Turkey’s Twitter public diplomacy: Towards a “new” cult of personality

This study examined how Turkey uses social media as a tool for public diplomacy and how the state’s soft-power efforts have recently changed on the global stage. The researchers constructed a dataset of 2769 Twitter posts by the Turkish government’s most influential public diplomacy accounts. The analyses revealed that the focus of Turkey’s Twitter public diplomacy has become concentrated on the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region and is thematically focused on the political values embodied by the Turkish president. The findings suggest that public diplomacy remains to be the diplomacy of the government, not of the public, and social media is used as just another tool for propaganda, not as a means of engagement with foreign publics. Further, the findings indicate the emergence of a “new” cult of personality in public diplomacy and point out the instrumental role of social media in changing the dynamics of leader-follower relationship. The study contributes to public relations theory and practice by advancing the burgeoning public diplomacy scholarship at the intersection of social media and relational approaches.     

Paradigm of ‘better life’: ‘development’ among the Khumi in the Chittagong Hill Tracts

Development is conventionally understood in various ways including economic growth, increase of gross domestic product (GDP), rise of per-capita income, improvement of social facilities, political stabilities, and women's empowerment and many other issues, but it finally means bringing positive changes in the life of people. However, development is always contextual because the notion and nature of development often varies from society to society depending on the context of local–societal dynamics. Therefore what is regarded globally accepted model of development can be challenged by the local discourse of development, since local-level perception could contest the universal model. This article addresses such a case of development which is conceptualised from the social and cultural point of view amid everyday experiences of ordinary people's lives. The article contextualises its argument with specific reference to the Khumi people living in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh.     

How the acculturation of Baba Nyonya community affects Malacca food identity?

ABSTRACT

The migration of the Chinese community to Malacca in the 16th century has enabled the process of cross culturing and culinary acculturation, producing a unique mixture of Baba Nyonya food. Even though Baba Nyonya food is pretty much has been localised (Malay), its Chinese representation cannot be denied. This study aims to assess how the acculturation of the Baba Nyonya community affects Malacca food identity. A quantitative methodology is employed in this study. This study classifies Baba Nyonya food acculturation through (1) types of food; (2) methods of cooking; (3) ingredients; and (4) eating decorum. From the regression analysis, this study found that Baba Nyonya cultural polarity explains significant variation in the formation of Malacca food identity. This study then elaborates on the importance of Baba Nyonya food in Malacca destination branding.     

Quality_Family Deployment: A New Perspective in Determining Priority Importance for Improving Work Performance in Organization

Determining priority importance is a matter of concerns among the organization to improve their performance. One of the important aspects that should be considered by the organization is management of human resources, comprising of members who have their own family life. In this paper, we deliver a new perspective for organization to provide priority importance for their members with respect to family matters in order to inculcate the sense of belonging in the organization. To be effective in considering family matters in the organizational policy making, closer look of family characteristics are required. The idea of translating several family characteristics as quality variables and applying the quality function deployment (QFD) method to these variables could present a new way of improving the decision making in the organization by considering the process of decision in the family. Quality function deployment for family (QFDF) produces a friendly interpretation of a highly complex and intangible matters around family life; thus, making the assessment of a family easier. QFD is applied on the data gathered from a questionnaire survey based on 1,213 families in West Malaysia, Malaysia. Twelve variables are identified as voice of family, where seven of them are found to have the highest priority of importance. These variables could also be translated into quality variables in the context of organization, the strategy of improvement for the family could be interpreted as strategy for improvement in the organization. Furthermore, the results of this study provide suggestion to improve actions for managing human resource. In the discussion, three most high ranked variables from both perspectives of family and organization are considered.     

Mortality among elder abuse victims in rural Malaysia: A two-year population-based descriptive study

Our study aims at describing mortality among reported elder abuse experiences in rural Malaysia. This is a population-based cohort study with a multistage cluster sampling method. Older adults in Kuala Pilah (n = 1,927) were interviewed from November 2013 to May 2014. Mortality was traced after 2 years using the National Registration Department database. Overall, 139 (7.2%) respondents died. Fifteen (9.6%) abuse victims died compared to 124 (7.0%) not abused. Mortality was highest with financial abuse (13%), followed by psychological abuse (10.8%). There was a dose-response relationship between mortality and clustering of abuse: 7%, 7.7%, and 14.0% for no abuse, one type, and two types or more, respectively. Among abuse victims, 40% of deaths had ill-defined causes, 33% were respiratory-related, and 27% had cardiovascular and metabolic origin. Results suggest a link between abuse and mortality. Death proportions varied according to abuse subtypes and gender.     

Multi-ethnic school environment from the school leader’s perspective: challenges and approaches to improve multi-cultural competency among teachers in Malaysia

This study aims to identify the challenges and approaches to improve a multicultural competency among teachers in multi-ethnic schools environment based on school leaders’ perspective. Data collection method used in this study is qualitative method. A total of nine school leaders from the states of Kedah, Penang, and Perak were included in the interview session. The results of this study show that the challenges faced by teachers in practicing the multicultural competency are lack of experience toward cultural diversity. A late exposure to cultural diversity makes it difficult for teachers to accept and adapt in a multi-ethnic school environment. The approaches suggested by school leaders to improve the multicultural competency are as follows: (1) Courses on cultural diversity should be organized to enhance the knowledge about cultural diversity; (2) the development of more open and better policy for education system in Malaysia in order to prepare teachers with a higher multicultural competency for teaching students from diverse ethnic and cultural groups; (3) an early exposure to cultural diversity in order to increase the multicultural competency, especially during teaching practicum.     

Influential factors and performance of logistics outsourcing practices: an evidence of malaysian companies

Despite the growing trend of logistics outsourcing, there are very limited sources of literature on logistics outsourcing, especially in determining the relationship between factors influencing outsourcing and the extent of logistics outsourcing practices. In this study, we tap into the field of strategic management to help clarify the mechanisms underlying the links between factors influencing, logistics outsourcing practices and outsourcing performance. A model based on the resource based view illustrates the hypothetical connections among these variables. The data gathered from the survey were analysed using SmartPLS software. A response rate of 21 % out of the 486 firms selected was achieved and fixed as the empirical data for this study. The results of this study provide support that superior performance is correlated to the resources of the firm. The analysis shows that lack of human and physical asset capabilities, as well as transaction uncertainty influence the extent of different logistics outsourcing practices. The four logistics outsourcing practices under study were found to have a positive relationship with logistics outsourcing performance, particularly strategic focus. This study shows that although theoretically firms aim at cost reduction by employing a logistics outsourcing strategy but not proven in this study because the financial benefit was only positively contributed by one of the four logistics outsourcing practices under study. Besides that, the results from this study also support that most firms outsource their non-core activities of the logistics practices to respond to the transaction uncertainty that their business experiences.     

Exact moments of a ratio of two positive quadratic forms in normal variables

This paper derives an expression for rth raw moment of aratio of two quadratic forms in normal variables in terms of' a

convergent infinite series. Computational aspects of this formula are explored by considering a particular case.     

Penalized spline joint models for longitudinal and time-to-event data

The joint models for longitudinal data and time-to-event data have recently received numerous attention in clinical and epidemiologic studies. Our interest is in modeling the relationship between event time outcomes and internal time-dependent covariates. In practice, the longitudinal responses often show non linear and fluctuated curves. Therefore, the main aim of this paper is to use penalized splines with a truncated polynomial basis to parameterize the non linear longitudinal process. Then, the linear mixed-effects model is applied to subject-specific curves and to control the smoothing. The association between the dropout process and longitudinal outcomes is modeled through a proportional hazard model. Two types of baseline risk functions are considered, namely a Gompertz distribution and a piecewise constant model. The resulting models are referred to as penalized spline joint models; an extension of the standard joint models. The expectation conditional maximization (ECM) algorithm is applied to estimate the parameters in the proposed models. To validate the proposed algorithm, extensive simulation studies were implemented followed by a case study. In summary, the penalized spline joint models provide a new approach for joint models that have improved the existing standard joint models.