ecological New Town (NLENT) located in the city of Jining, Shandong province. Specifically, this project, which involved the collection of documents, photographs and 20 semi-structured interviews, aims to understand the role that discourses of class, taste and consumption play in the fashioning of Chinese eco-cities. In exploring discourses of ‘green conduct’, this chapter also seeks to understand the role of eco-cities in the governmental fashioning of Chinese subjects and bodies. In this regard, this chapter suggests that whilst new forms of green development have played a part in urban expansion, new green real estate zones such as the NLENT have a powerful role to play in the construction and shaping of Chinese identity and behaviour.

Channel management deals with the establishment of an efficient and effective distribution channel. It implies the stepwise development of channel leadership and channel relations. International channel management and the establishment of cross-border relations between exporting suppliers and their foreign subsidiaries and intermediaries are key in international marketing performance (Madsen, 1989; Cavusgil & Zou, 1994; Solberg & Nes, 2002). Li (2003) proves that an export channel is a very complicated phenomenon and a number of factors, both contextual and historical, affect simultaneously the exchange modes and their operation.

We take a state-stewardship view on corporate governance and executive compensation in economies with strong political involvement, where state-appointed managers act as responsible “stewards” rather than “agents” of the state.

We test this view on China and find that Chinese managers are remunerated not for maximizing equity value but for increasing the value of state-owned assets.

Managerial compensation depends on political connections and prestige, and on the firms’ contribution to political goals. These effects were attenuated since the market-oriented governance reform.

Economic reform without reforming the human resources policies at the executive level enables the autocratic state to exert political power on corporate decision making, so as to ensure that firms’ business activities fulfill the state’s political objectives.

As a powerful social elite, the state-steward managers in China have the same interests as the state (the government), namely extracting rents that should adhere to the nation (which stands for the society at large or the collective private citizens).

As China has been a communist country with a single ruling party for decades, the ideas of socialism still have a strong impact on how companies are run. The legitimacy of the elite’s privileged rights over private sectors is central to our question.

Chinese executive compensation stimulates not only the maximization of shareholder value but also the preservation of the state’s interests.

Special education in China has lagged behind regular education for many years, however, the past few decades, the government has made considerable efforts to develop and improve the special education system. While the citizens of China have had a generic moral interest in disability since ancient times, the development of special education schools did not occur until American and European missionaries started schools for the visually and hearing impaired in the 19th century. The next major influence in the development of the special education system occurred with China’s Cultural Revolution in 1978. Interestingly, there is not any exclusive legislation on special education but in the 1980s, the government started Learning in Regular Classrooms (LRC), which is China’s version of inclusion. LRC has progressed rapidly the past two decades; however, the quality of instruction is low due to a lack of specialists, a shortage of personnel, inadequate funding, and limited technology as well as other barriers that are delineated in the chapter. The chapter emphasizes the government’s recent efforts in in-service teacher training, the preparation of preservice teachers, working with families, developing community rehabilitation training programs, and implementing evidence-based practices. Special education in China today is at a good place but it has quite a way from the ideal situation.

There are some notable ethical problems about role obligations, including the three prominent issues of role relativism, role definition, and role identification. The first is the problem to what extent roles may create duties or rights at odds with other moral requirements, the second is where roles are unclear or conflicting in what they prescribe, and the third is about the extent to which people commit themselves to their roles, or dissociate themselves from those roles. The three problems are significant in business ethics. A Confucian approach to roles can assist in dealing with them. Classical texts suggest a nuanced approach to roles, which allows greater flexibility, paying attention to context and detailed circumstances, always relating role prescriptions to respect and concern for other people, and emphasizing the importance of sincerity and authenticity in role performance. Such an account is consistent with virtue ethics approaches to business ethics.