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1 – 10 of over 3000The purpose of this paper is to provide a commentary on “Exploring new ways of thinking about and developing staff practice: the role of modes of thinking” written by Roy Deveau…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide a commentary on “Exploring new ways of thinking about and developing staff practice: the role of modes of thinking” written by Roy Deveau, John Ockenden and Petra Bjorne.
Design/methodology/approach
The commentary considers the consistency of Kahneman’s model of thinking fast and slow with brain research.
Findings
The thinking styles of staff undoubtedly influence their responses to people with learning disabilities. Although Kahneman’s model provides a heuristic approach to tackling prejudicial and biased thinking, it risks incomplete solutions through bypassing some of the factors contributing to staff behaviour.
Originality/value
This commentary concludes that Kahneman’s model is not completely consistent with knowledge about how the brain is organized. This should be regarded as a limitation of any model seeking to explain decision-making.
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Kathy Ning Shen and Mohamed Khalifa
Integrating the two‐system (reflective vs. impulsive) model and the “stimulus‐organism‐response” framework, the purpose of this paper is to construct and empirically test a model…
Abstract
Purpose
Integrating the two‐system (reflective vs. impulsive) model and the “stimulus‐organism‐response” framework, the purpose of this paper is to construct and empirically test a model that examines online impulse buying as a phenomenon triggered by system design factors.
Design/methodology/approach
A laboratory experimental design with a 2×2 full factorial design involving 151 undergraduate students was used to validate the effects of system design stimuli on online impulse buying. Interactivity and vividness, two design factors, were manipulated and a fictitious VCD movie store was created, with four storefronts representing each combination of treatments.
Findings
A compelling and sociable virtual experience as conceptualized with telepresence and social presence has a significant effect on buying impulses over and above traditional marketing/product stimuli. Such virtual experience can be created through the usage of interactive and vivid website features. Furthermore, cognition positively moderates the relationship between buying impulse and the actual purchasing behavior.
Practical implications
The findings provide valuable guidance in website design that can stimulate online impulse buying. The results also indicate the importance of providing cognitive intervention at the purchasing stage.
Originality/value
A significant extension of the “stimulus‐organism‐response” framework is to introduce presence as the system stimulus that captures the overall virtual experience and to specify the associated design features; i.e. interactivity and vividness. By incorporating the two‐system model, this study offers a theoretical underpinning of the role of cognitive processing in impulse buying.
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This paper aims to provide introductory conceptual tools for studying political power in a complex multi-level environment. In particular, it is intended to answer the question of…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to provide introductory conceptual tools for studying political power in a complex multi-level environment. In particular, it is intended to answer the question of how concepts provided by cybernetics and general systems theory (GST) could serve to foster the study of political power.
Design/methodology/approach
The objective is realized through a reconsideration of a set of the basic concepts of cybernetics, GST and political science. Two system identification models – black box and white box – along with Marian Mazur’s concept of steering are used to deconstruct the classic definition of power formulated by Max Weber. Next, a two-phase procedure for empirical power analysis is proposed. Rudimentary in its scope, the article shows a path of more comprehensive and transformative analyses of key notions.
Findings
It seems that system identification models help uncover structural and functional aspects of political power, which aids the process of analysis of different mechanisms of political power.
Originality/value
The article supports the argument for a conceptual isomorphism between cybernetics and political science. The value of the proposed approach is derived from the combination of two features. First, two aspects of system operation – functional and structural – help to focus research attention on different problems of political power analysis. Second, the interrelation and interdependence of both aspects of systems operation serve as a practical means in the analysis of communication and behavior of actors in the political power processes.
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The purpose of this paper is to present two system identification models – “white box” and “black box” – as useful tools that help understand self-organization processes within…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present two system identification models – “white box” and “black box” – as useful tools that help understand self-organization processes within and outside the organizations facilitated by leaders. Every leader is presented as a “systems designer” who plays a fundamental role in the process of self-organization, both within and outside the organization under study.
Design/methodology/approach
First, “white box” and “black box” system identification models are presented as a basis for an integrated model of the “system” and its “environment.” Next, the ideas of “closed” and “open” systems as the prerequisites of self-organization processes are described. Finally, two basic leadership tactics as well as their combination are characterized and discussed.
Findings
Two system identification models give a complementary view to the reality, as they combine both reductionist and holistic perspectives. The argument presented in the paper shows that there is a far reaching complementarity of the two system identification models.
Practical implications
Since leaders need to comprehend complex adaptive processes taking place in the organizations and in their environment, they search for the best strategy to approach this task. The tactics presented in the paper could serve as a cognitive tools that help approach the reality leaders are immersed in.
Originality/value
The paper utilizes two categories that are well recognized in systems theory and cybernetics, combines them with the idea of self-organization and puts it all in the context of leadership. It provides an integrated, yet relatively simple cognitive scheme that may be of theoretical and practical use.
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This paper aims to examine the strategic role of world-class universities and the international academic profession in the regionalisation project of China’s Greater Bay Area…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the strategic role of world-class universities and the international academic profession in the regionalisation project of China’s Greater Bay Area (GBA). It illustrates the way in which the case of the GBA regionalisation project offers a potentially rich empirical example for adding contextual understanding to the literature of the Triple Helix model, which largely draws on inductive theorising from western successful innovation cases. The GBA regionalisation processes will provide a wealth of empirical cases for identifying circumstances that address tensions and increase interactions in the Triple Helix relationship of university, government and industry for fostering knowledge synergies.
Design/methodology/approach
Focusing on the case of Hong Kong, it engages in policy and stakeholder analysis and addresses three key research questions: What are the competitive advantages and potential strategic role of Hong Kong's universities and academic profession in the regionalisation of innovation systems in the GBA? What is the role of the governments in the regionalisation processes? What are the expected opportunities and challenges offered by the GBA policy initiatives for the future development of Hong Kong’s universities and academic profession?
Findings
Hong Kong, given its status as an international finance centre and global city with intense internationalisation and established judicial system operated by the rule of law, will contribute to the GBA development by leveraging on its edge in scientific research and development and international networks of academic research through the world-class academic profession. Scientists and researchers in the city, possessing the competitive advantages of basic research and international partnerships, are highly regarded by the central government. The engagement of Hong Kong’s scientific talents, can play an important role in achieving China’s aspiration of becoming a global technology power.
Research limitations/implications
Analysis of this article implies that the GBA concept is currently China’s ambitious but vague economic plan. The opportunities in which key node cities and knowledge/ innovation clusters will capture and capitalise from the regional ‘co-opetitive” ’entrepreneurial ecosystem are still unclear. The future of the GBA regionalisation is so dynamic and open-ended that grounded concepts related to the governance innovation/ discourse of ‘one country two systems’ and social connectedness and capitalisation with Chinese characteristics will help in making sense of the contextualisation of a Chinese regional innovation system and enhancing the sophistication of reconceptualisation of the Triple Helix model.
Originality/value
This article will add to the literature some novel contextualised knowledge about the GBA’s potential triple-helix relationship between government-university-industry in the 21st century. The empirical example of China’s GBA will also shed light on a new understanding of the role of international social capital in the entrepreneurial knowledge economy, dynamics between basic and applied research, and a synergistic interface between regionalisation and national innovation system.
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This article examines the complexity and dynamics of Hong Kong students' choice to pursue undergraduate education in Mainland China under the context of “one country, two systems.”
Abstract
Purpose
This article examines the complexity and dynamics of Hong Kong students' choice to pursue undergraduate education in Mainland China under the context of “one country, two systems.”
Design/methodology/approach
This study mainly draws on primary data from in-depth interviews of 51 Hong Kong students studying in Mainland universities. Qualitative approach of inquiry is adopted to probe into the underlying reasons and processes undergone during the educational choice.
Findings
Academic factors push Hong Kong students away from local universities due to the failure of getting admissions in preferred programs or universities, and pull them toward Mainland universities due to attractions of specific universities and programs. During three phases of decision-making process, different influencing factors have conditioned three orientations: pragmatists enrolled in their aspired programs as the first choice, achievers utilized a fast-track path to enter elite universities and underachievers treated such study opportunity as a last resort for a degree.
Originality/value
This article contributes to a better understanding of the dynamics of educational choice to higher education in Hong Kong at a strategic point of time. It explains how the macro political/policy and sociocultural contexts, the institutional influences of hosting universities and sending secondary schools, perceived parental influence and students' personal characteristics have shaped students' college choice.
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Maksims Feofilovs, Francesco Romagnoli, Charlotte Kendra Gotangco, Jairus Carmela Josol, Jean Meir Perez Jardeleza, Joseph Emanuel Litam, Joaquin Ignacio Campos and Katrina Abenojar
This paper aims to present the concepts of two different ways of generating a dynamic structure of the urban system to further allow in understanding specific urban behavior…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to present the concepts of two different ways of generating a dynamic structure of the urban system to further allow in understanding specific urban behavior facing against flood and further evaluate the potential effect of specific resilience strategies aiming to decrease the exposure and vulnerability of the system.
Design/methodology/approach
Two system dynamics model structures are presented in form of Casual Loop Diagrams.
Findings
The main differences among the tow approaches are the time horizon and the approach that regulates the assessment of the resilience through a dynamic composite indicator: the first model refers to baseline at initial simulation time; the second model is focused on the ratio service supply to demand.
Research limitations/implications
Within the approach, the purpose is to properly and efficiently evaluate the effect of different Flood Risk Management strategies, i.e. prevention, defence, mitigation, preparation and recovery for consistent and resilient flood governance plans with different type of resilience scenarios.
Originality/value
The need for such tool is underlined by a lack on the assessment of urban resilience to flood as whole, considering the physical and social dimensions and the complex interaction among their main components. There are several assessment tools based on an indicator approach that have been proposed to meet this need. Nevertheless, indicator-based approach has the limitation to exclude the complexity of the system and its systemic interaction in terms of feedbacks’ effects among the identified components or variables selected for the system description. This peculiarity can be provided by System Dynamics modeling.
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This article examines the effects and implications of the 2019 social movement in Hong Kong and those of the enactment of the National Security Law (NSL) for Hong Kong for one…
Abstract
Purpose
This article examines the effects and implications of the 2019 social movement in Hong Kong and those of the enactment of the National Security Law (NSL) for Hong Kong for one country two systems (OCTS). It further explores how these factors potentially promote or threaten the intrinsic value of OCTS a normative consensus. It also discusses the factors underpinning the rationale of OCTS as a normative consensus and whether this consensus is inviolable and sustainable.
Design/methodology/approach
This article uses the concept of selective adaptation, especially the element of complementarity to explainthe legal behaviour of the Peopleʼs Republic of China (PRC) in relation to Hong Kong and to examine the effects and implications of the 2019 social movement in Hong Kong and those of the enactment of the NSL for Hong Kong for OCTS. It further explores how these factors potentially promote or threaten the intrinsic value of OCTS a normative consensus. It also discusses the factors underpinning the rationale of OCTS as a normative consensus and whether this consensus is inviolable and sustainable.
Findings
It is still possible and feasible for China and the West to work out a normative consensus to sustain and/or restore the core values of Hong Kong – the rule of law, freedom of expression, and political participation – while accommodating the PRC's political concerns about national sovereignty and security. This intrinsic value of OCTS in terms of seeking complementarity and coexistence between the Western liberal norms of governance and Chinese socialist ideology, should be acknowledged and that the OCTS policy should remain in full force to serve as a normative consensus between China and the West, and the feasibility of this proposed normative consensus rests on the PRC's self-interest.
Originality/value
This is one of the very few original research that applies the paradigm of selective adaptation to explain and understand the legal behaviour and phenomenon in relation to PRC's policy towards Hong Kong.
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Grace O.M. Lee and Malcolm Warner
This article focuses on and provides an updated version of our analysis of labour‐market policies in Greater China over the last decade, specifically in Shanghai and the Hong Kong…
Abstract
This article focuses on and provides an updated version of our analysis of labour‐market policies in Greater China over the last decade, specifically in Shanghai and the Hong Kong SAR. The role of the “one country, two systems” model is re‐evaluated vis‐à‐vis both their labour‐market policies. We present a statistical comparison of employment and unemployment in the two settings using the latest data at hand in 2002. Then, we suggest a labour‐market schema to take into account likenesses and dissimilarities. Taking into account the divergent histories, the distinct role of the state as well as the evolving economic structures, we may hypothesize that although there will be different labour markets emerging in the two city contexts, a degree of relative convergence may now be envisaged.
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This study aims to explore how urban governance of Hong Kong is impacted by the formulation and implementation of the new constitutional order of “one country, two systems” that…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore how urban governance of Hong Kong is impacted by the formulation and implementation of the new constitutional order of “one country, two systems” that distinguishes between the British colonial government and the current government under Chinese sovereignty.
Design/methodology/approach
While the literature recognises the society of Hong Kong has been heavily relying on land and property activities, few attempts notice the uniqueness of Hong Kong’s sequential constitutional orders and its relations to those activities. This study presents a geographical enquiry and an archival study to illustrate the spatiality of the new constitutional order and its implications on land injustice. Drawing from the works of legal geography and urban studies, this study extends and clarifies Anne Haila’s conception of Hong Kong as “property state” to “property jurisdiction”.
Findings
Though common law and leasehold land system were perpetuated from the colonial period, the new constitutional order changed their practices and the underlying logic and ideology. The urban governance order of this property jurisdiction is intended for prosperity and stability of the society, and for the economic benefit and territorial integrity claim of the Chinese sovereignty.
Originality/value
This study enriches the literature of Hong Kong studies in three major areas, namely, the relationship with China, urban governance and land injustice. It offers a conceptual discussion, which contributes to comparative territorial autonomies studies. It also contributes to legal geography by providing insights beyond the western liberal democracy model.
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