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As the topic of Talent Development (TD) gets more research attention in Western business, the need for understanding the nature and the scope of TD activities in an Eastern business context increases. This study investigated the perceptions of HR managers in Chinese firms of the value of different TD practices with Chinese firms, with specific attention to the perceived value of the MBA as a TD practice. Adopting a semi-structured interview method, this qualitative research involved sixteen interviews with HR managers from MNCs (Multi-national companies), Locals (Local private companies) and JV (Joint ventures) in Beijing, Chengdu and Shanghai. A five-dimension model of human capital: scholastic capital, social capital, culture capital, inner-value capital and market-value capital, developed by Useen & Karable (1986) and Baruch (2009) was adopted as the theoretical model to guide the evaluation of HR managers’ perceptions of the MBA. The first finding of this study revealed that although, all 16 participants’ organisations adopted an “exclusive-developable” perspective towards talent and TD, there was a lack of clarity about how to define “talent”. Each of the HR managers preferred their own ways to identify the potential of talent. HR managers from Local firms mostly focused on measurements carrying strong features of organizational culture, while the MNC respondents stressed the importance of psychological assessment with quantitative measurements. The second finding indicated a number of TD practices implemented in these organisations, among which “on-the-job training” appeared to be the most widely adopted and the most effective method. Although MBA sponsoring program has become less popular than it used to be, findings showed an overall improvement in all five human capital dimensions gained from MBA. Of the five values, scholastic capital and social capital were perceived as the highest values received. Meanwhile, findings also suggested a decline in culture capital and market-value capital value of MBA in the past 5-10 years. In general, compared with MNC counterparts, Local HR managers perceived higher value from MBA programs. Another noteworthy finding was that both national culture and institutional culture influenced TD implementation as well as the perceived value gained from the MBA. In particular, Confucian values, such as “respect education and scholars” and “importance of Guanxi” played an important role on talent strategies and TD practices in China. However, Western management values has also a significant impact on the business management philosophies of the Chinese organisations, especially within the MNCs. Considering the lack of empirical studies in a Chinese context and lack of focusing on HR professionals’ perspectives in this field, this study can contribute to ongoing research and practice of TD. The implications may help to position and redesign future TD programs in Chinese and Eastern context. It may also provide insights for MBA providers to reorganize the curriculum to address changing perceptions of the value of the MBA.

In the last decade, there has been a dramatic increase globally in the use of mobile devices and mobile technologies. While mobile technologies have played a significant role in communications generally within business settings, the increasing use of mobile devices for employee's learning and development in workplace has caused much attention for researchers and human resource development (HRD) practitioners. This study aims to gain a greater understanding of the key characteristics of m-learning in a Chinese business setting, which is the world's largest market for mobile devices and mobile technologies. A mixed methods research approach of quantitative and qualitative methods was employed, which involved an online survey of 665 responses and semi - structured interviews with 40 employees from four business organisations in China. A number of findings were discovered from both the quantitative and qualitative analyses. First, the conditions appear favourable for m-learning to flourish in Chinese business settings, in terms of the high mobile device penetration, heavy mobile usage, and the increasing adoption of m-learning at workplace. Second, this study find s that employees in the Chinese business setting have generally positive perceptions of using mobile devices for learning. Third, this study identifies 19 themes of personal benefits and 17 organisational benefits of m-learning perceived by the respondents, which can be classified into three central themes: "Autonomy", "Real-world Relevance" and "Collaboration and Networking". Fourth, this study highlight s four concerns and three improvement areas of adopting m-learning in a Chinese business context. Fifth, while there are similarities between the characteristics of Chinese m - learning and the m - learning in the Western context, this study indicates a number of important differences; for example, the perceived importance levels of the affordances of m-learning, the ranking of the central themes regarding m-learning, and the perceived organisational benefits of m-learning. Based on the finding s of this study, the key characteristics of m-learning in a Chinese business setting are identified and the relationship between Chinese m-learning and Western m-learning is discussed.

This paper introduces a control strategy to reject voltage measurement errors in the three-phase PWM rectifier system. The dc offset and gain-error caused by the voltage measurement will cause the DC component and harmonic current to be injected into the three-phase input current and subsequently lead to voltage ripple at the dc output voltage. To address this problem, a new control strategy based on proportional-integral and quasi-resonant (PI-QR) controller is proposed. Because the gain of the ideal resonant controller is infinity great at the resonant frequency, zero steady-state error control can be achieved for sinusoidal signal of the resonant frequency. By connecting the resonant controller in parallel with the current loop proportional-integral controller and compensating the harmonic currents, the current waveform can be improved and the DC voltage ripple can also be suppressed with it. The validity and effectiveness of the proposed method are demonstrated by simulation results.

The report describes the EmoViz project for the Multimedia, Hypertext, and Information Access Capstone at Virginia Tech during the Spring 2018 semester. The goal of the EmoViz project is to develop a tool that generates and displays visualizations made from Facial Action Coding System (FACS) emotion data. The client, Dr. Steven D. Sheetz, is a Professor of Accounting and Information Systems at Virginia Tech. Dr. Sheetz conducted a research project in 2009 to determine how human emotions are affected when a subject is confronted with analyzing a business audit. In the study, an actor was hired to record a five minute video of a simulated business audit in which they read a pre-written script containing specific visual cues at highlighted points throughout the duration of the audit. Participants of the study were divided into two groups, each of which was given a distinct set of accounting data to review prior to watching the simulation video. The first group received accounting data that had purposely been altered in a way that would indicate the actor was committing fraud by lying to the auditor. The second group received accounting data that correctly corresponded to the actor’s script so that it would appear there was no fraud committed. All participants watched the simulation video while their face movements were tracked using the Noldus FaceReader software to catalog emotional states. FaceReader samples data points on the face every 33 milliseconds and uses a proprietary algorithm to quantify the following emotions at each sampling: neutral, happy, sad, angry, surprise, and disgust. After cataloging roughly 9,000 data rows per participant, Dr. Sheetz adjusted the data and exported each set into .csv files. From there, the EmoViz team uploaded these files into the newly developed system where the data was then processed using Apache Spark. Using Spark’s virtual cluster computing, the .csv data was transformed into DataFrames which helps to map each emotion to a named column. These named columns were then queried in order to generate visualizations and display certain emotions over time. Additionally, the queries helped to compare and contrast different data sets so the client could analyze the visualizations. After the analysis, the client could draw conclusions about how human emotions are affected when confronted with a business audit. EmoViz_Final_Presentation.pdf - PDF of final presentation EmoViz_Final_Presentation.pptx - PowerPoint of final presentation EmoViz_Final_Report.docx - Word document of final report EmoViz_Final_Report.pdf - PDF of final report EmoViz.tar - Compressed archive of python scripts