Search

This paper focuses on the trafficking and smuggling of human beings from and through the former Soviet Union. It explores the reasons for the rise in the illegal movement of people; the groups which facilitate it; the demographics of the people who are moved and the business side, including the profits, the disposition of profits and the use of corruption to facilitate the trade. With the disintegration of state control over national territory, this mass movement of people often violates national laws and the national sovereignty of the countries of the Soviet successor states and the countries where the former Soviet citizens move illegally. The paper concludes that this trade mirrors and contributes to the overall downward development of the post-Soviet economies. In contrast, a comparative look at the respective Chinese developments indicates that trade in human beings tends to facilitate the growth of both the Chinese legitimate and illegitimate economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper proposes two weighted goal-programming models for optimizing crude oil production in the middle and later periods of oilfield development. These models divide the oil yield optimization problem into two stages according to the characteristics of Chinese oil companies' yield compositions. In the first stage, the total planned crude oil yield will be optimized by four sub-yields, while each sub-yield will be allocated optimally among different oil extract plants in the later stage. A case study is conducted to validate the proposed models. The results show that the model can address the annual crude oil yield planning subjectively. Moreover, the proposed model can rationally allocate resources among various extract oil plants and effectively reduce production costs in the context of ensuring planned oil yields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the classic structure → conduct → performance paradigm in the context of the industrial structure of Hong Kong. It is shown that, notwithstanding the absense of a few dominant producers and the on-going restructuring of the manufacturing sector, even in a `quasi- developed' open economy such as that of Hong Kong the paradigm gleans strong empirical support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the determinants of government size at the provincial level in China. We employ the panel data model as a platform for empirical analysis and control for endogeneity in the study. Our study shows that openness to trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) may curtail government expansion, and that the provincial-level public sector is characterized by economies of scale. This study also documents that Wagner's law does not hold true for China. Moreover, both expenditure decentralization and revenue decentralization contribute to the expansion of China's government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper applies the principles of glocalization theory to Disney's successful adaptation in Hong Kong. Glocalization refers to the interface of the global and the local. After Hong Kong Disneyland's lack of success within a year of its opening in 2005, Disney executives attempted to cater to the local Chinese context. From a glocalization perspective, four major changes were made: (1) reduction of prices; (2) adaptation to local visitors' customs; (3) change of décors and settings; and (4) adaptation of labor practices. Ever since, Hong Kong Disneyland has proved successful: park attendance and revenues from growth have increased. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we provide an overview of the extant research on the development of entrepreneurship in China. This research focus is a relatively recent phenomenon since China’s market transition started from late 1978. We review the literature over the 26 years from 1980 through 2005, as published in 11 leading English-language academic journals. We identify 68 articles from this review and analyze them based on the research subjects, methods, and firm types. From this review, and integrating with research on market transitions, we propose a three-stage model of market transitions that has important implications for entrepreneurship research in transition economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compared to large companies, the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in China are more likely to fail in developing green supply chain management (GSCM). Capturing its failure factors could be useful for managers and policymakers to decide how green supply chains can be successfully designed and developed. Meanwhile, these factors can include complex interrelationships. Properly dealing with them can help identify the critical factors which can assist decision-makers to efficiently manage green supply chains. This study thus proposes a comprehensive framework to explore and understand failure factors of GSCM in China's SMEs to improve the opportunities of GSCM in China. The fuzzy synthetic evaluation (FSE) and decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) are combined and applied to identify critical failure factors through translating interrelationships in a hierarchical cause–effect model. The results indicate that collaboration and support are the most critical perspectives for GSCM, and these two perspectives also interrelated with each other and affect the perspectives of knowledge, technology and economy to varying degrees. Moreover, the critical failure factors include lack of top management support, poor guidance from authorities, difficulty in supplier selection and inadequate supplier commitment. Sensitivity analysis is conducted to check the robustness. Conceptual and managerial implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's opening to trade is interpreted as a shift in world average factor endowments, which altered the comparative advantage of other countries. In the rest of the world on average, this shift lowered the share of labour-intensive manufacturing in the sum of labour-intensive manufacturing and primary output by 1-3.5 percentage points, and the corresponding export share by 1.5-5 points. The de-industrialising effect varied among countries, and was clearest in East Asia. It was significant, but not big enough to be a serious threat to growth or equity in most other developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study applies a resource-based view of the firm to analyze data from a sample of 898 joint-venture firms in China, including both joint ventures established by overseas Chinese and by firms from Western cultures. It is hypothesized that culture could influence the timing of entry of joint ventures, their investment preferences, and performance. ANOVAs and regressions were conducted, and the results suggest the impact of cultural as well as technological resources. This paper concludes with a discussion on the implications of the findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Guanxi refers to a Chinese system of doing business on the basis of personal relationships, and it is representative of the way that business is done throughout much of the non-western world. In this paper we first evaluate guanxi from an ethical perspective, and then attempt to shed light on the sources of its economic advantages and disadvantages through the use of a simple mathematical model. Finally, we point out how eastern and western business practices may already be converging toward systems based on more complete models of trust to deal with the conditions of progress coupled with uncertainty that form our new economic reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A line of research is emerging investigating the private sector impacts and dependencies on critical biodiversity and ecosystem services, and related business risks and opportunities. While the ecosystem services narrative is being forwarded globally as a key paradigm for promoting business sustainability, there is scarce knowledge of how these issues are considered at managerial level. This study thus investigates managerial views of corporate sustainability after the ecosystem services concept. We analyse interviews conducted with 20 managers from domestic and international forestry companies operating with a plantation-based business model in China. Content analysis was employed to analyse the data, with a focus on four key areas: (1) interviewee familiarity with the ecosystem services concept; (2) their views of corporate dependencies and impacts on ecosystem services; (3) related business risks and opportunities; and (4) viability of existing instruments and practices that can be employed in detecting and addressing business impacts and dependencies on ecosystem services. Through an inductive approach to the empirical findings, we refined a framework that holds operational value for developing company response strategies to ecosystem services impact/dependence assessment, ensuring that all issues are addressed comprehensively, and that related risks and opportunities are properly acknowledged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Private business is among the many things that comprise the 'new normal' in Xi Jinping's China. Given the Communist Party's socialist transformation of the private sector in the 1950s and its concerted suppression of 'tails of capitalism' over the next 20 years, it was surprising that it began to legitimize private business in 1978. It did this to address a number of pressing social and economic problems. After a slow start, micro enterprises began to increase in numbers and scale, and the party passed several amendments to the state constitution and revised its ideological stance to make private business a normal and legitimate component of the economic field, and to recruit private entrepreneurs into the party. Nonetheless, the 'new' normal continues to evolve and China's new capitalists walk a vague line between acceptance and vulnerability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on institutional and signaling theories, this study examines how environmental corporate social responsibility (ECSR) affects firm performance in a dysfunctional institutional environment. We extend the ECSR literature by suggesting that ECSR indirectly influences firm performance through the mediating effects of business and political legitimacy. Based on a dataset of 238 firms in China, we find that ECSR affects business and political legitimacy followed by firm performance. Moreover, legal incompleteness weakens and legal inefficiency strengthens the effects of ECSR on business and political legitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

HIV research among internal migrants in China has not fully explored the contexts and perceptions of 'risk'. In 2011, urban markets in Liuzhou, China were mapped, and sixty male vendors, age 22-56, were selected for in-depth interviews on migration, social and family life, and perceptions and practices of sexual risk behavior. Participants were evenly divided among higher income shop and small stall vendors. All men were sexually active. Only the shop vendors reported non-marital sexual partners, including concurrent partners ( n = 15), commercial partners ( n = 10), and other sexual relationships ( n = 11). Shop vendors engaged in networking activities that facilitated commercial and non-commercial high-risk sex. Perceptions of HIV risk from commercial sex led some men to doubt the protective ability of condoms and rely on local (unproven) self-protection techniques. Networking activities played a role in high-risk sex and shaping migrants' risk perceptions and health practices. The networks created through these processes could also be used to facilitate health promotion activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The re-emerging syphilis epidemic in China is documented among sex workers, but little is known about STI risk among the broader group of women who work at entertainment and service venues, many of whom do not self-identify as sex workers. In 2009 in Liuzhou, China, community informants identified venues where people meet sexual partners. Characteristics of a stratified random sample of venues were collected during venue visits. Female staff at 42 venues were interviewed and tested for syphilis. The results showed that venue characteristics, worker behaviors, and syphilis prevalence differed by venue type. Service venue workers had more sexual partners, were more likely to report sex work, and more likely to have a positive syphilis test than entertainment venue workers (prevalence ratio: 5.4; 95 % CI 1.4-20.6). To conclude, risk of syphilis differs by venue type and is higher at service venues, even among women who do not report commercial sex. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study begins by reflecting on the literature characterizing the nature and function of a profession qua profession. It continues by arguing that based upon commonly used indicia of a profession that the practice of law in the US is de-professionalizing in significant ways and morphing towards a functioning business model. The related advantages of such a development for American society, its lawyers and their clients, including especially criminal defendants are critically discussed. It then traces the emergence and ascendancy of the rule of law in China and corresponding quest to institutionalize the practice of law in China as a profession. The study concludes by exploring the alternative advantages of applying the business model to Chinese legal practice. It recommends that embracing a paradigm shift away from the professional model towards a business model, comparable to what is happening in the US, would be to the greater advantage of Chinese lawyers in terms of enhanced authority, increased self-regulation, as well as providing greater leverage in advocating client interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Guanxi (literally interpersonal connections) is in essence a network of resource coalition-based stakeholders sharing resources for survival, and it plays a key role in achieving business success in China. However, the salience of guanxi stakeholders varies: not all guanxi relationships are necessary, and among the necessary guanxi participants, not all are equally important. A hierarchical stakeholder model of guanxi is developed drawing upon Michell et al.’s () stakeholder salience theory and Anderson’s () constituency theory. As an application of instrumental stakeholder theory, the model dimensionalizes the notion of stakeholder salience, and distinguishes between and among internal and external guanxi, core, major, and peripheral guanxi, and primary and secondary guanxi stakeholders. Guanxi management principles are developed based on a hierarchy of guanxi priorities and management specializations. The goal of this application of instrumental stakeholder theory is to construct, for Western business firms in China, a means to reliably identify guanxi partners by employing the principles of effective guanxi. These principles are described in the form of testable propositions that advance social scientific research in this area of international business ethics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research examines the linkages among three Greater China Economic Area (GCEA) stock markets, including Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, and two developed markets, Japan and the United States. We find that: (1) a random walk model is outpredicted by an autoregressive GARCH model and an ARIMA model in all three GCEA markets; (2) the three GCEA markets are not cointegrated with either U.S. or Japan but there exists weak nonlinear relationships between these markets; and (3) result from the innovation accounting analysis reveals that the U.S. market has larger influence on the GCEA markets than the Japanese market. Additionally, Hong Kong is the most influential among the three GCEA markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the importance of contract and inter-firm cooperation for the business in Hong Kong, China. Improvement on the flow of the business; Enhancement on the relationship of the business firms; Development of the business transactions.

Focuses on the capitalist business system in China. Theory of business systems; Framework for business systems analysis; Rationale driving the private sector in China; Dimension of the value rationality; Role of the government; Classification of capital systems; Flows of determinacy; External factors influencing the business system.

One of the hot research topics today is relationship marketing. However, little research has been carried out in understanding the complex concepts of Guanxi (relationship) in a Chinese society. This research describes a study to operate the constructs of guanxi and explores the importance of guanxi in relationship development in order to present a new Guanxi framework. A study of both Western and Chinese literature provides foundations of the Guanxi perspectives. The constructs of adaptation, trust, opportunism and favour are identified. Adaptation and trust are found to be positively correlated with sales stability and quality. Whilst, adaptation is negatively correlated with relationship termination costs. Both theoretical framework (a new perceptual map) and managerial implications are given. In addition, recommendations for future research are made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]