International and Area Studies Commons^™

Up Close And Personal With Mr Sundar Selvam: Hitting Zero Targets, Sundar Selvam

Oral History Collection

He might not be one you would have come across on campus. And not one you might read much about in SMU news or in the limelight for its achievements, preferring to remain in the background. But look around the SMU campus and you will see the fruits of his work and that of his team. Meet Sundar, SMU’s Vice-President for Campus Infrastructure and Services. Since January 2015, he has been at the forefront of driving SMU’s own sustainability journey which has resulted in several “firsts”. This interview was published in the August edition of SMU CIRCLE.

Celebrating A Milestone: 20th Anniversary Achievement Highlights [School Of Accountancy], Singapore Management University

SMU Corporate Reports

The book “Celebrating a Milestone 20^th Anniversary Achievement Highlights” was published in August 2021 to commemorate SoA’s 20^th Anniversary as well as the 15^th Anniversary of the Master of Professional Accounting Programme. The book documents the achievements and key milestones in SoA’s history.

Growth And Resilience During Covid-19: Research On The Impact Of The Pandemic On Older Adults In Singapore, Centre For Research On Successful Ageing

ROSA Research Briefs

It has been a year since the Centre for Research on Successful Ageing (ROSA) was established in place of the Centre for Research on the Economics of Ageing (CREA). While it was a year full of challenges (least of all the COVID-19 pandemic), the team at ROSA adapted and worked hard to overcome these challenges, and we are grateful for the opportunity to share this annual report that presents a snapshot into the centre’s work to better understand the ‘ageing Singaporean’. Much of the work that has been done in the first year has been focused on establishing a good …

Introduction: Dignity's Special Issue On The Chab Dai Coalition's Butterfly Longitudinal Research Project, Leslie M. Tutty

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.

“You Have To Be Strong And Struggle”: Stigmas As A Determinants Of Inequality For Female Survivors Of Sex Trafficking In Cambodia, Todd W. Morrison, Lim Vanntheary, Nhanh Channtha, James Havey, Glenn M. Miles

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

Across the globe, human trafficking survivors have reported facing stigma and discrimination after reintegrating into communities. What makes stigma particularly dangerous is that it threatens what is “most at stake” in our lives, our close personal relationships and our personal life values. This paper explores longitudinal data from the Chab Dai Butterfly Longitudinal Research Project to document and describe forms of stigma and discrimination faced by survivors of sexual exploitation and trafficking living in Cambodian communities. Our research suggests stigmas associated with sex trafficking are a “fundamental determinant” of social inequality for many female survivors following reintegration. In this study, …

"When They See Someone Who Is Poor, They Step On Them": The Social Determinants Of Health Among Survivors Of Sex Trafficking In Cambodia, James P. Havey, Glenn M. Miles, Lim Vanntheary, Nhanh Channtha, Hanni Stoklosa

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

Social determinants of health (SDH) are defined as the non-medical yet health-affecting conditions of a person’s life. They include such considerations as working conditions, discrimination, and access to health services. The aim of this study was to explore the SDH impacting those who have survived sex trafficking in Cambodia. This study employed a mixed methods, secondary analysis, focusing on 52 survivors of sex trafficking in the Butterfly Longitudinal Research Project from 2010 through 2019. Participants described myriad social determinants of health, including: gender, age, relationship status (marriage), ethnicity, national identification documentation (statelessness), social class, formal education, vocational training, occupation, and …

We’Re In A Climate Casino: Here’S How To Fight Against The Odds, Winston T. L. Chow

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Extreme weather events point to an increasingly dangerous roulette game we play. Individuals and businesses can do their part but governments must do more at the upcoming Glasgow climate conference.

Media In A Time Of Crisis: Newspaper Coverage Of Covid-19 In East Asia;, Colm A. Fox

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

How have newspapers covered Covid-19 in Asia? To answer this question, I studied East Asian English-language newspapers published between January and July 2020. First, I measured the level of news media attention on Covid-19 among all reports. Second, I analyzed the tone and content of 330 editorials. I divided the analysis into two time periods: the initial crisis breakout period, when the number of infections was rising or high, and the crisis abatement period, when new infections declined to manageable levels. Findings show that although newspapers were slow to begin addressing the pandemic, their early editorials carried an alarming tone, …

Tokyo 2020: A Tale Of Two Cities, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In a commentary, SMU Associate Professor of Law Eugene Tan, who was a team manager at the 2002 Busan Asian Games and 2004 Athens Olympics, discussed the Olympics Tokyo 2020 and how it showed indomitable human spirit amid the pandemic. Assoc Prof Tan also discussed and explored how Singapore can develop sustainable pathways that would enable our athletes to continue having competitive sporting careers into their late 20s and 30s.

To Stay Or Not To Stay? A Clash Of Arbitration And Insolvency Regimes, Darius Chan, Sidharrth B Rajagopal

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In the wake of the global Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, a rise in creditorinitiated winding-up proceedings is likely to be impending in coming years (See e.g., RCMA Asia Pte. Ltd. v. Sun Electric Power Pte. Ltd. [2020] SGHC 205). At the same time, geopolitical developments, such as the scale and ambition of Belt & Road Initiative projects, have raised questions over the issue of debt sustainability. Given the prevalence of arbitration clauses in modern international commercial and project agreements, the interplay and relationship between insolvency and dispute resolution, and especially arbitration, requires careful attention. While the intersections between the …

First Among Equals: The First Place Effect And Political Promotion In Multi-Member Plurality Elections, Dean C. Dulay, Laurence Go

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

We study the impact of rank-based decision-making in a multi-member plurality electoral system by examining the decisions of Philippine legislative councilors to run for and win higher office. By focusing on multi-member plurality elections, we identify the effect of rank amongst politicians that hold the same office and received a similar number of votes. To identify the causal effect of rank, we conduct a close-elections RD at the village, municipality, and province levels. Our main result is the first place effect: incumbent first placers are 5–9% (1–4%) more likely to run (win) in future elections than incumbent second placers. …

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 …

A Reconsideration Of Equal Protection And Executive Action In Singapore, Wei Yao, Kenny Chng

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In Syed Suhail bin Syed Zin v Attorney-General, the Singapore Court of Appeal reconsidered how Article 12(1), the equal protection provision in Singapore’s Constitution, should apply to executive actions. Departing from the established ‘deliberate and arbitrary’ test, the Court of Appeal proposed to first consider whether the relevant persons were ‘equally situated’ and subject to differential treatment. If so, this treatment had to be justified by legitimate reasons. This note argues that while the rejection of the ‘deliberate and arbitrary’ test ought to be welcomed, this approach risks returning to an emphasis on classes in equal protection analysis – an …

Monetary Policy Surprises, Stock Returns, And Financial And Liquidity Constraints, In An Exchange Rate Monetary Policy System, John M. Sequeira

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This study examines the impact of monetary policy surprises on the stock price behaviour of a small developed economy, whose monetary policy is based on the exchange rate. We find that monetary policy surprises associated with all contractionary policy levers and a neutral policy lever, have a consistently significant and negative impact on stock returns. In comparison, only monetary policy surprises associated with a downward re-centering policy lever, has a significantly positive effect on stock returns. Using a recalibrated classification system, we also find that monetary policy surprises differ across sectors of the economy. Our results show how monetary policy …

Case Study: National Library Board Singapore: Delivering Cost-Effective Service Excellence Through Innovation And People, Jochen Wirtz, Thomas Menkhoff

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The National Library Board (NLB) Singapore is a statutory board that managed to become a serial innovator. Its globally leading innovations in the library context include shelf-reading robots, and even entirely self-service libraries. NLB’s consistent focus on excellent service delivery reinforced its commitment to innovation. Key levers were effective strategic leadership, a smart innovation strategy that made heavy use of technology — such as app-delivered self-service technologies, crowdsourcing, and robotics — as well as a people-centric staff culture. NLB managed to co-create attractive libraries of the future together with different types of community members, such as volunteers and corporations, ushering …

Accounting And Finance Lessons In The Time Of Covid-19 – Views From The Pacific Basin, Kuan Yong David Ding, Julie Harrison, Martien Lubberink, Chris Van Staden

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The COVID-19 pandemic is expected to create the worst economic recession in our lifetime and generate “enormous damage to our health, jobs, and well-being” (OECD, 2020). This special issue focuses on the lessons for accounting and finance policy-makers, practitioners, and academics as a result of the social and economic turmoil that arose in the immediate period following the World Health Organization’s declaration of a pandemic (WHO, 2020). Governments responded to support businesses and economies using various policy tools to support markets, businesses and individuals impacted by the pandemic. It is timely to consider the extent to which policymakers and standard-setters …

Tackling The Critical Question Of Schooling’S Ns Deferment After His Poor Tokyo Olympics Performance, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In a commentary, SMU Associate Professor of Law Eugene Tan, who was team manager of Singapore’s 2004 Athens Olympics national swim team, discussed the critical question of Singapore’s sporting icon Joseph Schooling’s National Service (NS) deferment after his subpar performance at the Tokyo Olympics. Joseph has been on long-term NS deferment since 2014. Assoc Prof Tan noted that what is at stake is the integrity of long-term deferment, and the precedent-setting decision calculus which would come under intense scrutiny.

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 …

Can Employers Justify Paying Workers Who Return To The Office More Than Those Who Work From Home?, Jared Nai

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Employers have strong grounds to do so but should avoid differentiating for wrong reasons like presenteeism, Singapore Management University’s Jared Nai says.

Financing Singapore’S Smes And The Crowdfunding Industry In Singapore, Swee Liang Tan, Yoke Wang Tok, Chansriniyom Thitipat

Research Collection School Of Economics

As new digital technologies emerge that make the provision of financial services more efficient, they hold the potential to address barriers that SMEs face in accessing credit. This paper finds empirical evidence that crowdfunding for SMEs improved SMEs’ timeliness to pay debt in Singapore. Anecdotal evidence from growing SMEs suggests that getting crowdfunding loans also induced financing from banks, leading to more efficient allocation of credit. In just four years, Singapore’s crowdfunding volume has grown rapidly making it one of the top crowdfunding hubs in Southeast Asia in 2018. The rapid development of Singapore’s crowdfunding industry can be attributed to …

Jobs For Justice(S): Corruption In The Supreme Court Of India, Madhav S. Aney, Shubhankar Dam, Giovanni Ko

Research Collection School Of Economics

We investigate whether judicial decisions are affected by career concerns of judges by analyzing two questions: Do judges respond to incentives to pander by ruling in favor of the government in the hope of receiving jobs after retiring from the Supreme Court? Does the government reward judges who rule in its favor with prestigious jobs? We construct a data set of Supreme Court of India cases involving the government for 1999–2014. We find that incentives to pander have a causal effect on judicial decision-making, and they are jointly determined by the importance of the case and whether the judge retires …

The Unique Role Of The State Press In The Chinese Economy, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

CUHK research investigates the role played by China’s state-owned media in supplying information vital to the functioning of China’s capital markets

We Are Partners! Connecting Through Collaboration And Engagement With Communities At Smu Libraries, Wei Xia

Research Collection Library

No abstract provided.

Berita Summer 2021, Dominik M. Müller

Berita

Letter from the Chair ... 2

John A. Lent Prize and Provencher Travel Prize ... 4

Announcement: MSB panel "Haze, Sand, Fire, Water" Environmental Crises in Southeast Asia" at AAS 2022 Hawaii ... 6

Article: Educating the Sultanate: The Melding of Higher Education and Islam in Brunei Darussalam, by Moez Hayat ... 10

Book Review: Local Democracy Denied: A Personal Journey into Local Government in Malaysia (Lim Mah Hui) by Koay Su Lyn ... 14

Book Review: The Roots of Resilience: Party Machines and Grassroots Politics in Singapore and Malaysia (Meredith L. Weiss) by Mohamed Salihin Subhan ... 17

Review …

Beyond The Great Power Competition Narrative: Exploring Labor Politics And Resistance Behind Ai Innovation In China, Yujia He, Hong Shen

Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Spiritual Basis Of The Struggle For Alternative Societies, Chandra Muzaffar

Asian Review

There has never been a situation where humankind as a whole is faced with a multitude of challenges all at the same time in different spheres of life. This is partly because we are all being drawn — whatever our cultures and ideologies — into the same pattern of modernization which is supposed to signify progress. There are, in fact, two processes at work in this transformation of the entire globe into a certain pattern of existence. At the deeper level, there is a definite notion of the individual, the community, nature, and technology, which is embodied in that worldview …

The Covid-19 Pandemic And Human Rights Limitation: The Role Of Trust And Communication In Vietnam, Van Thanh Vu

Asian Review

The COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented health crisis in modern history, causing disruption and chaos to the usual way of life, and requiring radical measures. This study investigates how willingly Vietnamese people cooperate with their government’s anti-pandemic measures, which limit their right to assembly, privacy and freedom of movement during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings show that the region of residence of the respondents influences their cooperation with government’s measures. It has also been found that the more the respondents have trust in the government as an important agency in pandemic management, the more they cooperate with the government’s measures.

Engaged Buddhist Community As A Human Right Response: A Case Of Buddhist Participatory Communication, Palphol Rodloytuk

Asian Review

Religions have played very important roles in resolving conflicts and problems for mankind in addition to providing the paths to happiness and salvations based on their uniquely defined traditions and frameworks. In the past several decades, where world problems have become more complex, including peace and conflict resolution, requiring more complex international standards and frameworks, the declaration of human rights was announced, promulgated, and implemented into governance and development policies adopted by many countries worldwide, in order to facilitate the ways that problems, conflicts, and various causes of suffering could be solved, with clear international standards and guidelines. Religions, Buddhism …

Authoritarianism And People-Centric Development In Asian Context, Jayasri Priyalal Maggonage

Asian Review

What are the successes and failures of the Asian authoritarian political systems, and how they have evolved over the centuries? Thus, Chinese history became a chapter of human civilization. The famous saying reminds us that; those who cannot cope with changes will never initiate changes. What are those changes, and how did the rulers, emperors, and party leaders in China adjust to the change is worth exploring academically from a historical point of view, The salient features of the code of conduct the rulers adopted presumably gave the numerous emperors a sense of direction to apply autocratic rule yet maintained …

Special Report On Covid-19 Vaccination Trends Among Older Adults In Singapore, Micah Tan, Paulin T. Straughan, Wensi Lim, Grace Cheong

ROSA Research Briefs

This report examines trends in vaccination among older adults in Singapore to better understand why segments of older adults continue to resist vaccination against COVID-19. We find that individuals who were most likely to still be waiting to vaccinate or to not want to be vaccinated as of June 2021; are relatively older (aged 71-75), are of lower socioeconomic status (lower education levels and living in 1-3 room HDB flats), were the least likely to rely on Newspapers and Government Sources as sources of information for COVID-19 related news in November 2020, were least trusting of all sources of information, …