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The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the changes in descriptive sensory properties and overall consumer acceptability of soymilk prepared from roasted soybeans.

In total, 12 purposively selected post graduate students majoring in Food Science conducted descriptive sensory analysis after being trained for 18 h in sensory analysis, while 75 untrained students conducted consumer acceptability test of soymilk prepared by roasting soybeans at a temperature of 110°C for 20, 40, 60, 80 and 100 min and at 120°C for 20 min.

Results have revealed that roasting soybeans improved sensory properties by significantly (p<0.05) decreasing the objectionable green, beany flavours and increasing sweet taste, viscosity and roasted flavour. Furthermore, results from the principal component analysis revealed that aroma and sweet taste were the most critical sensory attributes. In addition, it was found out that soymilk samples prepared by roasting soybeans at 110°C for 40 and 60 min and at 120°C for 20 min were significantly more acceptable than the control soymilk.

The participants in this study were from one locality and predominantly soybean consuming community and therefore there is need to conduct the study in a different locality in order to validate the study findings.

The study can assist small scale processors that might not have access to lipoxygenase-free soybeans and other technologies for improving the quality of soymilk.

The study can be used as a guide for connecting the food processers with the external world of consumption.

For the first time, the study findings have demonstrated that controlled soybean roasting can be a useful strategy for improving soymilk sensory properties and consumer acceptability. The findings in this study can be usefully used in the quality control of soy bean-based products.

As the People′s Republic of China starts to adopt certain “capitalistic” concepts in its business enterprises, it would be interesting to learn how it borrows and adapts marketing techniques used in the Western world. For instance, what type of managerial philosophy is used in managing the sales function? This exploratory study attempts to depict salesforce management in China′s contemporary enterprises. Personal documentation, an ethnographic approach, is adopted as the data collection instrument. Identifies and discusses salesforce structure, recruitment, training and motivation of the Chinese enterprises. Suggests further research directions for the purpose of gaining a deeper understanding of the marketing activities and, in particular, salesforce management of China′s socialist enterprises.

Nearly a century ago, Max Weber studied Chinese lineage system and argued that the power of the patriarchal sib impeded the emergence of industrial capitalism in China. Recently, Martin Whyte re-evaluated Weber's thesis on the basis of development studies and argued that, rather than an obstacle, Chinese family pattern and lineage ties may have facilitated the economic growth in China since the 1980s. This paper empirically tests the competing hypotheses by focusing on the relationship between lineage networks and the development of rural enterprises. Analyses of village-level data show that lineage networks, measured by proportion of most common surnames, have large positive effects on the count of entrepreneurs and total workforce size of private enterprises in rural China.

This paper seeks to understand the evolution of financial intermediation in the course of China's economic transition.

The research is based on a unique data set collected by the authors and other collaborators from a 1998 survey of financial institutions, enterprises, and government officials in southern China.

Based on an empirical investigation of rural financial reforms, it is argued that China's two‐decade long financial reform was a gradual process that accommodates reforms in other sectors and responds to changing policy goals and the economic and institutional environment in which financial institutions operate. Although using standard measures of financial system performance may cast doubt on the effectiveness of China's rural banking system, when one understands the different roles that it has been asked to play, it can be argued that it has not operated so poorly.

In conclusion, it is found that China's rural economic environment is still changing. If the system continues to change in the future, responding to pressures in the economy, further financial reforms will almost certainly emerge in the coming years.

These findings, although primarily from the 1980s and 1990s, are still helpful in understanding the reform process that is currently ongoing.

This paper will help readers make sense of agricultural financial reforms and will allow for more discourse over what has been accomplished and what still is needed.

This is the first manuscript to comprehensively put China's rural financial reforms into the context of modern economic analysis, explaining why China's government proceeded as they did and why the reforms have unfolded in such a stop and start manner.