The emergence of clusters in societal transition : a coevolutionary perspective on the TCM cluster at Tonghua/China

New industries are recognized as new impetus to national wealth. At the same time, they are increasingly becoming geographically concentrated in some well defined areas. But current studies on the emergence of industrial clusters tend to analyze favorable driving factors. This dissertation takes the example of a Chinese endogenous industrial cluster, the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) cluster at Tonghua, a small peripheral city in Northeastern China, to contribute to the theoretical understanding of the emergence of industrial cluster as a co-evolutionary process of organizations, institutions and firms, or, to put it more broadly, as economic evolution embedded in complex socio-economic contexts. The recent advance in evolutionary and co-evolutionary economics which considers the economy and economic landscape as dynamic process instead of equilibrium can be regarded as a part of broader and more intellectual turn of quest for history in social sciences. Although the principle of "history matters" is widely acknowledged, it tends to be reduced to a quite simple concept of "path dependence". However, path dependence cannot offer space for new path creation, except from an external shock. Accordingly, the role of human conscious action or Schumpeterian innovation should be added to path analysis through the concept of path creation. Furthermore, and more importantly, history should be understood as context, and historical context can be explored through the understanding of multi-paths and interaction among them over time. So path inter-dependence (co-evolution between paths) would be useful to better understand the complexity of real history. Since the industrial cluster is composed of interconnected firms and is also subject to changes in institution and technology, I will focus on the multi-way causal relationship between firm, institution and technology. The theorizing is not entirely new, but most of the theoretical and empirical discussions are at the national or industrial level, not regional or local one. A competitive cluster can be regarded as a co-evolutionary hotspot in which multiple populations actively interact and are interconnected. Co-evolution itself is a dynamic and evolutionary process. So I will adopt a dynamic and evolutionary view to examine co-evolutionary degree or co-evolutionary effects in the Tonghua pharmaceutical cluster through time. After a brief introduction which deals with the national institutional changes that are highly associated with new venture creation, entrepreneurship, and innovation, with registrations on drug and healthcare system, and with changes in market demand of China’s pharmaceutical industry and geographical distribution, I will collect evidences from three aspects based upon field survey and second hand data, i.e., the history of the enterprises, the origin of entrepreneurship, and the knowledge of evolution, linking their respective generative relationships through the genealogical method. In this volume, the evolution of the Tonghua pharmaceutical firm organization, the formation of local entrepreneurship, historical accumulation of knowledge, and particular knowledge of transfer among generations of firms will be discussed, then I will probe into co-adaption and co-evolution between local formal and informal institutions and organizations in Tonghua’s TCM industry. In addition, I will try to understand the co-evolutionary process at different geographical levels (namely, national and local). In summary, my main findings include the following several points. Firstly, in the course of the emergence of Tonghua’s pharmaceutical industry, local social networks and the traditional alliance between enterprises and government have played important roles. Secondly, the most important factor that influences the evolution of endogenous industrial clusters such as the Tonghua pharmaceutical industry in transitional countries is not the change in technology, but the change in fundamental national institutions. Thirdly, the success of the Tonghua pharmaceutical industry can be ascribed to the creation of multiple paths largely based on initial conditions, which implies that economic policy should have historical consciousness, namely, new economic innovation should make full use of both historical legacies and existing assets. Finally, it is co-adaption and co-selection of firm organization, institution, and technology that have jointly made Tonghua’s pharmaceutical industry become highly competitive, which means that whether one region can grasp new opportunities partially depends on its capabilities to coordinate a varity of development agents.Neue Industrien werden im Allgemeinen als Impuls der Entwicklung zu nationalem Wohlstand verstanden. Zugleich sind sie überwiegend an einigen geographisch genau definierten Orten konzentriert. Aktuelle Studien zur Emergenz dieser Industrie-Cluster neigen dazu, entsprechende begünstigende Faktoren zu analysieren. Mit dem Beispiel eines endogenen Clusters in China, dem Cluster der Traditionellen Chinesischen Medizin (TCM) in Tonghua, will diese Dissertation zum theoretischen Verständnis der Emergenz von Industrie-Clustern unter der Perspektive eines ko-evolutorischen Prozesses von Form der Organisation, Institutionen und Unternehmen beitragen. Oder, um es etwas breiter auszudrücken, diese Emergenz als ökonomische Evolution zu verstehen, die in einen komplexen sozio-ökonomischen Kontext eingebettet ist. Obgleich der Vorstellung, Geschichte habe eine Bedeutung („history matters“), überwiegend in der Forschung zugestimmt wird, bleibt diese oft auf das Konzept der Pfadabhängigkeit beschränkt. Das aber eröffnet keinen Raum für die Betrachtung endogener Pfad-Bildung. Dem Konzept der Pfad-Bildung entsprechend sollte jedoch die Pfadanalyse ergänzt werden um bewusste Handlungen des Menschen oder auch um Innovationen im Schumpeterschen Sinn. Wichtiger ist außerdem, dass Geschichte als ein Kontext verstanden werden sollte, in dem mehrere Pfade ko-existieren und im Zeitverlauf auch interagieren. So wäre ein Konzept der Pfad-Interdependenz (oder der Ko-Evolution von Pfaden) nützlich zum besseren Verständnis der Komplexität „wirklicher“ Geschichte. Weil das Industriecluster sich aus untereinander verflochtenen Unternehmen zusammen setzt und zugleich Gegenstand von Änderungen in den Institutionen und der Technologie ist, konzentriert sich die Dissertation auf vielseitige kausale Beziehungen von Unternehmen, Institutionen und Technologie. Ein wettbewerbsfähiges Cluster kann aus geographischer Sicht als ein „hot spot“ der Ko-evolution betrachtet werden, in dem verschiedenartige Populationen aktiv untereinander agieren und daher miteinander verflochten sind. Ko-Evolution selbst ist dann ein dynamischer und evolutorischer Prozess. Die Arbeit wählt diese Perspektive, um das Maß und die Wirkungen der Ko-Evolution im Pharma-Cluster von Tonghua im Zeitverlauf zu analysieren. Die Dissertation fußt auf empirischen Erhebungen, ergänzt um eine Dokumenten-Analyse, zur Geschichte der Unternehmen, der Herkunft der Unternehmerschaft sowie der Evolution von Wissen. Sie diskutiert die Evolution in den Organisationsformen der Pharma-Unternehmen in Tonghua, die Bildung einer lokalen Unternehmerschaft, die historische Akkumulation von Wissen und den besonderen Wissenstransfer zwischen Generationen von Unternehmen. Schließlich untersucht sie die Ko-Adaption und Ko-Evolution von lokalen formalen und informellen Institutionen und Organisationen der TCM-Industrie in Tonghua. Die folgenden Punkte betreffen die wichtigsten Ergebnisse der Dissertation: Erstens haben sehr langfristige und dichte lokale soziale Netzwerke eine erhebliche Rolle im Lauf der Emergenz der Pharma-Industrie in Tonghua gespielt. Zweitens ist der wichtigste Faktor in der Pharma-Industrie nicht im technologischen Fortschritt durch Anstrengungen bei Forschung und Entwicklung (FuE) zu sehen, sondern im institutionellen Wandel sowohl auf nationaler als auch auf lokaler Ebene. Drittens kann der Erfolg der Pharma-Industrie in Tonghua der Bildung multipler Pfade zugeschrieben werden, die auf bestimmten Anfangsbedingungen gründen. Das bedeutet, dass die neue ökonomische Entwicklungspolitik sowohl das historische Erbe als auch bestehende Aktivposten in vollem Umfang nutzen sollte. Schließlich ist festzustellen, dass Ko-Adaption und Ko-Selektion der Unternehmens-Organisation, von Institutionen und Technologie zusammen die Pharma-Industrie von Tonghua in hohem Maße wettbewerbsfähig gemacht haben. Ob eine Region neue Gelegenheiten ergreifen kann, hängt folglich teilweise von ihrer Fähigkeit ab, eine Vielfalt von Entwicklungs-Agenten zu koordinieren

The Impacts of Social Class and Gender on Elite Doctoral School Access Equality in China: A Theoretical Framework Linking Sen and Bourdieu, with A Case Study of The Economics Discipline

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impacts of social class and gender on elite doctoral school access equality in China. Noticing that current literature on school access concentrates either on normative evaluation or practical explanations of equality, I put forward a theoretical framework combining Sen’s Capability Approach (CA) with Bourdieu’s social reproduction theory to bridge the gap. The theoretical framework suggests that capability should be the metric to measure elite doctoral school access equality, and we need a context-specific capability list to put this metric into practice. In addition, when utilising the capability list, we should look not at the distribution of capabilities but their development, whose achievement requires relevant resources and chances to convert them. Guided by the theoretical framework, I conducted a case study involving China’s four most elite economics doctoral schools. A list of five basic capabilities was first generated through document analysis, focus group discussion and literature review. These capabilities were used as the metric to measure social class and gender equality regarding elite economics doctoral school access in China. Then, twenty-two doctoral students and eight supervisors were interviewed to comprehend how social class and gender shape students’ experiences of developing identified capabilities. Bourdieu’s notions of capital, habitus, and fields and Sen’s concept of agency were applied to interpret the collected data. Evidence from this study demonstrates that disadvantaged doctoral students face not only a shortage of resources but also a shortage of opportunities to convert resources into relevant capabilities due to their social class and gender backgrounds. Their access to elite doctoral schools requires additional support from the agency. Although they could also be a successful doctoral applicant, compared to their counterparts, behind the seemingly similar success lies more unpleasant experiences and formidable difficulties

An ethnographic study of ‘Steiner Fever’ in China: Why are Chinese parents turning away from mainstream education towards the holistic ‘way’ of Steiner education?

SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Yifan Sun, Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge Title: An ethnographic study of ‘Steiner Fever’ in China: Why are Chinese parents turning away from mainstream education towards the holistic ‘way’ of Steiner education? In recent years, China has seen a major expansion of alternative education, an aspect of which is the ‘Steiner Fever’, which refers to Steiner (Waldorf) education’s rapid growth in this country. Steiner education (providing early childhood, elementary and secondary education) as an alternative education model, aims to promote the development of a child’s natural curiosity and capacities while also stimulating intellectual awareness in order to develop the 'whole child' (Oberman, 2007). There is a general lack of scholarship on alternative education in China, in particular, Steiner education in China is little understood. I approached this study with an overarching question: What is at stake in the feverish manner in which Steiner education has been embraced in China? Guided by the research aims and my research questions, I attempted to explore ‘Steiner Fever’ by investigating choices, perceptions and experiences of parents and teachers in relation to Steiner education in China. I have taken a transdisciplinary, dialectical approach, with a conceptual framework inspired by the notion of ‘Tao’ in which events are never thought of as occurring in isolation but embedded in a meaningful whole. The research employed a two-sited ethnographic design, and I spent four months each at two Steiner schools in China in 2017. The data generation methods included interviews with parents and teachers and participant observations. Thematic analysis was used for data analysis. I have examined the push and pull factors related to parents’ and teachers’ choices, the complexity and dilemmas in their experience of Steiner education, as well as how they conceptualised the relationship between Steiner education principles and traditional Chinese values. Guided by my conceptual framework, I have discussed the findings at both the micro level, namely, parents’ and teachers’ decision-making and experiences related to Steiner education, and at the macro level, that is, educational context, society and values, including the dysfunction of mainstream education and the spiritual crisis in the wider materialism-oriented society in China. Steiner’s focus on the organic unfolding of an individual’s spirit appears to be in line with Taoist and Confucian thinking. I have argued that Steiner education offers a potential pathway for Chinese people to reconnect with aspects of their own traditional ways of being, which had become dis-embedded in the course of the modernisation process. This project is an important piece of research for the understanding of parental school choice in China. It contributes to the under-researched field of alternative education and holistic education in China. This study is also of vital significance to Chinese education and its rediscovery and embracing of its own philosophical tradition.Chinese Scholarship Counci

Translation as metaphor: Yan Fu and his translation principles

This thesis was motivated by turn-of-the-century concerns in Chinese translation studies about the validity of the long-held translation principles proposed by Chinese translator Yan Fu and about the relevance of Yan's paradigmatic translation project to future research. It rereads the translation practice and intellectual thought of Yan Fu by adopting an interdisciplinary approach restructuring past studies that have been isolated in the areas of intellectual history and translation theory. The examination of his translation practice through a series of metaphor suggests, contrary to existing consensus, that faithfulness to the source text is irrelevant to his translation project. His translation principles are not pure literary notions; rather they are tied to the Confucian literary and exegetical tradition. These findings unfold new potentialities for a major research topic that has been challenged as having reached a cul-de-sac and point to a new direction for development in Chinese translation studies. New findings from the field of intellectual history help to clarify existing inconsistencies and political biases concerning Yan Fu's persona and historicize him as a persistent seeker of the Confucian dao. This testifies to the need to reassess his translation project in relation to the Confucian-based Chinese tradition. Close examination of his remarks on translation, correspondence and other writings suggests that his words and deeds are steeped in Confucian poetics, which represents a totally different concept from modern pure literary poetics. His commitment to Confucian ontological faith and ultimate concern for spiritual or cosmological transcendence are similar to the ends of some of the most influential translators in Chinese history and marks a higher level operation of translation as a tool for higher learning than as an occupation. Through translation as-intellectual critique, Yan mended indigenous coordinates for gauging alien propositions and constructed a hybridized discourse for reforming indigenous epistemology and methodology. His manipulative translations, as he claimed in his last extended translation, were intended for metaphorical explication of a certain subject with the source text as a point of departure, rather than an end to return to. Ironically the repercussions of the manipulative evolutionary discourse he engendered became further manipulated by the newer generations and fuelled more violent changes in a system on the verge of a crisis. While this subsequently led to the disruption of the conservative Confucian poetics and the gradual reform agenda he had desired, the reexamination of his translations and translation practice sheds light on system regeneration and the inheritance of Chinese culture in a modern world. The presentation of Yan Fu's translations suggests that he followed the Confucian literary tradition, which allowed exegetical and eisegetical interpretation of classics and commentaries for narrating the dao, and attempted mediation of a changing dao through translation as intellectual critique. Hermeneutical rereading of his xin-da-ya translation principles in relation to the Confucian exegetical tradition frees the study of his principles from recurrent perspectives and offers a systematic approach to the study of xin, da and ya as core values in Confucian poetics meaning faith, decorum and virtue respectively. His exercise of Confucian cosmological faith through translation releases the source text for a dialogue with a broader cosmic text, whereby the interaction of time and tradition-bound discourses obliges the translator to repeatedly highlight and transcend his own interpretive horizons and move the physical text beyond its original psychological and historical contexts, evincing dynamic interaction with the reader. This perspective offers a philosophical dimension to translation and valourizes translation as a virtuous act of conduct in the Chinese tradition and as cosmological transference of concepts and images in human's pursuit of truth and being. The promotion of the complex notion of translation beyond the word itself to the realm of metaphor facilitates exchange between languages and systems at the level of tertium comparationis and enables reasoning at the level of the universal logos. In the present study of Yan Fu, this helps to avoid recurrent arguments and leads to more balanced and constructive perspectives for the future development of a major research topic in Chinese translation studies. It also opens the possibility of exchange between a traditional theory and modern theories and between the Chinese translation tradition and other traditions

Undergraduate and Graduate Course Descriptions, 2008 Summer

Wright State University undergraduate and graduate course descriptions from Summer 2008

Tourism in contemporary cities. Proceedings of the International Tourism Studies Association Conference: University of Greenwich, London, UK 17–19 August 2016 Conference Proceedings

The 6th International Tourism Studies Association (ITSA) Biennial conference was held at the University of Greenwich, London, England from 17‐19 August 2016. This was the first time that the conference had been held in Europe and it provided a unique opportunity to meet, hear from and network with tourism scholars and professionals from across Europe, Asia, Australasia, and North and South America. ITSA has a mission to encourage interaction and cooperation between developing and developed countries and the conference was successful in attracting 130 delegates from 29 countries. The main theme of the conference was 'Tourism in Contemporary Cities' with four conference sub‐themes of ‘Tourism Cities and Urban Tourism’, ‘The Chinese Market for European Tourism’, ‘River, Cruise and Maritime Tourism’, and ‘Heritage Tourism in Cities’, The subthemes were chosen to reflect the unique location of the conference on the UNESCO Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site, and London which is Europe’s most visited tourist destination. The conference also presented ‘Dark Tourism and Cities’ and ‘Tourism and Communist Heritage’ as special sessions