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This article is based on a small‐scale study into a tai chi class for older people at risk of falling. The aims of the research were first, to explore what benefits the class members felt they derived from practising tai chi and second, and more specifically, whether or not the class members actually practised tai chi at home. The study was based on two broad assumptions. The first being that the practice of tai chi has benefits for older people at risk of falling. The second assumption being that, such benefits that might result from tai chi, increase with more frequent practice. The latter assumption prompted the desire to investigate whether the class members practised tai chi at home. It was hoped that if it was discovered that class members derived benefits from tai chi, and were, for whatever reason, prevented from practising at home, that some solutions could be found in order to facilitate further practice.The research revealed, somewhat surprisingly, that the members did not believe that tai chi had necessarily reduced their risk of falling. However, notwithstanding this, their commitment to tai chi was very strong. The findings suggest that tai chi had a symbolic value for this predominantly middle‐class group. It allowed them to ‘buy into’ a third age lifestyle, despite increasing intimations of entering the fourth age. The members used tai chi, not only to improve balance and fitness, but also as a means of achieving a positive self‐image. It was therefore an age‐resisting strategy that operated on both a physical and symbolic level.

To convey the potential of hidden benefits in well‐selected arts‐based training – in this particular instance, theatrically‐based training.

A leading international consultancy put numerous vice presidents through training with The Actors Institute (TAI) over about ten years. This paper is an interview with a leading consultant who frequently gives presentations that had been consistently rated highly by his audiences before he began attending. After ten years, he still periodically returns to TAI for assistance.

The original intent was to improve presentations. In fact, participants gained a better sense for dealing with all kinds of audiences, extending to client engagements and personal situations.

Many executives don't feel the need for training when they hit a certain level. When the training is based on developmental skills and is over an extended period rather than a brief one‐time experience, and the training organization wisely chosen, there can be long‐term benefits that go beyond expectations.

George Stalk is highly respected. He has not previously spoken out on this topic. His first‐hand experiences can influence many other businesspeople to potential benefits of arts‐based training that they had not recognized.

The purpose of this paper is to assess critically the political challenges facing Hong Kong’s “one country, two systems” policy following the Umbrella Movement and to evaluate the territory’s democratic and autonomous future.

A critical, contextual, and analytical approach has been adopted to evaluate the problems and prospects for post-Umbrella Movement Hong Kong.

The contradictions embedded in the “one country, two systems” policy have become apparent since the Umbrella Movement arose and Hong Kong’s political and democratic future is as problematic as its prospects are uncertain, though the possibility of some rapprochement between Hong Kong and Beijing should not be ruled out completely.

The critical evaluation offered by this paper is no scientific prediction. Social scientific analysis of this kind is suggestive rather than definitive. The informed discussion offered by this paper will help readers to better understand the strengths and weaknesses inherent in Beijing’s “one country, two systems” policy and the tortuous process of democratization in Hong Kong. The conclusion drawn in the paper points to a possible way out of the political impasse that is facing post-Umbrella Movement Hong Kong.

This paper is a pioneering study of the most important political conflict between Beijing and Hong Kong since 1997, the conclusion of which may have important political and policy implications for both China and Hong Kong.

Research concerning marketing standardisation is still developing. A new research theme has recently emerged, wherein it is suggested that the structure of marketing decision making is likely to be a factor of marketing standardisation strategy. This study aims to add insights to this new research field. Based on the outcome of previous studies, it aims to propose and test a research framework concerning the relationships among environmental factors, the structure of decision making and marketing standardisation/performance. This study seeks to focus on the two most important programme elements: promotion and product.

The study used the experience of 78 firms operating in the European Union (EU) region to achieve its research objectives. The data used were collected through a postal survey. This analysis used both partial least square (PLS) and hierarchical regression analysis methods to examine its research framework.

The study has generated a framework for future research. It is suggested that, with the absence of direct influence, the structure of decision making is still likely to have an indirect effect on marketing standardisation strategy. Although a path relationship is unlikely to exist between environmental factors, the structure of decision making and performance, the joint effect between environmental factors and the decision‐making structure on performance is confirmed. The outcomes of the study suggest that, through careful selection, firms adopting a high and low degree centralisation structure can benefit from operating in a similar high/low environment, as well as in a country with high/low market size and potential.

The study's findings have enhanced those uncovered by other researchers. A number of implications can be drawn for these findings.

The persistent growth of ‘nativists’ in Hong Kong not only highlighted people's consideration over mainlandization, it also stimulates Beijing's nerve on national security. This paper adopts a critical perspective to explore the development of ‘Hong Kong Nationalism’ that emerged in 2015. It will show the development of ‘Hong Kong nationalism’ is a phenomenon compounded by the creation of critical academics, government exaggeration, and pro-Beijing media labeling. In fact, this phenomenon leads to the suppression of political space for critical opposition.

The interaction between Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government, central government, critical academics, and pro-Beijing media will be used to adopt a conceptual framework to show how their interrelationship would derive tremendous impacts to the development of ‘Hong Kong Nationalism.’ It will further investigate some implications for the further political development in Hong Kong.

The development of ‘Hong Kong Nationalism’ illustrates the triangular relations between critical academic, HKSAR and the Beijing government, and pro-Beijing media. The critical academics create and imagine such ‘Hong Kong Nationalism’ with Hong Kong's political destiny that stimulates the nerve of Beijing and HKSAR on territorial integrity. The ‘imagined nationalism’ advocated by critical and opposition academics and advanced by the activists not only opened the Pandora's box that derives a Trojan horse scenario for the development of pan-democratic camp which affects the democracy movement tremendously.

This paper is the first academic paper to explore ‘Hong Kong Nationalism’ through analyzing the discourse advocated by critical academics. This paper can also fill in the gap from existing literature about social movement in Hong Kong as most of them ignored the influence of radical nativist movement.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of trust, informational support and integrative behaviors in the effective outcomes of peer conflict in the workplace.

Deidentified secondary data were provided by a human resource management company that offers conflict resolution training. The authors studied a sample of 815 supervisors and middle-level managers (51% female; average age = 40) who reported their primary work experience was in the USA. Each respondent described a workplace conflict with a peer. A regression-based bootstrapping technique was used to test the hypothesized relationships between the constructs of trust, informational support, integrative behaviors and effective outcomes in peer conflict.

The relationship between trust and the use of integrative behaviors during peer conflict is conditional on the availability of informational support, such that those who solicit a third party’s views are more likely to exhibit integrative behaviors during the conflict under study, even at relatively lower levels of trust in the conflict relationship.

In this study, the authors add to social interdependence theory and the role of integrative behaviors by proposing the importance of interpersonal trust and informational support, which may reduce uncertainty during peer conflict. The authors also extend existing literature on cooperation, cooperative approaches to managing conflict and integrative behaviors in the workplace by examining peer-to-peer organizational conflict.

This study aims to explore family incivility as a source of stress originating in the family domain and empirically examine its spillover effects on the workplace.

Through integrating the work–family interface model with conservation of resources (COR) theory, this study investigated the effect of family incivility as perceived by employees of the service industry on service sabotage, along with the mediating role of family-to-work conflict (FWC) and the moderating role of work–family centrality.

The results of a three-wave survey of 335 employees in China and 62 of their immediate supervisors demonstrated that family incivility was positively related to service sabotage, and FWC also mediated this relationship. Moreover, work–family centrality was found to strengthen the effect of family incivility on FWC, as well as the mediating effect of FWC on the relationship between family incivility and service sabotage.

This study not only enriched the work–family interface literature but also suggested new insights into sabotage behaviors by focusing on antecedents in the family domain.

By realizing that family incivility has detrimental effects on service employee behaviors, enterprises and managers should provide greater support for employees in managing family incivility and help them to maintain a better balance between work and family life.

This study appears to be the first empirical evidence linking a family stressor (i.e. family incivility) with a workplace behavioral outcome in the service industry (i.e. service sabotage).

Rejecting building information modeling (BIM) can negatively impact the architectural, engineering and construction (AEC) industries. While BIM is trending globally, its implementation in post-conflict low-income economies is still limited. The purpose of this paper is to identify the critical factors for implementing BIM in a post-conflict low-income economy, using Afghanistan as a case study.

This study identifies potential affecting factors for BIM implementation through reviewing existing literature and interviewing AEC professionals in Afghanistan. Then, the factors are inserted into a questionnaire survey and disseminated with Afghanistan’s AEC practitioners. The collected data was analyzed to determine the critical factors. Also, the underlying relationships between the critical factors were established through factor analysis.

A total of 11 critical factors are affecting BIM implementation in Afghanistan. From those, nine factors can be grouped into the following three components: technological, environmental and organizational. Two factors, “cost-benefit of implementing BIM” and “market demand for BIM,” are recurring in low- and middle-income economies. Conversely, the “presence of appropriate projects to implement BIM” is the unique critical factor for Afghanistan that might affect other post-conflict low-income economies.

This study focuses on affecting factors for BIM implementation in post-conflict low-income economies, using Afghanistan as a reference rather than other types of economies that have been widely studied.

The objective of this study is to investigate to what extent advertising appeals in Hong Kong and Korea are different, and whether the differences between the two countries can be attributed to the differences in nations' cultural characteristics. Hypotheses are drawn in relation to the two dimensions of Hofstede's framework – uncertainty avoidance and masculinity/femininity.

A sample of 803 prime‐time television commercials from the two countries was analyzed using Cheng and Schweitzer's classification of advertising appeals.

The results show that femininity is an important variable for explaining differences in advertising between Hong Kong and Korea. Both Hong Kong and Korean advertising show no difference in values of high uncertainty avoidance, although an appeal of high uncertainty avoidance was used more often in Korean advertising. However, values of low uncertainty avoidance are more prevalent in television commercials in Korea, a country of high uncertainty avoidance, than Hong Kong, a country of low uncertainty avoidance. It is also found that the correlation between product categories and cultural values is society‐based.

This study reveals that Hofstede's framework does explain cross‐cultural differences between Hong Kong and Korea and provides empirical evidences for the impact of value paradoxes on advertising in both countries, suggesting that Hofstede's framework and the value paradoxes provide a possible theory for testing the relationship of the society and its advertising content within a culture as well as across cultures.