Psychometric Analysis of the Orientations to Happiness Questionnaire in Taiwanese Undergraduate Students

The aim of this study was to examine the psychometric properties of the Orientations to Happiness Questionnaire (OHQ; Peterson et al. in J Happiness Stud 6(1):25–41, 2005) in Taiwanese students. The participants were 578 undergraduate students (M_age = 18.64, SD = 1.02) and completed the OHQ, satisfaction with life scale (Diener et al. in J Personality Assess 49:71–75, 1985), and subjective happiness. Confirmation factor analysis indicated that a three-factor model with 17 items was the better fit model. Cross-validation also supported the modified Chinese version of the OHQ. Besides, the OHQ significantly predicted life satisfaction and subjective happiness with an exception of life of pleasure. Overall, it was concluded that the Chinese version of the OHQ would be useful for assessing individual’s orientations to happiness.     

Alegría! Flow in Leisure and Life Satisfaction: The Mediating Role of Event Satisfaction Using Data from an Acrobatics Show

The aim of the current study was to examine the role of satisfaction-with-event as a mediator in the relations between flow and life satisfaction based on the bottom-up theory (Andrews and Withey in Social indicators of well-being: Americans’ perceptions of life quality. Plenum, New York, 1976; Lee et al. in J Macromarketing 22(2): 158–169, 2002). Four hundred and thirty-four participants with a mean age of 35.60 (SD = 11.76) were recruited from the audience of a “Cirque du Soleil” acrobatics show, performed in Taiwan in 2009. Participants completed the flow scale (Csikszentmihalyi in Flow: the psychology of optimal experience. Harper & Row, New York, 1990), a satisfaction-with-event scale (Lin and Hsu in Mark Rev 3(4): 497–528, 2008), and a satisfaction-with-life scale (Diener et al. in J Pers Assess 49:71–75, 1985) immediately after viewing the show. Structural equation modeling was conducted to examine our hypothesis that satisfaction-with-event levels would fully mediate the relationship between flow and overall life satisfaction. Results supported our prediction and are discussed in terms of bottom-up theory. Implications of the study are also provided for the leisure managers.     

Human Capital Composition and Economic Growth

This paper examines the dimensionality and factorial invariance of the Chinese Positive Youth Development Scale (CPYDS) using multigroup confirmatory factor analyses (MCFA). Secondary 1 students (N = 5,649) responded to the CPYDS in the context of a positive youth development program. Results showed that there are 15 basic dimensions of the CPYDS which are subsumed under four higher-order factors (i.e., cognitive-behavioral competencies, prosocial attributes, positive identity and general positive youth development qualities). Evidence of factorial invariance in terms of configuration, first-order factor loadings, second-order factor loadings, intercepts of measured variable, and intercepts of first-order latent factor, was found. The findings suggest that the CPYDS has stable dimensions that can be used to assess positive youth development in Chinese adolescents.     

Gratitude and Adolescent Athletes’ Well-Being

Two cross-sectional studies were conducted to examine the relationships between gratitude and athletes’ well-being. Study 1 examines the relationship between dispositional gratitude and well-being, while Study 2 investigates the relationship between sport-domain gratitude and well-being. In Study 1, 169 Taiwanese senior high school athletes (M = 16.43, SD = 0.7 years) were administered the Gratitude Questionnaire (GQ; McCullough et al. 2002, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82(1), 112–127), Team Satisfaction Scale (Walling et al. 1993, Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 15, 172–183), Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS; Diener et al. 1985, Journal of Personality Assessment, 49, 71–75), and the Athlete Burnout Questionnaire (ABQ; Raedeke and Smith, 2001, Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 23(4), 281–306). In Study 2, a separate sample of 265 adolescent athletes (M = 16.47 years, SD = 0.7) were administered the modified Sport-domain GQ, Team Satisfaction Scale, and ABQ. Study 1 results showed that dispositional gratitude positively predicts team satisfaction and life satisfaction, and negatively predicts athlete burnout. Findings from Study 2 revealed that sport-domain gratitude positively predicts team satisfaction and negatively predicts athlete burnout. A stronger gratitude and well-being relationship was observed in Study 2. This research provides the initial verification that gratitude and adolescent athletes’ well-being are related. Possible mechanism of this relation, limitations, and practical implications are discussed.     

The impacts of housing factors on deprivation in a world city: The case of Hong Kong

Hong Kong is a typical example of a world city that faces escalating poverty and housing problems. Problems related to housing are crucial in determining deprivation. By means of hierarchical linear regression on a representative survey of Hong Kong residents in 2014, this study examines the impacts of household income and housing factors on the deprivation of residents in Hong Kong. The study indicates that income level has a crucial effect on the deprivation level of households; whereas housing cost per capita, living area per capita, and living quarter problems significantly influence deprivation. A small interacting effect exists between household income and housing factors, which do not influence the independent effects of living area per capita and living quarter problems on deprivation. For the public rental housing residents, only the effect of living quarter problem on deprivation is significant, whereas for private rental housing residents, living area per capita and living quarter problem have a significant effect. Among all the models, housing expense per capita is a significant factor only in model for overcrowded households. The study recommends that improving the maintenance and renovation schemes for public and private housing with poor living environment is a good strategy to improve housing conditions and deprivation. The study suggests that anti‐poverty policies must consider strategies and measures that can improve the housing factors, including housing expenses, living density and living quarter maintenance problems, especially for those residents with high living density, such as those living in bed spaces, cubicles, and subdivided flats.     

Restricted Revenues and Nonprofit Service Delivery: The Roles of Financial Discretion

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - The proposition that restricted revenues inhibit nonprofit service delivery by reducing their financial discretion has...     

Establishing consistency across all regions in a multi-regional clinical trial

In recent years, global collaboration has become a conventional strategy for new drug development. To accelerate the development process and shorten approval time, the design of multi-regional clinical trials (MRCTs) incorporates subjects from many countries/regions around the world under the same protocol. After showing the overall efficacy of a drug in a global trial, one can also simultaneously evaluate the possibility of applying the overall trial results to all regions and subsequently support drug registration in each region. However, most of the recent approaches developed for the design and evaluation of MRCTs focus on establishing criteria to examine whether the overall results from the MRCT can be applied to a specific region. In this paper, we use the consistency criterion of Method 1 from the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) guidance to assess whether the overall results from the MRCT can be applied to all regions. Sample size determination for the MRCT is also provided to take all the consistency criteria from each individual region into account. Numerical examples are given to illustrate applications of the proposed approach.     

The Influence of College Tuition and Fees on Fertility Rate in Taiwan

This study investigates the influence of college tuition and fees (CTF) on fertility behavior as a mechanism to induce population growth. Using a fixed-effect regression model with various specifications of the fertility equation on contiguous panel data for the period 1990–2001, this study has determined of that CTF has a significantly negative influence on regional GFR (general fertility rate) in Taiwan. In addition, unemployment rates also have a negative impact on fertility though the male rate plays a greater role in the fertility decision than the female rate. Finally, this study calculates the cost in terms of CTF to the Central Government to induce population growth. For a 1% decrease in real CTF, the cost to the government and taxpayers at large, the cost of each additional child will range from US$90.31 to US$252.23 depending on the years considered and the model specifications.

Dynamic pricing and revenue management process in Internet retailing under uncertainty: An integrated real options approach

Competition and demand volatility often cause modern enterprises to be confronted by uncertain environments. When a firm manages revenue in such competitive and risky environments, the optimization of pricing and capacity allocation, subject to a fixed time and capacity, becomes a complicated problem. Many previous papers concerning revenue management (RM) and pricing require that the firm possesses the ability to know the demand curve (or demand distribution) and set prices on it to maximize profits. However, this assumption may not be the case in some industries. Therefore, this paper focuses on the dynamic lead indicators rather than assumptive lag indicators to establish a concise and flexible decision model for practical use. This paper provides an integrated real options (IRO) approach with analytic hierarchy process (AHP) for the auction RM problem under competitive/dynamic pricing and revenue uncertainty in Internet retailing. A numerical example is also presented to illustrate that the IRO approach can generate better decisions than the naı¨ve (or risk unawareness) approach in revenue quality of safety and profitability. The new perspective and approach proposed by this paper can be extended to other RM fields whenever both profitability and risk are critical to decision making.     

Impacts of financial crisis on social engagement in Hong Kong

While a financial crisis must afflict people financially, its impacts on people's social life are unclear. Essentially, different theories expect different impacts of the financial crisis on people's social engagement. The present study thereby clarifies the effect by examining the experienced impact of the crisis on social engagement, in terms of participation in voluntary association and caring for acquaintances. Data for the study came from a survey of 1170 Hong Kong Chinese adults. Results show that the experienced impact tended to raise the participation, which in turn appeared to encourage the caring. These results support the functional explanation, which holds that the fiscal crisis generates a need for functions of voluntary associations. Meanwhile, the results are at odds with the resource thesis, which expects that the crisis would deprive resources required for social engagement. The results imply that the financial crisis can be a lever to strengthen social engagement.