Ethical Leadership: Need for Cross-Cultural Examinations

This study examined the difference in perceptions among college students on ethical leadership. Ethical leadership has become an increasingly important business issue as corruptions and scandals grow in the 21st century. Unethical leadership has been known to cause major embarrassment for institutions from government to business, and is not a well-researched area among leadership researchers. The procedure included creating an online survey based on the GLOBE study, which examined the Character/Integrity, Altruism, Collective Motivation, and Encouragement aspects of ethical leadership. This online survey was than assessed to students from a variety of cultural backgrounds. Students were recruited from a large mid-western university. Findings suggest that ethical leadership is perceived differently by certain cultural groups, showing how viewpoints may conflict on what is considered ethical or not by various peoples around the world. Major findings support that students of European heritage differed in their viewpoints on Character/Integrity and Encouragement from non-European students. Latin students did not differ significantly from non-Latin students on Collective Motivation . Students of Asian heritage differed in viewpoints on Altruism from non-Asian students

Multilevel Diversity Coding with Secure Regeneration: Separate Coding Achieves the MBR Point

The problem of multilevel diversity coding with secure regeneration (MDC-SR) is considered, which includes the problems of multilevel diversity coding with regeneration (MDC-R) and secure regenerating code (SRC) as special cases. Two outer bounds are established, showing that separate coding of different messages using the respective SRCs can achieve the minimum-bandwidth-regeneration (MBR) point of the achievable normalized storage-capacity repair-bandwidth tradeoff regions for the general MDC-SR problem. The core of the new converse results is an exchange lemma, which can be established using Han's subset inequality

Exploring the factors influencing business model innovation using grounded theory: the case of a Chinese high-end equipment manufacturer

Business model innovation is vitally important for firms to gain competitive advantages and improve their performance. While it has attracted much attention recently, considerable work is still needed to properly understand business model innovation. This study aims to examine the factors influencing business model innovation through a case study of Shaanxi Blower, a high-end equipment manufacturer in China. Using grounded theory in terms of open coding, axial coding and selective coding, this case study found seven main factors that influenced business model innovation, namely, market pressure, government policy, entrepreneurship, culture and strategy, technology, human resources, and organizational capabilities. Market pressure, government policy and information technology are external factors, whereas, entrepreneurship and technological innovation are internal factors. Culture and strategy, human resources, and organizational capabilities are the guarantee factors. This study’s findings add to the growing literature by developing a more holistic understanding of the factors that influence business model innovation in the Chinese context, which indicates a possibility for Chinese high-end equipment manufacturers to improve their competitiveness and performance through better management of their business model innovation. View Full-Tex

LHX1 as a potential biomarker regulates EMT induction and cellular behaviors in uterine corpus endometrial carcinoma

Objectives: To investigate the expression of LHX1 and its role as a biomarker in the diagnosis and prognosis of Uterine Corpus Endometrial Carcinoma (UCEC). Methods: The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database was used to detect the expression level of LHX1 in UCEC cells and tissues, and to find out the effect of LHX1 on prognosis. Co-expressed genes were then identified by Spearman correlation analysis, and the protein-protein interaction network was constructed using Cytoscape software. The R “clusterProfiler” package was used to conduct Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway enrichment analyses. A series of in vitro experiments were performed to evaluate LHX1 expression and detect UCEC cell proliferation, invasion, and migration. Western blotting was used to determine the effect of LHX1 on expression levels of Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition (EMT)-related proteins. Results: LHX1 was upregulated in UCEC tissues and correlated with poor overall survival and disease-specific survival outcomes. Functional enrichment analysis suggested that genes co-expressed with LHX1 were enriched in cell adhesion. The expression of LHX1 was positively correlated with the expression levels of genes related to EMT induction and invasion. LHX1 can enhance the proliferation, migration, and invasion activities of UCEC cells in vitro, and alter the expression levels of EMT-related proteins. Conclusion: LHX1 expression was highly upregulated in UCEC cells and tissues, which was correlated with the prognosis of patients with UCEC. LHX1 may regulate UCEC progression at least in part by modulating EMT induction