Attitudes of University Students toward Business Ethics: A Cross-National Investigation of Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong

With the current globalisation and complexity of today’s business environment, there are increasing concerns on the role of business ethics. Using culture and religion as the determinants, this paper presents a cross-national study of attitudes toward business ethics among three countries: Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong. The results of this paper have shown the attitudes toward business ethics to be significantly different among the three countries. It was also found that respondents who practised their religion tend to consider themselves more ethically minded than those who do not. Additional findings on gender have also revealed significant differences between the males and females for respondents in Singapore and Australia. Males are generally considered more ethical than females across the three countries studied. Dr. Ian Phau teaches Marketing at the Curtin University of Technology. He is an avid researcher in the area of country image and branding issues. He also edits a peer reviewed marketing journal. Garick Kea is a researcher with the Curtin University of Technology. His research interests include consumer ethnocentrism, Consumer Animosity and marketing ethics.     

"Just Like Prophet Mohammad Preached": Labor,Piety, and Charity in Contemporary Turkey

ABSTRACT

Based on research conducted in Konya, Istanbul, Afyon, Izmir, Manisa, and Denizli, Turkey, in 2004–9, this contribution documents how gendered individual religious practices are conjoined to transnational business competition, changing labor conditions, and broader projects of economic transformation. The study focuses on the carpet-weaving and textile industries and civil society organizations in Turkey, investigating the ways in which charitable giving, pious practice, and local labor conditions create uniquely complex ways in which socioeconomic policies, processes, and commitments affect gendered lives. What is witnessed in weaving neighborhoods, civil society organizations, and the transnational linkages of production–consumption is neither a wholesale translation of Weberian capitalism nor a strict implementation of Islamic texts and practices. It is a unique Turkish assemblage of faith, religious practice, charitable giving, and flexibility of labor. This contribution calls for feminist researchers to empirically examine “pious economies” – that is, the linkages between pious practice and economic behavior.     

State privatization and the unrelenting expansion of neoliberalism: The case of the Greek financial crisis

The existing literature has identified two waves of reforms within the neoliberal agenda of state privatization, deregulation and new public management. This study examines what we call the third wave of neoliberal reforms of governmentality, in which members of central governments and public servants increasingly come to think and behave like business entrepreneurs. We address the matter through the lens of crises theoretically capable of undermining neoliberalism's legitimacy. Specifically, we aim to better understand the manufacturing of consent to the neoliberal agenda of state privatization. We study the falsification of Greek public accounts as revealed in 2010, relying on empirical material, such as journalistic statements and reports from international institutions. Our analysis indicates that, although the Greek crisis provided an opportunity to question key aspects of contemporary state management, including the practice by governments of creative finance, the main problematizing trajectories articulated in both the media and political arenas did not destabilize but consolidated neoliberalism. In particular, we illustrate how discursive activity favors the emergence of a collective interpretation of crises that perpetuates the hold of neoliberalism over the social and political realms. In the discussion, we reflect on the consequences that this has for democratic processes.     

基于TCM-CVM综合模型的平遥古城旅游景区经济价值评估

借助问卷调查、统计年鉴和公报等获取基础数据资料,构建TCM-CVM综合评价模型,对山西省平遥古城旅游景区进行经济价值综合评估研究,结果显示:2021年平遥古城旅游景区经济价值评估值为152.66亿元,其中使用价值为84.46亿元,非使用价值为68.2亿元,表明平遥古城世界文化遗产旅游资源开发利用的经济、生态和社会效益处于有序发展、和谐共生的旅游环境之中;游客总旅行费用>消费者剩余,表明旅游者对于平遥古城旅游景区的评价感与认可感显著提升;存在价值>遗产价值>选择价值,表明当前旅游者的旅游需求与环境保护意识明显提升,更加注重代内与代际间的公平。     

论四川广汉古蜀国金属（紫铜）书的发现--中国古文字的新载体

文字的出现,标志着社会文明程度已经达到一个极高的水平。近年来在四川广汉古蜀国,除了在树皮、竹简、玉简、龟壳、甲骨等物件上发现古文字外,还发现有用金属（紫铜）切成16K 大小的金属书,这是世界上绝无仅有的事情。这一发现,不但会改写中国的书籍史,而且对世界书籍史的研究都有重大参考价值,而铜冶金历史也将被向前推至上古时代。     

四川广汉惊现古蜀国甲骨文及神秘图案

四川广汉发现了古蜀国时期的两种甲骨文。与以往媒体和文献中报导不同的是,其中一种甲骨文还带有神秘图案,即既有文字,又有图案。这是甲骨文的新类型,颜色从灰褐到黑褐。这可能就是考古学上所讲的燎祭的产物。另一种甲骨文与殷墟发现的甲骨文一致,其时间应早于殷墟的甲骨文。这一发现,再次说明四川古蜀国的文明程度已经达到一个很高的水平,值得考古学家和古文字学家的高度重视。     

The Macroeconomic Consequences of Mixing Sunnis and Shias: A Bayesian Errors-in-Variables Approach

How damaging is the Sunni/Shia split to the economies of Islamic countries? Is it better to be one or the other? Or is it better to have an even balance between the two? Answering these questions is complicated by the fact that the data are often missing or imprecisely measured. We employ the technique of Bayesian data augmentation to circumvent these two problems, and find that properly controlling for these features in the data leads to drastically different conclusions than what is found using ordinary least squares. We find that there is nothing in the differential nature of Sunni or Shia Islam to make one more economically prosperous than the other. Nor do we find any support for the popular hypothesis that Sunnis and Shias cannot mix.     

《说文解字》八部字研究（下）

许慎在《说文解字》当中首创的汉字部首说是我国文字学研究的一个伟大创造，但他的部首说及其归部原则并不是无懈可击的真理，比如，《说文解字·八部》就是一个值得商榷的典型。我们充分利用目前所能见到的甲骨文、金文、战国文字等文字形体重新审视了《说文解字·八部》诸字，发现许慎的八部归部存在一些不可忽视的偏差，即《说文解字·八部》内的“詹”、“介”、“”、“公”、“必”、“余”等字本义与八字本义区别较大，入八部不妥。     

Event History Data and Making a History out of Cross-Sectional Data

At the turn of 20th century social scientists have built up a large stock of cross-sectional data-sets to study social change. However, scholars more and more collect event history data containing the exact timing of events. Comparing the (dis)advantages event history data are to be preferred. However, for research on value change the event history approach is inapplicable, since it is not possible to ask the timing of a value change retrospectively. I will illustrate that value change (i.e. cohort differences) can be studied adequately with cross-sectional data, if information about the historical context is added. For this purpose I test Inglehart's value change thesis.Interestingly, there are also topics in which cross-sectional data-sets are unnecessarily being used. Using research on secularization as an example, I show that the event-history approach can be used to answer the question whether the decreasing number of religious people concerns a cohort-effect. However, whatever data-set is being used, to study cohort differences, one should always give a theoretical answer to the key-question: what exactly makes cohorts different     

Making Globalization Good: A Review of the New Delhi Symposium of January 17, 2004

ABSTRACT

This paper will review the mini-symposium on globalization conducted in New Delhi, India by the Alumni Association of Lancaster University Management School on January 17, 2004. The symposium was led by John Dunning, Emeritus Professor of International Business at the University of Reading, and the State of New Jersey Professor of International Business at Rutgers University. This symposium arose from the publication of a collection of essays edited by Professor Dunning, entitled, “Making Globalization Good.”¹ The primary aim of this symposium was to bring together a grouping of academics, politicians, business leaders, and religious leaders to discuss the moral issues posed by globalization. The symposium participants attempted to answer the question if a global ethic could be established, and if so, under what principles would it function. Prior to discussing the results of the symposium, differing views concerning globalization, and the management of the international economy, will be discussed. There will also be a brief discussion of the prior contributions by Professor Dunning to the field of international business. Then the results of the symposium will be discussed. The paper will conclude with recommendations for further research in this important area. I am grateful for the symposium notes compiled by Professor V.N. Balasubramanyam of Lancaster University Management School, which were utilized in part for this paper.