The unique Chinese innovation pathways: lessons from Chinese small and medium sized manufacturing firms

Many researchers equate the development of Chinese product innovation capabilities to Japanese and South Korean's development paths, that is, from imitation to innovation. Nonetheless, today many Chinese products have competed successfully in the global markets in terms of speed, cost, quality, and innovativeness. China's product innovation performance has gained the world's recognition. The performance of some industrial areas have also outperformed Japan and South Korea. This paper aims to understand and identify the unique phases of Chinese innovation. We collected empirical data from field studies and interviews with managers of ten small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the Suzhou province of China. The research shows three unique Chinese innovation phases that are distinctive from the Japanese and South Korean. The results provided interesting insights into how Chinese SMEs in different industries cultivated their skills and knowledge under the three unique phases. We believe the findings contribute towards a better understanding of Chinese innovation in the context of China's evolving institutions and growing firm capabilities. Moreover, findings from this research hel

Usage-Based and Universal Grammar-Based Approaches to Second Language Acquisition

The theoretical controversy that surrounds the acquisition of a second or foreign language is seemingly unending. Though there are dissensions in the literature, past studies had indicated that scholars tended to fall into two groups of schools of thought, the usage-based and the universal grammar-based approaches in second language acquisition. This paper reviews the literature of recently published findings in scholarly papers and contrasted the varied views of how second language can be acquired. Empirical evidence of both views are contrasted and discussed. Included in the discussion are environmental variables such as types of input and the length of input and non-environmental variables that are innate in learners

Application of binomials in English and Persian

Binomials or word pairs can present themselves differently in languages and cultures and this may result in difficulty in learning and teaching a foreign language. Binomials are formed both linguistically and non-linguistically. A thorough study indicates there are many factors involved in the ordering of words in a pair. The ordering preferences can range from the frequency of words, to semantic features, and to phonological principles. In addition, the significant role of gender should not be downplayed in arranging the components of a binomial. This study has taken advantage of a self-designed questionnaire to support the findings. The participants, aged 18-20, included 179 Iranian i.e. 95 male and 84 female undergraduate students who were asked to read a short paragraph about a couple and choose names not only for the couple but also for their siblings and children. In addition, in some cases, the respondents had to write names for some characters in the made-up story and determine what type of responsibility the children of the family should take up. The results of the study indicated that in addition to the phonological rules which greatly contributed to the precedency of a certain word in a nominal pair, there were other factors that could determine which element should stand first. These parameters are further discussed in the article. The findings of this research can target language teachers in general and English-Persian language teachers/learners in particular. Curriculum designers and lexicographers can also benefit from the findings when designing course materials and writing dictionaries, respectively

From lexical bundles to lexical frames: uncovering the extent of phraseological variation in academic writing

The contextual knowledge of a word is closely related to the knowledge of phraseological sequences as words are often used in the phraseological forms, either continuous or discontinuous. Much has been done to examine the continuous phraseological sequences for various purposes. However, studies on phraseology often overlook the potentially useful discontinuous phraseological sequences that allow for more flexible and productive use of language forms. To bridge the gap in phraseology studies, this study therefore employed a corpus-driven approach to analyse the characteristics of a form of discontinuous phraseological sequence, namely lexical frames in a one-million-word corpus of research articles in International Business Management (IBM). The characteristics of lexical frames were observed in four aspects: the degrees of variability and predictability of lexical frames, the structures as well as the variable slot fillers of lexical frames. The corpus tool, Collocate 1.0 was used to extract three- and four-word lexical bundles while kfNgram was used to extract three- and fourword lexical frames from the lexical bundles. The results revealed that three-word lexical frames are more prevalent in IBM. The degree of variability analysis indicated that there are more fixed lexical frames in the category of three-word lexical frames compared to the four-word category. In terms of the degree of predictability, the category of four-word lexical frames contains more predictable lexical frames than the threeword category. Also, most lexical frames are function word frames and the lexical frames are mostly filled up by content words rather than function words. This study contributes to the understanding of phraseological variation in academic writing

Enhancing English Language Vocabulary Learning among Indigenous Learners through Google Translate

The emergence of new technologies has brought massive changes to teaching and learning processes. In recent years, mobile phones have evolved into effective teaching tools; when used practically, they could improve learning outcomes. The potential of mobile phones as a learning platform has led to a proliferation of research into their effectiveness. This paper aims to examine the effectiveness of the Google Translate mobile application (hereinafter “app”) in improving indigenous learners’ English language vocabulary. Fifteen Iban participants with low English language proficiency from rural schools were chosen through purposive sampling. The data were collected by comparing scores in the pre-test and post-test. In addition, the data were triangulated through structured interviews. Key findings indicated that almost all participants achieved high scores in the post-test. The interviews also revealed that all participants affirmed that Google Translate supports their English language proficiency, and only one participant was unsure of its effectiveness. Thus, the findings of this study imply that Google Translate could be an effective teaching tool to enhance learners’ English language vocabulary. Future research could examine the effectiveness of the app in teaching vocabulary in different contexts

Role of formal input exposure and onset age in grammaticality judgement

This study examines the effects of formal input exposure and the onset age of exposure on the performance of eleven different morphosyntactic structures in a foreign language setting. It studies whether being exposed to longer hours of formal language classes at a younger age is advantageous for Iranian EFL learners. Some studies have claimed that there is no advantage for early starters and in the field of grammatical learning, later starters perform better. Four groups of Iranian learners with different formal learning times participated in this study: Groups A and B were public and private school students, respectively, whereas Groups C and D had extra supplementary classes at language institutes as well. A Grammaticality Judgement Task (GJT) including some grammatical structures which were claimed to be problematic for EFL learners, was used as a tool to determine the possible differences in the performance of grammatical structures of the four groups. A two-way ANCOVA and a one-way ANOVA were used to analyse the data. Results suggest that long hours of formal exposure lead to better grammatical performance and the participants who started learning English at age 9 or below performed better in the GJT

Cooperative Innovation Behavior Based on Big Data

With the rapid change of technology, cooperative innovation based on data sharing has become an imminent tactic for enterprises to gain competitive advantages. This paper adopted a mixed method approach (case study-modelling-case study) to study firms’ co-opetition behaviour based on their data analytics capabilities for innovation. We show that firms favour cooperative among peers with same capabilities, i.e. when each firm’s data level is comparable to their partners. We further establish that data transferability and incentive have high impact on cooperation decisions. Finally, we explain the evolution path of firms’ cooperation decisions and discuss the best options for them to sustain long-term growth and competitiveness. The results provide a basis for firms to decide how best to utilise big data for collaborative innovation, so as to improve customers’ product adoption and reduce costs

Enhancing the Competitiveness of Container Seaports Through Sustainability: A Case Study of Thailand

Sustainability has become a key goal of any supply chain which aims to be more competitive in the long term. And ports are a vital part of maritime transportation and maritime supply chains. Therefore, they need to comply with a global sustainability agenda while developing their competitiveness and performance as well. Their improvement should take economic, environmental and social aspects of sustainability into account simultaneously. Enabling of sustainability in ports is now widely recognised as increasing competitiveness. The sustainability of container seaports has become an increasing focus of attention in developed countries in particular, although emerging economies are the key driver of growth for the global economy. Hence, this paper aims to propose a set of criteria to investigate the port sustainability performance of container ports in an emerging country: Thailand. Thailand port system is one of the busiest of ASEAN. To address this issue, the new MCDM method called Best-Worst is proposed to evaluate the importance of factors. This propose to guide for assessment framework of port sustainability development within the Thailand context in the future

Impact of artificial intelligence adoption on online returns policies

The shift to e-commerce has led to an astonishing increase in online sales for retailers. However, the number of returns made on online purchases is also increasing and have a profound impact on retailers’ operations and profit. Hence, retailers need to balance between minimizing and allowing product returns. This study examines an offline showroom versus an artificial intelligence (AI) online virtual-reality webroom and how the settings affect customers’ purchase and retailers’ return decisions. A case study is used to illustrate the AI application. Our results show that adopting artificial intelligence helps sellers to make better returns policies, maximize reselling returns, and reduce the risks of leftovers and shortages. Our findings unlock the potential of artificial intelligence applications in retail operations and should interest practitioners and researchers in online retailing, especially those concerned with online returns policies and the consumer personalized service experience

ESL Teachers’ Intention in Adopting Online Educational Technologies during COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic affected many countries across the globe tremendously. One of the consequences of this pandemic was the closure of educational institutions to curb the spread of the virus. In Malaysia, the Ministry of Education (MOE) encouraged teachers to adopt online educational technologies, such as Google Classroom, in executing teaching and learning processes during the pandemic. However, the sudden transition of the nature of education required teachers to prepare themselves to carry out online education in an instant. Past studies revealed that ICT competence, infrastructure and online resources and working environment affect teachers’ usage of online educational technologies in their teaching. This study examined the relationship amongst these three factors and teachers’ intention to adopt online educational technologies. This study also identified the most significant factor that affects teachers’ behavioural intentions. A total of 153 Malaysian ESL teachers participated in this study via a survey questionnaire. Findings revealed that although the working environment was moderately correlated with teachers’ behavioural intentions, the other two factors were strongly correlated with teachers’ behavioural intentions. This study found accessibility to infrastructure and online resources to be the most significant factors that affected teachers’ behavioural intentions