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Transnational routes such as direct-entry have become a more attractive option for Chinese students, due to the pandemic-imposed travel restrictions in China. The rise of Chinese direct-entry students can potentially lead to a significant increase in demand for academic and non-academic support not only after their arrival, but also before their departure from China. By applying Schlossberg's transition theory, this paper seeks to develop a good understanding of the academic and social belonging of Chinese direct-entry students in the UK through re-analysing the portraits (written narratives) of a previous research project. The findings indicate that these students were feeling disconnected from the academic and social communities. The factors affecting their sense of belonging are described using the 4S framework, namely self, strategies, situation and support. The paper ends with recommendations to key university stakeholders on how the partner institutions in China and the UK can help enhance a sense of academic and social belongingness of Chinese direct-entry students.

In Chinese culture the concept of 'face' refers to the "dignity" or "prestige" of an individual that must be protected or saved, particularly in inter-cultural communication. This study aimed to examine how addressers inevitably save their own face in inter-cultural communication and what different strategies of 'face' saving have a bearing on their linguistic behaviors. A mixed method research design, in two stages was conducted wherein a questionnaire was utilized in the first stage (quantitative) and a semi-structured interview in the second stage (qualitative). The questionnaire examined the situations of saving the addresser's face while the interview examined the strategies of saving addresser's face. The sample comprised 120 business persons for the quantitative phase, and 15 randomly selected from the 120 respondents for the interview. The findings show that when addressers' face is hurt or threatened, such as when they report their mistakes and are refused, they will apply face saving strategies including apology, admitting, finding excuses and justification, and pretending nothing severe and showing they can handle the problem. It was also found that Chinese businesspersons can protect self-face when they report their mistakes and poor performance to their superiors, peers, and subordinates in intercultural communication. These findings can guide people from other countries to better understand Chinese businesspersons' communication processes and their smooth and effective intercultural communication.

With the growing development of the knowledge economy in recent years, the value of knowledge workers has increased substantially. On the basis of the broaden-and-build theory (B&B theory) and conservation of resources (CoR) theory the aim of this research work is to evaluate the mediating effect of leader-member exchange (LMX) and organizational learning (OL) between servant leadership and knowledge innovative work behavior (IWB). Current study included the participation of 496 knowledge employees from China's high-tech companies. The responses of the survey were analyzed using MPLS software while utilizing the structural equation modeling method. The findings validated the link between servant leadership (SL) and IWB. In the relationship between SL and IWB, LMX and OL mediated the relationship as parallel mediator. This study discovered a correlation between SL and OL and LMX. In addition, the findings signify that in the Chinese high-tech companies' SL style augments IWB through the support of OL and LMX. The results of the study are useful for harnessing the leader and member for achieving organizational objectives through enhancing the innovative work behavior in the knowledge workers of Chinese high-tech companies.

Embedded system is an interdisciplinary, profound foundation and practice-oriented course; at present, in the traditional teaching mode, embedded systems in colleges and universities generally have problems such as disconnected theory and practice, outdated assessment methods, and low enthusiasm of students. Arming to cultivate compound embedded development talents that meet the needs of enterprises, based on CDIO engineering education mode, this paper analyzes the characteristics of the "Embedded System" course, and takes engineering project development practice as the dominant idea to discuss the course system, teaching material construction and teaching method reform of "Embedded System." By designing a complete project teaching system, closely combines the theoretical teaching and practice of the course. Multiple rounds of teaching practices show that through the project-driven teaching method, students' engineering practice ability can be significantly improved, so that students can deeply master the basic principles of embedded systems, and possess the engineering development ability of embedded products at the same time, thus meeting the needs of enterprises for innovative and interdisciplinary talents.

Chinese enterprise personnel are faced with the problem of intercultural adaptation. Based on Black's theory of "three-dimensional" model of intercultural adaptation, this paper proposes a "four-dimensional" model of intercultural adaptation, namely, life adaptation, work adaptation, interpersonal adaptation and Chinese image adaptation. The research method of semi-structured in-depth interview is used to interview 23 Chinese people from one Chinese enterprise in Saudi Arabia, who have worked there for at least one year. We get findings as follows: (1) Life adaptation: maladjustment is mainly reflected in religious restriction. Especially, religious regulations and taboos make the life of Chinese enterprise personnel restricted. However, there are also many aspects of adaptation, such as Saudi cuisine, living environment and leisure life, which bring the satisfaction of life demands to Chinese enterprise personnel. (2) Work adaptation: foreign companies must employ a certain proportion of local people to work in their companies; the roles of buyers and sellers in Saudi Arabia and in China are different; the concept of time is different. (3) Interpersonal adaptation: Chinese people in Saudi Arabia still have the most frequent contact with their Chinese compatriots, and it is difficult for them to develop close friendship with foreigners. Chinese people are good at creating harmonious interpersonal relationships for work through some after-work activities, such as drinking tea, eating out and holding football matches. (4) Chinese image adaptation: Chinese enterprise personnel in Saudi Arabia have decent income, and Saudi police fail to check Chinese cars, all of which make the Chinese people have a positive face value. In view of the above four adaptation situations of Chinese enterprise personnel in Saudi Arabia, the following suggestions are proposed: (1) Be strict with yourself in life, respect local social and religious customs, and also keep a careful attitude and actively deal with disadvantageous factors. (2) While benefiting from working or doing business in Saudi Arabia, we should make contributions for the development of local economy and society, providing employment and training for local people. (3) We should observe the local laws and regulations, and also follow the local and international market rules. (4) In interpersonal communication, we should combine the maintenance mode of Chinese "guanxi" (relationship) with western "principle" on the one hand, and make a difference between them on the other hand. (5) In terms of image adaptation, besides maintaining a good image politically and economically, it is also necessary to improve our individual quality and our cultural cultivation overseas, be a communicator bridging Chinese and foreign excellent culture, and build a positive national image and individual image.

Identity directly impacts how university students behave and make decisions in entrepreneurial practice. Therefore, it is significant to explore the factors influencing the identity construction of student-entrepreneurs to understand how processes are internalized by students, which may then affect their entrepreneurial identity. This article interrogates the formation and transition of the entrepreneurial identity of student-entrepreneurs in a Chinese research university. This paper argues that identity formation is a dynamic and nonlinear process where both role and social identities are involved in its development. Factors that would promote the desired identity formation would include, among others, a tolerant atmosphere across universities, integrating identity issues into the process of entrepreneurship education, and providing university-wide support for entrepreneurship which will be beneficial to improving and sustaining entrepreneurial identity among students.

This paper introduces a facilitated co-constructed action learning approach with a narrative account of the author's own learning on designing and delivering an executive education programme. Action learning has double inference in this context as the author developed and improved teaching design and delivery through action learning. He also revised the design of delivery of action learning to learners through critical self-reflection. The author states that university teaching faculty plays a crucial role in facilitating learners' development and application of reflective practice. Reflective practice underlines the ability of critical thinking, which is considered the highest level of thinking [Dewey (1910). "How We Think." Boston: D.C.Heath]. Consequently, the effectiveness of reflective practice unlikely happens unless individuals have achieved this level of thinking. Reflecting on the teaching experience, the author highlights two elements that potentially contribute to the effective outcomes of higher education learning and teaching: teaching faculty competence in mastering the application of action learning approaching in university learning and teaching design.

Purpose: Learning and development are critical to a business's success. This paper aims to focus on organizational factors at multiple organizational levels that facilitate learning culture in a small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) in northwestern China. Design/methodology/approach: This study is qualitative in nature. A single case study method is used to explore an SME's organizational factors that facilitate learning culture. Findings: This paper categorizes the organizational factors into seven dimensions: shared vision, creating continuous learning opportunities, informal learning that promotes inquiry and dialogue, collaboration and team learning, knowledge management systems, work-family enrichment and encouragement and support. This paper also compares the findings with learning culture models from Western research. Research limitations/implications: Chinese culture has far-reaching and fundamental effects on many East Asian countries and regions. For SMEs in similar cultural settings with a collectivist orientation, future research may focus on the effect of the work-family enrichment on learning culture. Originality/value: Work-family enrichment was found to be an important factor that influences learning effectiveness in this Chinese small business based on traditional values in Chinese culture.

Policy changes are dependent on institutional logic. As they are analogies shared by a group, when metaphors for universities change, they ultimately promote changes to university governance models as well. Taking analogies into account, university reforms have proceeded while revolving around the metaphors of the university as government and the university as a corporation. From 1949 to 1991, universities implemented a political governance model, and the legitimacy of the system was based on the metaphor of the university as the government, reflecting the traditional values of the combination of political system and academic system; from 1992 to 2011, universities explored the mode of corporate governance, and the legitimacy of the system was based on the metaphor of the university as an enterprise, borrowing more western university ideas; since 2012, we have tried to integrate the two modes of political governance and corporate governance to establish a modern university system with Chinese characteristics. [This article was translated by Desmond Cheung.]

This study examines terms of address currently used by employees of Chinese business enterprises. The authors find that a speaker's address selections are related significantly to the gender of the speaker, the location of the enterprise in Eastern or Western China, and the ownership type of the enterprise; that is, whether the enterprise is state-owned or privately owned. The authors develop hypotheses to explain the social origins of these observations. It is also observed that the semantics of address in the enterprise persist across changes in underlying terminology and are resilient with respect to mandated speech. In examining this subject of persistence, the authors find that the term 'ge/jie' (brother/sister) has replaced the term "tóngzhì" (comrade) as the primary means of expressing solidarity within the business enterprise. The authors consider the question of whether address choices can be predicted based on externally observable situations or whether such choices require knowledge of the speaker's motivations, which are not externally observable. It is concluded that address is most predictable in situations where power is salient and less predictable in other situations.

Despite the tremendous economic progress made by the Chinese economy, averaging a nine percent growth per year, one section of the community remains outside the economic boom. As state-owned enterprises (SOEs) restructure into more efficient organisations able to compete in the global economy, the plight of workers within these enterprises has become a pressing issue. No longer able to depend on a job for life, these workers present challenges for local governments. One initiative proposed by the International Labour Organisation called the Start Your Own Business (SYB) Program has been identified as a way to retrain laid-off workers, xiagang. By focussing on one city in China, this paper analyses some of the key issues associated with this program. Using anecdotal evidence from workers who have undergone the retraining, the paper has identified at least three areas of concern for workers participating in the SYB retraining program. Access to seed funding, the implementation of knowledge and skills into practice, and furthering support and guidance in market analysis remain issues for the continued success of this program.

Asian megatrends are necessitating the development of management education of ethnic groups like the overseas Chinese and, universities need to change accordingly. This article identifies five Asian megatrends and their impact on the management education of overseas Chinese. The megatrends are: the emergence of women in politics and business; a shift in industrial strategy towards high technology; urbanization; the rise of consumerism; and migration of overseas Chinese back to China. Moreover two barriers to the impact the megatrends have on the management education of overseas Chinese are examined. Finally, a hypothetical model of the interrelationship of these variables is presented.

There are several common trends and challenges in the higher education (HE) system around the world, like expansion and diversification of HE, fiscal pressure and orientation to markets, demand for greater accountability and great quality and efficiency (e.g. The financing and management of higher education: a status report on worldwide reforms, 1998; Internationalisation of higher education and global mobility 43-58, 2014; Global policy and policy-making in education, 2014; Higher Education Policy 21:5-27, 2008). These trends and changes have reshaped university governance as well. Public universities are the main institutions to carry out HE in Australia and China. The engagement between Australia and China in HE sector has become closer and closer in recent years. To conduct better and further cooperation and collaboration between Australian and Chinese universities, it is critical to understand and acknowledge the differences in two nations' university governance. Moreover, by conducting this comparative study of two nations, it also helps us to figure out the changes in university governance over times under the global trends and the interactions between global and local factors. This comparative study focuses on the university level and attempts to identify the differences of university governance in Australian and Chinese public universities in three dimensions, state-university relation, university internal governance and university finance. This paper sketches the university governance in Australia and China and finds that the relationship between government and university is looser in Australia than that in China and Australian universities enjoy more autonomy and power than Chinese universities; as to university internal governance, Australian universities use a more business-oriented management mechanism; funding associated with full-fee paying international students has become very important for Australian HE while Chinese government funding has been decreasing as well but funds from international students play a minimal financial role.

This paper comprises results concluding the research activity done so far regarding enhanced web services and system integration. The objective of the paper is to define the software architecture for a coherent framework and methodology for enhancing existing web services into an integrated system. This document presents the research work that has been done so far in this aspect by applying the proposed architecture for system integration in the academic field. The basics concepts used are Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) and Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), as the most commonly used approaches to information systems integration lately. SOA is an Information Technology (IT) architectural style that supports the transformation of businesses into a set of linked services, or repeatable business tasks that can be accessed when needed over a network. This may be a local network, it may be the Internet, or it may be geographically and technologically diverse, combining services in New York, Paris, and Beijing as though they were all installed on a local desktop. These services can coalesce to accomplish a specific business task, enabling businesses to adapt quickly to changing conditions and requirements. (Contains 6 figures.)

Chinese domestic brands have developed rapidly in recent years, and yet few of them have entered global competition as product or service brands brands with exceptions such as Huawei. In addition, the evolution of Chinese brands has hardly been understood or introduced properly by international business educators. In this article, we identify the development patterns of Chinese domestic brands by using a local hotel brand as an example. Particularly, we examine and discuss how a Chinese brand can be established with specific positioning, brand image, and product offering, as well as how the brand can grow by vertical and horizontal extensions based on balancing market opportunities and the brand's own capabilities. Moreover, we expect this research to facilitate the understanding of Chinese brands among international business education.

Policy changes prompt many universities to become more entrepreneurial and doctoral researchers, especially those working in science and technology, are expected to play important roles, contributing to the growth of knowledge economies through entrepreneurial activity. Informal evidence of differing views on entrepreneurship between Chinese and British doctoral students prompted a quantitative and qualitative investigation, designed to generate a fuller insight. The findings confirmed that Chinese students were more likely to agree that research should contribute to economic success and to view entrepreneurship as a natural means of doing so, as part of their "responsibility to improve the future". In contrast, the British students' views were less positive, with one participant associating entrepreneurship with commerce and a "dirty word". The study explores the factors contributing to this range of views and implications for researchers and universities. It concludes with recommendations to produce more informed and proactive engagement of researchers with entrepreneurialism.

Purpose: This research paper aims to showcase current knowledge management (KM) practices via social media that is being adopted by organizations in India and China. India and China are considered leading economies in today's global market. Any understanding of management practices in these countries will help practitioners in doing businesses in these nations. Design/methodology/approach: This conceptual paper analyzes KM practices in India and China using an in-depth analysis of the extant literature to provide a comparative perspective of KM policies in these two economies. This paper has used a wide range of scholarly and non-scholarly databases from ABI Global Inform to Business Source Complete to Google Scholar among others. Findings: This research offers valuable insights into characteristic KM trends followed by Indian and Chinese firms. This paper also highlights different approaches adopted by these two cultures in managing their KM practices. The study also provides hypotheses that can be tested by potential scholars. This paper also offers theoretical models to understand this concept better. Practical implications: This paper also provides implications for practice by identifying guidelines for global managers. These frameworks might serve as preliminary parameters for practitioners planning to establish KM practices in India and China. Originality/value: This paper compares and contrasts KM practices in one of the two largest BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) economies which have not been addressed in the literature before. It also combines two theoretical frameworks from different fields (information technology and human resource management) providing a richer viewpoint on the subject.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework for studying organizational learning, firm innovation and firm financial performance. Design/methodology/approach: This paper examines the effects of organizational learning on innovation and performance among 287 listed Chinese companies. Findings: The results indicate a positive association between organizational learning dimensions and firm performance (both objective financial performance and perceptual innovation measure). Research limitations/implications: The sample includes only firms for which secondary data are available. Different results might have been obtained if we include smaller, private firms into the sample. This paper only includes a limited number of measures of financial performance to assess the relationship between organization learning dimensions and firm performance. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to test the proposed propositions further with different performance measures. Practical implications: The results showed that it is the combination of several learning characteristics and not a single dimension that influenced the variance of firm performance. The findings reinforce the notion that systemic interventions that address a variety and different combinations of learning organization characteristics will be more likely to be successful than interventions that solely focus on singular or a limited number of dimensions. Originality/value: The integration of objective measures of firms' financial performance with perceptual survey data represents a unique methodology that has not been widely used in the organizational learning literature. The positive correlations between the eight learning dimensions and the measures of firms' performance lend credence to the efficacy of the organizational learning concepts.

Location, where geographic elements interwork spatially and dynamically, has been one of the enduring themes in geographic studies. There are a number of location theories to explain why things are located where they are. Alfred Weber's location theory stresses that the least cost of delivering products is a key factor in location selection, and that industries seek to locate where transport cost is the cheapest (Weber 1909; Krugman 1998). August Lösch's work further advances that business location is defined by maximum profit rather than the least cost (Lösch 1954; Webber 1969). Allan Pred, one of the leading humanist geographers, embraces that the quality of and the ability to use information are the key to location decision (Garret and Kris 2000; Pellenbarg 2013). Smith's framework suggests that business activities tend to locate at what he conceptualizes as spatial margins, within which revenues are greater than costs (Smith 1966; McDermott 1973).These theories might stay in students' brains as stubborn facts if students are not provided with an opportunity to inquire, validate, or experience the connection and relation of the theories with their daily lives. Thus, to effectively teach geographic locations, it may be better to create a context to enable students to generate, experience, or form these theories. To reach the effect, the geography teacher in this study tried to transfer from solely in-class teaching to the integration of in-class teaching with out-class field inquiries because students' exposure to field studies have multiple advantages, such as the fusion of theoretical and practical concepts, the geographic learning through sensory experiences, more profound understanding, and the nurturing of affective abilities (Clark 1996; Kent, Gilbertson, and Hunt 1997; Walcott 1999; Gerber 2000). Moreover, exposing students to field studies can be considered a form of doing geography that is beneficial for fostering higher order thinking as well as integrating "geographic perspectives, geographic knowledge and geographic skills" (William 2009; Geography Education National Implementation Project 2012, 13). In this article, the authors describe how the geography teacher encouraged students to find the underlying factors determining business locations and to assess the location theories through their field investigations of business shops and stores' locations.

This article examines collaborative initiatives individual foreign-invested enterprises (FIEs) develop with China's vocational education and training (VET) schools amid localised shortages of skilled workers. It thus focuses on employer initiatives in responding to VET system weaknesses rather than, as is common, those weaknesses. Using Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP) as the research site, it provides a local labour market perspective for understanding how firms have redirected their interactions with local VET institutions in an economically advanced area. As a mixed-method study, data collection was through face-to-face interviews with FIE managers and local government officials and firm-level surveys. Employer initiatives take a number of forms and follow diverse motivations. Motivations include firm-focused needs and commitments to improving the system. A firm's duration in SIP explains choices for more, and more demanding collaborations. Furthermore, through their collaborative programmes, the most engaged FIEs reshape those VET schools and also the choices of other local FIEs.

In the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011--2015), the Chinese Committee of Science, Technology and Education, the main body for the central government's innovation policy, highlights the strengthening of the scientific--technological base and the upgrading of domestic innovative competences, and places the industrial focus on seven new strategic industries. Available data show that the transition is underway, from a Chinese growth model based on the availability of inexpensive land, investments, exports and a very large low-cost workforce to science-based and innovation-driven growth. However, the poor outcomes from public S&T expenditures suggest that future growth will depend on a different growth formula and that the greatest impact will come from an innovative innovation model. This paper focuses on an emerging Chinese innovation model that applies elements of cluster theory and the regional innovation systems approach to the next development stage of Chinese Special Economic Zones. The model also adopts features of the Triple Helix model of university--industry--government relations such as "systemness" and entrepreneurial universities to enforce regional innovativeness. The author outlines the management and governance challenges associated with the policy objective of moving from imitation to innovation. The paper is based on a study on cluster management for the German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) 2009--2013 and on empirical research in collaboration with the Chinese Association of Developmental Zones (CADZ) in 2012. The study used 15 expert interviews with managers of Tianjin Wuqing Development Zone in the Beijing--Tianjin Corridor and with senior officials of CADZ, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Ministry of Science and Technology, at the Second China German Innovation Forum held in Berlin on 26 and 27 November 2012. (Contains 13 notes.)

The purpose of this study was to compare the attitudes towards business ethics of future managers in three countries: the United State, Finland, and China, and determine whether business ethics attitudes differed by the student's major, class year, GPA, gender, age, and the number of ethics and religious studies courses completed. Additionally the relationship between the degree of opinion leadership and ethical attitudes was examined to determine if opinion leaders exhibited different attitudes towards business ethics. (Contains 2 exhibits.)

This article presents a case for adopting a constructivist approach in the teaching of culture to federal, business and civilian personnel. In support of this argument, the author: (1) outlines the history of culture teaching as it progresses from behaviorist through cognitive to constructivist orientations; (2) argues that a constructivist paradigm is key to designing and delivering culture training that meets current U.S. security needs; and (3) illustrates how such a paradigm could be operationalized by analyzing a failed cross-cultural encounter and demonstrating how constructivist pre-departure training could have mitigated the negative outcomes. (Contains 7 tables, 1 figure and 2 notes.)

Firms face numerous challenges when looking to invest internationally, not the least of which includes understanding the business environment of a new market. Given the expansion and impacts of foreign direct investment (FDI), it has become increasingly important for students to understand and analyze the motivations, concerns, and strategies of companies looking to expand globally. This article illustrates the importance of introducing the topic of FDI into economic geography coursework by using the case of Canadian firms in China. (Contains 6 figures and 6 notes.)

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of job insecurity (past job downsizing and anticipated job downsizing) and current remuneration--via wellbeing (burnout and work engagement)--on organizational outcomes (organization commitment and low turnover intention) of Chinese family-owned business. Design/methodology/approach: The Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model is used as a conceptual framework and data from 585 workers of three Chinese family-style factories were analyzed using structural equation modeling. Findings: Results confirm the hypothesized model indicating that in accordance with the JD-R model: job resources (i.e. job downsizing and current remuneration) are associated with organizational outcomes through wellbeing (burnout and work engagement) and; anticipated job downsizing fully mediates the relation of past job downsizing with wellbeing. Originality/value: The current study examined the effects of job insecurity (i.e. downsizing) and current remuneration on organization outcomes of workers in Chinese family-owned business using a questionnaire survey. To date, studies using the JD-R model focused on other work characteristics but overlooked the potential role of job insecurity and current remuneration. The study demonstrated the importance of anticipated and past downsizing and current remuneration for employee wellbeing and organization outcomes. (Contains 3 tables and 2 figures.)

The ethnographic research reported in this article documents how a group of non-Korean families, whose children are participating in a Korean bilingual school in Northeast China, construct their motivations and strategies of learning Korean language. The main motivation of expectancy of further education opportunities and success in future career and strategies mainly in establishing Korean sociocultural context for Korean language acquisition are described. The positive attitude of non-Korean families toward Korean language studies highlights the functional importance of Korean language as a means of acquiring a larger benefit from China's economic marketization, especially increasing business contacts with South Korea. With the challenges of Korean language studies, this article argues that the increasing significance of trilingualism or even multilingualism in China's reform period implies the necessity of relevant policy initiations for the increasing needs of language acquisition. (Contains 1 note.)

The aim of this paper is to construct a notion of well-being in the workplace applicable to Taiwan society as an example of the Chinese cultural communities. The construction involves the following steps. Different domains of the well-being in the workplace are identified based on the results of workplace research. A set of integrative values combining universal values and Chinese values is constructed to serve as the ground for constructing the components of workplace well-being. Both the universal portion and the Chinese portion have a generic and a workplace-specific portion as their integrative parts. The values in effect help to define specific contents of the components, thus making them relevant and applicable to the Chinese culture. The construct serves as the basis to develop specific indicators to measure, monitor and assess well-being in the workplace. The construct of workplace well-being forms a part of the general well-being in business which contains various well-beings associated with the multiple stakeholders in the business communities--customers, shareholders, citizens, competitors, communities, and the environment. In today's globalized business environment, this construct is especially significant when more multinationals are operating with an increasingly multicultural workplace where people with different cultures communicate, cooperate and interact.

To better fulfil customer satisfaction, a study of what content e-business web sites should contain is conducted. Based on background literature, a content preparation survey of 70 items was developed and completed by 428 white collar employees of an electronic company in mainland China. The survey aimed at examining the significant content factors of e-business web sites. The results of the study indicated a 0.75% internal consistency of the survey. Factor analysis of the data indicated 15 main content factors for e-business web sites, which accounted for 60.1% of total variance. The factors, in order of importance, are security content, quality content, service content, appearance description, contact information, aid function, customised function, search function, product specification, purchasing aid, price content, detailed description, comment content, matching product, review content. This study concludes with guidelines for the design of content preparation of e-business web sites. (Contains 7 tables.)

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to focus on Confucius Institutes and assess the applicability of theories of leadership and knowledge sharing to multinational organizations and worldwide networks. Growth of multinational trade and decrease in international tension have facilitated the globalization of both profit-seeking and non-profit organizations. Changes in economic and political environment have also blurred the divide in management practices between these organizations. Design/methodology/approach: The research applies recent theoretical developments to analyze leadership and knowledge sharing of the highly successful Confucius Institutes. Operational similarities and differences between this global learning organization and multinational businesses are evaluated. Findings: Many similarities exist between the operations of the Confucius Institutes and multinational businesses. For both, strategic goals are achieved through the promotion of global expansion and the management practices of distributed leadership and knowledge sharing. The study makes clear the successful application of distributed leadership to a worldwide network. The Confucius Institutes reflect the cultural and social changes in China, combined with influences of global cultures. Findings suggest that distributed leadership is a suitable management style for coping with variant cultural and socio-political conditions globally. This leadership style, combined with a knowledge-sharing network, is also suitable for the situational variables encountered in making thousands of decisions across hundreds of global locations by both learning institutions and business organizations. Originality/value: The paper explores a relatively new area of the similarities and differences between global non-profit and business networks as learning organizations. The study is of value to both those managing and those studying such organizations.

The past decade has seen the emergence, predominantly in Thailand and mainland China, of a form of educational institution that has had little scholarly attention or generic identification. This paper shows how the ad hoc and opportunistic franchising of elite English private schools, beginning with the hyper-capitalist exportation of the Dulwich College "brand" to Phuket in 1996, led to the emergence of a quasi-market involving the "satellite college". This paper charts the development of this educational experiment and shows how a distinct "second wave" is beginning to appear: The Charities Act of England and Wales 2006 has put pressure on charitable-status elite private schools in England to subsidise places for low-income students. As a result, the satellite college model looks set to appear in a more systematic manner and beyond Asia. This paper discusses this model of hyper-capitalism as it enters a seemingly more problematic and controversial phase of development.

This study compares two high-tech firms in terms of their differences in organizational characteristics and learning activities beyond the boundaries. It finds that the larger company continuously develops new technology to achieve long-term survival through a balance between exploration and exploitation while the smaller enterprise grows quickly by leveraging focused technology and core business. The innovation-oriented firm gives more emphasis to learning beyond its knowledge boundary and the customer-oriented firm focuses on learning beyond its organizational boundary. The two firms' sustainable development illustrates two strategies to adapt to the complexity of the external environment. (Contains 3 tables, 1 figure and 1 note.)

This empirical study is concerned with university-industry collaboration from a knowledge management perspective. The authors introduce the concepts of "enterprise-level core elements" to define the principle status of an enterprise during university-industry collaboration, and "network embeddedness" as an indication of the closeness of the collaboration. Furthermore, they examine the method of knowledge management. Finally, they use both learning performance and product innovation performance to measure an enterprise's innovation performance. (Contains 11 tables and 3 figures.)

This article identifies a range of personal relationships observable in Sino foreign strategic alliances. Guanxi relationships remained the key to a successful alliance; and encompassed various levels, stages, and dimensions--making them complex and changeable forms of human behavior. Other types of relationships identified included "basic friends," "working colleagues," "neutral relationships," and three types of operational behavior: formal, informal, and hidden relationships, which tended to form what is termed the operational fabric of an alliance. Guanxi relationships could be arranged in a variety of structures between two or more people, often forming quite multifaceted networks of people which often straddled the Chinese side of an alliance. The value of this article is that it identifies a range of personal relationships within an alliance context, discusses their value and role in an alliance context, and provides some guidance for companies wishing to understand the various dimensions of human relationships within a Sino foreign business context. (Contains 1 figure and 8 tables.)

This theoretical article presents an interdisciplinary approach to extend the scope of current career theories and their application to the overseas Chinese (OC) in Indonesia. Using an ecological model to analyze culture and an emic perspective, the article discusses several factors that affect careers of OC Indonesians. Factors such as culture, discrimination, subjective careers, Confucian values, and family business structure are discussed as variables that create a bounded career perspective. This conceptual view is used as a foundation to discuss the needs for future research and the development of a cross-cultural career model that is applicable in bounded career environments. (Contains 1 figure.)

This empirical study, using Western concepts incorporated into the Dimension of Learning Organization Questionnaire (DLOQ) instrument and data collected from 919 employees in nine companies located in Guangdong Province, China, explored organizational learning culture in Chinese business settings. Findings suggest that the DLOQ is applicable to the Chinese context, and demographic variables, such as age and educational level, and the type of ownership of Chinese companies (state-owned enterprises and privately owned enterprises), show differences in organizational learning culture. Discussions and implications are provided.

Although China has made notable progress in liberalizing its economy over the past three decades, the Communist Party maintains a stranglehold on political freedom, and in no place is this more apparent than the roadblocks it places on the Information Superhighway. Indeed, according to Reporters Without Borders, China stands as "... the world's most advanced country in Internet filtering." This essay describes in detail China's censorship machine, the reaction of its citizenry to this arsenal and the complicity of American companies in enabling the process. Does admittance to the world's largest market trump concerns about unencumbered access to information? Some companies have struck deals with the proverbial devil (Google, Microsoft, Yahoo), while others have stuck to their guns (Wikipedia). The preferred path is not paved in black and white, although the information superhighway itself may ultimately provide the answers. China appears to be fighting a losing battle in an increasingly interconnected world that outwits the censors from near and afar. (Contains 52 notes and 5 resources.)