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This paper aims to examine the relationships between undergraduate management students’ emotional interest (EI) and cognitive interest (CI) in research methods (RMs), the perceived applicability of RMs to future careers and motivation to study RMs within the Asian higher education context. This draws implications for better pedagogical approaches to motivating them to study RMs.

A pre–post-semester cohort study design was conducted with 172 undergraduate management students enrolled on an RMs subject by means of a self-administrated online survey using Qualtrics. A total of 170 students responded to the pre-semester survey and 116 students to the post-semester one. The main instrument was adapted from Mazer’s (2012) study interest scale. Regression analysis was applied to investigating the relationship between students’ EI and CI in RMs with perceived applicability of RMs to future careers and their motivation to study RMs.

The findings have shown that there was a significant relationship between undergraduate management students’ CI and EI and perceived applicability of RMs to future careers and their study motivation towards RMs. The regression model built on the two independent variables of students’ EI in RMs and their perceived applicability of RMs to future careers served to have higher accuracy in predicting their study motivation.

This paper contributes to enriching the conceptual understanding of the conflating influences of undergraduate management students’ intrinsic and extrinsic motivation levels on studying RMs within the Asian higher education context. Practically, this study explores different pedagogical approaches to better motivating students to study RMs.

This paper aims to explore the extent to which social responsibility and social and environmental reporting and disclosure have any relevance in the (so-called) controversial industries. The literature is ambivalent over the extent to which it is expected to see corporate social responsibility and social disclosure employed as active legitimation strategies. However, the apparent importance of “responsible gambling” in both the literature and in gambling industry initiatives suggests, at least a priori, that the international industry is active in some degree of legitimation.

This exploratory study examines the social and environmental disclosures of a sample of large companies in each of five countries over a three-year period using conventional content analysis.

The results are unexpected in that, although disclosure is dominated by employee- and director-related, other areas of social and environmental – and indeed economic – activity feature hardly at all. There is remarkably little disclosure around responsible gambling.

The paper is a research note based on a range of samples across five countries and is, inevitably, tentative. The implications, albeit tentative, include the need to re-theorise corporate disclosure, especially in the controversial sectors.

The note adds to the accounting literature concerned with the controversial industries and contributes to the scarce social accounting research in the gambling sector. The authors hope that the research will be useful in guiding more focused and in-depth studies into this increasingly important and counter-intuitive area.

This study aims to examine management attitude and awareness towards green logistics, explores the external conditions that drive and restrict its positive behaviour, investigates the level of its adoption amongst logistics service providers (LSPs) and determines the major barriers affecting its application in the industry.

This research investigates the key decision-making process on green logistics attitude and behaviour through in-depth interviews and thematic analysis.

This study explores both institutional and individual-level attitudes/awareness. Then, the driving and restraining forces and the challenges that influence the industry’s adoption of green initiatives are determined. Finally, this study constructs a framework following a behavioural driving route with interactions among green “attitude”, sustainable “subjective norms”, “behavioural control” and “external context” factors.

Findings can enlighten the practitioners who are struggling to adopt the green or low-carbon practice and provide valuable insights and constructive advice to LSPs and their stakeholders.

Findings can draw the government and policy-makers’ attention to provide necessary financial or non-financial support for the practitioners to improve their green operations.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first attempts to adopt the hybrid theoretical lens on the green behaviour of the logistics industry. New insights are added to existing environmental management literature with a wider understanding and deeper investigation of the decision-making on green logistics in the industry. The theoretical framework in this study can offer future applications to a relevant large-scale study.

This study aims to examine the potential disparities in environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting among emerging Chinese enterprises (ECEs). ECEs are subject to a set of internationally oriented ESG requirements imposed by the regulator of a global financial center that is exposed to diverse stakeholders. The authors also consider ECEs’ underlying institutional ownership, which exhibits influence over governance as a salient component of ESG.

This study is based on a random sample of 500 ECEs listed on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong (SEHK) – the global financial center of China. ESG reporting is measured by using the key performance indicators of the SEHK’s ESG Reporting Guide. The data are collected from annual reports that contain ESG disclosures or standalone ESG/sustainability reports published during the 2018–2019 fiscal year. The authors adopt binary logistic regressions and Chi-square tests to test the proposed hypotheses.

The authors find that ECEs’ heterogeneous institutional ownership and the extent of overseas development are associated with their disclosures on climate change. ECEs with international institutional ownership are found to be a significant factor for reporting aligned with the United Nations sustainable development goals (SDGs), using external assurance and stakeholder engagement, rather than state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and private companies. The authors also document that the presence of independent nonexecutive directors (INEDs) is significantly associated with reporting on meeting the SDGs and its use of external assurance, while the presence of female directors is a significant factor influencing disclosure emphasis on energy-saving initiatives.

The authors provide an empirical study of ECEs beyond the focus on SOEs that are expected to produce comprehensive ESG reporting in addressing a broader international community of stakeholders apart from the regime of their home country. The authors document the pertinence of ECEs’ institutional ownership and governance diversity to ESG reporting. In particular, international stakeholders need to recognize such underlying differences among ECEs rather than viewing them as a homogeneous group.

The authors suggest that policymakers and practitioners in Asian countries consider increasing the presence of INEDs and gender diversity on ECE boards to enhance ESG reporting, which reinforces the findings of prior international studies suggesting such governance practices.

This study contributes to the existing body of knowledge about ESG reporting by documenting the underlying heterogeneity within ECEs, which are subject to a set of internationally oriented standards, as evidenced by their disparities in ESG reporting.

This paper aims to illustrate the application and effectiveness of a marketing programme co-designed by supply- and demand-side stakeholders to reduce consumer food waste in restaurants.

This stakeholder-based marketing pilot study adopted the co-create, build and engage framework for programme design and implementation. Major stakeholders, interacting at the point-of-sale, participated in a series of focus groups, interviews and co-design. The research process informed the marketing mix, which aimed to provide value for all parties. The four-week pilot programme was delivered in a non-buffet-style commercial restaurant chain for 10 months. The amount of consumer food leftovers was measured and compared with pre-programme baseline data to evaluate programme effectiveness.

The results show that the marketing mix co-designed by restaurant stakeholders and consumers effectively reduced food waste by almost half in the pilot period. The profitability of the pilot restaurant increased as food costs decreased.

This research demonstrates how working with stakeholders from both the supply and demand sides can identify motivations and barriers. Insights gained in the research phase can inform the delivery of a marketing mix that reduces consumer food waste. This study demonstrates the marketing research, design, implementation and evaluation process for a marketing programme that reduced consumer food waste.

To effectively reduce consumer food waste, practitioners should not only focus on changing consumers’ behaviour. Co-designing solutions with food service stakeholders to address business and operation challenges is crucial to the attainment of a positive impact at the point-of-sale.

This research shows how marketing changes behaviour in individuals and business entities, contributing to positive environmental impact through waste reduction in the commercial food service sector.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how responsible gambling policies are communicated and presented as a legitimation strategy to different stakeholders.

This study is based primarily on 49 semi-structured interviews with internal and external stakeholders of Macao’s gambling industry in 2011. This study draws on Reast et al.’s (2012) legitimacy-seeking strategy framework.

The findings indicate that these organisations use construing and earning legitimacy strategies to ensure passive support and acquiescence from certain stakeholder groups, and they deploy bargaining and capturing legitimacy strategies to generate active support for this morally contested industry. As a means of attaining long-standing legitimacy in the industry, gambling operators engage symbolically rather than substantively in responsible gambling to minimise the legitimacy gap.

The findings of the study pertain to a unique setting and might not be suitable for generalisation.

In the absence of stringent legal mechanisms and strong external stakeholder pressure, the 12th Five-Year Plan of the People’s Republic of China aims to transform Macao into a “World Centre of Tourism and Leisure”, and gambling companies may soon face much stronger pressures from the Chinese Government and the Macao Government.

Voluntary responsible gambling initiatives are liable to be used only in symbolic fashion, without offering genuine engagement or full commitment to the most vulnerable stakeholder group.

This study contributes to the literature on social and accounting literature by providing an in-depth case study of how organisations in the gambling industry use different communication strategies to shape and respond to controversial issues.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the corporate response of Chinese railway companies after the deadly Wenzhou train accident in China which happened on July 23, 2011. Few studies on corporate social responsibility (CSR) in developing countries have looked into whether the information disclosed by companies is satisfactory with sufficient response after a major incident has happened.

Five companies with the largest market value in the Chinese railway industry involved in the production of trains and railway systems connected to the “7.23” incident were taken as the observations in this study. Information published by the companies and the media related to the accident, including CSR and sustainability reports, company Web sites, news and press releases and Internet postings, were investigated in detail in a qualitative manner.

The findings show that disclosure of information related to the “7.23” incident was very low or almost inexistent in the observed companies. For those that claimed that they had followed CSR reporting standards and guidelines, the disclosed information appeared to be insufficient to reveal practical information and fulfill stakeholders’ requirements. The study also sheds light on the corporate reporting behaviors of Chinese state-owned enterprises by applying legitimacy, stakeholder and institutional theories to the unique social and political environment in the country.

This paper critically reveals the poor corporate response after the “7.23” incident in Chinese railway companies. The case serves as an example for the companies to ponder on what improvements are called for in terms of social reporting and relevant corporate actions after a major accident. Also, the study contributes to the CSR disclosure literature concerning developing countries by examining the case of China and the little studied railway industry run by the state.

Despite the well-established branding literature, how a brand is connected to individual, market and societal/ideological levels are largely unknown. Grounded in the belief in a just world (BJW) theory, the purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of brand positioning status (BPS) on the support of certain brands (financially and non-financially) and examine the moderating roles of brand ideology and protestant work ethic (PWE).

In Study 1, a 2 (BPS: topdog vs underdog) × 2 (brand ideology: universalism vs power) between-subjects experimental design is conducted on overall brand support, purchase intention and word-of-mouth. To build upon the findings, Study 2 explores the three-way interaction effects on the same dependent variables by using a 2 (BPS: topdog vs underdog) × 2 (ideology: universalism vs power) × 2 (PWE: high vs low) quasi-experimental between-subjects design study.

The results of these studies reveal that customers have a strong intention to support the brands with universalism values, regardless of BPS, as power imbalance in the marketplace is not as salient. When a brand conveys the power ideology, the BPS greatly matters in earning customers’ support. This tendency, however, is varied among customers based on their level of PWE. This is because customers’ justification and evaluation on capitalism differs and their views toward market competitions between topdogs and underdogs are influenced by the personal worldviews.

The findings build upon belief in a just world theory and branding literature and discuss the importance of considering the BPS and the ideology a brand conveys in the marketplace, as the meanings and messages could be perceived differently based on what kind of work ethic one possesses and supports.

School improvement planning has been a central part of school improvement initiatives for decades. Evidence suggests, however, that traditional planning processes are regularly superficial. In the USA, some principals have begun developing short-cycle planning designed to encourage school leadership teams and staff to develop, monitor and adjust plans throughout the academic year.

In this study of eight schools in one urban district, the authors analyzed multiple rounds of short-cycle improvement plans and principal interview data to assess the progress schools made implementing plans over the course of a semester, the ways in which plans were monitored and adjusted and the extent to which principals embraced short-cycle planning.

The authors found that many tasks from first semester plans were completed, which informed the development of plans for the second semester. Observational data were primarily used to monitor plan completion, although principals engaged in monitoring but relied on their leadership team to do so. Principals reported regular engagement with plans throughout semester, but plans were seldom adjusted within a semester.

The findings suggest that short-cycle planning is potentially a viable alternative to traditional annual planning as principals communicated being more engaged and adaptive. Still, the evidence also indicated that old habits might be hard to break as school leaders did not monitor and adjust plans frequently enough to guide improvement efforts in relative “real time.”

China represents around 20% of the world's population, and her economy is still performing well under economic crisis. Historical events have shaped different parts of China with different economic developments and cultural encounters. The most prominent difference is between Hong Kong and the Mainland. This chapter would like to examine the development and issues of fashion retailing in China. For better understanding, this chapter starts with a brief discussion on apparel industry development and fashion culture in Hong Kong and the Mainland, follows by historical development and then presents systems of fashion retailing in both Hong Kong and the Mainland. Desktop research and exploratory research techniques were employed. Stores of international fashion luxury brands in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing were visited. Comparison of branding issues, particularly for luxury market in Hong Kong and the Mainland are discussed, so are future directions of fashion retailing in these places.