The adoption of western management methods by Chinese family and publicly listed companies in Asia.

The adoption of Western management methods and systems by companies in Asia has been hyperactive in the last 20 years, fuelled by Asia’s growth and thirst for technology, know how, methods, strategies and systems. Companies throughout Asia have spent huge amounts of resources on the adoption of Western management methods. Much of the management literature on Asian management since the 1980s has focused on the Japanese management system. However, in more recent times, an increasing number of publications have focused on overseas Chinese businesses in East and South East Asia, Korean and mainland Chinese management systems. The research question this dissertation seeks to answer is whether or not Asian companies that are family managed can successfully adopt Western management practices? The methodology used included a mixed methods approach of a case study of a publicly listed overseas corporation controlled and managed by an overseas Chinese family, a comprehensive survey questionnaire of companies in Asia seeking answers to the research question and employees’ experiences with specific management practices along with a literature review. Results indicated that the adoption of Western management methods was mixed within Family managed businesses in Asia. The adoption of Western management practices and systems was found to depend on the type of company. Publicly Listed companies were found to adopt Western management practices more than Privately Held or Family Owned enterprises, however, overall the adoption of Western management methods was limited in all three types of corporations. Western management methods were found to be at odds to the practices of the typical Chinese family business. Characteristics such as paternalism, high levels of centralized decision making, loyalty, obedience to the manager-owner and issues of trust toward outsiders may produce difficulties in advancing business interests in the future. Asian political, economic, familial, cultural and environmental conditions limit the ability of Family Owned corporations to effectively adopt Western management practices. The size and type of the family controlled company influenced the extent to which a firm can effectively adopt Western management practices. Limited knowledge of Western management methods within Family Controlled corporations places constraints on growth that will require recruitment of professionals with management experience

A hierarchy of parametrizing varieties for representations

The primary purpose is to introduce and explore projective varieties, $\text{GRASS}_{\bf d}(\Lambda)$, parametrizing the full collection of those modules over a finite dimensional algebra $\Lambda$ which have dimension vector $\bf d$. These varieties extend the smaller varieties previously studied by the author; namely, the projective varieties encoding those modules with dimension vector $\bf d$ which, in addition, have a preassigned top or radical layering. Each of the $\text{GRASS}_{\bf d}(\Lambda)$ is again partitioned by the action of a linear algebraic group, and covered by certain representation-theoretically defined affine subvarieties which are stable under the unipotent radical of the acting group. A special case of the pertinent theorem served as a cornerstone in the work on generic representations by Babson, Thomas, and the author. Moreover, applications are given to the study of degenerations

Perfect countably infinite Steiner triple systems

We use a free construction to prove the existence of perfect Steiner triple systems on a countably infinite point set. We use a specific countably infinite family of partial Steiner triple systems to start the construction, thus yielding 2ℵ0 non-isomorphic perfect systems

Will mobile video become the killer application for 3G? - an empirical model for media convergence

Mobile carriers have continually rolled out 3G mobile video applications to increase their revenue and profits. The presumption is that video is superior to the already successful SMS, ringtones, and pictures, and can create greater value to users. However, recent market surveys revealed contradicting results. Motivated by this discrepancy, we propose in this paper a parsimonious model for user acceptance of mobile entertainment as digital convergence. Integrating research on Information Systems, Flow, and Media Psychology, we take a unique approach to user acceptance of digital convergence - platform migration. Our key proposition is that the interaction between media types and the platform-specific constraints is the key determinant of user evaluation. Particularly, users' involvement in the media is determined by both the entertaining time span on the original platform and the attentional constraint of the new platform. The mismatch between the two spans can result in lower level involvement, which in turn cause no or even negative user emotional responses. The model was tested with empirical data. We discuss the theoretical contributions, strategic and design implications, and future research directions derived from this theoretical framewor

Status of Supersymmetric Grand Unified Theories

We begin with a brief discussion of the building blocks of supersymmetric grand unified theories. We recall some of the compelling theoretical reasons for viewing supersymmetric grand unification as an attractive avenue for physics beyond the standard model. This is followed by a discussion of some of the circumstantial evidence for these ideas.Comment: 12 pages plain LaTeX to be run twice. Invited talk at the XII DAE Symposium on High Energy Physics, Guwahati, India, Dec. 26, 1996 - Jan. 1, 199

Residential Water Consumption: A Cross Country Analysis

Survey data from over 1,600 households in ten countries were used to analyse the determinants of residential water demand. Results show that in every country the price elasticity is negative and statistically significant. Households that do not have to pay for the water they use (volumetric water charges) consume about a third more water than similar households that do have to pay such charges. Consumers’ attitudes do not have a statistically significant effect on total water use, although they do increase the probability of households using some water saving behaviours. Volumetric water charges also have an impact on the adoption of water saving actions. Full-cost water pricing appears to be a highly effective instrument to manage residential water demand.water demand, water consumption, water pricing, Environmental Economics and Policy, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, C21, Q25, Q50,

Scaling by 5 on a 1/4-Cantor Measure

Each Cantor measure (\mu) with scaling factor 1/(2n) has at least one associated orthonormal basis of exponential functions (ONB) for L^2(\mu). In the particular case where the scaling constant for the Cantor measure is 1/4 and two specific ONBs are selected for L^2(\mu), there is a unitary operator U defined by mapping one ONB to the other. This paper focuses on the case in which one ONB (\Gamma) is the original Jorgensen-Pedersen ONB for the Cantor measure (\mu) and the other ONB is is 5\Gamma. The main theorem of the paper states that the corresponding operator U is ergodic in the sense that only the constant functions are fixed by U.Comment: 34 page

Twenty five year follow-up for breast cancer incidence and mortality of the Canadian national breast screening study: randomised screening trial

Annual mammography in women aged 40-59 does not reduce mortality from breast cancer beyond that of physical examination or usual care when adjuvant therapy for breast cancer is freely available. Abstract Objective: To compare breast cancer incidence and mortality up to 25 years in women aged 40-59 who did or did not undergo mammography screening. Design: Follow-up of randomised screening trial by centre coordinators, the study’s central office, and linkage to cancer registries and vital statistics databases. Setting: 15 screening centres in six Canadian provinces,1980-85 (Nova Scotia, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Alberta, and British Columbia). Participants: 89 835 women, aged 40-59, randomly assigned to mammography (five annual mammography screens) or control (no mammography). Interventions: Women aged 40-49 in the mammography arm and all women aged 50-59 in both arms received annual physical breast examinations. Women aged 40-49 in the control arm received a single examination followed by usual care in the community. Main outcome measure: Deaths from breast cancer. Results: During the five year screening period, 666 invasive breast cancers were diagnosed in the mammography arm (n=44 925 participants) and 524 in the controls (n=44 910), and of these, 180 women in the mammography arm and 171 women in the control arm died of breast cancer during the 25 year follow-up period. The overall hazard ratio for death from breast cancer diagnosed during the screening period associated with mammography was 1.05 (95% confidence interval 0.85 to 1.30). The findings for women aged 40-49 and 50-59 were almost identical. During the entire study period, 3250 women in the mammography arm and 3133 in the control arm had a diagnosis of breast cancer, and 500 and 505, respectively, died of breast cancer. Thus the cumulative mortality from breast cancer was similar between women in the mammography arm and in the control arm (hazard ratio 0.99, 95% confidence interval 0.88 to 1.12). After 15 years of follow-up a residual excess of 106 cancers was observed in the mammography arm, attributable to over-diagnosis. Conclusion: Annual mammography in women aged 40-59 does not reduce mortality from breast cancer beyond that of physical examination or usual care when adjuvant therapy for breast cancer is freely available. Overall, 22% (106/484) of screen detected invasive breast cancers were over-diagnosed, representing one over-diagnosed breast cancer for every 424 women who received mammography screening in the trial

Galoisian Approach to integrability of Schr\"odinger Equation

In this paper, we examine the non-relativistic stationary Schr\"odinger equation from a differential Galois-theoretic perspective. The main algorithmic tools are pullbacks of second order ordinary linear differential operators, so as to achieve rational function coefficients ("algebrization"), and Kovacic's algorithm for solving the resulting equations. In particular, we use this Galoisian approach to analyze Darboux transformations, Crum iterations and supersymmetric quantum mechanics. We obtain the ground states, eigenvalues, eigenfunctions, eigenstates and differential Galois groups of a large class of Schr\"odinger equations, e.g. those with exactly solvable and shape invariant potentials (the terms are defined within). Finally, we introduce a method for determining when exact solvability is possible.Comment: 62 page