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Vocational education in Hong Kong suffers from an image problem. Stakeholders often perceive it as a second-best option for those who fail to advance in academic education. In 2016, to promote vocational education, the Hong Kong government launched a publicity campaign and rebranded vocational education and training (VET) as vocational and professional education and training (VPET). This study critically analyzes the new discourse crafted by this campaign and assesses its potential to change VPET’s status.

This study applies critical discourse analysis to the set of television public service advertisements produced as part of the government publicity campaign.

The messaging of the publicity campaign consists of two major discursive strategies. One stresses the ability to find self-fulfillment through VPET. The other stresses the academic ability and middle-class status of VPET students as well as the non-manual and high-end career opportunities for graduates. While the first strategy offers a new basis on which to value VPET, the second recreates assumptions about the value of academic achievement and what constitutes respectable employment, even as it attempts to challenge stereotypes. It reinforces that the ultimate goal of education is financial gain and social status. It overlooks other values of education and the potential value of VPET in enhancing individual choice and agency.

Discourse analysis does not provide information about audience perceptions and interpretations.

The government could consider reframing their messaging in terms of the diverse values and experiences of VPET students. Highlighting the values that VPET students themselves see in their education provides alternative discourses that can better challenge hegemonic ideas.

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first discourse analysis of the government’s publicity campaign to promote VPET.

The novel coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic provided new and various opportunities for corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities. This study intended to compare three types of CSR activities – product development, in-kind donation and CSR commercial – undertaken by two companies – Nike, Inc. and The Coca-Cola Company in response to the pandemic. The purpose of this study was to investigate how CSR activity type and their attributes affected effectiveness.

This study used an experiment using a 3 (CSR activity type) × 2 (company) mixed factorial design. CSR activity type was a between-subjects factor, and company was a within-subjects factor. The attributes of dynamism and innovativeness, corporate image, brand equity and social media sharing likelihood were dependent variables.

The findings underscored the importance of CSR activity type and their attributes of dynamism and innovativeness in the effects on corporate image and brand equity. Product development and in-kind donation, which were perceived as more dynamic than CSR commercial, resulted in more desirable corporate images. Product development, which was perceived as more innovative than in-kind donation and CSR commercial, did not result in greater brand equity than in-kind donation, but resulted in greater brand equity than CSR commercial. The CSR activity type and their attributes did not affect social media sharing likelihood. Differences in content modes could be considered.

This study advanced the knowledge on the effectiveness of CSR activities by comparing CSR activity types varying in dynamism and innovativeness in the context of a public health crisis that caused unprecedented societal changes and challenges.

This chapter examines how the breakthrough of Zhang Ziyi's depiction of a female kung fu master in The Grandmaster (2013) transforms the figure of the heroine in Chinese action films. Zhang is well known for her acting in action films conducted by renowned directors, such as Ang Lee, Zhang Yimou and Wong Kar-wai. After winning 12 different Best Actress awards for her portrayal of Gong Ruomei in The Grandmaster, Zhang announced that she would no longer perform in any action films to show her highest respect for the superlative character Gong. Tracing Zhang's transformational portrait of a heroine in The Grandmaster alongside her other action roles, this analysis demonstrates how her performance projects the directors' distinctive gender viewpoints. I argue that Zhang's characterisation of Gong remodels heroine-hood in Chinese action films. Inheriting the typical plot of a daughter's use of martial arts for revenge for her father's death, Gong breaks from conventional Chinese action films that highlight romantic love during a woman's adventure and the decisive final battle scene. Beyond the propensity for sensory stimulation, Gong's characterisation enables Zhang to determine that women can really act in action films – demonstrating their inner power and ability to create multi-layered characters – not merely relying upon physical action. This chapter offers a relational perspective of how women transform the action film genre not merely as gender spectacles but as embodied figures that represent emerging female subjectivity.

This research aims to explore the perceived usefulness of audited social information in making economic decisions, in the eyes of both Tunisian financial analysts and bankers.

The authors conduct an exploratory qualitative study using twelve semi-structured interviews: seven are carried out with financial analysts, and five are performed among bankers.

This study’s results reveal that financial analysts and bankers paid little attention to the audited social information in making investment/credit granting decisions. The authors also show that the low perceived usefulness of social audit is due to many reasons related to political, economic, regulatory, educational, cultural and cognitive factors.

This study contributes to the current literature in several ways. First, it enriches the knowledge about the perceived usefulness of social audit. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to explore the perception of financial analysts and bankers to audited social information and its usefulness for decision-making. Second, the focus on the Tunisian context is interesting as it was marked, since the outbreak of the Jasmine Revolution, by the uncertainty and the instability of political, economic and social conditions. Third, this research goes further by exploring the most important factors affecting the perceiveness of social auditing.

This study aims at investigating how energy strategies of China impact its energy shipping import through a strategic maritime link, the Straits of Malacca and Singapore (SOMS).

Vector error-correction modelling (VECM) is applied to examine the key energy strategies of China influencing crude oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) shipping import via the SOMS. Strategies investigated include oil storage expansions, government-setting targets to motivate domestic gas production, pipeline projects to diversify natural gas import routes and commercial strategies to ensure oil and gas accessibility and cost-effectiveness.

For the crude oil sector, building up oil storage and diversifying oil import means, routes and sources were found effective to mitigate impacts of consumption surges and price shocks. For the LNG sector, domestic production expansion effectively reduces LNG import. However, pipeline gas import growth is inefficient to relieve LNG shipping import dependency. Furthermore, energy companies have limited flexibility to adjust LNG shipping import volumes via the SOMS even under increased import prices and transport costs.

As the natural gas demand of China continues expanding, utilisation rates of existing pipeline networks need to be enhanced. Besides, domestic production expansion and diversification of LNG import sources and means are crucial.

This study is among the first in the literature using a quantitative approach to investigate how energy strategies implemented in a nation impact its energy shipping volumes via the SOMS, which is one of the most important maritime links that support 40% of the global trades.

The purpose of this paper is to test the 5GP concept with measurement of the performance of Busan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Shanghai ports, employing a hybrid method of consistent fuzzy preference relation (CFPR), VIsekriterijumska Optimizacija i KOmpromisno Resenje (VIKOR) and PROMETHEE.

The authors developed the concept of the fifth generation ports (5GPs), and apply CFPR, VIKOR and preference ranking organization method for enrichment evaluations (PROMETHEE) to evaluate the 5GPs.

The performance of the ports of Hong Kong and Singapore is close to meet the definition of 5GP criteria. On the contrary, ports of Busan and Shanghai are still behind the 5GP stage in light of the majority of the evaluation criteria’s performance.

This paper studies four ports. More empirical tests are needed to verify the applicability of the 5GP concept toward other ports.

The findings provided port managers with the insight of how to improve their port to meet the criteria of 5GP.

New criteria and higher expectations of existing requirements present challenges to port managers for a need to raise the bar of service standards and develop new competencies.

The authors developed the concept of the 5GPs. Newly developed 5GP contributes to expanding the concepts of first to fourth generation ports developed by UNCTAD.

Addressing a gap in entrepreneurial training programs, the main objective of this study was to introduce a hybrid training model that provides training to entrepreneurs after they have started their operations and before they become large and/or well established. The presented model consist of a full entrepreneurship training program suited to serve entrepreneurs who have been operating for no less than 2 years, have 1–14 employees, and need basic training to further achieve their operational goals. This format allows for progressive learning while encouraging networking among participants. Using a case study, 5 years of data are presented describing this program and its value for its participants including urban entrepreneurs.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of different food choice motives on attitude and, subsequently, the impact of attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioural control on the purchase intention of Pakistani ethnic food, based on the food choice motives theory and the theory of planned behaviour.

Using an intercept survey, data were collected from 559 local tourists coming from different areas of the country, who visited Swat, Gilgit and Muree regions of Pakistan, and the data were analysed using SmartPLS software.

In terms of direct effects, mood, familiarity, natural content and price were found to be significant predictors for attitude, whereas attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioural control were found to positively affect intention to purchase Pakistani ethnic food. In addition, attitude was found to serve as a mediator for the relationships between mood, familiarity, sensory appeal and price on purchase intention.

This study has shed some light on the food choice behaviour of domestic tourists opting for their own local cuisine in Pakistan, which is under-represented in the tourism and food research literature. We also tested an integrated model of food choice motives and the theory of planned behaviour in modelling purchase intention in the tourism perspective. The present study also adds to the existing literature on mediation by modelling attitude as a mediator between food choice motives and purchase intention in the context of a developing country.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the continuance usage of livestreaming commerce. The proposed antecedents of livestreaming commerce continuance usage are social presence, perceived crowdedness, need for arousal, susceptibility to informational influence, and perceived value, whilst trust in broadcasters is treated as the moderating factor.

A survey was conducted using a questionnaire designed specifically for this purpose, which was completed by 388 Malaysian consumers aged 26–40 years who have prior experience with livestreaming commerce. The authors tested the framework using the partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) technique and complementary by performing artificial neural network (ANN) analysis.

The results indicate several significant relationships, whereby social presence, perceived crowdedness, susceptibility to informational influence, and trust in broadcasters significantly influence perceived value, whereas perceived value significantly influences continuance intention. In addition, trust in broadcasters moderates the relationship between perceived value and continuance intention.

The current study adds significantly to the body of knowledge about livestreaming by examining the direct determinants of perceived value and thus delineating how perceived value influences continuance intention. The findings yielded also illustrate the role of trust in broadcaster as the moderator of the link between perceived value and continuance intention.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and compare consumer perceptions of unpolished pigmented rice and milled white rice between unfamiliar and typical consumers.

This study first employed focus groups to explore attitudes and habits relating to rice consumption among British subjects. A sensory descriptive analysis method, flash profiling (FP), was then applied on consumer panels in the UK and Thailand to gain perceived sensory quality of unfamiliar and typical rice samples. The sensory profiles generated by British and Thai panellists were analysed by generalised procrustean analysis (GPA) and compared based on perceived attributes, dominant characteristics and repeatability.

Focus group results suggested that consumer familiarity with rice might influence preferred rice textural quality. The prominent textures of stickiness and bittiness of unpolished pigmented rice were negatively associated with perceived quality in the UK participants. The sensory profiles generated by GPA consisted of similarity with darkness of colour and sweet/earthy type odours that are key dominant characteristics of the Thai pigmented rice.

The research has provided sensory information of the unpolished pigmented rice as compared with milled white rice. The information gives insights on product development directions for export and further research on rice processing and cooking instructions.

This study is the first to apply sensory evaluation in a cross-cultural comparison of pigmented rice.