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Whereas many researchers have examined differences in values and behavior between Westerners and Asians, fewer have investigated differences within Asian cultural groups. A recent government initiative in Taiwan to encourage international education has led to the development of an international MBA program at the National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan; both Chinese and Southeast Asian students participate in the program. They exhibit different behaviors in their classes, particularly in their postings in online discussion boards. For reasons that can be partly explained by the students' responses on a Chinese-Value Survey, Chinese students tend to post fewer messages than Southeast Asians, and both groups post fewer messages than Westerners in the classes under study. Instructors in multicultural classes have to consider such differences when they design assignments and set expectations for students in online discussions. (Contains 1 table.)

Examined a possible link between computer-generated feedback and changes in writing strategies of English-as-a-foreign-language business-writing students in Taiwan. Numerous detailed analyses were carried out using computer software that measured students' writing, including time spent on a document, amount of editing of a document, specific errors made in a document, and the amount of text copied from resource material. (Author/JL)

Western retailers find alignment with consumers in Greater China challenging. Managers struggle to understand local retail values, especially where quantitative marketing research obfuscates meanings behind overly simplified constructs - lacking richness that is key to alignment. As researchers embedded in a distant indigenous culture, we use an interpretive research design, drawing on longitudinal data collected over a six-year period, to reveal multiple lenses of local realities, giving a perspective on international retailers' misalignment. The multimethod approach integrates ethnography, interviews, participant observations, videography and extended data in podcasts. We show how everyday products can be purely functional (global) at one time but embedded with symbolic meaning (local) at another, thereby confounding international retailers and researchers. Managers and researchers tend to reduce the legitimacy of meanings that differ from the values and beliefs of their existing (home/local) paradigm. We present a conceptual model that clarifies the marketing metaphor of 'alignment' for retailers targeting Far East Asian markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]