La traduzione specializzata all’opera per una piccola impresa in espansione: la mia esperienza di internazionalizzazione in cinese di Bioretics© S.r.l.

Global markets are currently immersed in two all-encompassing and unstoppable processes: internationalization and globalization. While the former pushes companies to look beyond the borders of their country of origin to forge relationships with foreign trading partners, the latter fosters the standardization in all countries, by reducing spatiotemporal distances and breaking down geographical, political, economic and socio-cultural barriers. In recent decades, another domain has appeared to propel these unifying drives: Artificial Intelligence, together with its high technologies aiming to implement human cognitive abilities in machinery. The “Language Toolkit – Le lingue straniere al servizio dell’internazionalizzazione dell’impresa” project, promoted by the Department of Interpreting and Translation (Forlì Campus) in collaboration with the Romagna Chamber of Commerce (Forlì-Cesena and Rimini), seeks to help Italian SMEs make their way into the global market. It is precisely within this project that this dissertation has been conceived. Indeed, its purpose is to present the translation and localization project from English into Chinese of a series of texts produced by Bioretics© S.r.l.: an investor deck, the company website and part of the installation and use manual of the Aliquis© framework software, its flagship product. This dissertation is structured as follows: Chapter 1 presents the project and the company in detail; Chapter 2 outlines the internationalization and globalization processes and the Artificial Intelligence market both in Italy and in China; Chapter 3 provides the theoretical foundations for every aspect related to Specialized Translation, including website localization; Chapter 4 describes the resources and tools used to perform the translations; Chapter 5 proposes an analysis of the source texts; Chapter 6 is a commentary on translation strategies and choices

Experiencing the academic library in the Digital Age: From information seeking and user experience to human information interaction

The Digital Age, marked by the prevalent usage of digital technologies and explosion of digital information, has changed the way we communicate and interact with information, and prompts us to think about how it is influencing and transforming user experience with and within academic libraries. For academic libraries whilst their relationships with users may have shifted so too have their audiences. Internationalisation in higher education (HE) institutions has brought greater student diversity and requirements that should be understood to improve student experience and satisfaction. At the heart of HE, academic libraries serve a significant role in students’ learning and researching and their experience in the academic library constitutes an essential part of the learning experience. Within an interpretive paradigm, this thesis explores how international Chinese students experience the UK academic library in the Digital Age. Mixed methods research was conducted with a largely qualitative stance to explore the complexity of library user experience and to investigate library service delivery in order to enhance the future library user experience design. Library log analysis investigated what students do in the academic library through looking into their information seeking behaviour; cognitive mapping and semi-structured interviews were used to examine how students think and feel about the academic library by probing into their user experience. Demonstrating the complexity and multi-layered characteristics of context, this thesis proposed separating contexts to analyse and understand students’ library experience in distinct contexts. The findings developed an original framework theory of ‘context-perception-sense-making’ to depict a holistic picture of students’ library experience, identifying two vital elements, context and perception, which trigger, shape and alter students’ library experience. This thesis brings together the essential components of information seeking behaviour and user experience into the context of the academic library and defines students’ relationships with and within the library in new ways

An analysis of strategic management in the digital music industry in a Chinese context

There are elements of cultural innovation only partly articulated in managing the business of Digital Music within academic research in a Chinese context. This thesis research into one question, how far management and operational systems developed with a western background can be applied efficiently to the Chinese context within the field of the Digital Music Industry? The study adopted a chronological approach. It followed the development history of three timelines, the development of management theories and logic in China and the West, the development of global Digital Music, the development of China's Digital Music Industry, which including understanding a critical introduction to management in its historical and intellectual context which provided a useful expansion of the issues raised. This research analyses China's Digital Music Industry from the perspective of the insider, with a people-oriented research angle and a comprehensive methodology based on an interpretive approach combined with dialectical thinking. The research distinguishes China's Digital Music Industry from other mature Digital Music industries and highlights the contemporary challenges it presents in the current context. This thesis begins by building a theoretical framework of Western management and its development, contrasting this with a Chinese experience of theories and philosophy of management. It tested these theories by analysing the changes and growth of Digital Music management in China from the external environment perspective and a case study of QQ Music. The research compares the similarities and differences between China's Digital Music Industry and others which include definitions of Digital Music, historical developments, people's concept of consumption, attitude, and behavioural habits around Digital Music. It reviews the literature on management research to conceptualise Western theories combined with the case study of QQ music, to make explicit how they apply or do not apply in China, and to be more specific, within the Chinese Digital Music Industry. The research defines the mission and goal of Digital Music in a Chinese context. More importantly, based on the analysis to understand the Chinese Digital Music management logic, makes clear the unique attributes (service as the core competitiveness), the development pattern of China's Digital Music Industry (an online and offline interactive digital business ecosystem) and offers a way to extend existing theories (the collision of fan economy, experience economy and the Long Tail theory). The research has collected a lot of valuable first-hand data, including many hard-to-reach groups and includes non-public data from the company and local government. The study concludes that Western management theories are distinct from China's experience in the Digital Music Industry. This lies in, particularly, the core profit model and consumer habits of Digital Music in China and their difference to the West. Consumers have different perceptions of the value of music content and service. It is valuable to seek new insights into advanced business models and management theories which is set to enhance the study of China's Digital Music Industry and which may provide the practical assessment of good practice in a Chinese context to inform management practice from non-Western models

Competition policy and state-owned enterprises in contemporary China

This thesis explores, first, the evolvement and implementation of competition policy in China, where a competition culture was largely missing for decades; and second, the extent to which the government has resolved the inherent contradiction between preserving state control and promoting competition. The main aim is to evaluate how a competition law, which is essentially a product of capitalist free market economy, is being applied in China, a socialist country where predominant state-owned enterprises (SOEs) together with their owner – the Chinese government – generate the most distortions to market competition. To achieve this aim, the thesis studies, first, the ongoing economic transition and the historical development of Chinese competition policy; second, the prolonged drafting process of the Anti- Monopoly Law (AML); third, the substantive and institutional aspects of the enforcement of the AML, and the outstanding problems of the current competition system; and fourth, the role of the government in the interplay between competition policy and SOEs. The thesis also studies the European Union (EU) competition regime, which had substantial influence on the adoption of the AML and the design of China’s competition system. This discussion intends to use the experiences of the EU in modernising its competition system and in handling competition-related issues involving public enterprises to provide some meaningful answers to certain problems concerning the application of the AML and to possible reform of competition system in China

How Tintin Met Tchang: The Sino-Belgian Catholic Network in the Early Twentieth Century

The thesis provides a detailed historical account of the Sino-Belgian Catholic network and argues that by promoting mutual communication it contributed to building up a sense of solidarity, inspiring people to see shared concerns beyond pre-set borders, in particular in the case of The Blue Lotus. The question of whether the Roman Catholic Church in China should be westernized or Sinicized has hung over its actions in modern China. In the context of western power superiority, a strengthened hierarchy and Roman orthodoxy, the Catholic mission promoted westernization of the church and converts in China. But this approach caused a social backlash, as seen in the numerous missionary incidents. Imposed westernization has also been criticised by scholars of mission history, who argue that the Church should have been Sinicized to suit the environment. In contrast with this dualistic narrative, this study shows that in the early twentieth century the Sino-Belgian Catholic network advocated the compatibility of different cultures, which was vividly demonstrated in the making of The Blue Lotus episode of the popular Belgian comic, The Adventures of Tintin, serialized on the newspaper Le Petit Vingtième from 1934-35. The Blue Lotus was set in China and presented the friendship between Tintin and his Chinese friend Tchang. The comic was the result of collaboration between Hergé, its creator, and Zhang Chongren, a Chinese art student in Brussels. Their meeting was the result of the initiatives of Chinese and Belgian Catholics including Ma Xiangbo, Lu Zhengxiang and Vincent Lebbe. From around the turn of the twentieth century, this group of Catholics had focused on deepening mutual communication, so as to reduce misunderstandings and the attendant tensions. Faced with political and institutional obstacles, such as the lack of an official China-Vatican relationship and the presence of the French Protectorate in China, the network sought to provide facilities and create an environment on the ground where mutual dialogue became possible, such as the Catholic project for Chinese students based in Belgium. When the Mukden Incident broke out in 1931, this Catholic network sought to generate support to China in Belgian media, which led to the creation of The Blue Lotus. In the 1930s, the comic’s message to readers of solidarity with China meant opposition to Japanese aggression during the Sino-Japanese conflict. In later periods, the Tintin-Tchang friendship in the story, and the syncretic creations coming out the Hergé-Zhang encounter, such as the “clear line” artistic style of Hergé, inspires readers of Tintin to realize the meaning of mutual understanding and cross-cultural dialogue