Search results

This paper examines diverging views on the Chongqing model, the policy experiment led by Bo Xilai from 2007 to 2012 that was famous for its “red songs” and the campaign against organized crime. It has impressed both the supporters of socialist identity of China and the supporters of liberal identity and led to an intense debate concerning China’s path of development. This paper attempts to discuss and clarify to what extent the Chongqing model represented a genuine socialist experiment and the implications of the model for China’s future.

Today's marketing is dominated by decision-making based on artificial intelligence and machine learning. This study focuses on one semi- and unsupervised machine learning technique, generative adversarial networks (GANs). GANs are a type of deep learning architecture capable of generating new data similar to the training data that were used to train it, and thus, it is designed to learn a generative model that can produce new samples. GANs have been used in multiple marketing areas, especially in creating images and video and providing customized consumer contents. Through providing a holistic picture of GANs, including its advantage, disadvantage, ethical considerations, and its current application, the study attempts to provide business some strategical orientations, including formulating strong marketing positioning, creating consumer lifetime values, and delivering desired marketing tactics in product, promotion, pricing, and distribution channel. Through using GANs, marketers will create unique experiences for consumers, build strategic focus, and gain competitive advantages. This study is an original endeavor in discussing GANs in marketing, offering fresh insights in this research topic.

Purpose: Despite the significance of filial piety in intergenerational relationships and its important influence on parental health and well-being, few studies have explored the personal meaning of filial piety to older parents. This qualitative study aims to address this question.

Design: Responses to an open-ended question of “What makes a filial child in your view?” from a sample of 432 older parents in a rural Chinese county were collected face-to-face and analyzed using content analysis.

Findings: The personal meaning of filial piety varies. Seven broad themes emerged. These include widely persistent traditional filial piety beliefs (Be obedient, Respect, and Maintain frequent contact and show emotional care), filial piety values similar to filial obligations described in Western cultures (Help older parents when in times of need and Be a good citizen and take good care of themselves and their families), and traditional filial piety norms in the absolute form (Take care of every aspect of the parents’ life and Provide financial and material support to parents). Themes were also compared with dimensions of the intergenerational solidarity model.

Originality: Findings reflect the coexistence of traditional and modern filial values in relation to participants’ interpretation of filial piety, indicating that traditional filial piety beliefs are fading even in one of the least developed areas in China. Implications for interventions enhancing offspring’s filial performance are discussed.

Research limitations: Future studies on the understanding of filial piety from the perspective of offspring are warranted to draw a holistic picture of this topic.

The chapter attempts to evaluate the utility of applying multi-level governance outside of the EU, and also outside of the group of democratic states, to states that have defied the third wave of democratization and that are characterized by a so-called new authoritarianism. The case is the People’s Republic of China, and the focus falls on policy-making and implementation in the field of hydropower with special attention to the issue area of environmental protection.

The chapter draws on the notion of scales and indigenous Chinese governance concepts and brings these into a conversation with the concept of multi-level governance. Case studies on hydropower decision-making in China contribute empirical data in order to investigate the utility of multi-level governance in the Chinese governance context.

The chapter argues that if multi-level governance is to have utility in other cultural contexts it needs to move away from a consideration of pre-given scales as locus of authority and consider indigenous governance concepts and notions of scale, and it crucially needs to map power relationships in the making and implementation of policies in order to reach analytical depth.

The case of China shows that authoritarian regimes can be analysed in terms of multiple levels as authoritarianism no longer automatically implies strict top-down entities. Instead, autocracies can be highly fragmented and subject to complex decision-making processes that can arise during processes of administrative reform. This can lead to vibrant and reflexive systems of governance that exhibit adaptive skills necessary to ensure regime survival amidst a continuously diversifying society and changing external circumstances. As a consequence, a research programme looking at the new authoritarianism from a multi-level governance perspective has the capacity to uncover and describe new forms of governance, by bringing the concept into a conversation with indigenous governance concepts.

In China, informal networks between the energy bureaucracy and hydropower developers determine the hydropower decision-making process. This is particularly detrimental at a time when the Chinese government emphasizes the importance of the rule of law and social stability. Informal networks in which key government agencies are involved actively thwart the attempt of creating reliable institutions and more transparent and accountable processes of decision-making within the authoritarian governance framework.

The findings show the dominance of informal networks versus the formal decision-making process. This sidelines the environmental bureaucracy and fails to fully realize the importance of public input into the decision-making process as one potential element of institutionalized conflict resolution.

The chapter builds on existing multi-level governance approaches and fuses them with notions of scales and indigenous Chinese governance concepts in order to enable the applicability of the concept of multi-level governance outside of its area of origin. This advances the explanatory depth and theoretical reach of multi-level governance.