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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of native Chinese R&D team directors’ differential leadership on team performance, so as to understand whether and how the directors’ differential leadership impacts team conflict, whether and how team conflict impacts new product development performance of the R&D team and whether team conflict plays full mediation on the relationship between directors’ differential leadership and new product development performance.

A literature review on differential leadership and team conflict provided the model and hypothesis. Two-wave data collected from 103 directors and 344 subordinates from 103 R&D teams of high-tech enterprises from China’s Pearl River Delta Area were used as empirical study samples. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis was conducted to test the model and hypothesis.

First, the team director’s differential leadership would cause significant team relationship conflict and team task conflict in the R&D team. Second, team relationship conflict and team task conflict would produce significantly bad new product development performance in the R&D team. Third, team relationship conflict would significantly mediate the relationship between the team director’s differential leadership and the team’s new product development performance.

To yield broader conclusions and to show to that the results can be replicated in other areas or in other types of organizations, further empirical research should expand the sampling by choosing high-tech enterprises from Beijing and Shanghai that have strong innovative abilities. Moreover, to extend the differential leadership theory, few more related variables of consequences, such as team communication, team cooperation and team knowledge share, should be included in future studies.

In general, the native Chinese R&D department director needs to try their best to avoid the use of differential leadership style. In addition, reasonable incentive measures, promotion mechanisms and fair team work culture are needed so as to reduce the negative impact from the director’s differential leadership.

The paper is original in its investigation on how Chinese indigenous organizational factor – differential leadership – influences the R&D team’s conflict and new product development performance, and provides theoretical contribution and managerial implications for the R&D team management.

The past 40 years of reform and opening up have seen the role of core competence receive unprecedented attention because of the impact of the new normal economy as well as the pressure of transformation and upgrading. Few Chinese enterprises have effectively constructed core competence, and there is also a lack of strategic perspective and contextual embedding of its construction process in theory. This study aims to analyse the unique contextual characteristics of China in the transitional period and the impact on the core competence construction of Chinese enterprises and proposes its construction mechanism for Chinese enterprises.

Through theoretical deduction and speculation, this paper analyses the process of concept formation, clarifies the concept, analyses its connotations and structure and emphasises its relativity. Based on a review of the theoretical research on the core competence construction process and an analysis of dual contextual impact, this paper puts forward a mechanism for core competence construction.

The results reveal that four specific characteristics of entrepreneurs in balancing and coping with the dual nature of external context constitute the key driving force for a Chinese enterprises’ core competence construction; under the influence of this driving force, the core competence construction mechanism includes process mode, knowledge source, management mode and key success factors.

Approaching it from a Chinese context, this study deepens the concept of core competence; enriches and develops the research related to the core strategic research proposition of its construction; and provides positive significance for Chinese enterprises to effectively build, develop and strengthen core competence and enhance their international competitiveness.

This study examines the causes of flood disasters in Jianghan Plain, China and provides practical solutions to mitigate them. Results from this study indicate that both historical archives and more recent recorded data point to an increasing frequency in flood disasters since 1961. Furthermore, damage and losses from flood disasters have also increased significantly in the region. By analyzing the physical geographic factors and human activities, this study found that the main causative factors contributing to increasing flood disasters are landform/topography, climate elements, reduced drainage capacity of rivers in contrast to increased flood discharge, and human activities. Finally, the study examines various practical solutions to mitigate flood disasters in the Jianghan Plain.

Belief in Mazu has a crucial cultural status in Taiwan and the coastal area of Fujian, China. The design and manufacture of apparel and accessories to be placed on statues of the deity are also considered a sacred and critical part of the religion’s cultural and artistic inheritance. The crown hat of Mazu is one of the most essential elements of the deity’s apparel. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This study explored the styles of Mazu crown hats using Kansei engineering (KE). People generally use adjectives words to provide aesthetic evaluations. Fuzzy theory is suitable for processing linguistic problems that include vagueness, thereby providing a reasonable method of quantifying such aesthetic evaluations. Therefore, this study first established a fuzzy positioning model (FPM) of word evaluations for analysis. Factor analysis was used to obtain representative image adjectives that represented Mazu’s image. Fuzzy analysis methods were then employed to rank the various image adjectives through evaluation words and to determine the differences between adjectives. Finally, on the basis of image analysis results and expert suggestions, the crown hat was redesigned and its suitability verified.

Four results were obtained. First, four image adjectives appropriate for representing Mazu’s image were identified, of which “noble and kind” is the most suitable. Second, fuzzy analysis was found to successfully rank style images. Third, the crown hat style and design characteristics suitable for Mazu were acquired. Fourth, the verification demonstrated that the redesign effectively enhanced the perceived image of the crown hat design.

This study employed KE to improve the design of a Mazu crown hat. The proposed FPM can aid the development of cultural and creative design.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the institutions play a role in tourism development and international recognition, specifically the influence of marketization on the international tourists’ inbound arrivals in different Chinese provinces.

This paper constructs a demand model of tourism and empirically analyzes the relationship between marketization and inbound tourism demand with the panel data of the provinces of China and NERI Index of Marketization.

Marketization does have an influence on inbound tourism demand of China. Specially, the relationship between government and market, the development of product market, the market intermediary organizations and the legal system environment can increase the demand of the foreign tourists to visit China, although the magnitudes are different.

This paper argues that the qualities of marketization intuitions are important in increasing inbound tourism, given that it can bring better tourism experience and improve the international recognition. Strengthening the legislation and protecting the legitimate rights and interests of consumers can attract more international travelers to China. Market distribution of competitive economic resources, reducing political intervention into corporate activities and relieving tax burdens of enterprises can improve the competitiveness and the service qualities of Chinese domestic tourism firms.

This paper leads the discussions of institutions and tourism. It combines the consumer theory and uses static and dynamic panel data models to analyze the influencing factors of Chinese tourism. It argues that Chinese inbound tourism shall develop with the systemic marketization progress in China.

This paper aims to provide an overview of the development periods of home-based learning in Hong Kong during the COVID-19 pandemic, then discusses the differences in how the more affluent and well-educated middle-class parents and the economically and culturally disadvantaged working-class parents have dealt with the challenges of this new learning mode in their children’s education.

This research mainly adopted the qualitative research method, and used data from multiple sources, including online and offline participant observations, informal interviews and second-hand official reports.

The preliminary findings suggest that due to the closure of the formal schooling system, the impact of unequal family resources – such as tangible economic investment and intangible cultural and social support – on students’ academic performance has been exposed, thus reinforcing the pre-existing inequality between different social classes.

The findings of this paper are primarily based on preliminary observations and informal interviews, and it needs more systematic studies, both qualitative and quantitative, are needed to provide further empirical evidence to demonstrate the impacts of digital, housing and knowledge divide between the middle- and working-class families on students’ academic performance.

The paper presents new empirical data concerning the class mechanisms underlying home-based learning during the class suspension in Hong Kong. It shows that home-based learning in this challenging time has exposed the existing inequality in education.

China’s rapid economic growth has greatly changed its consumption pattern of agricultural food. Wealthy Chinese consumers demand food of superior quality. However, with the national grain security goal focused primarily on self-sufficiency, China has no choice but to keep increasing the scale of agricultural industrialization and modernization, which inevitably brings in unwanted chemical input that puts food safety at risk. China’s consumers started to adopt an alternative food supply method. This paper aims to examine how Chinese consumers use privatized ways (i.e. their own social capital) to select high-quality local agricultural products as a unique type of inverted quarantine.

This paper mainly used a qualitative research method, including participant observation and in-depth interviews as the main sources of data. For the fieldwork, two providers of high-quality food in Beijing were selected as the research sites. Data were collected by in-depth interviews with consumers and organizers of the two local food suppliers and participant observation of online and offline interactions between food providers and consumers.

Instead of seeing development of consumer citizenship, what is witnessed is consumers use their private resources or networks to deal with risks created by institutional failure. In this sense, it is a type of inverted quarantine, but is different from what Szasz described in his book. Instead of purchasing bottled water or organic food sold in the mainstream supermarkets, Chinese middle-class consumers rely more on their personal relations with food suppliers and start to adopt an alternative way of food supply.

Beijing consumers are among the most privileged, in terms of income level and access to alternative trusted sources of food. Therefore, the findings of this paper may not be applicable to other provincial cities in China. A comparative research on healthy food consumption patterns among major cities in China still require further attention. In addition, with the flourish of online shopping platforms, it is highly likely that the current shopping patterns among the affluent middle-class consumers will change accordingly.

This paper reveals the current uncertainty experienced by Chinese middle-class consumers and showed their concerns related to food safety. It may shed some lights on the current discussion about middle-class anxiety in Mainland China. It also developed a typology of inverted quarantine with empirical evidence, and therefore helps further develop the concept of inverted quarantine.

Green or ecological consumers can gradually become a prominent market segment. The purpose of this study is to investigate tourists’ behavior intentions for staying overnight at green hotels by integrating environmental education (EE) from the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) perspective. Data of 350 usable questionnaires for this research were collected from a quasi-random selection of people at the checkout counter of three of the 19 winners of the 2008 green hotel competition in Taiwan. This result indicates that a green hotel that provides green service can be supported by supporting EE. The findings and applications of this study are useful for both academia and practitioners.

The chapter presents the gospel festival as a significant postmodern religious tourism phenomenon which has not thus far been recognized or critically theorized. To date, conceptualizations of religious tourism, specifically pilgrimages, have been dominated by Turnerian concepts of liminality and communitas. It is suggested that these concepts, while valuable, do not sufficiently account for the heterogeneous and contested nature of these event spaces or their potentiality for the performance of alternative modes of social ordering. The Foucauldian notion of heterotopia is adapted as a more apposite theoretical framework and an example of a gospel festival in Australia is drawn on by way of explication.