Culture: A key to management communication between the Asian-Pacific area and Europe

Western culture, and therefore Western management methods and thinking, has devalued other cultures, and it has been assumed that the high culture of dominant nations has taken over. But this is not so; cultures of everyday life are complex and not easily destroyed. They are also systems in motion, that can adapt easily.Tzöl Zae Chung explains the striking differences between Asian and European thinking and ways of managing and doing business. Misunderstandings can occur if two cultures meet without adequate prior preparation. But increasingly, Japanese management methods are revitalizing Asian values and attracting attention. The cultural factor in globalization — especially in the ‘triad’ of trade between the US, the Asian-Pacific region and Europe is becoming critically important.     

Subethnic interpersonal dynamic in diasporic community: a study on Chinese immigrants in Vancouver

ABSTRACT

Ethnicity is a social construct that can be conceptualised as a social classification delineating certain boundaries between an ethnic group and the dominant group. Members of an ethnic group are assumed to share similar cultural characteristics and to be homogenous among themselves. Many studies in ethnic organisations have indicated that subethnicity also exists within an ethnic group, but research on subethnicity is scant. Based on the findings of an exploratory study conducted in Vancouver, Canada, we examined how, at an interpersonal level, place of origin, language, mutual bias and discrimination and transnational politics divide the Chinese diasporic community subethnically. Meanwhile, being Chinese in the Canadian context and willingness to break the subethnic boundaries are noted as counterforces to the subethnic divide. We contend that interpersonal interaction is an imperative dimension for the understanding of the shaping of boundary between different subethnic groups.     

Influence of alliance portfolio diversity on innovation performance: the role of internal capabilities of value creation

In this study, we suggest a new perspective on the linkage between alliance portfolio diversity and innovation performance based on a contingency approach. Using a longitudinal data set on alliance portfolios and patents of 182 firms in the U.S. manufacturing industries, we examined that alliance portfolio diversity has a U-shaped relationship with firm-level innovation. Internal value creation capabilities in terms of routine and ability are found to moderate the relationship between alliance portfolio diversity and innovation performance: organizational search routine strengthens the relationship of alliance portfolio diversity and innovation performance while technological capabilities weaken and flip the relationship.

     

The effects of landscape scale on greenery and traffic relationships with urban birds and butterflies

Actions and policies to enhance biodiversity in the urban landscape must match the spatial scale at which biodiversity responds to the management and target variables. To this end, we compare the importance and effect of different kinds of greenery cover and road-lane density on bird and butterfly species richness between two landscape scales: 50-m versus 126-m radii around point counts (equivalent to areas of 0.8 h and 5 ha, respectively). We also compared the results against those of an earlier study using 500-m walking transects with widths of 100 m (i.e., 5 ha). Road lane density was more important at the 126-m than 50-m radius for both birds and butterflies. For birds, natural vegetation or forest cover and cultivated shrub cover were also more important at 126-m radius whereas the cultivated tree canopy cover was more important at 50-m radius. Cultivated tree cover and natural vegetation or forest cover were positively associated with species richness while road lane density and cultivated shrub cover were negatively associated with species richness. The results from point counts generally corroborate the results from the transects-based study, except that the short-duration point counts performed poorly in sampling butterflies. Our results indicate that in designing urban greenery policy, the plot sizes of individual developments is an appropriate spatial scale for the stipulation of tree cover targets, while urban planners have more flexibility to allocate natural greenery at broader spatial scales.

     

GAMMA-BASED CLUSTERING VIA ORDERED MEANS WITH APPLICATION TO GENE-EXPRESSION ANALYSIS

Discrete mixture models provide a well-known basis for effective clustering algorithms, although technical challenges have limited their scope. In the context of gene-expression data analysis, a model is presented that mixes over a finite catalog of structures, each one representing equality and inequality constraints among latent expected values. Computations depend on the probability that independent gamma-distributed variables attain each of their possible orderings. Each ordering event is equivalent to an event in independent negative-binomial random variables, and this finding guides a dynamic-programming calculation. The structuring of mixture-model components according to constraints among latent means leads to strict concavity of the mixture log likelihood. In addition to its beneficial numerical properties, the clustering method shows promising results in an empirical study.     

More than Money: The Importance of Social Exchanges for Temporary Low-Skilled Migrant Workers’ Workplace Satisfaction

Research has focused on the happiness of immigrants, but the workplace satisfaction of temporary low-skilled migrant workers has rarely been explored. By utilizing survey data for two years, 2010 and 2013, along with interviews with migrant workers, we explored how economic or social factors could trigger diverse impacts on the satisfaction of temporary low-skilled migrant workers in different work environments. Results showed that economic factors triggered more notable impacts in 2010, while the importance of social factors increased with improvements in work environments in 2013. The results indicated that moving motive premises and social exchange theory effectively explain attitudes of temporary low-skilled migrant workers. Theoretical and practical contributions and suggestions of the results are also included.     

鄂西渝东志留系储层特征及非常规气勘探前景

鄂西渝东地区位于川东高陡滑脱褶皱带和湘鄂西断块—基底断褶带的中间构造过渡带，变形程度相对较弱，油气保存条件相对较好。基于钻井、地表露头资料，应用薄片观察、扫描电镜、有机地球化学分析方法，对志留系宏观和微观储层特征进行详细地分析，并对鄂西渝东地区非常规气藏油气勘探前景进行探讨。结果表明，龙马溪组主要包括黑色碳质笔石页岩相、深灰色（灰色）泥岩相和含粉砂泥岩相，发育粘土矿物粒间溶孔、长石粒内溶孔、石英粒内溶孔和微裂缝等微储集空间。建深１井和石柱冷水溪一带以东地区，志留系烃源岩品质高、生烃潜力大，并发育斜坡扇砂岩和潮坪相粉砂岩，砂泥（页）岩储层微孔隙微裂缝发育。建深1 井为致密砂岩气藏，从该气藏特征和现有钻井显示资料分析，石柱复向斜、利川复向斜和花果坪复向斜完全具备发育致密砂岩气藏和页岩气的巨大潜力。     

Online interval scheduling: randomized and multiprocessor cases

We consider the problem of scheduling a set of equal-length intervals arriving online, where each interval is associated with a weight and the objective is to maximize the total weight of completed intervals. An optimal 4-competitive algorithm has long been known in the deterministic case, but the randomized case remains open. We give the first randomized algorithm for this problem, achieving a competitive ratio of 3.5822. We also prove a randomized lower bound of 4/3, which is an improvement over the previous 5/4 result. Then we show that the techniques can be carried to the deterministic multiprocessor case, giving a 3.5822-competitive 2-processor algorithm, and a 4/3 lower bound for any number of processors. We also give a lower bound of 2 for the case of two processors. A preliminary version of this paper appeared in the Proceedings of COCOON 2007, LNCS, vol. 4598, pp. 176–186. The work described in this paper was fully supported by a grant from City University of Hong Kong (SRG 7001969), and NSFC Grant No. 70525004 and 70702030.     

Linguistic Markers of Psychological State through Media Interviews: John Kerry and John Edwards in 2004, Al Gore in 2000

What can we learn about presidential candidates by examining their speech in natural conversation? In the present study, the television interviews from the 2004 Democratic presidential primary campaign of John Kerry ( N = 29) and John Edwards ( N = 34) were examined using linguistic analyses. Results indicate that Kerry and Edwards were similar in their use of positive emotion words, but that Kerry used significantly higher rates of negative emotion words than did Edwards. Comparisons with televised interviews of Al Gore from the 2000 presidential campaign ( N = 17) revealed striking similarities in the linguistic styles of Gore and Kerry. Gore's linguistic style overlapped considerably with that of Kerry on pronoun usage and many cognitive domains. This study points to how linguistic analyses can give us a clearer picture of how political candidates think, act, and feel.     

Developmental Trajectories and Predictors of Social Exclusion Among Older Koreans: Exploring the Multidimensional Nature of Social Exclusion

The purpose of this paper was to investigate the developmental patterns of social exclusion among older Koreans over time. In addition, we identified the significant determinants that may increase the risk of social exclusion among older Koreans. The analyses were based on the panel data from the Korean Longitudinal Study of Ageing and included older adults from 2008 to 2012 (N?=?24,074) for the final analysis. Social exclusion was categorized into four different sub-dimensions: financial, social relational, social cultural, and emotional. The analysis was based on a semi-parametric group-based approach followed by multinomial logistic regression. The results showed considerable variations and different developmental trajectories by the social exclusion sub-dimensions among older Koreans; in particular, the results showed that being older, male, and less educated were significant indicators of social exclusion. This study adds to the limited body of literature on longitudinal studies of social exclusion among older Koreans, and the results will help develop interventions for older Koreans who are socially isolated.