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The purpose of this paper is to bridge the knowledge gap in designing MBA strategy between China and the West by examining the content, context and process of MBA delivery. This paper challenges the assumptions and pedagogical approach underpinning the current design and delivery of MBA programmes that were originally moulded with Western management history and development in the era of globalization. There is consensus that MBA was used to train business managers; however, nowadays, people are inclined to state that MBA is used to develop global business leaders or full-fledged global competitors. How can we develop global business leaders without a global vision when designing MBA strategy?

Based on extensive literature review and critical analyses through the strategic management approach, this paper examines the status quo of current MBA programmes in the West and in China. This paper presents a conceptual framework that draws on the current MBA literature and on-going debates around management education and development in the West and in China.

The designing strategy of MBA has been originally strongly influenced by Western ideology and ethos. Therefore, the difficulties of management knowledge transfer are often explained through culture acclimatization and emphasize has been on cultural divergence rather than convergence. With synthesis between Western and Eastern management identified, we argue that the appropriateness and effectiveness of the traditional philosophy of MBA designing strategy based on Western management history has been challenged in the 21st century. The perception has fuelled criticism of business schools in the post-recession. They have come under fire for allegedly failing in their obligations to educate socially responsible business leaders (Barker, 2010). This leads to rethinking of the philosophy and vision underpinning the MBA designing strategy. A new philosophical approach – integration of Western management with Eastern philosophy has been under scrutiny, which is necessary in business education to enable future business leaders to become full-fledged competitors in the global market.

The output of this discussion helps to establish a conceptual framework which will provide strategic insight in enabling business/management school and MBA providers to address the current deficiency in MBA teaching and learning strategy and develop more appropriate arrangement when considering the design and development of a successful MBA programme in the 21st century.

The usage and preference of western imported food in a Muslim-majority state signifies its importance and relevance in a specific culture. However, the inclination and preference toward imported food products must be backed by a strong motivation, when the religion of Islam does not permit overspending yet the amount spent on such imported food products is overwhelming. Hence, the purpose of this study is to explore the motivation behind this behavior.

This is a qualitative study, and in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with 90 participants comprising professionals, housewives and university students from eight cities in Pakistan, which represented different regions and demographic variables. These were Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Peshawar, Quetta, Hyderabad, Faisalabad and Larkana. The technique used to analyze the qualitative interview findings was thematic content analysis. To confirm the results, Leximancer software Version 4.5 was used to reanalyze and validate them. Moreover, the purposive sampling method has been used in this research.

The findings from the qualitative-focused interviews revealed that the product attributes of packaging with attractive colors, design, size, overall quality material, taste and labeling with maximum product information influenced their purchase behavior. The vast majority reported that food products coming from the west needed to be halal, and this is an important deciding factor for purchase. Also, the level of religiosity related to western imported food buying behavior varies from city to city, which itself an interesting finding from a Muslim-majority population. Brand trust, loyalty, satisfaction, subjective norms were influential factors for Muslim consumers’ purchase behavior.

This paper is qualitative in nature, and therefore, the generalizability of the study results is limited. Also, this study only focused on Muslim consumer buying behavior from a Muslim-dominated country.

This study is instrumental for western food producers and exporters, providing valuable information about the motives behind the purchase of western imported food products in Pakistan, and by extension, potentially in Muslim countries in general. The study’s findings would add value to the field of consumer behavior, in which little research has been conducted on the relationship between consumer motives in context with Muslims’ consumer behavior toward western imported food products.

The presence of western imported food products may give better options for consumers so that they can pick a quality product for their own and family usage. The placement of the halal logo and extra care of halal ingredients also assures the religious and cultural requirements, enabling the western imported food products to penetrate quickly.

The findings of the qualitative-focused interviews revealed that the level of religiosity varies from city to city. Even though the core religion is Islam, the level of religious commitment varies in different cities when it comes to the purchase of western imported food products. The interview findings discovered some reasons behind this behavior such as consumer demographic profile, cultural background, income level, education, lifestyle, family background and social class. This means that demographic variation plays an important role in religious commitment and especially across cites that possess different cultural and behavioral patterns.

In terms of service hospitality, recent discussions of value-in-use from the perspective of service-dominant logic have focused on the customer’s determination of value and control of the value creation process. The purpose of this paper is to extend these discussions by exploring the value creation process in the Western-style restaurant in Taiwan, which is developed value-in-eat creation for restaurants. In Taiwan, Western-style restaurants are as popular as Chinese restaurants because of globalization and cultural integration. However, to local restaurateurs and managers, managing a Western-style restaurant in terms of localization and hospitality on value-in-eat creation presents both academic and practical issues. Thus, this paper aims to investigate Western-style restaurant hospitality management alternatives on the value-in-eat creation process in Taiwan using a data mining approach.

Based on a market survey, a total of 1,187 questionnaires was incorporated into a database. The questionnaire design is divided into 7 parts with 35 items. All questions are designed as nominal and ordinal (not the Likert scale) scales. Data mining approach, including cluster analysis and association rules, cluster analysis is investigated possible customer profiles and association rules is implemented to explore customer preference patterns and rules on the value-in-eat creation process.

Data mining results show two patterns including Pattern 1: meal patterns and customer preferences for restaurant hospitality management and Pattern 2: customer relationship management (CRM) for restaurant hospitality management that customer profiles and preferences on meal patterns, service patterns and CRM are engaged to suggest effective Western restaurant hospitality management alternatives, such as proper bundles for restaurant types, meals, exotic atmosphere and services of hospitalities in terms of a value-in-eat creation process.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first study to investigate consumers’ behaviors in Western-style restaurants using the measurement of nominal and ordinal scale for questionnaire development and further to implement a data mining approach on selected data samples. In addition, this study illustrates the patterns/rules of Taiwan customer preferences that best explain the knowledge of how to manage Western-style restaurants from the perspective of customer hospitality using data mining.

在酒店服务领域, 近期的从服务主流逻辑为视角关于使用价值的讨论主要集中在消费者对价值的定义以及掌控价值创造的过程。本研究的主要目的是拓展这些相关的讨论从而发掘关于在台湾经营的西餐厅的顾客价值创造过程, 进而开发餐厅的饮食价值创造。由于全球化进程, 台湾的西餐厅和中餐厅同样受欢迎。然而, 对于本地的餐厅所有人和经营管理者来讲, 管理西餐厅关于价值创造过程中的地方化和服务管理还存在学术和实践问题。因此, 本文运用了数据挖掘的方法对西餐关于价值创造的另类途径进行了探索。

基于市场调研, 本研究导入了1187份问卷作为数据库。问卷由7部分35项条目组成。所有问题以称名量表和顺序量表（非李克特量表）测量。数据挖掘包括了聚类分析和关联分析。聚类分析用来分析消费者概况, 关联分析来探究顾客倾向以及饮食价值创造过程。

数据挖掘结果显示了两种模式, 1：食物以及顾客对餐厅的接待管理的偏爱以及模式, 2：客户关系管理包括顾客概况和对饮食模式的偏爱, 服务模式以及顾客关系维护的另类建议, 诸如适度的捆绑销售包括餐厅种类, 菜系, 异域风情的就餐环境以及服务来体现饮食价值创造的过程。

本研究是首次探索了用称名量表和顺序量来研发的消费者问卷并且运用了数据挖掘的方法研究了西餐厅的消费者行为。 此外, 本研究阐明了台湾消费者的偏爱模式从而更好的解释了如何用数据挖掘的方法来研究西餐厅的服务管理。

This paper seeks to challenge some assumptions that have long existed in the international business and knowledge management literature about knowledge transfer between Western and Russian firms. It aims to open a debate among scholars and practitioners in these fields on issues related to knowledge transfer in this context.

The paper offers a critical analysis of issues regarding knowledge transfer and absorptive capacity in the context of business interactions between Russian and Western firms.

The paper argues that in the later stages of post‐Socialist transition it is no longer valid to attach rigidly the roles, respectively, of sole receiver to Russian and sole transmitter to Western firms. Further, the paper questions the view that problems in the knowledge transfer process are mainly attributable to the lack of absorptive capacity in Russian firms. As post‐Socialist transition has advanced, this is no longer the typical case. While Russian firms have taken the learning race seriously and have substantially enriched their knowledge stock, Western firms operating in the Russian market have primarily “learned by doing” and have not intentionally invested in improving their own absorptive capacity.

The paper invites scholars to examine knowledge transfer between Russian and Western firms in a more nuanced manner that takes into account the changes evident in the latest stage of post‐socialist transition. It advocates against subscribing to well‐established assumptions that were valid in the beginning of post‐Socialist transition, but are not aligned with changed economic realities.

Western managers are advised to invest more effort into enhancing their understanding of the local knowledge and specific requirements and needs for knowledge transfer to local Russian firms. They should intentionally invest in enhancing their own internal absorptive capacity. Russian managers need to pay attention to the dynamics of the absorptive capacity‐learning feedback loop, as well as to the distinction between potential and realised absorptive capacity.

Unlike the mainstream literature that has examined knowledge transfer between Western and Russian firms, this paper provides a fairer, more balanced view, aligned with changed realities, of the issues associated with knowledge transfer between Russian and Western firms.

Western economics came into being with the rise of the capitalist market economy. It had a nature of duality beginning from its birth: the justificativeness of providing theoretical pillars for the capitalist market economy system and the scientificity of revealing the internal relations and operating rules of the capitalist market economy. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

However, after the 1830s, this justificativeness gradually evolved into vulgarity. Since the 1930s, modern western mainstream economics has mainly explored the general market economy on the assumption that the capitalist system remains unchanged, and many outcomes of such research are positive and beneficial.

Political economy of socialism with Chinese characteristics, at the present stage, is mainly a Chinese socialist market economics. It is guided by the Marxist political economy and rooted in the great practice of China’s reform and opening up and socialist modernization.

According to political complexion, western economic theories can be divided into political economic theory, mainstream economic theory and basic economic theory. By subjecting these theories to what we term “elimination,” “transformation” and “transplantation” surgeries, respectively, we can absorb and accommodate their beneficial elements in building a political economy of socialism with Chinese characteristics, which in turn is conducive to the development and prosperity of such an economy.

The purpose of this paper is to study the similarities of the normative ideas underpinning the welfare‐to‐work measures for young people in Hong Kong and the UK. These normative ideas include the two respective Governments' views on their ideal model of the relationship between individual and society, and Etzioni's and Confucian ideas on how people's attempts to fulfill social obligations can reduce moral deficits. It is believed that the study of these issues contributes to the examination of the ethnocentric bias in the analysis of social welfare and different ways that non‐Western governments organize social welfare in response to foreign ideas.

The paper starts by discussing the ethnocentric bias in the study of social welfare. Then it examines the similarities of the normative ideas of the welfare‐to‐work measures for young people in Hong Kong and the UK, and discusses how the examination of these similarities helps us understand the ethnocentric bias in the analysis of social welfare.

The paper shows the ethnocentric bias arising from over‐emphasizing the differences between the ways in which social welfare is organized in Western societies and non‐Western societies, and the ethnocentric bias arising from taking for granted that people in non‐Western societies passively accept the dominance of Western models in shaping the development of their social welfare system, even if it appears that Western ideas share many similarities to their indigenous ideas.

The paper shows different types of ethnocentric bias in the analysis of social welfare and different possible ways that non‐Western governments could organize social welfare in response to foreign ideas.

This paper aims to compare the implementation of public–private partnership (PPP) in Western and non-Western countries by analyzing several predetermined aspects such as government and political system, PPP’s model of agreement, political commitment and the role of PPP supporting unit.

This study uses comparative case studies to compare the implementation of PPP in seven Western and non-Western countries by using various appropriate data such as frequently used agreements, government systems, political commitments and PPP-supporting units to understand the extent of differences in the success of PPP implementation found in each country.

The results reveal that the implementation of PPPs in Western and non-Western countries do not significantly differ, except for in the instance of political commitments. Political interventions in PPP implementation still frequently occurred in non-Western countries, which consequently disrupted the implementation of PPP itself.

Previous comparison of PPP studies only focused on the implementation of PPP without analyzing the political context in each country. One of the contributions that this paper will bring to the conversations around PPP is that the implementation of PPP will be analyzed with regard to political contexts.

The purpose of this paper is to outline an ecofeminist lens for the analysis of accounting, which is applied to: first, the critique of corporate social responsibility reporting (CSRR); second, the elaboration of elements of a framework for a new accounting – corporate nature responsibility reporting (CNRR) – as a response to the critique of CSRR; and, third, the consideration of elements of an enabling and emancipatory praxis in the context of CNRR, including a sketch of a research agenda.

The paper presents a critical application of aspects of the ecofeminist critique of Western dualism and its emphasis on wholeness, interconnectedness and relatedness, including its particular delineation of nature, to the critique and design of accounting.

Insights from the application of an ecofeminist lens to the critique of CSRR raise questions about the suitability of the western notion of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and its associated accounting currently in use. In order to go beyond critique, the paper introduces the notions of corporate nature responsibility (CNR) and CNRR and offers an outline of key elements of CNRR and an emancipatory praxis in the context of CNRR, including a sketch of a research agenda. The author’s elaborations suggest that in order to overcome the limitations of CSR and CSRR, a corporation ought to be concerned about its broader and holistic CNR. And, it should provide a CNR report, as part of a holistic CNRR concerned with the performance of the company in the context of CNR.

Through creating new visibilities, CNRR has the potential to enhance the well-being of people and nature more generally.

Ecofeminism’s critique of western dichotomous thinking has been given little consideration in prior studies of accounting. The paper thus draws attention to the relevance of an ecofeminist theoretical lens for the critique and design of accounting by focussing on CSRR. The paper introduces the concepts of CNR and CNRR to address the limitations of CSRR as currently practiced.

This paper aims to conduct a historical study using both primary (archival data) and secondary sources to evaluate the social conditions of the community of employees at Hawthorne Works between 1907 and 1933.

This paper evaluates the historical and social context of the 1915 Eastland disaster, specifically, the effects of the Eastland disaster on the community and the company to improve understanding of the contextual background and conditions which influenced the Hawthorne studies. This will also serve as a case study of crisis management.

The findings of the paper argue that the Eastland disaster likely contributed to the expansion of welfare capitalism practices by Western Electric in the 1920s–1930s and established the social and communal conditions which made the Hawthorne studies (1924–1933) possible.

Rather than evaluating the Hawthorne studies themselves, this paper focuses on social factors which made the Hawthorne Works plant site and the community serving it an ideal locale to host the famous studies as part of Western Electric’s practice of welfare capitalism and a distraction from the traumatic event which scarred the community and urged the Western Electric company to react. This study also provides an early example of crisis management.

The purpose of this paper is to extend knowledge of differences between Western European and Chinese service organizations in typical manufacturing companies.

The paper combines qualitative and quantitative research approaches. The qualitative study involved 23 minicases with Swiss manufacturing companies which operate a service organization in Western Europe and China. The results of the minicases were validated externally by using factor and discriminant analysis.

The results suggest that the service orientation of corporate culture, human resource management and the entire organization is significantly lower in Chinese service organizations than in their Western European counterparts, leading to significantly lower financial service‐related performance outcomes.

For service management theorists, the findings suggest that increasing financial service‐related performance outcomes in China is affected to a high degree by Chinese cultural characteristics.

For managers, the findings suggest that implicit logic for increasing financial service‐related performance outcomes starts with overcoming typical and, in some respects, limiting cultural characteristics.

Unfortunately, the existing literature provides surprisingly little in the way of suggestions as to the actual differences between Western European and Chinese service organizations. This research closes this gap by validating factors that differentiate Western European from Chinese service organizations.