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Associations are playing an increasingly important role in the development of the hotel industry. They can maintain market fairness, save transaction costs, and protect the legitimate rights and interests of market players. With the development of China's market economy, the government is also active in encouraging and nurturing social associations; in fact, some of the functions of government are beginning to be transferred to such associations. However, in existing domestic conditions there are many difficulties facing the development of hotel associations. This paper uses the Guangzhou Hotels Association as a case to study such associations' operational mechanisms and their changes over time. The aim is to identify the root causes of problems in the development of hotel associations, and to propose strategies to solve such problems. The Guangzhou Hotels Association was established on May 6 1988, with 42 members covering the whole area of Guangzhou. Although currently only 10% of hotels in Guangzhou are members of the Guangzhou Hotels Association, the association has a significant influence on the tourism industry due to the scale of its assets, total number of rooms, and income. Through theoretical analysis and empirical research this paper outlines the definition, nature and functions of hotel associations, and discusses the implementation of sector management and industry self-regulation from the perspective of new institutional economics. Methods used in this study included field work in the hotels, the collection of relevant papers on the basic concepts of association, and an analysis of the contents of the Guangzhou Hotels Association's magazines, conference materials, etc. From March to April 2011, fieldwork was conducted in the secretariat of the association at which the daily operations of the association were observed and materials relating to the association's work were collected. Subsequently, two employees of the association and twenty senior executives of member hotels were interviewed to determine their perceptions of changes in the association and their understanding of association functions. The paper proposes the following actions based on the results. First, the major management problem of the association is that it currently cannot be separated from the government. Accordingly, the government needs to take the lead in proposing management innovations for hotel associations, to accelerate the separation between government and the association, and transfer more of its management functions to the association. Second, hotel associations should be bold and innovative, and can build an organizational structure suitable for its geographical location and the development of the hotel industry, and enrich the functions it can offer to industry. By implementing these actions, hotel associations could provide better services for member hotels and promote management specialization within hotels. Based on these considerations, this paper provides a systematic understanding of the management theory and practices of the Guangzhou Hotels Association, which can provide an experiential reference for the development of other hotel associations as well as for local tourism associations. At the same time, this study revealed limitations in the current operational mechanisms of associations. First, there are negative effects resulting from the current role and management ability of hotel associations and these may reduce the efficiency and flexibility of business operations in the hotel industry in the future. Second, the development of hotel association operating mechanisms is often accompanied by the transfer of governance functions as well as by administrative restructuring. Future research should examine how the transfer of governance functions can be best carried out, including the pros and cons during the process of function transferring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper takes seven communities' autonomy as examples to conclude that the obstruction in Chinese urban communities' autonomy is shown as follows: the different kinds of the staffs who cannot make a concerted effort; the unbalance roles of the primary Party organizations; the unsound development of the community autonomy organizations; the big gap between different communities in residents' autonomy level; the serious Matthew Effect in allocation of communities' autonomy fund. Many reasons cause the obstruction in community autonomy, such as, the government's over-intervention in administrative affairs, the unbalance distribution of the Party members, the irregularity of autonomous body's organization and management, the striking difference in leaders' capacity and the community residents' weak sense of belonging. The paper then puts forward such measures to help get rid of the obstruction as changing the government's function, strengthening the primary Party organizations, training the promising residents, strengthening the community workers' team construction and building the comprehensive plan of the community's autonomous fund allocation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interest in social capital has grown recently among researchers both in Japan and around the world. It is "bridging social capital" that attracts particular attention today. Minorities tend to be portrayed as people who are denied such social capital. The author argues that it is important to examine the kind of social capital which is generated and utilized in networks developed by minorities themselves. This paper focuses on the "Burakumin," the largest minority population in Japan. Discriminated-against Buraku communities have benefited during the past half century from specific government legislation realized through the efforts of the Buraku liberation movement, as well as various Buraku improvement measures. On the other hand, however, new difficulties have developed recently such as the stagnation of the liberation movement, widening disparities in income and academic achievement within Buraku communities, and the abolition of relevant laws. In this context, we can analyze the impact of environmental changes on social capital and the formation of social networks based on it over time. This paper clearly reveals that there is dilemma between the assumption of homogeneity and the formation of minority networks. It also reveals that class -based disparities can be observed within the network and that the qualitative change of benefits influences the formation of networks. "Bonding social capital" is by no means uniform. We run the risk of overlooking diversity and disparity within the network if we emphasize homogeneity. In addition, the "positive" and "negative" aspects of social capital are not static, but change variously based on influences such as "being valued by people outside of the network" and "qualitative changes over time." This paper examines these dynamic aspects that are specific to the social networks developed by minorities. This paper focuses on "bonding social capital" within minority networks. In the case of social networks formed with the aim of achieving "liberation" from oppression, it is indispensable to build effective relationships with entities outside the network. Therefore, an important future task for the author is to maintain a good balance between "bridging social capital" and "bonding social capital," upon which minority networks rely heavily. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The special issue is dedicated to publish high quality research papers in the area of emergency management and encourage innovative and practical research, which aims to improve the overall emergency management ability of organizations and governments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of Chinese religions and its sole access to society is realized by social charity or by social assistance. Correspondingly, Chinese religions have achieved some transition and improvement by practicing social helping and public charity undertaking. At present stage, Chinese religions can offer self--service for the development of our economic society and play a role in social coordination. As far as Chinese religions are concerned, this paper holds that donations should be combined with social reconstructions, ending up building a new charity notion--social charity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To guarantee the lifeful development of China's cotton textile industry, China Cotton Textile Industry Association has formulated the 12th Five-Year Plan for China's Cotton Textile Standardization grounded on the targets and requirements prompted by The Outline of the 12th Five-Year Plan for the Technological Development of China Textile Industry and the 12th Five-Year Plan for the Standardization of China Textile Industry. This paper presented a detailed introduction of this Planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]