π\pi-J/ψJ/\psi Correlation and Elliptic Flow Parameter v2v_2 of Charmed Mesons at RHIC Energy

We study the correlation between the trigger $\pi$ and the associated $J/\psi$ on near and away sides in Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=200$ GeV. In the region of trigger momentum $p_t>4$ GeV/$c$, the $\pi$ spectrum is composed of thermal-shower and shower-shower recombinations in the frame work of the recombination model. We consider the azimuthal anisotropy in the quenched hard parton distribution and then calculate the elliptic flow parameter $v_2$ of charmed mesons ($J/\psi$, $D^0$ and $D_s$) for different centralities.Comment: 17 pages, 6 figure

Conflict avoidance in cooperative and competitive relationships : a cross-cultural study between Chinese subordinates and western superiors

Many international companies have entered China because of its expanding opportunities. However, for expatriate managers to innovate and implement their strategic plans in order to exploit these opportunities, they must know and work with their Chinese subordinates. But conflict is inevitable within organizations, especially when people with different cultural backgrounds work together. Culture not only affects people’s preferred ways of doing things but also influences their styles to deal with conflicts. Compared with Westerners, Chinese people have been found to employ indirect ways and prefer to avoid conflict. To facilitate effective communication, it is imperative for Western managers to understand why local subordinates might avoid conflicts and what strategies they will use. This paper explores the dynamic structure of conflict avoidance between Western managers and Chinese employees; we want to understand the different strategies used to avoid conflict. Specifically, this study uses the theory of cooperation and competition to predict people’s responses toward conflict avoidance. We hypothesize that conflict avoidance is not always negative but depends on the specific actions the protagonists adopt and their perceptions of the goal interdependence with each other (cooperative or competitive) greatly influence their tactics to avoid conflict. The study extends research on conflict avoidance to foreign invested companies in China and develops a typology of the dynamics of conflict avoidance. Altogether 132 face-to-face interviews were carried out in Hong Kong and Beijing, China. Participants who work with Western managers were asked to describe an incident in which they avoided a conflict with their foreign superiors; it included the setting, what occurred, the reasons, and the consequences. Then they rated specific questions on 7-point Likert-type scale based on the recalled incidents. Employees whose bosses are local managers were also recruited as a control group. Structural equation modeling and other analyses will explore the proposed model and help to compare cultural differences in handling conflicts between the Western and Chinese managers. The paper draws implications for managing in foreign invested firms

IFRS convergence and earnings management: Malaysian evidence

The study sheds light on whether IFRS convergence would reduce the extent of earnings management, which in turns delivers higher quality of financial statement information to its users. Besides, the study also investigates the explanatory factors of earnings management before and after IFRS convergence. The sample of the study consists of 231 Malaysian listed companies. The time frame of the study is year 2005 (i.e., pre-IFRS convergence) and year 2006 (i.e., post-IFRS convergence). Kothari’s discretionary accruals model is used in the study to measure the extent of earnings management. By examining the extent of earnings management in two different periods (i.e., pre-IFRS convergence & post-IFRS convergence), the study finds that IFRS convergence reduces the extent of earnings management among Malaysian listed companies. In addition, the findings reveal that the explanatory factors of earnings management remain unchanged after IFRS convergence. The findings report that the proportion of non-political connected directors on boards is significant positively associated with earnings management before and after IFRS convergence. In addition, the study also finds that the proportion of independent external directors on board, board size, audit quality, foreign stock market listing and ethnicity do not have any association with earnings management before and after IFRS convergence. Among the control variables, the study reveals that company size is significant negatively associated with earnings management before IFRS convergence. Besides, the study also reports that profitability is significant positively associated with earnings management before and after IFRS convergence. This study has implications for regulatory bodies, tasking them to look into the effects of IFRS convergence on the extent of earnings management, particularly in an Asian country–Malaysi

Talk Shows and Language Attitudes: A Sociolinguistic Investigation of Language Attitudes Towards Taiwan Mandarin Among Chinese Mainlanders

This dissertation looks at the effects of media exposure and language ideologies on Mandarin speakers’ acceptability judgments. Although there is a long-standing tradition against citing media exposure as a source of language variation, I show that 1) media exposure to a non-local perceptually salient variant can make people more likely to rate non-local linguistic features as grammatically acceptable, and 2) media exposure shapes people’s language attitudes—a new alignment of attitudes is emerging among the millennials on the mainland. Data were collected through an online survey consisting of grammaticality judgments, matched-guise tasks, open-ended attitudinal questions, and demographic questions. The data show that the social prestige of Taiwan Mandarin (TM) may be waning, which can be ascribed in part to 1) social and economic changes on the mainland, and 2) the change of TM itself. Deviating from Mainland Standard Mandarin, TM is perceived by many millennials on the mainland as gentle, pretentious and emasculated, which embodies the dynamics of language ideologies: they vary both diachronically and synchronically