Does Chinese traditional values matter in regulating China's company directors? Preliminary findings from surveys in Hong Kong

Much has been said about Chinese corporate governance and the new laws on companies. While most literature focuses on either the political or the legal doctrinal issues, this paper argues that Chinese traditional values do matter in Chinese corporate governance. The object of this paper is to report on the preliminary findings of a project supported by the General Research Fund in Hong Kong (HK). Thus far the survey results from HK respondents support our hypothesis. As such, traditional Chinese values should be on the agenda of the next round of company law reforms in China.

Teaching the economic way of thinking : a new approach to teaching introductory economics in a business degree

In teaching introductory economics there has been a tendency to put a lot of emphasis on imparting abstract models and technical skills to students (Stilwell, 2005; Voss, Blais, Greens, & Ahwesh, 1986). This model building approach has the merit of preparing the grounding for students 10 pursue further studies in economics. However, in a business degree with only a small proportion of students majoring in economics, such an approach tend to alienate the majority of students transiting from high school in to university. Surveys in Europe and Australia found that students complained about the lack of relevance of economics courses to the real world and the over-reliance of abstract mathematical modelling (Kirman, 2001; Lewis and Norris, 1997; Siegfried & Round, 2000). BSB112 Economics 1 is one of the eight faculty core units in the Faculty of Business at QUT, with over 1000 students in each semester. In semester I 2008, a new approach to teaching this unit was designed aiming to achieve three inter-related objectives: (1) to provide business students with a first insight into economic thinking and language, (2) to integrate economic analysis with current Australian social, environmental and political issues, and (3) to cater for students with a wide range of academic needs. Strategies used to achieve these objectives included writing up a new text which departs from traditional economics textbooks in important ways, integrating students' cultures in teaching and learning activities, and devising a new assessment format to encourage development of research skills and applications rather than reproduction of factual knowledge. This paper will document the strategies used in this teaching innovation, present quantitative and qualitative evidence to evaluate this new approach and suggest ways of further improvement.

60Sox and the 2bobmob : mentoring in an online learning community for creative industries graduates

Knowledge intensive services are the fastest growing segment of the international economy and the digital creative industries are a key segment therein. Australia is well positioned to exploit this opportunity but has a skills shortage in the digital content industries in terms of commercial ready graduates. We report on a solution to this problem, in the form of an online creative community of practice – www.60Sox.org - where new graduates are mentored by Australian industry leaders - the 2bobmob. We describe this community of practice as a virtual creative ecology and discuss networks, peer feedback and mentoring as key elements of post-tertiary learning, in the context of portfolio career progression.

Introduction : creative industries and innovation policy

This special issue of Innovation : Management, Policy & Practice (also released as a book: ISBN 978-1-921348-31-0) will explore some empirical and analytic connections between creative industries and innovation policy. Seven papers are presented. The first four are empirical, providing analysis of large and/or detailed data sets on creative industries businesses and occupations to discern their contribution to innovation. The next three papers focus on comparative and historical policy analysis, connecting creative industries policy (broadly considered, including media, arts and cultural policy) and innovation policy. To introduce this special issue I want to review the arguments connecting the statistical, conceptual and policy neologism of ‘creative industries’ to: (1) the elements of a national innovation system; and (2) to innovation policy. In approaching this connection, two overarching issues arise.

A study of green product industries in Taiwan

Based on the model of ‘The Smile of Value Creation' (Mudambi 2007) and the theory of concept marketing, this study aims to examine the top 20 Taiwanese environmental marks companies, and explore their circumstances, innovation patterns and value chain system in Taiwan. It found out all of them are information technology product and household appliances companies. In addition, they make special efforts in two parts of value creation: product (including basic and applied ‘R and D' (Research and Design), design, commercialization) and marketing (including advertising and brand management, specialized logistics, after-sales services). They also locate their branches depending on different stages of the value chain, and expand them globally.

News blogs and citizen journalism : new directions for e-journalism

Even for a casual observer of the journalistic industry it is becoming difficult to escape the conclusion that journalism is entering a time of crisis. At the same time that revenues and readerships for traditional publications from newspapers to broadcast news are declining, journalistic content is being overtaken by a flotilla of alternative options ranging from the news satire of The Daily Show in the United States to the citizen journalism of South Korea’s OhmyNews and a myriad of other news blogs and citizen journalism Websites. Worse still, such new competitors with the products of the journalism industry frequently take professional journalists themselves to task where their standards have appeared to have slipped, and are beginning to match the news industry’s incumbents in terms of insight and informational value: recent studies have shown, for example, that avid Daily Show viewers are as if not better informed about the U.S. political process as those who continue to follow mainstream print or television news (see e.g. Fox et al., 2007). The show’s host Jon Stewart – who has consistently maintained his self-description as a comedian, not a journalist – even took the fight directly to the mainstream with his appearance on CNN’s belligerent talk show Crossfire, repeatedly making the point that the show’s polarised and polarising ‘left vs. right’ format was “hurting” politics in America (the show disappeared from CNN’s line-up a few months after Stewart’s appearance; Stewart, 2004). Similarly, news bloggers and citizen journalists have shown persistence and determination both in uncovering political and other scandals, and in highlighting the shortcomings of professional journalism as it investigates and reports on such scandals.

The rediscovery of traditional urbanism at Melrose Arch

Contemporary urban form, particularly in the cities of South Africa, lacks distinction and quality. The majority of developments are conceived as private and dislocated initiatives, surveiled enclaves with gated access being the only conduit to the outside world. Any concern for a positive contribution to the matrix of public activity is seldom a consideration. The urban form responds to the perception that traffic systems are paramount to the successful flux of the city in satisfying the escalating demands of vehicular movement. In contrast many of the urban centres around the world, the great historical centres of Europe, Americas and the Sub-Continent are admired and considered the ultimate models in urban experience. The colonnades, bazaars and boulevards hosting an abundance of street activity are the characteristics of such centres and are symptomatic of a city growth based on pedestrian movement patterns, an urbanism supportative of human interaction and exchange, a form which has nurtured the existence of a public realm. Through the understanding of the principles of traditional urbanism we may learn that the modernist paradigm of a contemporary suburbia has resulted in disconnected and separate land uses with isolated districts where a reliance on the car is essential rather than optional.

In Bed with Autobiography: Unravelling the Fabric of Gender and Genre in Women’s Bed(room) Confessions

This thesis consists of a confessional narrative, What My Mother Doesn’t Know, and an accompanying exegesis, And Why I Should (Maybe) Tell Her. The creative piece employs the confessional mode as a subversive device in three separate narratives, each of which situates the bed as a site of resistance. The exegesis investigates how this self-disclosure in a domestic space flouts the governing rules of self-representation, specifically: telling the truth, respecting privacy and displaying normalcy. The female confession, I argue, creates an alternative space in women’s autobiography where notions of truth-telling can be undermined, the political dimensions of personal experience can be uncovered and the discourse of normality can be negotiated. In particular, women’s confessions told in, on or about the bed, dismantle the genre’s illusion of self and confirm the representative aspects of women’s experience. Framed within these parameters of power and powerlessness, the exegesis includes textual analyses of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper (1892), Tracey Emin’s My Bed (1999) and Lauren Slater’s Lying (2000), each of which exposes in a bedroom space, the author’s most obscure, intimate and traumatic experiences. Situated firmly within and against the genre’s traditional masculine domain, the exegesis also includes mediations on the creative work that validate the bed as my fabric for confession.

Generation next : post-cinema Australian moviemaking, innovation and implications for cultural policy

The Australian screen industries are a leading domestic creative industry sector at a crossroad. New production, distribution and exhibition technologies are challenging traditional models of ‘filmmaking’. For the screen industries to remain competitive they must renovate business models for an emerging marketplace. This paper is a preliminary examination of three key aspects of next generation filmmaking: post-cinema approaches to screen production, emerging production and business models, and issues for policy.

The effectiveness of marketing communication within the immersive environment

Immersive environments are part of a recent media innovation that allow users to become so involved within a computer-based simulated environment that they feel part of that virtual world (Grigorovici, 2003). A specific example is Second Life, which is an internet-based, three-dimensional immersive virtual world in which users create an online representation of themselves (an avatar) to play games and interact socially with thousands of people simultaneously. This study focuses on Second Life as an example of an immersive environment, as it is the largest adult freeform virtual world, home to 12 million avatars (IOWA State University, 2008). Already in Second Life there are more than 100 real-life brands from a range of industries, including automotive, professional services, and consumer goods and travel, among others (KZero, 2007; New Business Horizons, 2009). Compared to traditional advertising media, this interactive media can immerse users in the environment. As a result of this interactivity, users can become more involved with a virtual environment, resulting in prolonged usage over weeks, months and even years. Also, it can facilitate presence. Despite these developments, little is known about the effectiveness of marketing messages in a virtual world context. Marketers are incorporating products into Second Life using a strategy of online product placement. This study, therefore, explores the perceived effectiveness of online product placement in Second Life in terms of effects on product/brand recall, purchase intentions and trial. This research examines the association between individuals’ involvement with Second Life and online product placement effectiveness, as well as the relationship between individuals’ Second Life involvement and the effectiveness of online product placement. In addition, it investigates the association of immersion and product placement involvement. It also examines the impact of product placement involvement on online product placement effectiveness and the role of presence in affecting this relationship. An exploratory study was conducted for this research using semi-structured in-depth interviews face-to-face, email-based and in-world. The sample comprised 24 active Second Life users. Results indicate that product placement effectiveness is not directly associated with Second Life involvement, but rather effectiveness is impacted through the effect of Second Life involvement on product placement involvement. A positive relationship was found between individuals’ product placement involvement and online product placement effectiveness. Findings also indicate that online product placement effectiveness is not directly associated with immersion. Rather, it appears that effectiveness is impacted through the effect of immersion on product placement involvement. Moreover, higher levels of presence appear to have a positive impact on the relationship between product placement involvement and product placement effectiveness. Finally, a model was developed from this qualitative study for future testing. In terms of theoretical contributions, this study provides a new model for testing the effectiveness of product placement within immersive environments. From a methodological perspective, in-world interviews as a new research method were undertaken. In terms of a practical contribution, findings identified useful information for marketers and advertising agencies that aim to promote their products in immersive virtual environments like Second Life.

A modified quality control method for manufacturing process in mask industry

Masks are widely used in different industries, for example, traditional metal industry, hospitals or semiconductor industry. Quality is a critical issue in mask industry as it is related to public health and safety. Traditional quality practices for manufacturing process have some limitations in implementing them in mask industries. This paper aims to investigate the suitability of Six Sigma quality control method for the manufacturing process in the mask industry to provide high quality products, enhancing the process capacity, reducing the defects and the returned goods arising in a selected mask manufacturing company. This paper suggests that modifications necessary in Six Sigma method for effective implementation in mask industry.

Fashion design research : research methodologies for emerging researchers [Abstract]

This paper attempts to address some fundamental issues faced by new and emerging researchers in the discipline of Fashion design. A culture of patchwork research methodology appears to have become the norm in an attempt to ‘fit’ fashion design research into an academic paradigm for the examination of readers from more traditional research fields such as Arts, Humanities, Science and Philosophy. Two key questions are discussed here; is it appropriate for fashion researchers to adopt and adapt existing research methodologies to find a scholarly, academic voice? Secondly; do these methodologies enable fashion design research to be effectively disseminated to professionals and fellow researchers within the discipline of fashion design?

Web-based and traditional public participation in comprehensive planning : a comparative study

The present paper examines whether the potential advantages of the expanding practice of web-based public participation only complement the benefits of the traditional techniques, or are empowering enough to replace them. The question is examined in a real-world case of neighbourhood revitalization, in which both techniques were practiced simultaneously. Comparisons are made at four major planning junctions, in order to study the contributions of each technique to the qualities of involvement, trust, and empowerment. The results show that web-based participants not only differ from the participants of traditional practices, but they also differ from each other on the basis of their type of web participation. The results indicate that web-based participation is an effective and affective complementary means of public participation, but it cannot replace the traditional unmediated techniques.

Film, cinema, screen

Screen industries around the globe are evolving. While technological change has been slower to take effect upon the Australian film industry than other creative sectors such as music and publishing, all indications suggest that local screen practices are in a process of fundamental change. Fragmenting audiences, the growth of digital video, distribution and exhibition, the potential for entirely new forms of cultural expression, the proliferation of multi-platforms, and the importance of social networking and viral marketing in promoting products, are challenging traditional approaches to ‘film making’. Moreover, there has been a marked transition in government policy rationales and funding models in recent years, resulting in the most significant overhaul of public finance structures for the film industry in almost 20 years. Film, Cinema, Screen evaluates the Australian film industry’s recent development – particularly in terms of Australian feature film and television series production; it also advocates new approaches to Australian film, and address critical issues around how screen production globally is changing, with implications for local screen industries.