International business travel in the global economy, J.V. Beaverstock, B. Derudder, J. Faulconbridge, F. Witlox (Eds.)

Book ISBN 9780754698692</p

Law as a Sword, Law as a Shield

What does the rule of law mean in the Chinese context? Based on empirical research in Beijing and Hong Kong, this article examines the various ways politically liberal lawyers in China make sense of the rule of law in their discourses and collective action. Although the rule of law is frequently invoked by lawyers as a legitimating discourse against the authoritarian state, its use in practice is primarily for instrumental purposes, as both a sword and a shield. For activist lawyers in Beijing, the pursuit of judicial independence is nothing but a distant dream involving a restructuring of the state, and they therefore focus their mobilisation for rule of law around basic legal freedoms and the growth of civil society. By contrast, Hong Kong lawyers hold the autonomy of their judiciary as a paramount value mainly because it is a powerful defensive weapon against Beijing’s political influence. The rule of law as a shield is only effective where its institutional and normative foundations are solid (as in Hong Kong), and it becomes little more than a blunt sword for lawyers where such foundations are weak or missing (as in mainland China)

SMU TEACHING BANK: CASE STUDY OF A MULTIYEAR DEVELOPMENT PROJECT UTILIZING STUDENT RESOURCES

A domain refers to a business sector such as banking, healthcare, insurance, manufacturing etc. For an IS student, it is imperative that the domain knowledge includes a comprehension and understanding of business processes, technology and data related to the chosen domain. For example, when learning the retail banking domain, an IS student must have an understanding of the transactions concerned with retail banking such as fund transfers and loan repayments. The student must also gain a strong foothold in transaction fulfilment processes, the various application services that are used, the data that is transferred, etc. Teaching domain knowledge is very difficult, especially when there is no way to put them into practice. One solution to this is through building simulations of the domain where students can perform transactions relevant to the domain. This paper describes a simulated digital bank, “SMU tBank”, its architecture, its usage in teaching students, and how it was built using student resources across undergraduate and postgraduate student projects. The paper provides insights on how to structure and deliver useful multi-year pedagogy and possibly other IT projects through effective utilization of only student resources, so that other schools may learn from our experience and further adopt and improve on this model

DISSONANCE-BASED THOUGHT-ACTION SEPARATION: EXAMINING COGNITIVE MODELS OF OCD BY REDUCING OBSESSIVE-COMPULSIVE BELIEFS AND SYMPTOMS WITH A DISSONANCE-BASED BEHAVIORAL EXPERIMENT AND PSYCHOEDUCATION

Master'sMASTER OF SOCIAL SCIENCE

Gender Differences in Pathways to Compulsive Buying in Chinese College Students in Hong Kong and Macau

The addictive nature of compulsive buying implies that mood disturbances, stress, and cognitive biases that underlie compulsive buying might operate in ways similar in both genders. In the current study, we aimed to test hypothetical pathways of mood compensation and irrational cognitions, which may explain compulsive buying tendencies. We also examined potential gender differences in these pathways. Methods Two-hundred and thirty-two male (age: M = 20.30, SD = 1.74) and 373 female Chinese college students (age: M = 19.97, SD = 1.74) in Hong Kong and Macau completed measures assessing compulsive buying, psychological distress, avoidance coping, materialism, and buying-related cognitions. Mediation analyses via a structural equation modeling approach explained by Cheung (2007, 2009) were conducted, with gender as a grouping variable. Results There was a gender difference in the mood compensation pathway; avoidance coping partially mediated the link between psychological distress and compulsive buying severity in females only. On the other hand, the irrational cognitive pathway, in which irrational buying-related cognitions fully mediated the link between materialism and compulsive buying severity, was supported for both genders. There was no gender difference in the extent of mediation within the irrational cognitive pathway, and the mediation effect within the irrational cognitive pathway was larger than that within the mood compensation pathway for both genders. Conclusions Mood compensation processes in compulsive buying might be female specific, and secondary to irrational cognitions, which were gender invariant. Gender-dependent mechanisms and irrational cognitions should be emphasized in compulsive buying treatment

Bluetooth Mesh Networking: an Enabler of Smart Factory Connectivity and Management

Smart factory is an environment where machinery and equipment are able to work together to improve processes through automation and self-optimisation. Connectivity in smart factory is the key enabler to optimise operations through collection of data to accelerate automation in a factory setting. This paper proposes the use of Bluetooth wireless mesh networking to realise the vision of smart factory, providing efficient connectivity to collect data from the shop-floor in real-time. Downstream communication to the sensor devices can also be performed, thus creating a digital twin of the shop-floor and its process. A web-based visualisation dashboard is implemented to monitor the status of sensors and machinery in real-time. The developed system is also integrated with an indoor localisation mechanism to provision new sensors into the mesh network. An augmented reality dashboard enables a user who is physically patrolling the smart factory to view sensor status in real-time

Perceived Importance of Portfolios in a Smart CV after an Education Reform: An Empirical Analysis

Recent developments in recruitment processes have demonstrated that job applicants are increasingly using online Smart CVs instead of traditional approaches like hardcopy or emailing CVs. This study aims at examining perceived importance university undergraduate students of Hong Kong place or put on portfolios of Smart CVs, such as internship experience, exchange experience, scholarships & awards, participation in competitions, academic performance, and extra-curricular activities when building a Smart CV, and on investigating potential effects of the 3+3+4 academic reform in Hong Kong and admission mode. Participants were 256 undergraduate students in BBA majoring either in Information Management or in Electronic Commerce. A survey consisting of 44 items, which measured perceptions on the importance of the 6 proposed portfolios of Smart CVs, was used to collect data. Principal component analysis was used to analyze the items and 34 items were included in the final factor structure out of which 27 items got retained after subsequent reliability analysis. The 6 portfolios were positively inter-correlated. Students who were admitted under the new 4-year undergraduate curriculum using examination results of the new Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education (HKDSE) perceived internship experience and participation in competitions as more important in their Smart CVs, which was not the case with those who were admitted under the 3-year undergraduate curriculum using the results of the Hong Kong Advanced Level Examination (HKALE), which is no longer in use since 2012. The admission routes of students did not affect perceived importance in a Smart CV of the 6 proposed portfolios