Place and Environment Commons^™

Public Cleanliness Satisfaction Survey 2023, Paulin Straughan, Mathews Mathew

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The Singapore Management University undertook the sixth wave of the Public Cleanliness Satisfaction Survey (PCSS) with 2,010 Singapore residents providing responses to the survey from November 2023 to January 2024.

Similar to the findings from the 2022 wave of PCSS, the 2023 wave of the PCSS continued to reflect an overall satisfaction with public cleanliness in Singapore. Majority of survey respondents (94%) were satisfied with the cleanliness of public spaces that they had recently visited, which was an increase of 2% from 2022. Satisfaction with the cleanliness of food outlets saw the largest increase (by 3%) among all location types, …

Disrupting The Grid: Encountering Fire And Smoke Through Energy Infrastuctures, Deepti Chatti, Sayd Randle

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Experiences of fires are mediated by energy infrastructures and refracted through social inequality and difference. In California, a state marked by increasingly intense and frequent wildfires, the grid is a source of fire risk, with historically marginalized groups bearing the brunt of exposures to wildfire smoke. Drawing on research conducted by one of the co-authors in collaboration with California’s Karuk Tribe and Blue Lake Rancheria Tribes, this empirically grounded review article expands our understanding of grids. Extant scholarship presents the grid as a networked infrastructure mediating access to energy and one’s relationship to a collective and the state. We extend …

Neighbourhood Satisfaction And Networks Among Older Adults In Singapore, Rachel Ngu, Micah Tan, William Tov

ROSA Research Briefs

The built and social environment surrounding one’s place of residence is an important factor that shapes well-being and quality of life. This is especially so for older adults as their sphere of mobility decreases and their functional capacity may decline as they age, making their immediate environment more vital in shaping their lives. Studies have established the importance and impact of the physical environment on health and well-being of older adults across various communities (Addae-Dapaah 2008; Alidoust and Bosman 2015; Gale et al. 2011; Oswald et al. 2007). A study on older adults in Singapore found that living environment and …

Public Cleanliness Satisfaction Survey 2022, Paulin Straughan, Mathews Mathew

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The Singapore Management University undertook the fifth wave of the Public Cleanliness Satisfaction Survey (PCSS) with 2,020 Singapore residents providing responses to the survey from July to October 2022, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

The 2022 wave of the PCSS continued to reflect an overall satisfaction with public cleanliness in Singapore, similar to the last PCSS in 2021. Majority of survey respondents (92%) were satisfied with the cleanliness of public spaces that they had recently visited, with no change from 2021. Satisfaction with the cleanliness of food outlets saw the largest decrease (by 2.1%) among all location types, to 82.7%. Nevertheless, …

Religious Stewardship And Pro-Environmental Action: The Mediating Roles Of Environmental Guilt And Anger, Shu Tian Ng, Kimin Eom

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Past research has found that stewardship belief can motivate pro-environmentalism among religious individuals. The present study investigates the emotional pathways linking religious stewardship belief and pro-environmental policy support. In an online experiment conducted with Christians in the United States (N = 604), we experimentally primed stewardship belief (N = 195) using a video that highlighted the human responsibility to care for God’s creations. We also included a control condition (N = 206) and a religion condition (N = 203), which presented a more generic religious message. As demonstrated in a mediation model, the stewardship manipulation (vs. …

Hawker Culture And Its Infrastructure: Experiences And Contestations In Everyday Life, Lily Kong, Aidan Marc Wong

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Hawker foods characterize urban Asia, with similarities and differences across cities that forge both cultural commonalities and distinctions. From the itinerant to the fixed location, from the temporary sites to the purposebuilt, hawker foods are served in informal settings, with varying degrees of tradition and innovation, hygiene and squalidness, local authenticity and globalized influence. In the side-streets of Beijing where local delicacies such as scorpion are served, to the abundant food cart vendors on Bangkok streets, to the warung (small, typically family-owned eateries) in Surabaya, and the carefully planned and designed hawker centres in Singapore, hawker culture is a distinctive

The Political Ecology Of Death: Chinese Religion And The Affective Tensions Of Secularised Burial Rituals In Singapore, Quan Gao, Orlando Woods, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper explores the political ecology of death and the affective tensions of secularised burial rituals in Singapore. Although scholars have recently acknowledged the roles of biopower and affect in shaping environmental politics, religion and death as socio-affective forces have not been substantively engaged with by political ecologists. We argue that death is inherently both a spiritual and ecological phenomenon, as it exposes not only the spiritual geographies that structure how people see the natural world, but also the affective tensions and struggles over what counts as a “proper” form of burial in relation to religion and nature. First, we …

Iskandar Malaysia: International Education Hub For Japanese?, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

A few hundred Japanese families have made Johor Bahru home in the pursuit of English fluency and Global Cultural Capital for their children

Where We Are From Matters: Assessing The Impact Of Immigrants On Firm Environmental Performance, Narae Lee

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This study examines the impact of immigrant populations on firm environmental performance. Leveraging a longitudinal dataset of more than 11,000 manufacturing facilities in the US in which I match the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) facility toxic emissions data with the location’s census immigration data, I document the negative impact of local immigrant populations on a facility’s environmental performance, which strengthens as heterogeneity among immigrant increases. I argue that this is because a more heterogeneous community is less cohesive and hence less capable of organizing effective pressures against pollution. Further, I show that because co-nationality links create unique bonds between the …

Important To Me And My Society: How Culture Influences The Roles Of Personal Values And Perceived Group Values In Environmental Engagements Via Collectivistic Orientation, Tengjiao Huang, Angela K. Y. Leung, Kimin Eom, Kam Pong Tam

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Despite extensive works examining the influence of personal values on environmental engagements, scarce research has examined the influence of group values that are perceived as important in the society. To address this lacuna and recent calls for more cross-cultural environmental research, we investigated whether and how culture, via collectivistic orientation, influences the roles of personal values and perceived group values, namely egoistic and biospheric values, in motivating environmental engagements in a Western (the U.S.; N = 469) and an Asian (Singapore; N = 410) country. To highlight a few findings, the study showed that personal values and perceived group values …

The Moderating Effect Of Solar Radiation On The Association Between Human Mobility And Covid-19 Infection In Europe, Wenyu Zhao, Yongjian Zhu, Jingui Xie, Zhichao Zheng, Haidong Luo, Oon Cheong Ooi

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has caused a global pandemic. Some studies have suggested a negative association between sunlight intensity and COVID-19 infection, alluding to the belief that it might be safe to go out on sunny days. This paper examined whether solar radiation mitigated the association between human mobility and COVID-19 infection in Europe using a dynamic panel data model to investigate the effect of human mobility, solar radiation, and their interaction on COVID-19 infection. The results revealed that outgoing mobility was positively correlated and solar radiation was negatively correlated with COVID-19 infection at lag levels of 1, …

Reply To Komatsu Et Al.: From Local Social Mindfulness To Global Sustainability Efforts?, N. J. Van Doesum, R. O. Murphy, M. Gallucci, E. Aharonov-Majar, U. Athenstaedt, W. T. Au, L. Bai, R. Böhm, I. Bovina, N. R. Buchan, X. P. Chen, K. B. Dumont, J. B. Engelmann, K. Eriksson, Li, Norman P., S. Fiedler, J. Friesen, S. Gächter, C. Garcia, R. González

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Komatsu et al. (1) argue that Van Doesum et al. (2) may have overlooked the role of GDP in reporting a positive association between social mindfulness (SoMi) and the Environmental Performance Index (EPI) at country level. Although the relationship between EPI and SoMi is relatively weaker for countries with higher GDP, that does not imply that the overall observed relationship is a statistical artifact. Rather, it implies that GDP may be a moderator of the relationship between EPI and SoMi. The observed correlation is a valid result on average across countries, and the actual effect size would, at least to …

Accounting For A Hopeful World, Themin Suwardy

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

In a commentary, SMU Associate Provost for Postgraduate Professional Education and Associate Professor of Accounting (Practice) Themin Suwardy noted that environmental reporting has become more common in the last 10 years and that companies are embracing sustainability reporting despite the challenging myriad of seemingly different models, frameworks and regulations. He opined that the IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards to be issued by the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) will enable companies to provide comprehensive sustainability information for the global financial markets. He urged accounting professionals to embrace the development wholeheartedly and to help organisations do and report good.

Focus On Sustainable Cities: Urban Solutions Toward Desired Outcomes, M. Georgescu, M. Arabi, Winston T. L. Chow, E. Mack, K. C. Seto

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Urbanization represents the single most impactful and long-lasting transformation of the Earth system since the dawn of civilization. Cities are simultaneously locations of innovation, social connectivity, and wealth, but they also create local-to-global environmental degradation and socioeconomic disparities. For example, food provision for cities has required significant land-use change and fertilizer input, has altered regional climate, biogeochemical cycles, and degraded marine and landscapes through biodiversity loss, algal blooms and fish kills. To maintain urban livelihoods and the provision of goods and services, cities require vast amounts of energy (e.g. to provide access to transport, cooling systems), which are massive producers …

Framing Asian Atmospheres: Imperial Weather Science And The Problem Of The Local C.1880–1950, Fiona Williamson

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

It would be of the greatest importance to meteorology’, noted the editor of the Singapore Chronicle in 1829, ‘if a set of hourly meteorological observations could be instituted at Calcutta, Bombay, Madras, Singapore, Malacca, and some station on the elevated plains of Hindostan’. 1 Of course, the author’s comments speak from a uniquely imperial perspective, whereby such observations would benefit the colonial service of – in this case – the British Empire, enabling enhanced knowledge of imperial atmospheres and the related economic and scientific benefits that this could bring. That meteorology was closely linked to empire and imperial control has …

Public Cleanliness Satisfaction Survey 2021, Paulin Straughan, Mathews Mathew

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The Singapore Management University undertook the fourth wave of the Public Cleanliness Satisfaction Survey (PCSS) with 2,007 Singapore resident respondents providing responses to the survey from February 2021 to May 2021, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

The 2021 wave of the PCSS continued to reflect the overall satisfaction with public cleanliness in Singapore, similar to the last PCSS in 2019. Majority of survey respondents (92%) were satisfied with the cleanliness of public spaces that they had recently visited, a 1% decrease from the findings in 2019.

There was a substantial drop in satisfaction with the cleanliness of food outlets, with a …

When A Pandemic Disrupts The Export Of People, Yasmin Y. Ortiga, Karen Anne S. Liao

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Yasmin Ortiga and Karen Anne S. Liao conducted research supported by the SSRC on the dramatic disruptions that Filipino labor migrants experienced as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the support (or lack thereof) of their plight by the Filipino state. Arguing that labor as well as commodity supply chains have been thrown in upheaval, the authors describe the limits of the Philippines’ labor export strategy. In particular, they focus on two sets of labor migrants—nurses unable to take jobs abroad, and repatriated cruise ship workers—for whom dignified work at home was unavailable. Ortiga and Liao conclude that treating …

Are Native Plants Green? Assessing Environmental Performances Of Locally-Owned Facilities, Narae Lee, Jiao Luo

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We study the impact of corporate ownership and community conditions on firm environmental pollution. While the existing literature often thinks of environmental pollution as a unitary construct, we emphasize the distinction between toxic emissions, which have immediate but locally bounded impact, and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions which have gradual but global impact, producing climate change. Using a facility-level panel of all manufacturing facilities in the US from 2010-2018, and leveraging within-facility changes in ownership status, we show that locally owned firms have lower levels of toxic emissions, but they are also less likely to report GHG emissions, and have higher …

Beliefs And Social Norms As Precursors Of Environmental Support: The Joint Influence Of Collectivism And Socioeconomic Status, David K. Sherman, John A. Updegraff, Michelle S. Handy, Kimin Eom, Heejung S. Sim

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The present research investigates how the cultural value of collectivism interacts with socioeconomic status (SES) to influence the basis of action. Using a U.S. national sample (N = 2,538), the research examines how these sociocultural factors jointly moderate the strength of two precursors of environmental support: beliefs about climate change and perceived descriptive norms. SES and collectivism interacted with climate change beliefs such that beliefs predicted environmental support (i.e., proenvironmental behaviors and policy support) more strongly for those who were high in SES and low in collectivism than for all other groups. This interaction was explained, in part, by sense …

Haptic Heritage And The Paradox Of Provenance Within Singapore's Cottage Food Businesses, Orlando Woods, John A. Donaldson

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper offers a “more-than-representational” understanding of how heritage value is reproduced by cottage food businesses in Singapore. It advances the notion of haptic heritage to highlight the importance of touch and feel in inculcating food with a sense of heritage value. Haptic heritage is reproduced through the physical handling of ingredients in ways that contribute to more “authentic” products. However, it also foregrounds food production processes that are more tactile, time-consuming and thus unscalable than their automated counterparts. Accordingly, the reproduction of haptic heritage is becoming increasingly unviable in Singapore’s competitive economic landscape. These ideas are explored through a …

Enabling Singapore's Youths To Adapt In An Era Of Climate Change, Thomas Menkhoff, Mark Chong, Benjamin Gan

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Nudging them towards more eco-friendly behavioural habits is arguably a feasible approach to build greater climate resilience.

Project Coolbit: Can Your Watch Predict Heat Stress And Thermal Comfort Sensation?, Negin Nazarian, Sijie Liu, Manon Kohler, Jason Lee, Clayton Miller, Winston T. L. Chow, S. B. B. Alhadad, Alberto Martilli, Matias Quintana, Lindsey Sunden, Lindsey Norford

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Global climate is changing as a result of anthropogenic warming, leading to higher daily excursions of temperature in cities. Such elevated temperatures have great implications on human thermal comfort and heat stress, which should be closely monitored. Current methods for heat exposure assessments (surveys, microclimate measurements, and laboratory experiments), however, present several limitations: measurements are scattered in time and space and data gathered on outdoor thermal stress and comfort often does not include physiological and behavioral parameters. To address these shortcomings, Project Coolbit aims to introduce a human-centric approach to thermal comfort assessments. In this study, we propose and evaluate …

Sociological Perspectives On Climate Change And Society: A Review, Md Saidul Islam, Edson Kieu

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Society is at an important intersection in dealing with the challenges of climate change, and this paper is presented at a critical juncture in light of growing recognition that the natural sciences are insufficient to deal with these challenges. Critical aspects of sociological perspectives related to climate change research are brought together in this review in the hope of fostering greater interdisciplinary collaboration between the natural and social sciences. We fervently argue for the need to inculcate interdisciplinary approaches that can provide innovative perspectives and solutions to the challenges we face from the impacts of climate change. As such, some …

Performance-Based Iadl Evaluation Of Older Adults With Cognitive Impairment Within A Smart Home: A Feasibility Study, Iris Rawtaer, Khalid Abdul Jabbar, Xiao Liu, Thit Thit Htat Ying, Anh Thuy Giang, Philip Lin Kiat Yap, Rachel Chin Yee Cheong, Hwee-Pink Tan, Pius Lee Wei Qi, Shiou Liang Wee, Tze Pin Ng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Introduction Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is characterized by subtle deficits that functional assessment via informant-report measures may not detect. Sensors can potentially detect deficits in everyday functioning in MCI. This study aims to establish feasibility and acceptability of using sensors in a smart home for performance-based assessments of two instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs). Methods Thirty-five older adults (>65 years) performed two IADL tasks in a smart home laboratory equipped with sensors and a web camera. Participants' cognitive states were determined using published criteria including measures of global cognition and comprehensive neuropsychological test batteries. Selected subtasks of the …

Consumption, Annika Marie Rieger, Juliet B. Schor

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Consumption is a major contributor to environmental degradation and change. However, it was not until 1992—at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development—that consumption was seriously addressed by the global community. The consensus that emerged was that the global South had a “population” problem and the global North had a “consumption,” or more correctly, an “overconsumption” problem. It proved to be a durable formulation. Within environmental sociology, the prominence of the IPAT (Impact = Population × Affluence × Technology) equation (Ehrlich & Holdren, 1971) has contributed to this framing of the environment/consumption relation, although the rise of a global …

Religiosity Moderates The Link Between Environmental Beliefs And Pro-Environmental Support: The Role Of Belief In A Controlling God, Kimin Eom, Carmel S. Saad, Heejung S. Kim

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The current research examines differences in what motivates environmentally sustainable behavior between more and less religious people in the United States. We found that religiosity moderates the extent to which environmental beliefs predict pro-environmental support. Specifically, environmental beliefs predicted pro-environmental support less strongly among more religious people than less religious people (Studies 1 and 2). Using a correlational (Study 2) and an experimental (Study 3) design, we further found that one particular aspect of religiosity—believing in a controlling god—reduced the importance of personally held environmental beliefs in shaping one’s support for pro-environmental actions. Our findings suggest that motivation to act …

Crisis And Connection, Qiuyi Tan, Christy Davis, Dalvin Sidhu, Tania Nagpaul

Lien Centre for Social Innovation: Research

COVID-19 has bridged a longstanding disconnect between Singapore’s resident and migrant populations, showing that the health and well-being of everyone are linked in a pandemic. This paper reviews the available research on low-wage migrant workers in Singapore and unpacks the challenges using design thinking and its human-centred ethos. Transformative social change often starts with knowledge and understanding. We map out the research so you can use it.

Archives Of Societies And Historical Climatology In East And Southeast Asia, Fiona Williamson, Qing Pei

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Major sources of social archives for paleoclimatology in East and Southeast Asia include ancient annals and chronicles, instrumental records from government, military or missionary bodies, and private records such as diaries. Records are rich but scattered and of inconsistent quality, often requiring different forms of cross-validation and homogenization from those in the Western world. This article discusses these source types.

Public Cleanliness Satisfaction Survey [2019], Paulin Straughan, Mathews Mathew

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The Singapore Management University undertook the third wave of the Public Cleanliness Satisfaction Survey (PCSS) with 1716 Singapore resident respondents providing responses before the start of the Circuit Breaker.

The 2019 wave of the PCSS continued to reflect the overall satisfaction with public cleanliness in Singapore. Satisfaction with cleanliness and cleaning services has improved substantially across all domains.

Ninety three percent of survey respondents were satisfied with the cleanliness of public spaces that they had recently visited, a 9% increase from the findings in 2018.

There was a substantial increase in satisfaction with the cleanliness of food and beverage (F&B) …

Covid-19 And Procrastination: The Struggle To Stay Motivated In A Pandemic, Singapore Management University

Social Space

COVID-19 has led to the cancellation of countless internships, travel plans, summer jobs, music concerts and festivals, graduations, conferences, you name it. Fixed deadlines have become fluid, and both short-term and long-term goals are presently at the mercy of something far beyond our control. In the face of a global pandemic, we may find ourselves wondering, “Why bother planning for anything anyway?" Yet this very mindset is the crux of the coronavirus procrastination problem, says CHARDONNAY NEEDLER.