Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Leading With Mindfulness: Exploring The Relation Of Mindfulness With Leadership Behaviors, Styles, And Development, Jochen Reb, Samantha Su-Hsien Sim, Kraivin Chintakananda, Devasheesh P. Bhave

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This chapter examines the complexities of mindfulness in leadership, exploring potential advantages and disadvantages of mindfulness for leaders. Such an inquiry is important for theoretical development but also has practical implications when considering the design of mindfulness training for leadership and other areas such as employee wellbeing. In the present discussion, we clarify the discussion on mindfulness by distinguishing between the dimensions of mindfulness -- that is present-moment attention, intentionality, attitude of self-compassion, witnessing awareness and clarity -- and suggest ways these dimensions affect leadership behaviors. We also distinguish between mindfulness as a construct and as a practice, to elucidate …

Communicating About Marine Disease: The Effects Of Message Frames On Policy Support, Katherine A. Mccomas, Jonathon P. Schuldt, Colleen A. Burge, Sungjong Roh

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Oceans are suffering from the dual climatic pressures of warming temperatures and acidification, increasing the presence of disease risks that affect marine organisms and public health. Through a randomized field-based experiment, this study examines the effects of communicating about risks to marine organisms and public health on people’s support for policies aimed at mitigating those risks as a function of different message frames. To maximize the salience of these issues, participants were recruited from ferry passengers (N1⁄4543) in the San Juan Islands of Washington State in the summer of 2013 and randomized to read one of four fictitious news articles …

Perceptions Of Social Norms Surrounding Digital Piracy: The Effect Of Social Projection And Communication Exposure On Injunctive And Descriptive Norms, Hichang Cho, Siyoung Chung, Anna Filippova

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Using a national sample of 620 Internet users in the US, this study examined the extent to which social projection, communication exposure, and an interaction between the two, influenced individuals’ perceptions about two subordinate types of social norms surrounding digital piracy: injunctive norms and descriptive norms. In line with the social projection model, individuals made social estimates about others’ piracy attitudes and behaviors anchoring on their own personal attitudes and behavior. However, frequent communication exposure reduced the degree to which they relied on this egocentric thought process. In addition, the two-way interaction was contingent on another condition (perceiver’s own piracy …

Alexander C. T. Geppert, Fleeting Cities: Imperial Expositions In Fin-De-Siècle Europe, Fiona Williamson

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

The classical exhibitions of fin-de-siècle Europe were a phenomenon unique to that age. Comprising astonishing feats of engineering, major investment and global participation, such exhibitions (or expositions) have been termed ‘laboratories of urban modernity’ (57) and ‘enterprises of national importance’ (202). Geppert’s ambitious and detailed comparative analysis of five protean exhibitions, or ‘cities within the city’ (221), staged in Berlin, London and Paris between 1896 and 1931, draws on the growing literature on space and place, and transnational and entangled networks. Exhibits such as native villages and historic city recreations, he explains, enabled visitors to pursue an imaginary journey through …

Energy For Development: The Concept, Holmes J., Terry Van Gevelt

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Worldwide, 1.3 billion people remain without access to electricity and 2.7 billion are still cooking on harmful and inefficient stoves1 . Many live in remote rural village communities, and until they have access to energy services, little progress can be made to develop and improve their lives2 . As United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has stated, “energy is the golden thread that connects economic growth, increased social equity, and an environment that allows the planet to thrive”3 . Improving the lives of rural communities by developing smart villages is a concept analogous to the more familiar smart cities. The vision …

Predictability Of Exchange Rates With Taylor Rule Fundamentals: Evidence From Inflation-Targeting Emerging Countries, Joseph D. Alba, Donghyun Park, Taojun Xie

Research Collection School Of Economics

We investigate the out-of-sample predictability of U.S. dollar exchange rates with Taylor rule fundamentals in thirteen emerging countries with inflation-targeting monetary policy regimes. We find some evidence of out-of-sample exchange rate predictability for Brazil, Czech Republic, Hungary, Philippines, Thailand, and South Africa. Plots of the coefficients of U.S. inflation and Philippine inflation predict the direction of the U.S. dollar-Philippine peso exchange rates to be opposite to that predicted by the Taylor principle.

J. Y. Pillay [Singapore, Civil Service], Joseph Yuvaraj Pillay

Digital Narratives of Asia

In this DNA interview, Chancellor of Singapore Management University and former top Singapore civil servant, J.Y. Pillay, tells of qualities of good leaders, and the leadership styles of his former bosses Hon Sui Sen and Goh Keng Swee. Known for being a leader who listens and focuses well, he reveals his process of making controversial decisions in the past.

Kaset Rojananil [Thailand, Royal Thai Armed Forces], Kaset Rojananil

Digital Narratives of Asia

Kaset Rojananil was the Supreme Commander of the Royal Thai Armed Forces during the Black May riots of 1992 and was involved in the 1991 coup to overthrow the government of Chatichai Choonhavan. He gives DNA his take on those events as well as what it takes to be a leader in the military.

Anan Kalinta [Thailand, Royal Thai Airforce], Anan Kalinta

Digital Narratives of Asia

Anan Kalinta was the Deputy Commander-in-Chief for the Royal Thai Airforce as well as Minister of the Interior in 1991-1992. He shares with DNA his thoughts about what it takes to be a leader in the military, as well as military intervention in politics.

Wang Gungwu [Hong Kong, Vice-Chancellor Hku, Historian], Wang Gungwu

Digital Narratives of Asia

Renown historian Wang Gungwu has helmed several academic institutions, including the University of Hong Kong (HKU) as Vice-Chancellor from 1986-1995. In this DNA interview, he tells of how he worked to help HKU manage the historic transition from colonial British rule to the Chinese "One-country-two-systems" rule, and along the way, grow the university's research side of the house as well.

Shaving India, Making Profits, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

Gillette was having trouble making inroads into the Indian grooming market for men...until they roped in the women

Caregiving In Singapore, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

Close familial relationships are crucial in caring for the elderly, disabled and disadvantaged but professionalising the caregiving industry is perhaps even more important

The Thailand Report: National Landscape, Current Challenges And Opportunities For Growth, Institute For Societal Leadership, John W. Ellington, Serene Chen

Institute of Societal Leadership Research Collection

Thai migrants first began trickling into the Chao Phraya river valley from Southern China in the eleventh century. Thai chieftains established petty kingdoms in modern-day Myanmar, Thailand and Laos, initially as tributaries to more established Burmese and Khmer rulers. However, both the diminishing influence of the Khmer Empire and the Mongols’ sacking of the Burmese capital Bagan in 1287 left a political vacuum in mainland Southeast Asia, which was soon filled by Thai kingdoms such as Sukhothai (1238–1463), Chiang Mai (1296–1775), Ayutthaya (1351–1767) and eventually Bangkok (f. 1 782). In the process, the up-and-coming Thai polities supplanted the Khmer Empire …

The Indonesia Report: National Landscape, Current Challenges And Opportunities For Growth, Institute For Societal Leadership, John W. Ellington

Institute of Societal Leadership Research Collection

A maritime analogue to the silk road running through Central Asia, the Indonesian archipelago was a key ancient trade route linking Chinese goods to markets in India and farther west into the Mediterranean. Its cosmopolitan ports attracted significant numbers of Arab, Indian and Chinese merchants and holy men and fostered the exchange of goods as well as cultural and religious ideas. Cultural appropriation had a clear Indian bias. Starting in the early eighth century, the various islands saw the rise and fall of several Indianised Buddhist and Hindu kingdoms, including Mataram, Singhasari and Majapahit in east Java and Srivijaya in …

Customer Satisfaction Index Of Singapore 2015: Q1 Results, Institute Of Service Excellence, Smu

Research Collection Institute of Service Excellence (2007-2024)

The Customer Satisfaction Index of Singapore (CSISG) computes customer satisfaction scores at the national, sector, sub-sector, and company levels. The CSISG serves as a quantitative benchmark of the quality of goods and services produced by the Singapore economy over time and across countries. 2015 is the CSISG’s ninth year of measurement.

Elderly Population In Singapore: Understanding Social, Physical And Financial Needs, John A. Donaldson, Catherine J. Smith, Balambigai Balakrishnan, Mumtaz Md Kadir, Sanushka Mudaliar

Lien Centre for Social Innovation: Research

Who are Singapore’s low-income elderly? What makes some resilient in the face of multiple challenges? What are their social needs that might be filled by additional interventions via civil society or government programmes? These are some of the questions this publication tries to understand.

It does so not by surveying the elderly, but via intensive interviews with 100 residents of one low-income neighbourhood in Singapore. Whereas surveys can help gather generalisable data, interviews can help us see the ‘story behind the story,’ illuminating potential causal connections and providing hints regarding possible effective ways to intercede. We followed this up with …

People With Physical Disabilities In Singapore: Understanding Disabling Factors In Caregiving, Education, Employment And Finances, Ranjana Raghunathan, Balambigai Balakrishnan, Catherine J. Smith, Mumtaz Md Kadir

Lien Centre for Social Innovation: Research

The publication concerns the unmet social needs of people with disabilities in Singapore. Researchers from the Lien Centre for Social Innovation, along with students from Singapore Management University, interviewed 100 people with disabilities over a period of several months. These in-depth interviews were designed to elicit detailed stories from the participants, which would inform our understanding of their needs and how services might be improved to better meet those needs.

The rich data collected from these interviews paints a picture of a community which has faced barriers in many spheres and stages of life. From major life issues like education …

Single-Parent Families In Singapore: Understanding The Challenges Of Finances, Housing And Time Poverty, Emma Glendinning, Catherine J. Smith, Mumtaz Md Md Kadir

Lien Centre for Social Innovation: Research

This publication documents the unmet social needs of single-parent families in Singapore. It specifically focuses on four key areas; employment and finance, housing, social networks and time poverty. In-depth, qualitative interviews were completed with 88 low-income single parents across Singapore. These interviews provided the opportunity to truly explore the stories of these single-parent families, displaying the complexity and interplay of the issues they faced.

Our findings display the huge responsibility that single parents carry as they balance the caregiving and financial needs of their family, alongside negotiating policies that are largely suggested to support the “traditional” family structure. While respecting …

Legal Risk And Investor Protection For Retail Investment Products: An Empirical Study Of Lawsuits Regarding Mutual Funds And Structured Notes In Taiwan, Christopher C. H. Chen

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This article analyses the results of 322 lawsuits regarding retail mutual funds and structured notes in Taiwan between 2000 and 2012 and their relationship with other factors such as investors’ personal characteristics, main arguments and causes of action. This article has the following major findings: (1) the winning rate for investors was quite low, meaning that banks face low legal risk from misselling claims; (2) investors were not better off by filing a complaint to the Banker’s Association; (3) we have not proved the courts showing preference for investors with certain personal traits due to limited information available; (4) a …

I Need To Be In Control: Motivations To Compensate Personal Control Threat Through Hierarchy Endorsement Among Individuals With Low Vs. High Relational Mobility, Lay See Ong

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Recent research on compensatory control indicate a motivation seek out external sources of control (e.g., hierarchical structures) when subjective control is threatened. As exiting/formation of interpersonal relationships within low relational mobility environments is likely to be beyond personal choice and may threaten subjective control, three studies were conducted to investigate whether the compensatory control account could explain the negative relationship found between hierarchy endorsement and low relational mobility. Study 1 provided initial evidence for the link; low personal-low environmental mobility individuals (vs. high personal-high environment mobility participants) were more likely to indicate higher internal control when they had higher (.vs …

Retail Precinct Management: A Case Of Commercial Decentralization In Singapore, Robert De Souza, Hoong Chuin Lau, Mark Goh, Lindawati, Wee-Siong Ng, Puay-Siew Tan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The synchronized last mile logistics concept seeks to address, through coordinated collaboration, several challenges that hinder reliability, cost efficiency, effective resource planning, scheduling and utilization; and increasingly, sustainability objectives. Subsequently, the meeting of service level and contractual commitments are competitively impacted with any loss of efficiency. These challenges, against a backdrop of Singapore, can essentially be addressed in selected industry sectors through a better understanding of logistics structures; innovative supply chain designs and coordination of services, operations and processes coupled with concerted policies and supply chain strategies.

Should We Use The Sample? Analyzing Datasets Sampled From Twitter's Stream Api, Yazhe Wang, Jamie Callan, Baihua Zheng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Researchers have begun studying content obtained from microblogging services such as Twitter to address a variety of technological, social, and commercial research questions. The large number of Twitter users and even larger volume of tweets often make it impractical to collect and maintain a complete record of activity; therefore, most research and some commercial software applications rely on samples, often relatively small samples, of Twitter data. For the most part, sample sizes have been based on availability and practical considerations. Relatively little attention has been paid to how well these samples represent the underlying stream of Twitter data. To fill …

Author Topic Model-Based Collaborative Filtering For Personalized Poi Recommendations, Shuhui Jiang, Xueming Qian, Jialie Shen, Yun Fu, Tao Mei

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

From social media has emerged continuous needs for automatic travel recommendations. Collaborative filtering (CF) is the most well-known approach. However, existing approaches generally suffer from various weaknesses. For example, sparsity can significantly degrade the performance of traditional CF. If a user only visits very few locations, accurate similar user identification becomes very challenging due to lack of sufficient information for effective inference. Moreover, existing recommendation approaches often ignore rich user information like textual descriptions of photos which can reflect users' travel preferences. The topic model (TM) method is an effective way to solve the "sparsity problem," but is still far …

The Adaptive Value Associated With Expressing And Perceiving Angry-Male And Happy-Female Faces, Peter Kay Chai Tay

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Facial expressions are valuable for conveying and understanding the inner thoughts and feelings of the expressor. However, the adaptive value associated with a specific expression on a male face is different from a female face. The present review uses a functional-evolutionary analysis to elucidate the evolutionary advantage in the expression and perception of angry-male and happy-female faces over angry-female and happy-male faces. For the expressors, it is more advantageous for men to show angry facial expression as it signals dominance, averts aggression and deters mate poaching; it is more advantageous for women to display happy facial expression as it signals …

What A ____ Thing To Do! Formally Characterizing Actions By Their Expected Effects, Dustin Wood, William Tov, Cory Costello

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

A number of personality frameworks assume traits describe central tendencies of action-for instance, calling someone assertive indicates they have a tendency to perform assertive actions. But what makes it appropriate to characterize an action by terms like assertive, kind, or honest? We propose that actions are characterized by such terms in large part by having expected effects on the environment which match particular conceptual templates. In the present studies, we attempt to better identify the expected effect dimensions perceivers seem to utilize to make action characterizations related to the Big Five and HEXACO personality dimensions. To do so, a set …

Pockets Of Participation: Bureaucratic Incentives And Participatory Irrigation Management In Thailand, Jacob Ricks

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Despite a history of participatory policies, Thailand’s Royal Irrigation Department (RID) has had little success in developing water user organisations (WUOs) capable of facilitating cooperation between farmers and the irrigation agency. Even so, pockets of participation exist. What can explain these rare successes? What policy lessons can they provide? Comparing nine WUOs, I identify factors that contribute to the emergence of relatively successful groups. Most importantly, I show that successful WUOs are contingent on the actions of local irrigation officials. These findings emphasise the important role of street-level bureaucrats in implementing participatory policies. The incentive structures provided by the RID, …

Lets Talk About Commitment, David Chan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In an invited commentary, SMU Behavioural Sciences Institute Director Professor David Chan discussed three types of commitment, namely instrumental, normative and emotional, and related them to citizenship and local-foreigner relations. On the commitment to one’s country, Prof Chan noted that citizens with high levels of normative or emotional commitment are more likely to support policies that benefit the nation, even if they mean some personal cost, while the reverse is true for citizens dominated by the “need to” instrumental commitment.

Smu Bags Two Global Award Wins In Efmd Case Writing Competition, Singapore Management University

SMU Press Releases and News

Singapore Management University (SMU) has won first place in two categories of the 2014 EFMD Case Writing Competition, organised by the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD). It is one of the first and biggest wins ever by a Singaporean educational institution in this worldwide case writing competition. SMU winning cases are: Jungle Beer: An Entrepreneur's Journey and Gillette’s "Shave India Movement": Razor Sharp against the Stubble.

How Motivated Reasoning And Temporal Frames May Polarize Opinions About Wildlife Disease Risk, Sungjong Roh, Katherine A. Mccomas, Laura N. Rickard, Daniel J. Decker

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We draw from theories of motivated reasoning, dual-processing models, and attribution of responsibility to examine how scientific messages may increase public polarization with respect to emerging risk issues such as Lyme disease. A nationally representative sample of Americans (N = 460) read messages about Lyme disease that varied the framing of responsibility for the prevalence of the disease (human/wildlife vs. wildlife only) and when its effects will occur (today vs. in the next 10 years). The influence of framing was contingent on participants’ partisanship, which resulted in a boomerang effect among Republicans and increased the degree of political polarization regarding …

What Is Public Relations To Society? Toward An Economically Informed Understanding Of Public Relations, Halff, Gregor, Anne Gregory

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The notion of public relations contributing to the fabric of society is heavily contested in the public sphere and under-researched by the academy. The authors of this paper propose that the study of the relevance of public relations to society can be enlightened by turning to economics. Using information asymmetry as a framework, the argument is that public relations can be analyzed as a social institution that both helps to mitigate market imperfections and consequently increases the efficiency with which society's resources are allocated as well as the chances for more market participants to derive value out of economic transactions. …