Search results

This paper identifies the strategic changes and explores the solutions for talent development and leadership management to address the challenges faced by the funeral service industry in Hong Kong.

In this study, semi-structured, in-depth interviews were conducted with seven key personnel (funeral director, salesperson, coffin shop owner, and mortuary transporter) engaged in the funeral service industry in Hong Kong. Thematic coding was used to identify and organize emerging themes from the data.

Four overarching themes were identified: (1) Perception of the funeral service industry in Hong Kong; (2) Recruitment, retention, and talent development; (3) Prospects of the funeral service industry in Hong Kong; and (4) Other novel challenges. The findings reveal continuous, radical, and complex challenges that may exceed the capacity of any leader to develop workable solutions.

The funeral service industry is facing radical challenges in modern times. A death-denying attitude is observed, which has severely undermined the study of the funeral service industry.

After the handing over of Hong Kong sovereignty from 1997 and under the “one country two systems” model, the Special Administrative Region's Government initiated new policies of civic education and amended or ignored the old ones. However, it was not until May 2011 that the complete new policy paper was introduced for consultation and then it was passed and issued as national education in April 2012. This article aims to analyze the civic education policy of Hong Kong in the transfer of power after the handing over in the following 15 years.

This policy analysis describes the preparations for Hong Kong’s future citizens and masters. Theories of citizenship education are adopted for this analysis. Moreover, theories of the state are also applied for more in‐depth understanding. These concepts are helpful to operationalize the contents of the study. It was a historical and comparative method to help to understand and explain the civic education policy of the HKSAR's governance.

Basically, it can be seen that the policies are anticipatory and responsive. The historical context of Hong Kong helped to make the correspondence with how the government expected to mold its future citizens in order to facilitate and implement their administration and governance.

This paper explores the role of the Hong Kong Government in the initiation and implementation of civic education.

This chapter complements the one that appeared as “History of the AIB Fellows: 1975–2008” in Volume 14 of this series (International Business Scholarship: AIB Fellows on the First 50 Years and Beyond, Jean J. Boddewyn, Editor). It traces what happened under the deanship of Alan Rugman (2011–2014) who took many initiatives reported here while his death in July 2014 generated trenchant, funny, and loving comments from more than half of the AIB Fellows. The lives and contributions of many other major international business scholars who passed away from 2008 to 2014 are also evoked here: Endel Kolde, Lee Nehrt, Howard Perlmutter, Stefan Robock, John Ryans, Vern Terpstra, and Daniel Van Den Bulcke.

The Managerial Auditing Journal (MAJ) started publication in 1986 and celebrates its 35th year of publication in 2020. The purpose of this study is to provide a detailed bibliometric analysis of the journal’s primary trends and themes between 1986 and 2019.

This study uses the Scopus database to analyse the most prolific authors in the MAJ along with their affiliated institutions and countries; the work also identifies the MAJ articles cited most often by other journals. A range of bibliometric devices is applied to analyse the publication and citation structure of MAJ, alongside performance analysis and science mapping tools. The study also provides a detailed inter-temporal analysis of MAJ publishing patterns.

The MAJ publishes around 40 articles each year with citations of this work steadily growing over time. The journal has attracted contributors from around the globe, most often affiliated with the USA, the UK and Australia. Thematic evolution of the journal’s themes reveals that it has expanded its scope to include topics such as internal auditing, internal control and corporate governance, whilst co-authorship analysis reveals that the journal’s collaboration network has grown to span the globe.

As this study uses data from the Scopus database, any shortcomings therein will be reflected in the study.

This study provides the first overview of the MAJ’s publication and citation trends as well as the evolution of its thematic structure. It also suggests future directions that the journal might take.

Guanxi is the foundation of Chinese business negotiations. The paper explains the meaning of Guanxi and uses it to differentiate between the characteristics of Chinese and Western negotiations in the marketing context. Guanxi is a characteristic of Chinese culture and provides a starting point for understanding the Chinese negotiating style. Western cultures have inherently different characteristics. As culture is so important in the negotiation process, the paper also reviews the five dimensions of culture as outlined by Hofstede (1991) and places these in the Chinese context.

The Overseas Chinese, the Chinese Commonwealth, or the Chinese Web, consists of companies formed by Chinese who are found outside of China and inside other countries, such as, the United States, Thailand, Singapore, and Malaysia. These Chinese entrepreneurs work under a set of familial, cultural, and relationship values. They help one another and protect each others businesses. Non‐Chinese companies are now realising the potential growth of this unofficial Chinese economy. This network was first formed by family relationships. However, foreign companies outside this web may find it easier to enter by linking themselves into joint ventures, marriages, political opportunities or just by having some common culture. This Chinese economy is starting to grow approximately by 5% each year. These Chinese entrepreneurs are not cluttered in a single region, as it is in the case of North America, Europe, and Japan. But yet, these potential marketers are failing to realise the importance and the power of this growing economy.

Most years, several AIB members are elected as AIB Fellows on account of their excellent international business scholarship, and/or past service as AIB President or Executive Secretary. The Fellows are in charge of electing Eminent Scholars as well as the International Executive and International Educator (formerly, Dean) of the Year, who often provide the focus for Plenary Sessions at AIB Conferences. Their history since 1975 covers over half of the span of the AIB and reflects many issues that dominated that period in terms of research themes, progresses and problems, the internationalization of business education and the role of international business in society and around the globe. Like other organizations, the Fellows Group had their ups and downs, successes and failures – and some fun too!

The second of two articles dealing with a survey of health care internal auditing in the United States. The first article appeared in Vol. 7 No. 6, 1992. The second article builds on the first and deals with: the allocation of time to various internal audit activities and the rationale employed to determine such allocations; the structure of the board of directors and the relationship of the board to the internal audit function; the power, conflict and risks associated with health care entities; and finally the working relationship that exists between the internal and external auditors.

Examines the extent to which social policy adopted by the colonial government in Hong Kong (prior to its hand‐over China in 1997) has set the agenda for the government of the newly formed Special Administrative Region (SAR). Chronicles the historical development of social policy in Hong Kong since the inception of the colonial government in 1842; identifies that, with the exception of a short‐lived period of expansionism (stimulated by social unrest in the mid‐1960’s) social welfare provision appears to have been low on the government’s agenda and incremental in nature ‐ the emphasis being on economic growth, rather than public spending on welfare programmes. Examines the strengths and weaknesses of this incremental approach; outlines the commitment of the SAR government to the market economy and its proposals for a modest increase in welfare provision, essentially building on the legacy left behind by the colonial government.