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This paper aims to investigate doctoral examiners' narratives on their expectations of the candidate's oral performance in the PhD viva. Both the PhD examiners and handbooks that offer advice on the PhD viva preparation appear to share the same expectation of the candidate's oral performance in the viva. That is, candidates must answer questions to the satisfaction of examiners to warrant a pass in the oral examination. However, what constitutes a satisfactory viva performance – let alone an excellent one – is often undefined.

Using narrative inquiry as the guiding research approach to investigate this issue, 12 experienced doctoral examiners from across the disciplines at a Malaysian research university were interviewed. Their narratives were analysed inductively.

The findings show that examiners expect candidates to speak the language of defence by manifesting confident, interactional behaviour, providing credible and convincing responses and displaying doctoralness. The aspects of candidate's oral performance undesired by the examiners, as well as the reasons for having such expectations, are also discussed. The paper argues that the expectations of examiners in the PhD viva should be made explicit and communicated to the candidates and examiners to ensure a positive doctoral assessment process and outcome.

This paper contributes to the literature on doctoral assessment, particularly on the PhD viva, through the voices of examiners in the Global South. It also offers an examiner expectancy model of the PhD viva.

Coronavirus disease 2019-related fake news consistently appears on social media. This study uses appraisal theory to analyze the impact of such rumors on individuals' emotions, motivations, and intentions to share fake news. Furthermore, the concept of psychological distance and construal level theory are used in combination with appraisal theory to compare toilet paper shortages and celebrity scandal rumors.

Data collected from 299 Taiwanese respondents to 150 toilet paper shortage-related and 149 celebrity gossip-related questionnaires were processed using partial least squares regression and multigroup analysis.

In both cases, surprise is felt most intensely. However, unlike in the celebrity fake news scenario, worry plays a prominent role in driving the altruistic sharing motivation related to the toilet paper shortage rumor. Furthermore, while emotional attributes (basic or self-conscious, concrete, or abstract) serve as a guide for how emotions change with psychological distance, the degree to which an emotion is relevant to the fake news context is key to its manifestation.

This study examines the impact of individuals' emotions on their motivations and intention to share fake news, applying the appraisal theory and the psychological distance concept in a single study to fake news sharing intention. It evaluates the relationship between psychological distance and emotions, revealing that it is not absolute and need not necessarily shift according to psychological distance change; rather, the relationship is context-sensitive.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the credibility assessment and adoption of electronic word-of-mouth on online social-networking sites, social word-of-mouth (sWOM), where the author writes product reviews on Facebook and hopes their Facebook friends will buy these products. The readers of the sWOM message are aware of the author’s commercial intentions. sWOM messages on search goods and experience goods are considered separately.

Author of sWOM messages invites their closed circle of Facebook friends to participate in a survey. The respondents are randomly assigned to read a product review of a search good (i.e. a laptop computer) or an experience good (i.e. a moisturizer cream (beauty product)). The partial least squares method is used to analyze the data from 339 returns (166 for the search good and 173 for the experience good).

The sWOM readers’ assessments of the messages’ credibility remain free from commercial influence. While the traditional factors of credibility and author-reader tie strength continue to influence the adoption of sWOM message, readers’ perceptions of the sWOM author’s marketing skills is also a factor. The relationships between the constructs depend on whether the products are search or experience goods.

Few studies investigate the type of sWOM considered here. Commercially influenced sWOM messages are effective since the author’s marketing skills, and other often-cited factors, affect the credibility and adoption of sWOM. Thus, the equality-matching (friendship) relationship and the market-pricing (sales) relationship can work hand-in-hand in the sWOM context.

The purpose of this paper is to survey the technical performance of the cement industry including those related to procedures; groundwork of raw materials, fuels and semi-finished products for processing; accessibility of machinery, plant and equipment for various operations; arrangement and process control management.

A broad range of survey and research was reviewed, and all revealed the methods to recognize the key influences for development of green technology. The study explores the present scenario of green manufacturing (GM) strategies of Indian cement companies and provides the industrial ecology, ways of reducing energy consumption, environmental impact data collection, design and control of manufacturing systems and integration of product and manufacturing system. It also reveals the problems in decision-making systems owing to the impact of the green product design. Here, in this paper, all information is obtained by the medium of internet, journals, articles, and magazines.

This paper describes a problem of global warming, gas, water and other wastages emissions at the time of cement manufacturing and put forward a path that enables decision makers to assess the perception of GM in their organization and in prioritizing GM efforts.

This perspective survey is to provide an integrative outlook of performance methods for GM practices in the Indian cement industries. It gives important information, which expectantly will help in cement industry to adopt GM practices. This paper fills the gap in the literature on identification, establishment, and validation of performance measures of GM for Indian cement industries.

The purpose of this paper is to explain why Singapore has succeeded in curbing corruption and to recommend three measures for enhancing South Korea’s anti-corruption strategy.

The paper compares the contextual differences between Singapore and South Korea before analysing Singapore’s effective anti-corruption strategy and identifying the weaknesses of South Korea’s anti-corruption strategy.

Singapore’s success in minimising corruption is the result of its government’s strong political will and the adequate budget, personnel and operational autonomy given to the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau to enable it to enforce the anti-corruption laws impartially. To improve South Korea’s anti-corruption strategy, the Korea Anti-Corruption Agency should be established and adequately staffed and funded to investigate corruption cases. Those found guilty of corruption offences should be punished according to the law, without suspending their jail sentences or being pardoned by the president. Finally, the existing public outreach anti-corruption programmes should be evaluated to identify their weaknesses and improve their effectiveness.

This paper recommends three measures for South Korean policy-makers to improve their anti-corruption strategy by learning from Singapore’s success.

The wake of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic had caused substantial disruptions to the usual delivery of healthcare services. This is because of restrictive orders that were put in place to curb the spread of the infection. Palliative care services in Brunei also face challenges to deliver effective services during this period. However, the impact of advanced illnesses on patients' health and end-of-life care are issues that cannot be planned, postponed or cancelled. Hence, the palliative care team needs to continue to deliver effective palliative care services. As Brunei faced its second pandemic wave in August 2021, crucial adaptations were made to ensure palliative care service was not disrupted. This reflective case study aims to discuss the adaptations made in providing palliative care during this era of disruptions.

Corruption was a serious problem in Singapore during the British colonial period and especially after the Japanese Occupation (February 1942–August 1945) mainly because of the lack of political will to curb it by the incumbent governments. In contrast, the People’s Action Party (PAP) government, which assumed office in June 1959 after winning the May 1959 general election, demonstrated its political will with the enactment of the Prevention of Corruption Act (POCA) in June 1960, which strengthened the capacity of the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) to combat corruption effectively. Indeed, Singapore’s success in curbing corruption is reflected in its consistently high scores on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) from 1995 to 2012 as the least corrupt country in Asia. Singapore was ranked first with Denmark and New Zealand in the 2010 CPI with a score of 9.30. Similarly, Singapore has been ranked first in the Political and Economic Risk Consultancy (PERC) annual surveys on corruption from 1995 to 2013. Why has Singapore succeeded in minimizing the problem of corruption when many other Asian countries have failed to do so? What lessons can these countries learn from Singapore’s experience in combating corruption? This chapter addresses these two questions by first describing Singapore’s favorable policy context, followed by an identification of the major causes of corruption during the British colonial period and Japanese Occupation, and an evaluation of the PAP government’s anti-corruption strategy.

This paper examines cases of multiculturalism in Singapore and Malaysia. Through causal sociocultural mechanisms, the authors observe how two countries in proximity, with shared histories and demographic profiles, achieve differing outcomes in regard to social cohesion and competitiveness.

The paper employs case-centric process tracing (CPT) to build a “plausible” explanation of causal mechanisms that can contribute to social cohesion and competitiveness. The authors adopt a common analytical framework to distil the nuances of generalizability and a cross-case analysis in order to ascertain factors that enable multiculturalism.

Different causal mechanisms result in diverging outcomes in the two countries. In managing multiculturalism, Singapore has pursued policy actions emphasizing “integration and pragmatism,” while Malaysia has followed a model of “separation and preferentialism.” Judging by a selected number of established indicators, Singapore's multiculturalism outcomes seem more successful than that of Malaysia in respect to areas of national competitiveness and interethnic tolerance.

This paper sheds insights on the policy actions that promoted multicultural integration. The process tracing approach is found to be a useful tool in helping policymakers understand how intrinsic mechanisms can contribute to more/less desirable socioeconomic outcomes.

Together with the evidence using the CPT approach, the paper draws attention to multiculturalism evolving through distinctive sets of public policy. The authors ultimately suggest that such policies can be paralleled to the function played by institutions in leading to “varieties of capitalism” and have an impact on achieving cohesive and competitive societies.