Transformer in navigation: Diverse government roles for open innovation in China's high-speed rail

Based on a longitudinal case study of China's high-speed rail embedded in the emerging economy context, we focus on what role the government plays and how that matters to open innovation (OI) for competitive advantage. By linking the OI literature with the national political institutions literature to motivate our research question, we propose a statist-based OI view to differentiate diverse government roles, investigating how government adopts roles in a combined way to push OI in stages. Our findings suggest that government is an important strategic decision-maker for OI. Specifically, the government plays various roles as commander, protector, cultivator, and intermediator, reflecting state activism derived from national political institutions, to construct institutional-level OI for domestic OI activities, and inbound and outbound OI across national borders. We find government can deliberately and strategically use its diverse roles in a combined way to push OI for competitive advantage through the industrial evolutionary process over time. Our study contributes to the OI literature and integrates the strategic management literature with the study of OI to provide new insights to explain the origins of competitive advantage from the state perspective.     

Efficacy Foundations for Risk Communication: How People Think About Reducing the Risks of Climate Change

Believing action to reduce the risks of climate change is both possible (self‐efficacy) and effective (response efficacy) is essential to motivate and sustain risk mitigation efforts, according to current risk communication theory. Although the public recognizes the dangers of climate change, and is deluged with lists of possible mitigative actions, little is known about public efficacy beliefs in the context of climate change. Prior efficacy studies rely on conflicting constructs and measures of efficacy, and links between efficacy and risk management actions are muddled. As a result, much remains to learn about how laypersons think about the ease and effectiveness of potential mitigative actions. To bring clarity and inform risk communication and management efforts, we investigate how people think about efficacy in the context of climate change risk management by analyzing unprompted and prompted beliefs from two national surveys (N = 405, N = 1,820). In general, respondents distinguish little between effective and ineffective climate strategies. While many respondents appreciate that reducing fossil fuel use is an effective risk mitigation strategy, overall assessments reflect persistent misconceptions about climate change causes, and uncertainties about the effectiveness of risk mitigation strategies. Our findings suggest targeting climate change risk communication and management strategies to (1) address gaps in people's existing mental models of climate action, (2) leverage existing public understanding of both potentially effective mitigation strategies and the collective action dilemma at the heart of climate change action, and (3) take into account ideologically driven reactions to behavior change and government action framed as climate action.     

People with disability and new disaster communications: access and the social media mash-up

This article explores how a lack of access to increasingly complex and overlapping digital communications platforms in times of disaster for people with disabilities has the potential to make already life-threatening situations considerably more dangerous. As we are increasingly coming to rely on a social media mash-up of digital platforms to assist in communications during disaster situations, the issue of accessibility for people with disabilities is as dire as if it was high ground during a tsunami or transport during a typhoon. The contemporary social media environment is characterised by a complex and overlapping network of complementary platforms, populated by user-generated content, where people communicate and exchange ideas. In this environment, YouTube videos are posted to Facebook and embedded in blogs, and Twitter is used to link to these other sites and is itself embedded in other platforms. These networks are increasingly supplementing and supplanting more traditional communication platforms, such as the television and radio, particularly in times of disaster. The concern of this paper is that the elements from which this mash-up of communications channels is made are not always accessible to people with disabilities. This evolving network of social media-based communication exposes the limits of existing Internet-based universal design.     

Efficacy,Action, and Support for Reducing Climate Change Risks

A growing body of research demonstrates that believing action to reduce the risks of climate change is both possible (self‐efficacy) and effective (response efficacy) is essential to motivate and sustain risk mitigation efforts. Despite this potentially critical role of efficacy beliefs, measures and their use vary wildly in climate change risk perception and communication research, making it hard to compare and learn from efficacy studies. To address this problem and advance our understanding of efficacy beliefs, this article makes three contributions. First, we present a theoretically motivated approach to measuring climate change mitigation efficacy, in light of diverse proposed, perceived, and previously researched strategies. Second, we test this in two national survey samples (Amazon's Mechanical Turk N = 405, GfK Knowledge Panel N = 1,820), demonstrating largely coherent beliefs by level of action and discrimination between types of efficacy. Four additive efficacy scales emerge: personal self‐efficacy, personal response efficacy, government and collective self‐efficacy, and government and collective response efficacy. Third, we employ the resulting efficacy scales in mediation models to test how well efficacy beliefs predict climate change policy support, controlling for specific knowledge, risk perceptions, and ideology, and allowing for mediation by concern. Concern fully mediates the relatively strong effects of perceived risk on policy support, but only partly mediates efficacy beliefs. Stronger government and collective response efficacy beliefs and personal self‐efficacy beliefs are both directly and indirectly associated with greater support for reducing the risks of climate change, even after controlling for ideology and causal beliefs about climate change.     

“Who generates this city”? Socialist strategy in contemporary London

This essay, based on a “militant ethnography” of the attempts of the small radical grassroots activist group, Our London (a pseudonym), to mobilize a collective oppositional politics through activities around an election campaign, engages critically with E. Laclau and C. Mouffe's arguments on discourse and collectivity in Hegemony and Socialist Strategy (London: Verso, 1985). I argue, on the basis of my findings, that while their model does provide insights that help describe the process of building collectivity from among disparate perspectives and identities, we need to go beyond a focus on discourse alone and consider the ways politics is shaped by material contexts. This is necessary if we are to understand the continued appeal of class politics as well as the difficulties in mobilizing collectivity in highly unequal and fragmented cities. From an activist perspective, the essay also highlights how developing a conception of collective interests and a critique of overarching systems of exploitation can be important in building political unity.     

浅析加强和改进高校的思想政治教育工作

高校的思想政治教育工作在我国的现代化建设和发展中占有着举足轻重的作用,但高校思想政治工作在实际的操作中依然存在着不容忽视的问题。文章试从高校思想政治教育工作的必要性、紧迫性两方面出发,对加强高校思想政治工作进行探索,进而提出一些改进措施,以期进一步强化高校思想政治教育工作。     

对增强新时期大学生思想政治教育理论说服力的思考

国务院《关于进一步加强和改进大学生思想政治教育的意见》科学地阐明了重视科学理论、加强理论武装对于做好新形势下大学生思想政治教育的极端重要性,明确了理论在思想政治教育中的基础性作用。探析增强大学生思想政治教育理论说服力的路径,是贯彻《意见》精神、做好新世纪新阶段大学生思想政治教育工作的必然要求。     

高校网络思想政治工作初探

新的形势给高校思想政治工作带来新的生机，网络的出现赋予高校思想政治工作新的内容，使高校网络思想政治工作成为必要和可行。     

不动产物权变动登记外的公示方式

按现有立法,不动产物权变动的公示方式均是登记。但立法上却有不登记的例外,实践中也有这种需要。如果法律上能够明确,在一定条件下,不动产的物权变动可以以登记外的公示方式存在,它对于保障交易安全、提高交易效率具有较强的现实意义。为了减少负面效应——实施这种公示方式可能出现的问题,如二重买卖、重复抵押等,可采取相应的措施予以解决。     

浅谈网络环境下中学政治课研究性教学模式

基于网络环境下的研究性学习是目前研究性学习与信息技术的整合 ,尤其是与互联网技术整合的崭新课题 ,是当今国际教学改革的一个“亮点” ,探讨网络环境下中学政治课研究性教学模式的新课题。