Examining HRD practices in Chinese state-owned enterprises -A case for change

As human resource development （HRD） gains popularity in China and state-owned enterprises （SOE） experience difficulties to compete in today＇s knowledge economy. Questions arise concerning whether HRD could revitalize the competitiveness of SOE. This paper used a multiple case study approach and investigated three SOE organizations in a midsize city in China. The paper revealed findings of current HRD practices of these organizations in relation to organizational performance, proposed three propositions for HRD at Chinese enterprises-level, and discussed implications for future HRD practice and research in China.     

Making decisions affecting oneself versus others: The effect of interpersonal closeness and Dark Triad traits

Actions that financially benefit one person may present risk to another person. For example, the payment incentives of portfolio managers and investors are often asymmetrical such that actions that benefit a portfolio manager can pose financial risk to clients. Despite the presence and potential harm of these asymmetries, few have addressed the question of who exploits these asymmetries and how to mitigate potential harm. Our study examined the effect of selfish personality traits (the Dark Triad) and interpersonal bonding on decision-making for the self, another person, and another person with under reward asymmetry present. Results demonstrated that individuals higher in narcissism and psychopathy made risky decisions for themselves. However, when reward asymmetries were present, all three Dark Triad traits were associated with making riskier decisions for another person in order to benefit the self. There was also a significant interaction between interpersonal closeness generated through bonding and psychopathy such that bonding made the decision-making processes of those high in psychopathy less risky for others. These findings have implications for how different individuals with different relationships make self and other-based financial decisions, and how those decisions change when rewards are asymmetrical.     

Returns to education among the informally employed in Thailand

Thailand experienced rapid economic development and made significant investments in education over the past four decades; however, more than half of Thai workers remain informally employed. Despite the prevalence and persistence of informal work in Thailand, little is known about the returns to investments in formal education among informal workers. Using individual-level data from the 2011, 2013, and 2015 Thailand Household Socio-economic Surveys, this study estimates the wage returns to years of education for informal workers using an instrumental variable (IV) approach to correct for potentially biased coefficient estimates on years of education due to unobserved ability. Contrary to expectations, informally employed Thai workers find substantial returns to investments in formal education. The results under the IV approach indicate that the return to an additional year of education for the informally employed is 11–12 per cent, compared to almost 15 per cent for formally employed private firm workers.     

Confirmatory factor analyses of the children’s attitudes and behaviors towards animals scale in two eastern cultural contexts

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the factor stability of the Children’s Attitudes and Behaviors Towards Animals Scale (CABTA) across two eastern contexts: China and Malaysia. Confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) were conducted on data collected from 700 Chinese mothers and 700 Chinese fathers, and 385 Malay parents of children aged 6–12 years. The CFA results suggested that the model was a good fit for both the Chinese and Malaysian responses. Furthermore, invariance testing showed that although there was factor loading invariance across cultures, the assumption of intercept invariance did not hold. This suggests that although the scale is suitable for use in both cultures, mean comparisons across contexts could be problematic. The internal reliabilities for the Typical and Malicious cruelty subscales were adequate across the samples. All findings show that the CABTA is a promising scale for international use.     

Teaching financial literacy in a co-curricular service-learning model

The current economic environment has brought to light the financial literacy epidemic in this country. A lack of personal financial education has contributed to the increase in consumer credit debt, a trend evident for many college students who often have significant credit card debt. One way to combat this problem is through financial literacy education. This paper describes a service-learning project implemented through a Beta Alpha Psi chapter, which fulfills the educational objectives of the accounting curriculum and addresses an educational need. The project provides reciprocity of learning between members of Beta Alpha Psi and their audience, college underclassmen. The results indicate that the project is successful in educating both presenters and audience members on basic financial knowledge as well as developing technical and communication skills of Beta Alpha Psi members. The project outline presented in this paper provides a framework for others to use.     

The role of productive failure in 3D printing in a middle school setting

International Journal of Technology and Design Education - In this research we explore the pedagogical affordances associated with the use of a 3D printer in a middle school classroom...     

Time Series Data Mining with an Application to the Measurement of Underwriting Cycles

Underwriting cycles are believed to pose a risk management challenge to property-casualty insurers. The classical statistical methods that are used to model these cycles and to estimate their length assume linearity and give inconclusive results. Instead, we propose to use novel time series data Mining algorithms to detect and estimate periodicity on U.S. property-casualty insurance markets. These algorithms are in increasing use in data science and are applied to Big Data. We describe several such algorithms and focus on two periodicity detection schemes. Estimates of cycle periods on industry-wide loss ratios, for all lines combined and for four specific lines, are provided. One of the methods appears to be robust to trends and to outliers.     

Democracy and trade: an empirical study

The theoretical discussion on globalization has suggested that there are linkages between democracy and trade, although the direction of influence is less certain. Formal empirical studies remain scarce, and have often focused on the question of whether democratic regimes influence trade policy, as opposed to the actual relationship between democracy and trade. This paper seeks to answer the question, “Do democracies trade more?” by applying the gravity equation to a large dataset of bilateral trade data for the period 1948–1999, while taking into account the role of democracy. It finds that democracy is positively related to trade flows, but only after controlling for trade pair heterogeneity. In addition, it makes the case for studies of this nature to draw a distinction between trade flows in the pre- and post-1990s period of rapid democratization as well as between developed and developing countries.