Legacies of White Australia : race, culture and nation

The White Australia policy continues to haunt Australia. Here, leading Australian scholars provide an informed debate on the essential issues of race, identity and nation that will determine our attitudes to immigration, multiculturalism and Australian-Asian engagement in the twenty-first century.

A study of social responsibility of Sri Lankan immigrant entrepreneurs in Australia

Increasing globalisation, technological advancement and migration waves in the last few decades have changed the look of many advanced countries to be more cosmopolitan and Australia is no exception. The number of South Asian migrants in Australia is steadily increasing. Among the South Asians, there are 31,482 Sri Lankans in the state of Victoria and the majority of them are entrepreneurs. Social responsibility perceptions and practices of these entrepreneurs have not been researched. The study aims to fill this gap by undertaking a triangulation method to investigate the social responsibility perceptions and practices of these entrepreneurs and identify whether or not they are influenced by home country contextual factors, specifically national culture, and business environment. The study is a work in progress and the survey will be undertaken in the second quarter of the year. Socially responsible businesses have the potential to promote an overall approach to quality and sustainable development as they can have positive impacts not only on their own businesses but also on the community and the environment in which they operate. This study is thus significant as it will deliver economic, social and environmental benefits to Australia.

A comparison of motivations of American and Japanese volunteers in ladies professional golf association tournaments

This exploratory study examined and compared primary motives influencing American and Japanese volunteers of the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA). Data were collected from 281 volunteers who participated in LPGA tournament events in America and Japan. Japanese volunteers were found to be more involved in volunteer service due to “Social/Leisure” and “Material” reasons, while American volunteers were found to be associated with “Egoistic” and “Purposive” motivations. There was no significant difference in the “External Influences” factor. The study contributes to personnel and administration research and provides insight on the ways in which the LPGA event volunteers are managed in America and Japan...

Re-placing gender? Reflections on 15 years of gender, place and culture

This article reflects on Gender, Place and Culture (GPC) from 1994 to mid-2008, to highlight some of the key subjects and debates which have been delimited and progressed within its pages. Launched simultaneously with the cultural turn in human geography, GPC proceeded to raise important questions about identity and difference, effectively reflecting but also driving a number of transformative intellectual and political agendas. This reflection will focus on three interrelated sites of such activity: empirical, theoretical and political. Empirically, numerous articles have examined the ways gender is lived, in and across spaces and these have been enlivened by approaches highlighting masculinities, sexualities and embodiment. Theoretically these subjects have been informed by post-colonial and post-structural frameworks, directing discussion towards multiple identities, reflexivity, research practice, performativity, material cultures, positionality and the nature of academic knowledge. In addition, GPC has registered progressive political concerns for justice and equality, though the nature and extent of its political import has been legitimately questioned from without and within the pages of the journal. The resolution of the many dilemmas associated with the ways gender is lived, thought about and practiced has not always been successful in the pages of GPC, and the ongoing reality of Anglo-American dominance, the persistence of women's inequality and the tension between discursive and political activism, remains. However, in re-placing gender over the last 15 years, GPC has been a journal of serious and path-breaking scholarship which has further legitimized the value of feminist geography.

Cosmopolitan perspectives on European and Asian transnationalism

The article explores the implications of major social transformation in Asia for Europe. It specifically addresses expressions of cosmopolitan engagement between transnational organizations representing Asia and Europe. Within Asia, there is some evidence to indicate that cosmopolitanism is becoming a significant factor in culture and in politics, as is illustrated by increasing transnational cooperation within Asia and the dilution of national interests. A major question is whether such forms of cooperation will play a significant role in Asia's relation to Europe and whether as a consequence European—Asian relations will develop in a direction congruent with cosmopolitan principles. The thesis of the article is that if its momentum continues to develop, cosmopolitan relations and normative regionalism in Asia and Europe are significant factors in reshaping the world and transregional order, and that critical cosmopolitanism can be an alternative to nationalism and to narrowly defined globalization.

Audit quality : earnings management in the context of the Asian crisis

This study assumes that evidence regarding audit quality can be derived from the level of earnings management reflected in reported abnormal or discretionary accruals. Given this assumption, audit quality is examined in the context of the 1997 Asian financial crisis using data from Malaysia. Examining audit quality in its association with earnings management across differential macroeconomic periods provides insights that may be otherwise masked. The period of the crisis is partitioned between pre-crisis (1994-1996), crisis (1997-1998) and post-crisis (1999). Using a robust approach to the measurement of abnormal accruals, the association of Big 5/non-Big 5 and Industry Specialist/Industry non-specialist auditors with both the levels of, and change in levels of, abnormal accruals is investigated across and within the crisis sub-periods from 1994-1999. Audit quality is found to be associated with abnormal accruals, and differentially so across macroeconomic period with greater constraint evident post-crisis.

The meaning of information

This thesis explores the effects of Western culture on information about 'Asian-ness' in film. The findings demonstrate that, in the American films, 'Asian-ness' is constructed as being everything that the West is not. Western culture plays an important role in the representation of information about 'Asian-ness'.

Grouper aquaculture in three Asian countries : farming and economic aspects

The study focussed on three key suppliers of fingerlings and live fish in Asia. Grouper hatchery businesses are lucrative even at low survival rates. The findings indicate that farming practices across these countries are similar. Most farmers adopt traditional practices and lack incentives to reduce cost, but remain proce focussed.

Do entrepreneurship programs matter? An analysis of North American university innovation systems

Are there differences in commercialization outcomes between universities in Canada and the USA? If so, why? We first examine the commercialization performance of universities on both sides of the 49th parallel through indicators of university spinouts generated. Secondly, we measure the presence and growth in numbers of entrepreneurship centers to determine if there are any parallels or discernable patterns that may be related to spinout performance. Based upon theories that suggest entrepreneurial culture plays a significant role in the spinout process, we then test the hypothesis that entrepreneurship education programs play a significant role in determining spinout performance. Our model assumes that the level and intensity of an academic entrepreneurship program/center is a valid indicator of “entrepreneurial culture” that may impact upon a universities propensity to spinout new knowledge intensive firms. Our results find that there is indeed a correlation between intensity of entrepreneurship program and commercialization outcomes.

Architecture, identity and cultural sustainability in contemporary Southeast Asian cities

Distinctive architecture, which once served to identify peoples and places, has now, across the world, been subject to the standardising forces of history. Built environments still reflect the conceptual, spatial and physical construction of communities, though straightforward correlations between particular forms of architecture, places and people can no longer be taken for granted. This article explores these notions through discussion of several Southeast Asian examples, seeing how the relationship between architecture and culture might be framed by each of them, and then how definitions of culture might be differently expressed depending on each context. The first context is the village. Here, recent buildings are produced within a traditional, rural culture, generally without recourse to architects. Indigenous symbolism is overlaid, but not necessarily subsumed, by imported typologies and ideologies. The second context is urban and more formalised and involves self-conscious architectural attempts to straddle tradition and modernity, as well as notions of broader collective identity. The third context is one of a more diffused globalisation. Issues of conservation and heritage are complicated by the imperial or colonial histories of many urban environments, as well as by the pressures of economic development and population growth. In cultural terms, however, it is the life of cities that is foregrounded here. This disparate collection of architectural projects and agendas reflects a region where the forces of essentialism and fragmentation continue to be in creative tension (Ashraf 2005).

Knowledge management culture, strategy and process in Malaysian firms

Malaysia is one of the leading countries in Asia that are at the forefront in the development of a knowledge-based economy (KBE). The Malaysian government has been making substantial investments in both physical and technological infrastructure to facilitate knowledge-intensive economic activities. Foreign and local firms in Malaysia are encouraged to take advantage of the opportunities brought by the emerging KBE. However, little is known as to how firms in Malaysia respond to this new trajectory of economic development. In particular, there is paucity in the literature as to how Malaysian firms manage knowledge in their organizations as they strive to achieve sustainable competitive performance. Little is known as to how and why firms in Malaysia develop and manage their intangible and knowledge-based resources as they operate and respond to the modern knowledge-based competitive economic arena. This paper examines a type of organizational culture that supports and promotes knowledge management (KM) within firms in Malaysia. The paper argues that KM-oriented culture shapes the overall KM strategy of firms, which consequently shapes the organizational process required to manage the firm's knowledge-based resources. The study uses survey data from a sample of 153 firms from Malaysia. Structural equation modelling was used to develop and test the measurement model of KM-oriented culture, KM strategy and KM process of the sample firms, as well as the structural model of their hypothesized relationships. The results show that firms with high level of KM-oriented culture demonstrated well-defined KM strategies. Firms that implemented well-defined KM strategies also reported that they have better KM processes in place. Building a KM-oriented culture within the organization is a pre-requisite to the implementation of any KM systems in Malaysian firms. Successful implementation of KM strategies, processes and the supporting technological infrastructure depends on whether organizational members consider KM as a norm within the firm. The study's focus on the linkages between KM-oriented culture, strategy and process in the context of Malaysian firms contributes to a more nuanced understanding of KM among firms in the Asian context in general, and in the Malaysian context in particular.

Resisting immigrant myths : everyday consumer practices of Asian immigrants in America

Projective, depth interviews with U.S. Asian immigrants revealed their ambivalence toward the U.S. commercial sector’s colonial-era representations of Asian people. These commercial representations provide polarized depictions of Asian immigrants as either threatening aliens or as model citizens. These portrayals reflect “racialized otherness,” or racial stereotyping that represent Asian immigrants as inferior. Our findings indicate that Chinese immigrants strategically use everyday consumption related to foodways to resist the reverberation of American immigrant myths. In some instances, immigrants’ consumption practices instantiate a regional Asian identity. In other instances, however, immigrants’ consumption practices reflect a separation from the past and an acceptance of a new although not exclusively American way of life. Notwithstanding immigrant consumers’ resistance practices, the findings call for future research into immigrant consumers’ reactions to visual representations of race, ethnicity, and gender.

Cultural landscapes : a bridge between culture and nature?

Cultural landscapes are intended to increase awareness that heritage places (sites) are not isolated islands and that there is an interdependence of people, social structures, and the landscape and associated ecological systems. The paper explores whether the recognition of the 1992 World Heritage Cultural Landscape categories, the IUCN Protected Landscapes and the 2005 merging of cultural and natural criteria for World Heritage purposes have been effective in bridging the gap between culture and nature philosophically and in practice. With particular reference to opportunities presented in the Asia-Pacific region, where traditionally culture and nature are not regarded as separate, people are part of nature, the paper will further critically review the nature–culture link and its implications for North American-style national parks where cultural associations may not be seen to be necessary or even desirable. It suggests the imperative of highlighting and respecting in heritage nominations and inscriptions deep cultural associations of traditional communities with natural sites and implications for management to protect cultural and biological diversity and the need for thematic studies.

Early Connections : reflections on the canonical lineage of Southeast Asian temples

Temples were constructed across Southeast Asia following the spread of Brahmanic/Hindu culture between the fifth to eight centuries CE. Epigraphic evidence, architectural and stylistic similarities between temples in the region are strongly indicative of historic cross cultural links between the traditions. This paper presents the findings of a research project that pieces together fragments of evidence from early temple sites in Southeast Asia to establish the linkages between the Southeast Asian temple building traditions. The focus of the paper is on tracing the canonical connections between these traditions through an examination of temple sites in Cambodia and Java respectively. The legacy of this ancient diasporic movement remains celebrated today in the admiration of Southeast Asian monuments such as Angkor Wat and Prambanan. However this architecture evolved over time through a process of long experimentation with philosophies, world-views, and methods. . In order to permit a deeper examination of canonical connections, the authors use methods such as photogrammetry, digital and physical models to reconstruct the architectural forms. A detailed analysis of the canonical geometry and compositional form of these temples is undertaken with reference to Indic texts and temples. Comparing the relationships between cosmology, geometry and physical form in this earlier sites with both Indian and developed Southeast Asian models, it is intended that its generative role within Southeast Asian architectural historiography can be clarified and more fully celebrated.