A conceptual model of pair programming knowledge-based sharing for improving programming skills

One of eXtream Programming practices is Pair Programming (PP) (the pair consists of a driver and a navigator), which is used for promoting knowledge sharing among students. This practice encourages students to think creatively of programming solutions, and simplify learning, especially for difficult course such as Java. By applying PP, students are enforced to improve their social skills as they communicate with each others. Despite the numerous benefits of PP (discussed by previous studies), statistics show lack of demonstrating the extent at which the knowledge sharing, communication and transfer between the driver and the navigator can improve the code quality. Therefore this study aims propose a conceptual model of a PP knowledge-based sharing for improving programming skills. In order to achieve the stated objective, PP laboratory assignments were conducted and compared to evaluate the impact of PP on code quality with and without adopting the conceptual model. The conceptual model was validated by analyzing the collected data from the participants of PP laboratory assignment using Partial Least Square form of Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The findings of the study show that socialization, combination, and internalization are the determinant factors for achieving better code quality in PP environment. The findings of this study would be benefited to academic environment especially the agile programmers in the pair programming domain

Framing the Internet in China: Cross-Cultural Comparisons of Newspapers’ Coverage in China, Hong Kong, Singapore, the United States, and the United Kingdom

This study introduced the framing theory, Shoemaker and Reese’s hierarchical model, and Hofstede’s cultural dimensions into a cross-cultural comparative analysis of news coverage of the Internet in China from 2000 to 2004 in selected newspapers in China, Hong Kong, Singapore, the United States and the United Kingdom. Significant differences were found to exist across the societies in both the salience of Internet-related issues and the usage of generic news frames. The issue of Internet diffusion and use was most frequently mentioned in the newspapers from China, Singapore, and the United Kingdom. The U.S. newspapers paid most attention to the issue of Internet censorship and regulations; whereas the issue of e-commerce and Internet business most frequently appeared in the newspapers from Hong Kong. In terms of generic news frames, the newspapers from China were significantly more likely to use the human interest, morality and leadership frames. The newspapers from Hong Kong mainly relied on the factual and economic consequences frames to report the Internet in mainland China. The U.S. and U.K. newspapers were distinct for their highly frequent usage of the conflict frame. This study also investigated how much variations in media framing could be explained by such national-level factors as freedom status and cultural dimensions across societies. Logistic regression models indicated that the patterns of influence varied across the societies with different types of news frames and their associations with different types of Internet-related issues. The cultural dimension of long-/short-term orientation was found to be a general factor influencing the presence of different types of news frames. In addition, a literature review of the changing Chinese media suggests that the Chinese press has become increasingly diversified in both structure and function. Therefore, another goal of the study was to test the influence of extramedia-level factors within a society by examining whether the framing of the Internet in the leading Party organ newspaper, the People’s Daily, would differ from the Beijing Youth Daily, a local newspaper with national influence and more financial and operational autonomy. They differed from each other in presenting the politically sensitive issue, Internet censorship and regulations

Advertising Thinking: To investigate the use of “the story” in creative advertising in the West and analyse its possible application in China

The central aim of this study is to combine theorist Roland Barthes’ ideas on visual and textual thinking with leading contemporary approaches to Western advertising design with a view to their possible application in China. The result is a newly coined concept the present author refers to as ‘Advertising Thinking’. This new term puts forward a fresh method that goes beyond the conventional way of dealing with advertising design. At present, there are very few in-depth studies of advertising in China, making it crucial for Chinese designers, creative directors, design tutors, entrepreneurs and business people to gain a better understanding of the subject. The intention is for this understanding developed in the current study to enable China’s advertising industry and its discourse to go beyond the superficial stage it is presently at. In order to achieve this an in-depth analysis of the status quo of China’s story creative advertising history is needed. From this it can be seen that imitation, celebrity endorsement and the lack of aesthetic appeal in Chinese advertising design are issues that urgently need to be addressed. Through an in-depth study of advertising theory key concepts in advertising need to be explored. Following an introduction that outlines the key concepts in Barthes’ writing – hidden meaning, narrative, and emotion - numerous case studies are explored in the chapters that follow to demonstrate different approaches to Advertising Thinking. These case studies include: Sandy Hook ‘Even’ (USA) 2016; Stay in School (Australia) 2014; Coca Cola ‘Pool Boy’ (USA) 2017; and Black Currant Tango ‘St George’ (UK) 1996. Following this, the research analyses five Chinese advertisements. From the analysis of these case studies it can be seen that Chinese advertisers and advertising professionals need to critically explore Chinese traditional culture and apply key concepts in contemporary Western advertising theory - a number of points are made that are crucial to moving Chinese advertising design forwards so that it can realise its potential

An alternative conceptualisation of corporate social responsibility - a comparison of SME in China and UK

Various differences in CSR practices in different countries have captured the attentions of media, academic researchers and business practitioners. However knowledge for causing such divergence in CSR practices remains limited. This paper discusses the definition of CSR from the ethical and stakeholder perspectives under a conceptual framework of three influential dimensions of CSR: Society, Organisation and People. This three-dimension framework has restructured the Carroll’s theory of four CSR components and repositioned relevant stakeholder groups according to their spheres of influence, providing an alternative viewing angle to conceptualise relevant issues about corporate social responsibility from an integrative perspective. It also highlighted the interactions of stakeholder groups and interdependency of corporate responsibilities. This research examines the effects of cultural influence, CSR development pattern and globalization on CSR attitudes and performance. Through survey and secondary data collection, it compares the attitudes towards and actual motivation of CSR practice to examine the extent to which SMEs in two contrasting countries, UK and China, react differently to corporate social responsibility. The empirical data reveals that Chinese SMEs focus more on CSR dimension of Society while British SMEs emphasize more on CSR dimension of People. It is also found that CSR development within domestic boundary exerted varied influences on CSR attitudes and performances significantly. Meanwhile, the globalisation factor affects the two other factors, culture and CSR development pattern, and indirectly influenced the attitudes and practices of CSR at less significant level. In addition, the results indicate the sharp differences, estimated by Hofstede, in certain cultural dimensions between UK and China might not be valid

The role of communicative creativity in starting regional trade relationships with China: An action research practitioner case study

The Action Research project studies the role of information management and knowledge generation in establishing overseas political and trade activity to assist regional development in Australia. It is the work of a researcher whose background in information management ranges across more than 30 years working in the newspaper and regional economic development industries. It applies a hybrid term called “communicative creativity” – distilled from Wieman’s (1963) Doctrine of Creative Interchange and Habermas’s (1984) Theory of Communicative Action – to the researcher’s professional practice of facilitating the development of two entities – the economic development organization and its method of facilitating opportunities in China – against Nonaka and Takeuchi’s (1995) Five-Phase Model of the Organisational Creation Process. The thesis describes how the researcher’s previous career and life experience in China are used in the establishment of a model that will assist his current career in regional economic development. It explains the reasons for choosing the Participatory Action Research method and uses the researcher’s personal and professional voices in a multi-vocal, neopragmatic style blended with visual rich picture presentation involving graphics and photos to tell the story. The thesis – with its style and voices – is a soft systems picture in its own right. The research outcome is a knowledge management model for promoting. Selling, organising and conducting a trade mission into China

Design-oriented new product development strategy in Chinese small and medium enterprises

China is in economic transition, from the resource consuming made in China to an aspirational designed in China . Chinese Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), have made significant contributions to society and the national economy, their influence determines the success of this economic transition. On the other hand, design-oriented New Product Development (NPD) strategies are generally recognised as beneficial for company survival, but are mostly applied in large companies. Evidence of testing design-oriented NPD strategy in Chinese SMEs is sparse. This research therefore, attempts to introduce design-oriented NPD strategy to Chinese SMEs, and investigates how design-oriented NPD strategy performs in Chinese SMEs. This research adopts a qualitative approach with three stages: the first utilises a scoping study to understand the feasibility of this research, and synthesise knowledge from the literature to construct a customised NPD process model with design-oriented aspects; the second stage focuses on using an experimental method to conduct a parallel implementation: two NPD projects follow different NPD approaches, the conventional NPD process of SMEs and the introduced design-oriented NPD process; the third stage carried out mainly by observation, set out to investigate the changes brought about by the NPD process. Empirical data from three NPD projects is collected and analysed. Evidence from the parallel NPD projects demonstrates that the introduced design-oriented NPD strategy gains internal confidence but is costly when compare with the conventional approach (funds and time). Although the new product from the design-oriented team of the experiment performed less well from a sales perspective, a continuous observation on their follow-up NPD project, the investigation of the changes, discloses that the NPD behaviour of the investigated company is changed, all participants reach consensus regarding the merits of the design-oriented NPD. It concludes that the design-oriented NPD strategy in Chinese SMEs are implementable and beneficial. This research is a single case study, and a qualitative investigation of implementation of the design-oriented NPD strategy in one selected Chinese SME. It requires a wider adoption of the design-oriented NPD strategy in companies across different industries, and to investigate a larger sample of NPD projects, to gather quantitative confirmation

First steps in the study of cyber-psycho-cognitive operations

Dissertação (mestrado)—Universidade de Brasília, Instituto de Relações Internacionais, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Relações Internacionais, 2019.O presente trabalho é uma análise dos mecanismos informáticos e tecno-comunicacionais envolvidos na articulação de mundos da vida orientados estrategicamente para estimular, prever ou minar o desenvolvimento das condições psico-cognitivas adequadas para a construção e sustento da legitimidade racional de uma autoridade ou ação política. A aplicação de instrumentos “arqueológicos” Foucauldianos ao estudo das narrativas políticas que engendraram e surgiram de “Russiagate” permitiu situar a teoria num contexto histórico e validar a premissa da convergência e incorporação de tendências de agendamento comuns e de práticas típicas de operações psicológicas tradicionais. Contudo, os efeitos tanto da disponibilidade comercial das TICs com capacidade de “deep learning”, quanto da estruturação baseada em conhecimento permitida pela ubiquidade e centralidade econômica dessas tecnologias, tornam o conjunto de mecanismos analisados num fenômeno que merece uma conceptualização e marco investigativo únicos. A obra é uma contribuição a esse empreendimento.This is an analysis of the ICT-based mechanisms involved in the articulation of lifeworlds that are strategically oriented to foster, prevent or undermine the development of psycho-cognitive conditions adequate for the construction or sustainability of an authority’s or a political action’s rational legitimacy. While grounding theory to a historical context, the application of Foucauldian “archeological” instruments to the study of the political narratives giving birth and springing from “Russiagate” also served to validate the premised convergence and incorporation of common agenda-setting trends and practices typical of traditional psychological operations. However, the effects of both the commercial availability of deep-learning ICTs and the cognition-based structuration afforded by their ubiquity and economic centrality set this “dispositif” apart, thereby deserving a unique conceptualization and research framework. This study is a contribution to such endeavor

Corporate governance of the football industry - the stakeholder approach towards the game’s marketisation and professionalisation in China

Sports governance has been given greater consideration over the course of the last 30 years due primarily to the global trend of the increasing levels of sports commercialisation, and professionalisation. Despite this, there are varieties of sport governing models existing in different countries built against the difficult backgrounds of their own historical, cultural and economical development. The stakeholder approach has become a trend for improving not only corporate governance standards in many industries but also in sports worldwide. The application of stakeholder theory to sports governance ensures sports are developed within a necessarily transparent system and a balanced power structure. More importantly, it ensures that decisions are made based on the interest of the majority of stakeholders and for the best interest of sports. When this approach is applied to sport management, it helps a sports organisation increase commercial awareness in terms of addressing the needs of different stakeholders and thus benefits the organisation’s overall goal development and its long-term success.Alongside the rapid growth of the Chinese economy, sports development in China has also gradually attracted interest from the West. With regard to Chinese football - the most popular sport in the country, and the first sport to go the professional route under the market economy, the Chinese football market has been seen as an untapped territory with big business potential. It is not only attracting domestic investors but also global firms. This thesis explores the impact of transitional changes within China’s football modernisation process and the governance structure, by looking at the Chinese response to the football development trend of professionalisation and commercialisation. It is a novel explorative study on Chinese football, employing the framework of stakeholder theory to illustrate the transitional process. The data collected from interviews with other sources available in both Chinese and English, was qualitatively analysed and the findings provide evidence of stakeholder relationships between the Chinese Football Association (CFA) and local football associations (FAs), between the CFA and clubs, and between clubs and fans, which identify modern conflicts, occurring within the current Chinese football industry during this development phase. The discussion, based on evidence, is also able to suggest appropriate governance responses for the Chinese game at different levels in order to face challenges ahead