Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Covid-19 Crisis And Intergenerational Relations : The Case Of Hong Kong Families With Older Parents Ageing In The Greater Bay Area In Mainland China, Bowen Zhou

Lingnan Theses and Dissertations (MPhil & PhD)

The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area has been developed by the Chinese central government since 2016. Driven by the development of the Greater Bay Area, the well-developed transportation has further provided chances for Hong Kong older people to reside in the mainland GBA cities. The relevant Hong Kong government departments have made a comparison showing that the number of Hong Kong older people (aged 65 and above) who are ageing in the Greater Bay Area of mainland China has increased to around 90,200 in 2019, a 33% increase from 2013. Given the most updated situation, these Hong Kong families with …

Does Non-Financial Information Disclosure Promote Firm's Exports? Evidence From China's Mandatory Csr Reporting Regulation, Xin Chen

Lingnan Theses and Dissertations (MPhil & PhD)

Although prior literature provides evidence on information technology's role in international trade, whether and how a firm's non-financial information disclosure affects export is underexplored. Using China's mandatory Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) disclosure as a quasi-natural experiment, we find that firms binding to the requirement significantly boost exports compared to their nonreporting peers. To understand the economic mechanisms, we propose that the positive impacts could be exposited through two channels: (1) information transparency and (2) financial constraint. The economic mechanism tests provide suggestive evidence that the effects are more substantial when firms are inferior in information transparency and financial constraint before …

A Socio-Ecological Barrier To Regular Migration, Regularization And Healthcare Access For Myanmar Irregular Migrant Workers In Thailand, Tual Sawn Khai

Lingnan Theses and Dissertations (MPhil & PhD)

The Myanmar people have been migrating to Thailand since the 1980s through regular or irregular channels for better livelihood opportunities. Over the past decade, they have significantly contributed to the economic development of both sending and receiving states. Thailand and Myanmar signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to facilitate labour migration in 2003. The agreement aims to ensure that migrant workers have access to regular employment channels in Thailand and improve their employment rights. Under a bilateral agreement, migrant workers employed under the MOU can stay in Thailand for four years. However, they must apply for visa renewals every two …

Perceived Similarity And Relationship Satisfaction : The Role Of Attributional Confidence, Ting Hin Lee

Lingnan Theses and Dissertations (MPhil & PhD)

Although perceived similarity has been found to foster relationship satisfaction, scarce studies have focused on how perceived similarity by oneself and by the partner are linked to relationship satisfaction. The purpose of Study 1 was to investigate the effect of perceived similarity on relationship satisfaction and the mediating role of attributional confidence in this association. Study 2 aimed to examine the effects of one’s own and the partner’s perceived similarity on relationship satisfaction, in addition to the mediating roles of one’s own and the partner’s attributional confidence in these associations. In Study 1, a total of 395 individuals (51.4% female) …

An Investigation Of Africans And Hongkongers Relationship : A Social Psychological Approach, Raymond Agyenim-Boateng

Lingnan Theses and Dissertations (MPhil & PhD)

When members of different social groups come into contact, interactions and intergroup attitudes are not always reciprocal between the groups. Within social psychology, intergroup relations research has long been a topic of interest. Yet, such research has mostly been conducted in Western cultural settings. There is scant research from an East Asian cultural context, where intercultural encounters have been on the rise. Existing psychological literature has put much attention on the experiences of migrants and minorities, while the views of the host majority members would often be neglected. This thesis addresses this lacuna by using social psychological theories and research …

Dissertation On Applied Micro-Economics, Wei Liu

Lingnan Theses and Dissertations (MPhil & PhD)

My PhD thesis is composed of two chapters. The first chapter evaluates the effectiveness of China’s anti-corruption campaign in 2012 by conducting a difference-in-difference analysis of product-city-level cigarette consumption data from 2007 to 2014. The analysis found that following the campaign, there was an increase in sales of middle-end cigarettes and a decrease in sales of luxury cigarettes, which contrasts with the trend for lower-end cigarettes. This substitution pattern may be attributed to a decrease in public spending on luxury goods, and the patter is also influenced by officials’ wages. Additionally, our findings suggest that provinces with more intense anti-corruption …

Beyond Economics And Politics : A Sociological Review Of Local Long-Term Care Service Provision In China, Zhen Tian

Lingnan Theses and Dissertations (MPhil & PhD)

The socio-demographic transition presents a significant challenge that impacts the renewal of welfare arrangements and the reallocation of welfare responsibilities across sectors. Long-term care (LTC) services have emerged as a widely accepted strategy to promote the active daily living and human dignity of senior citizens. This study aims to assess the effective policy strategies employed in various Chinese contexts to address significant LTC policy concerns and synthesise lessons that can guide future policy decisions. The study addresses three questions to explore local variations in China's LTC service provision: (1) What differences exist in the long-term care services provision? (2) How …

Two Essays On Pollution, Trade And Industries In China, Jie Bai

Lingnan Theses and Dissertations (MPhil & PhD)

The relationship between environment and human economic activities is intricately intertwined. This thesis delves into the investigation of the causal effect of pollution on exports and, in turn, examines the impacts of industrial intelligence on the environment. It is organized into two chapters. The first chapter of the thesis studies whether and how air pollution affects firms’ exports based on Chinese data (2000-2007). The literature on the correlation between trade and environment is vast, but studies almost exclusively focus on the causal effects of trade on environment. This study examines the reverse effects. In the analysis, we use PM2.5 concentrations …

Sandurot Festival As Mugna : Exploring Modernity And Belonging Through The Civic Festival, Lady Flor Niñal Partosa

Lingnan Theses and Dissertations (MPhil & PhD)

Focusing on the Sandurot Festival organized by the City of Dumaguete in the Philippines, my study explores the process of embodying local identity as site to actualize modernity. To highlight this collaborative, creative, and often contentious process, I put forward the concept of mugna (a Cebuano word which means to create) to examine how social actors (such as festival organizers, cultural workers, and artists) configure nodes of belonging to the time and space of the city by engaging with notions of tradition, authenticity, progress, and development. As Cultural Studies stresses the significance of radical contextuality, I examine in this project …

Platform Work, Social Risks And Social Welfare : A Qualitative Study On Workers’ Experiences And Views In Hong Kong, Cham Kit Ming

Lingnan Theses and Dissertations (MPhil & PhD)

Drawing on the social risk thesis, this research studies the risk and welfare experiences of Hong Kong workers working on food delivery platforms and courier platforms. A total of 23 platform workers involved in food delivery work and courier work on the crowdsourcing gig work platform were invited to in-depth interviews, leading to the discovery of workers’ perceptions of the six platform work-related risks, welfare experiences, and work freedom. The researcher argues that platform workers’ experiences result from power asymmetry on the individual, organisational, and institutional levels. The algorithmic control by the platform firms and the dependence of workers on …

Married Working Women And Work-Family Interface In Urban Ghana : A Holistic Approach, Kwaku Abrefa Busia

Lingnan Theses and Dissertations (MPhil & PhD)

The intersection of work and family has gained traction across various disciplines in an attempt to study how work and family life affect individuals, families, organisations and societies. Nonetheless, most studies on work-family interface (WFI) remain dominated by theories, concepts and experiences rooted in white, middle class and homogenous individuals in Western societies. Owing to these concerns, there have been widespread calls for more cross-cultural studies that capture the plurality of work-family realities and conceptualisation, especially from the Global South. Emphasis has also been made on the need to expand workfamily research beyond the often-studied professional workers and their families …

Democratization By Foreign Intervention : How Different Causes Of Intervention Affect The Outcome Of Democratization?, Pat Shu Roy Ho

Lingnan Theses and Dissertations (MPhil & PhD)

In examining the external intervention in order to promote democratization after the Cold War, there have been five kinds of conflicts (transition to independence, the civil war, the ethnic conflict, removing the dictatorship, and the ‘war on terror’) necessitating international interventions. While the foreign interveners attempt to solve the conflict by promoting democracy in the target society, the nature of these contexts complicates the mission and the ‘transitional phases’. Specifically, this thesis suggested that the elite composition of different contexts will affect the formation of elite consensus. Meanwhile, their difficulty in forming elite consensus can be arranged in ascending order: …

Corporate Social Responsibility And Operating Performance In Life And Health Insurance Market : Evidence From China, Ji Zhang

Lingnan Theses and Dissertations (MPhil & PhD)

Extant literature is equivocal on whether and how corporate social responsivity (CSR) activities affect corporates’ performance. To the best of our knowledge, a very limited number of research investigates CSR-performance relationship in insurance and even no research examines this relationship in China’s life and health (LH) insurance market. China LH insurance market has been the world’s second biggest LH insurance market albeit receiving limited attention in academia. We innovatively use two measurements of philanthropic activities as proxy for positive CSR performance. Alternatively, we use administrative penalties received from the provincial regulators as a proxy for the negative shock on the …

Essays On The Effects Of Mergers On Competition, Yiran Cao

Lingnan Theses and Dissertations (MPhil & PhD)

Mergers enable firms to internalize pricing externalities among competitors, hence raising market power and reducing social welfare. Mergers, on the other hand, can create merger-specific efficiencies and hence promote welfare. This thesis investigates the competitive effects of both horizontal and vertical mergers, motivated by this trade-off. It consists of two chapters. Chapter 2 sheds light on the competitive effects of killer acquisitions by extending the theoretical model of Cunningham et al. (2021). It examines how an acquiring firm's post-acquisition divestiture incentive is affected by the nature of competition, how the divestiture strategy impacts the likelihood of killer acquisitions, and what …

‘Aging In Place’ Or ‘Stuck In Place’? The Aging In Place Experiences Of Older Adults In A Gentrifying Neighborhood In Hong Kong, Ho Wing Lau

Lingnan Theses and Dissertations (MPhil & PhD)

Urbanization and population aging are two of the most critical global trends in the 21st century. In particular, the aging experiences of older adults living in gentrified urban areas has raised the attention of scholars from various disciplines. Urban aging concerns how and why some older adults can thrive in urban life while others are struggling to adapt. Hong Kong is experiencing ‘double aging’ —an aging population and a large scale of aging buildings, which make it particularly challenging to strike a balance between urban renewal and preservation of the community for older adults to age in place. The challenges …

China’S Rise And Technology Denials : A Study Of Variations In Allies’ Cooperation With The United States, Cheuk Ling Pong

Lingnan Theses and Dissertations (MPhil & PhD)

US and its allies worked closely to deny the USSR’s access to advanced technologies during the Cold War. In addition to multilateral mechanisms such as CoCom, they also took similar unilateral measures despite disputes between them. Yet, compared to the US-Soviet strategic rivalry, US-allies cooperation over technology denials against China is much less coordinated. Allies have not only taken different unilateral policies but also shown major disputes with the US. Allies’ unsynchronized and inconsistent unilateral technology transfer policies and the absence of multilateral institutions similar to the CoCom demonstrate the looseness in current US cooperation with allies in the China …

Inclusive Development For Social Integration : A Capability Approach To Youth-Oriented Active Labour Market Policies (Almps), Paul Ogwang Tulibaleka

Lingnan Theses and Dissertations (MPhil & PhD)

Sub-Saharan Africa is currently experiencing a youth bulge that is expected to continue growing for a few decades. Uganda, one of the countries with the highest youth population uses an approach that emphasises education and skills development (human capital approach) alongside promoting self-employment and youth entrepreneurship in response to the labour market and employment challenges experienced by the youth. In Uganda, vocational education and training (VET), youth entrepreneurship funds, job search assistance and career guidance address unemployment and the lack of required labour market skills. However, this approach emphasises education and skills, yet the youth are treated as a homogenous …

Evaluation Of Preview Cues To Enhance Recall Of Auditory Sequential Information, Tsz Chun Marco Lau

Lingnan Theses and Dissertations (MPhil & PhD)

Background: In previous work, an auditory vital sign display of five patients was developed. Sounds denoting the vital signs of each patient were delivered in order, with a special sound for any patient whose vital signs were all normal. Although the display was effective, accuracy decreased as the number of abnormal patients increased. We wondered whether accuracy would improve with a preview sound indicating the number of patients with abnormal vital signs in the upcoming sequence by reducing working memory load. We also wondered whether the preview sound would affect the performance of responding to concurrent task.

Methods: A 3 …

Dilemmas, Reactivity And Paper Support : The Support Conceptualisations And Experiences Of Students With Disabilities In Ghanaian Higher Education, Sarah Tara Sam

Lingnan Theses and Dissertations (MPhil & PhD)

Support is considered crucial for all higher education (HE) students including students with disabilities (SWDs). Disability support in higher educational institutions (HEIs) bridges resulting gaps from disabling barriers between the achievement of SWDs and their peers, while benefiting all students. Hence, the call for mainstreaming support for SWDs in HE. The drive towards widening access and participation in the Ghanaian educational system is evidenced in current educational policies including the Inclusive Education (IE) policy. However, scant literature exists on SWDs’ conceptualisations and experiences of support stemming from inclusive HE and its related policy in Ghana.

This study aimed at hearing …

Entertainment Media, Propaganda, And Popular Support : Evidence From China, Shouzhi Xia

Lingnan Theses and Dissertations (MPhil & PhD)

Is it possible to form “soft authoritarianism” that manages citizens by taking away their sense of resistance? Taking China as a case, this dissertation suggests that the rise of entertainment media in authoritarian states enables the rulers to maintain their resilience through a soft approach, thereby avoiding costly heavy-handed measures. Such a soft approach can work because entertainment media, like “fictitious pleasure drugs,” undoes audiences’ sophistication so that people are susceptible to official propaganda.

We provide two pieces of evidence that the Chinese authorities may use entertainment media as a subtle means to manage society. First, analyzing the Weibo posting …

Subject Formation In Hong Kong’S “Alternative Communities”, 2010-2020, Chor See Chan

Lingnan Theses and Dissertations (MPhil & PhD)

This research explores the history and development of the concept “community” in Hong Kong from the late colonial period to date, aiming to show the complex understanding of this ambiguous term. Responding to the (colonial) government’s invention of community as a means of control, there have been different types of bottom-up intervention that have sought to re-define the meaning of that concept. My research focuses on one of these attempts that emerged in the 2010s during the new social movements in Hong Kong. This attempt has been to create what I call “alternative communities”, in which members intentionally build communities …

“We Are Parents” : Changing Constructions Of Fatherhood And Fathering In Urban Zambia, Aurick Mubita

Lingnan Theses and Dissertations (MPhil & PhD)

There is ample evidence that the conceptualization of fatherhood and the involvement of fathers in families is changing in many societies. However, in sub-Saharan African countries, dedicated studies on fatherhood are still very limited and in Zambia, a review of literature showed that they are non-existent. To address this gap, this study used the framework of masculine compromise to explore the ways in which fatherhood is conceptualized, practiced, and negotiated in view of existing masculinity and fatherhood discourses. The study also examined how fathers dealt with existing discrepancies between their everyday fathering practices and cultural expectations. It also considered conditions …

The Roles Of Growth Mindset And Rational Beliefs As Personal Resources On Employees’ Job Performance And Work Engagement : Applying The Job Demands-Resources Model In The Greater Bay Area, Nuoxun Lin

Lingnan Theses and Dissertations (MPhil & PhD)

The purpose of the thesis is to investigate certain kinds of personal resources, especially growth mindset and rational beliefs, that could equip employees who work and live in the Greater Bay Area (GBA) to enhance their job performance to face a competitive and everchanging workplace.

The current research consists of three studies: Study 1 (N = 801, 61.5% female) was a cross-sectional survey which examined the structural validity and relationships between growth mindset, rational beliefs, work engagement, and job performance in the motivational path of the JD-R model. We collected data from Hong Kong and mainland China. Study 2 (N …

Towards Satu Bangsa : A Reevaluation Of The Race-Based Narrative And Its Impact On Chinese Communities In Malaysia, Chun Lean Lim

Lingnan Theses and Dissertations (MPhil & PhD)

Pakatan Harapan has terminated Barisan Nasional’s 61-year rule in Malaysia through the ballot box in the 2018 14th General Election (GE14) of Malaysia. The regime change did not happen overnight; it resulted from (a) the democratization progress in Malaysia over decades, (b) the exposure of corruption and crime related to top tier government officials, and (c) the changing political landscape of Malay political parties. Criticism from the people and its coalition and party overwhelmed Najib Razak and Barisan Nasional. On the other hand, Pakatan Harapan successfully incorporated all the opposition voices to vote against Najib’s regime, but the opposition front, …

The Relationship Between Rumination And Metacognition : Application Of An Innovative Signal-Detection Approach, Chak Man Tang

Lingnan Theses and Dissertations (MPhil & PhD)

Rumination, a stable vulnerability marker of depression, is associated with lack of affective bias towards positive information due to cognitive control deficit. However, whether ruminators are self-aware remains unknown. Based on the signal-detection approach, the present study examined metacognition associated with rumination. Specifically, metacognitive sensitivity, the extent to which one’s confidence tracks task performance, was measured using the meta-d’ method. In three directed-forgetting memory experiments, the present research examined whether trait rumination (Experiment 1) and interaction between trait rumination and mood state (Experiments 2 and 3) influenced metacognitive sensitivity. Participants were asked to either forget or remember some affective pictures …

Tracing The Roots Of Disjunction : Dutertismo And The Discourse Of Liberal Democracy In The Philippines, Kristine Marie Tayo Reynaldo

Lingnan Theses and Dissertations (MPhil & PhD)

This dissertation examines Dutertismo as an event in the context of what it put forwards as the problem-spaces of Philippine postcolonial modernity: nationalism, democracy, and development. Specifically, it investigates the substance of the contemporary disjunction between the discourse of liberal democracy, which often frames critiques of Dutertismo, and Philippine social experience. Its objective is to examine the underlying causes of the democratic "crisis" that Dutertismo represents, both material/structural and discursive/ideological.

“Dutertismo,” a populist political movement and discourse, is characterized by its subversion of the inherited norms and mores of Philippine society, and consolidation of popular support for a charismatic leader …

The Influences Of Academic Discipline On Work-Based Learning : The Case Of Hong Kong, Yeuk Nam Ng

Lingnan Theses and Dissertations (MPhil & PhD)

Commonly known as student internship, work-based learning stands at the intersection of work and education, and possesses distinctive features worthy of sociological analysis. Previous studies on work-based learning have focused on the tension and conflicts between student interns, the university and the host organisation. A common problem is to treat student interns as a homogenous group, without taking into account their academic backgrounds when scrutinizing the experiences and outcomes of work-based learning. This research aims to overcome this problem by drawing upon the studies of “horizontal stratification” in the sociology of education, which set out to explain the differences in …

Materialities, Discourses, And Entanglements In Gendered Decision-Making And Practices : An Ethnographic Account Of ‘Fish Mammy’ Households In Ghana, Moses Adjei

Lingnan Theses and Dissertations (MPhil & PhD)

Critical feminist scholars have challenged essentialist understandings of gender inequality and the use of discourses to categorize men as superior to women. For critics however, a focus on discourse equally limits our understanding of the role of materialities (human and non-human) in co-creating such social outcomes. Using a new feminist materialist approach, this thesis examines the factors which create opportunities for and obstacles to women’s participation in household and community-based fishery decision-making and practices in Ghana. The study adopts an ethnographic approach using multi-methods including a cross-sectional survey of 400 female fisherfolk, 48 in-depth interviews with female fisherfolk, male fisherfolk …

How Do Contracting, Co-Production And Politics Affect Road Maintenance Efficiency : The Case Of Uganda, Miriam Nabawanga Katunze

Lingnan Theses and Dissertations (MPhil & PhD)

The thesis consists of three papers. The first paper examines the effect of contracting out on the quality of road maintenance services using panel data. Selection bias has been controlled by accounting for the year, region, and topography. The results reveal a positive effect of contracting out on the quality of road maintenance. The findings are robust to alternative model specifications including transformations of some control variables and heterogeneous analyses based on the road length and the residential status. We propose training and providing contractors with incentives to impact the state of roads positively. The second paper considers that politics …

Security Imperative Of The Belt And Road Initiative : A Comparative Study Of Malaysia And Pakistan, Mateena Hammad

Lingnan Theses and Dissertations (MPhil & PhD)

There is a misconception that the Belt and Road Initiative is a grand economic scheme meant to expand Beijing’s influence in the region by attracting smaller states into the Initiative with abundant financial investment, but ultimately overwhelming them in a “debt trap”. Much attention has been given to China’s geopolitical gains and motives as the chief stakeholder of the Initiative, but there is a significant gap in the understanding of the member countries as stakeholders with their own objectives and strategies, instead assumed to be vulnerable to Beijing’s plans and only hopeful for economic development. This dissertation aims to explain …