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The purpose of this paper is to provide a systematic comparison of the level of business diversification in China and eight other large economies for the 2001‐2005 period. The reasons why publicly listed Chinese firms are more diversified than companies elsewhere are investigated.

Data were collected on the number of business segments in which publicly traded companies operate from the Thomson One Banker database and analyzed using non‐parametric tests and regression analysis.

The mean number of business segments per firm varies significantly by country. Notably, there is no evidence in the authors' sample that emerging‐market companies are systematically more diversified than their developed‐market counterparts. In most countries, firms have become less diversified over time. However, there is no such trend in China. The level of diversification of Chinese enterprises does not vary over the authors' study period (2001‐2005), making Chinese firms the most diversified in the sample by 2005. China's growth rate does not seem to explain the higher level of firm diversification. However, the authors find that Chinese state‐owned enterprises (SOEs) diversify their operations more aggressively than other Chinese firms.

Ownership data and business group affiliations were not available for all firms in the sample, making it difficult to control for these effects across economies. The study's findings are limited to publicly traded firms.

Government involvement in SOEs may be contributing to a divergence in the pattern of business diversification between China and other economies.

This paper quantifies anecdotal evidence that Chinese firms are more diversified than similar firms in other countries.

This study examines attitudes of students, teachers, and administrators about HIV education in Ugandan secondary schools. Results indicated significant differences between these groups regarding perspectives about sexuality, transmission of HIV, and AIDS stigma. Behavioral assessment indicated low prevalence of high-risk activities among students, which implies a need for continued education and behavioral reinforcement in the curriculum in the intervention programs for behavioral maintenance. This study provides important insights as to how a comprehensive HIV education program can be more effectively and efficiently integrated in the school system. An ongoing discussion within the public and private sector of the country addresses the need for a comprehensive education curriculum, which includes teacher training, peer education, and strong involvement of governmental and nongovernmental organizations. Results from this study provide an important step in this process.

This research reviews numerous studies of the relationship between consumer knowledge and external search in conventional marketing channels to investigate differences among these studies that have produced conflicting results. The findings provide a benchmark for future researchers and practitioners seeking to gain insight into consumer information search processes unfolding in the new environment of online, mobile, and social networking channels.

A meta-analysis of an extensive array of empirical studies of the relationship between consumer knowledge and external information search was conducted. Regression analysis was used to test whether certain characteristics in the studies can explain variability in the effect sizes in which effect sizes are entered as dependent variables and moderators as independent variables.

Objective and subjective knowledge tend to increase search, while direct experience tends to reduce search. Consumers with higher objective knowledge search more when pursuing credence products. However, they search relatively less when pursuing search products. Consumers with higher subjective knowledge are much more likely to search in the context of experience products, but as is the case for objective knowledge having little effect on search for experience products, subjective knowledge has no significant effect on information seeking for search products. In addition, objective knowledge facilitates more information search in a complex decision-making context while higher subjective knowledge fosters more external information search in a simple decision-marketing context. Finally, the findings indicate that the knowledge search relationship reflects strong linkage in the pre-Internet era.

Relatively little is known about how the relationship between knowledge and information search varies across different types of products in simple or complex decision-making contexts. This study begins to fill this gap by providing insight into the relative importance of objective knowledge, subjective knowledge, and direct experience in influencing consumer information search activities for search, experience, and credence products in simple or complex decision-making contexts.

Current issues of Publishers' Weekly are reporting serious shortages of paper, binders board, cloth, and other essential book manufacturing materials. Let us assure you these shortages are very real and quite severe.

Historically, the condition we now refer to as intellectual disability has been conceptualized using models that were extension of the medical model. Recent advances, however, have emphasized person-environment fit models of disability that view disability, intellectual, and other cognitive disabilities, as the lack of fit between a person’s capacities and the demands of the context. This chapter examines these shifts in conceptualization and the ways in which this changes how interventions are designed to provide support to enable people with intellectual disability to live, learn, work, and play in their communities. Such interventions and supports include issues pertaining to Universal Design for Learning, multi-tiered systems of supports, and the primacy of promoting the self-determination of people with disabilities. The importance of efforts to promote social inclusion is also discussed, as well as strategies to promote transition to adulthood. Authors from several countries provide examples of how these new intervention paradigms are being implemented across the world.

Few resources exist to incorporate principles of modular approach to course design. This research aimed to help instructors by presenting principles for practical and empirically informed modular course design in engineering education.

In the first phase, a systematic literature review was completed to identify categories addressing a modular course design. Search and screening procedures resulted in 33 qualifying articles describing the development of a modular course. In the second phase, 6 expert interviews were conducted to elaborate on the identified categories.

Guided by the interview results and the ADDIE (Analyze, Design, Develop, Implement, and Evaluate) course design model, the categories were compiled into six design principles. To present the design principles in relation to the guiding principles of modular approach, an overarching conceptual model was developed.

Here, we present our innovation; a foundation for an evidence-based systematic approach to modular course design. Implications have value for supporting flexibility and autonomy in learning.

Determining the attributes of effective business teachers is critical to schools as they strive to attract and retain students, assure learning, obtain and maintain reputation and accreditations, and place their alumni in the competitive job market. The purpose of this paper is to examine students and faculty perceptions of teaching effectiveness in five culturally disparate countries: Colombia, France, Lebanon, Sweden, and the USA.

A survey was designed based on previous research complemented by an extensive literature review as well as personal communications with faculty in different international business schools. The survey considered 39 teaching attributes related to three specific dimensions: class delivery, class preparation and design, and instructional traits and personal characteristics. The survey targeted students and faculty from seven business schools located in five countries.

This study offers new conceptual and analytical analyses from a cross-country comparative perspective. Rankings of the importance of perceived teaching attributes for both major groups involved in the teaching of business, faculty and students, are reported. The attributes are also ranked by teaching taxonomy and examined across countries.

This study provides practical results that can be useful to instructors wishing to increase their teaching effectiveness and to universities considering revising their student evaluation forms.

This study includes data collected from faculty and students from several schools located in culturally disparate countries and, thus, increases the applicability of the results in a cross-cultural manner and provides implications for practice internationally.

Deficiency of nutrition is generally referred to as malnutrition; however, malnutrition can refer to both overnutrition and undernutrition. Nutrient availability and intake are current challenges for society, and these challenges will only intensify as population continues to grow and resources become more stressed. This chapter examines the need for dietary guidelines to increase nutrition security, describes the history of dietary guidelines in the United States, examines compliance and challenges with compliance of dietary guidelines, and finishes with future implications of dietary guidelines. This study concluded that although the purpose of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Dietary Guidelines is to assist Americans in choosing healthy eating patterns and to alleviate the negative health and economic outcomes associated with malnutrition, consumers typically do not follow the USDA Dietary Guidelines due to their inherent complexities and other factors, such as income and access to food which may affect compliance.