Business Commons^™

Hall Family Collection - Index To Appendix 1, "Letters From The Attic" And Appendix 2, Postcards, Kyle Ainsworth

Librarian and Staff Presentations

The Hall Family Collection can generally be described in two parts. The first part is Letters from the Attic, which are more than 5,000 documents that Andrena Hall Brunotte transcribed into 16 volumes. Brunotte’s transcription project established an “original order” to this part of the collection that the processing archivist does their best to adhere to. All of these materials were found in one large steamer trunk and organized by Brunotte in chronological order. Boxes 1 to 4 of the collection house the paper transcriptions (3,330 pages). Boxes 5 to 13 contain the documents, which are in chronological order. The …

Walt Disney And China: How Glocalization Shaped Shanghai Disneyland, Becca Maclellan

Modern Languages, Philosophy and Classics Theses

This thesis applies the glocalization theory to a comparative study of the Disney theme parks in the United States and Shanghai, China. It argues that Walt Disney’s glocalization through integrating Chinese culture into the Shanghai Disney theme park brought commercial success to the company. Additionally, it also set up a good example for other businesses interested in global expansion.

Capitalism With Chinese Characteristics: An Ethnographic Study Of Transnational Chinese Corporate Culture In Southeast Asia, David A. Dayton

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Starting in 2001, China’s Going Out policy has encouraged Multinational Corporations (MNCs) and expats from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to participate in the global economy at an unprecedented rate. Tens of thousands of Chinese businesses and millions of expats now span the globe. Despite the addition of this large, recent, and influential population to global capitalism there is little academic work on PRC corporate cultures or expats outside of China. Even in Thailand, home to the largest Chinese community outside of China/Taiwan, there is almost no corporate culture anthropology and no systemic study of recent Chinese business behaviors. …

The Role Of The Chinese Communist Party In The Covid-19 Crisis, Matthew Farrell

Management Faculty Publications

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has received plaudits from international press and organizations for their handling of the COVID-19 crisis, with some describing it as a win for China in terms of propaganda. In this essay, I explore an alternative view: That the CCP is responsible for the origin and extent of the pandemic, and that much of their perceived altruism is carefully disguised opportunism and propaganda. Facts are drawn from scholarly work and the popular press to support my arguments. This essay carries strong implications for interpretation of recent events.

The Relocation Of Supply Chains From China And The Impact On The Chinese Economy, Shaomin Li

Management Faculty Publications

The U.S.-China trade war has had a huge impact on the supply chains in China, accelerating their relocation that had already begun due to rising taxes, costs of labor, and other input factors. The exodus reported in the past year is only the tip of the iceberg, as more serious effects will not become apparent immediately. A major effect of the relocation on China is job losses, which may reach as many as 5 million in the coming years. Given the unlikeliness of a quick end to the trade war and the reluctance of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to …

Tattoos In East Asia: Conforming To Individualism, Morgan Macfarlane

Summer Research

Although Japan, South Korea, and China share a similar history of tattoo criminality spanning thousands of years, in modern times they all hold different legal policies concerning the practice of tattooing. South Korea has the strictest laws, requiring a medical doctorate to legally tattoo, while Japan has only recently reaffirmed the legality of the practice outside of health professionals. China, on the other hand, has few restrictions on body art. This paper explores this interesting difference via observational fieldwork in the major cities of Tokyo, Seoul, Shanghai and Beijing as well as interviews with local people within and outside the …

How To Be The Perfect Asian Wife!, Sophia Hill

Art and Art History Honors Projects

“How to be the Perfect Asian Wife” critiques exploitative power systems that assault female bodies of color in intersectional ways. This work explores strategies of healing and resistance through inserting one’s own narrative of flourishing rather than surviving, while reflecting violent realities. Three large drawings mimic pervasive advertisement language and presentation reflecting the oppressive strategies used to contain women of color. Created with charcoal, watercolor, and ink, these 'advertisements' contrast with an interactive rice bag filled with comics of my everyday experiences. These documentations compel viewers to reflect on their own participation in systems of power.

What Drives Consumers In China To Buy Clothing Online? Application Of The Technology Acceptance Model, Zhenqian Wei, Min-Young Lee, Hong Shen

Retailing and Tourism Management Faculty Publications

An enormous number of Internet users have made China a profitable e-commerce marketplace, and clothing is one of the most frequently purchased items. This study explores the predictors of consumers’ motivation to buy clothing online in China by extending the technology acceptance model. Data were collected via an online questionnaire, resulting in 504 returned responses. The results indicate that perceived usefulness has a significant effect on consumers’ intention to buy clothing online; however, no direct relationship between perceived ease of use and buying intention was found. Furthermore, perceived convenience, perceived money saving, and perceived time-saving can explain why consumers perceive …

A Case Of Motivated Cultural Cognition: China's Normative Arbitration Of International Business Disputes, Pat K. Chew

Articles

The centuries-old conception of judges and arbitrators as highly predictable and objective is being dismantled. In its place, a much more textured, complicated, and challenging understanding of legal decision-making is being constructed. New research on “Motivated Cognition” demonstrates that judges and arbitrators are more human than mechanical, pouring themselves – and the cultural and institutional contexts within which they act – into their decision making. This article extends the emerging model of Motivated Cultural Cognition, a form of Motivated Cognition, to the global stage, investigating arbitration of business disputes between two world-powers: United States and China. Through a first-of-its-kind empirical …

Tour Guides Take Technology: Mobilizing The Coverage Process, Cassie Jes Jacob

Senior Honors Projects

Technology has progressed more in the past decade than it has in the past century, and it has changed the way we live. To succeed in this society, innovation is a necessity. A recent phenomenon in technology is the use of mobile applications designed to make our lives and daily activities, such as note-taking and scheduling, more convenient.

This project explores the use of mobile applications in a business. At URI, the Tour Guide team acts as a business that manages over 100 employees as they lead visits around campus for prospective students.

These employees are college-age students raised in …

The Construction Of Touristic Modernity In Xizhou, Katherine E. Benton

Student Publications

Tim Oakes’ (1998) concept of touristic modernity accurately describes how the Chinese national discourse surrounding tourism, as both a tool for economic growth and nation-building, has shaped what the local reality has become for many towns and villages in the peripheral regions of China, especially those with large populations of ethnic minorities. Specifically in the Dali Bai Autonomous Region, foreign tourism followed by nostalgia-fueled domestic tourism has transformed Dali into a commercialized tourist destination, which has begun to spill out to other towns around the lake such as Xizhou. Touristic modernity is not, however, a singular homogenous force that culturally …

The Choice Of Technology And Equilibrium Wage Rigidity, Haiwen Zhou

Economics Faculty Publications

In this general equilibrium model, firms engage in oligopolistic competition and choose increasing returns technologies to maximize profits. Capital and labor are the two factors of production. The existence of efficiency wages leads to unemployment. The model is able to explain some interesting observations of the labor market. First, even though there is neither long-term labor contract nor costs of wage adjustment, wage rigidity is an equilibrium phenomenon: an increase in the exogenous job separation rate, the size of the population, the cost of exerting effort, and the probability that shirking is detected will not change the equilibrium wage rate. …

From Heresy To Policy: My Prescription For China's Population Policy 25 Years Ago, Shaomin Li

Management Faculty Publications

Recently scholars have been calling for the loosening up of China's one-child policy, and even the Chinese government has begun to show some willingness to do so. The call is not new. In my doctoral dissertation 25 years ago I first showed that China should allow couples to have two children and could still achieve the same population control goal as the one-child policy. I am glad to see that what I proposed 25 years ago is repeated by many scholars and even acceptable to the Chinese government.

The Inevitable And Difficult Transition From Relation-Based To Rule-Based Governance In China, Shaomin Li

Management Faculty Publications

China has benefited tremendously from replying on the relation-based way of doing business and governance, as evidenced in its rapid economic growth up to now. However, further relying on the relation-based governance may eventually hinder China's economic growth and exacerbate inequality, resulting in political instability. On the other hand, given China's cultural heritage and powerful vested interest groups, can China shed its relation-based way? This article argues from logical, theoretical, and empirical perspectives the inevitability and difficulty of China's transition from relations to rules, and discuss the implications of the transition or the lack of it for China.

My Life As An Art Soldier In Mao's China: Art And Politics, Shaomin Li

Management Faculty Publications

The author narrates how in Mao's China his personal experience took unexpected turns when China dramatically transformed politically, economically, and culturally, and how in reacting to these overwhelming changes he evolved from the role of artist to student activist, businessman, political prisoner and academic. The article focuses on the relationship between art and politics in Mao's China and how the two evolved into what the author characterizes as "market communism" in today’s China.