International and Area Studies Commons^™

A Sentinel To Good Governance, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Assistant Prof Eugene Tan reviews S.R. Nathan's 12-year term as Head of State, and suggests President Nathan played a key role in defining the functions of the Elected Presidency.

Introduction To The Special Issue: Governing Energy In A Fragmented World, Ann Florini, Navroz K. Dubash

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This special issue brings together leading experts from Asia, Europe and North America to examine the international institutions, national governance mechanisms and financing systems that together will determine the future of the energy sector. The enormous environmental externalities imposed by fossil fuel extraction and consumption, the devastating corruption and human rights abuses that have accompanied this energy system, and the geopolitical vulnerabilities that have arisen because of the uneven natural distribution of these resources, have occasioned enormous handwringing - but not, yet, a shift to a more rational system of providing energy services. Although national governments play the dominant role …

Globalization, Modernity, And Migration: The Changing Visage Of Social Imagination, Darlene Machell Espena

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In this article, I assert that the recent phenomenon of migration is one apparent and fundamental process that shapes human communities, transforming cultural variation, and distorts the constructs of distance and space. The boundaries of nation-states and identities are constantly being challenged, restructured and interrogated and the trends of modernity and globalization, new ways of projecting feelings and diffusing cultures among displaced communities are produced. The article looks for the new stories that are produced with this vibrant intersection of globalization, modernity and migration. In particular, I focus on the distinct Sikh migrant community in the Philippines: how they have …

When Does The Socio-Cultural Context Matter? Communal Orientation And Entrepreneurs' Resource Accumulation Efforts In Africa, Jane N. O. Khayesi, Gerard George

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We examined the effect of entrepreneurs’communal orientation and social capital on entrepreneurs’ acquisition of resources, and the cost of raising those resources. Using an errors-in-variables estimation in a sample of 242 Ugandan entrepreneurs from Kampala, we find that shared identity is positively associated with the quantity of resources raised by entrepreneurs, whereas shared identity and communal orientation are associated with a higher cost of raising resources. Further, communal orientation positively moderates the relationship between kin composition and the quantity of resources raised; whereas communal orientation negatively moderates the relationship between trust, shared identity, and resources. In contrast, a high communal …

Effects Of Cultural Ethnicity, Firm Size, And Firm Age On Senior Executives’ Trust In Their Overseas Business Partners: Evidence From China, Crystal X. Jiang, Roy Y. J. Chua, Masaaki Kotabe, Janet Y. Murray

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We investigate trust relationships between senior business executives and their overseas partners. Drawing on the similarity-attraction paradigm, social categorization theory, and the distinction between cognition- and affect-based trust, we argue that executives trust their overseas partners differently, depending on the partners’ cultural ethnicity. In a field survey of 108 Chinese senior executives, we found that these executives have higher affect-based trust in overseas partners of the same cultural ethnicity as themselves; cognition-based trust is associated with affect-based trust differently when overseas partners are of the same or different cultural ethnicity. We also examine the role of relative firm size and …

Oral History Interview With Ronald Frank: Conceptualising Smu, Ronald Frank

Oral History Collection

The interview covered: first involvement with SMU, President of SMU, Bukit Timah campus, roles and responsibilities, faculty recruitment, advertising campaigns, student feedback, autonomous universities, strategy, law school, higher education landscape, impact.

Biography:

President, SMU, 2001–2004

Board of Trustees, SMU, 2000–2001

Professor Ronald E Frank, or Ron as he affectionately known, joined SMU’s board of trustees in 2000 and assumed his role as SMU’s second president in September 2001. His presidency was a time of rapid growth for the young university. SMU had just admitted its second cohort of undergraduate students in August 2001. During his time as president two schools …

Customer Satisfaction Index Of Singapore 2011: Q2 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 nation, sector, sub-sector, and company levels. Currently in its fifth year of measurement, the CSISG serves as a quantitative benchmark of the quality of goods and services produced by the Singapore economy both over time and across countries.

Rethinking The Rural-Urban Divide In China’S New Stratification Order, Qian Forrest Zhang

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

I use a Marxist framework centred on the mode of production to conceptually analyze the changing stratification structure in today’s China with a focus on the changing nature of rural-urban inequality. As the state-managed tributary mode of production, once dominant under socialism, is being gradually eclipsed by the reviving petty-commodity mode of production and the newly emerged capitalist mode of production, both of which are market-based and enable the transfer of surplus from labour to capital, a new set of mechanisms are creating and sustaining rural-urban inequality in China. Rural-urban inequality – although still significant in its magnitude – is …

A Road To Smarter Infrastructure In Asia, Curtis S. Chin, John A. Donaldson

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

China's infrastructure building program used to be the envy of the world, and in some respects it still is. Yet economists, investors and now China's own citizens are worried about diminishing returns, while incidents such as last month's Wenzhou high-speed rail crash raise questions about the durability of China's investments.

Let Presidential Hopefuls Have Their Say, Jack Tsen-Ta Lee

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The announcement by the Presidential Elections Committee (PEC) of the prospective candidates who have been issued certificates of eligibility for the 2011 presidential election in Singapore makes interesting reading for what it does and does not say. The Committee’s decision-making process is also fairly opaque. It is submitted the rules governing the PEC’s task should be reviewed before the next election. At least, it is hoped future Committees will adopt as constitutional conventions the practices of granting hearings to applicants, announcing decisions well ahead of nomination day, and issuing full reasons.

The Elected Presidency In A New Normal, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Asst Prof Eugene Tan shared his views on the outcome of the recently concluded Presidential Election and commented on the need for both the incoming President and the Government to evolve the office of the President in a manner that is in sync with Singaporeans' expectations.

Maritime Trade Evolutions And Port City Developments In Asia, X. J. Yang, Joyce M. W. Low, Loon Ching Tang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Historically, almost all goods transported worldwide have been carried by sea with the current estimate stands at approximately 90 percent by volume and 70 percent by worth. Maritime industry is an important economic sector as it has a direct impact on the prosperity of a region and/or city. This chapter presents a review on maritime trade evolution in Asia from the thirteenth centuries to the post-World War II, followed by an examination on the contemporary development of some major Asia ports. From the extant port literature, a list of factors affecting port competition and development is identified and reviewed. The …

Mr Gandhi’S Terror Sermon, Shubhankar Dam

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

No abstract provided.

The Singapore Town-Hall Meeting, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Professor Eugene Tan forecasts what the Prime Minister might say in his National Day Rally speech. He predicts it will touch on the ecomomy, Presidential election and social cohesion, among other issues.

Labor Supply Responses To The 1990s Japanese Tax Reforms, Ken Yamada

Research Collection School Of Economics

The consumption-leisure choice model implies that an exogenous change in tax rates will induce a change in labor supply. This implication is expected to be important to labor supplied by secondary earners under a progressive tax system when spousal income alters effective marginal tax rates. This paper examines labor supply responses to the income tax changes associated with Japanese tax reforms during the 1990s. The results indicate that the hours-of-work elasticity with respect to the net-of-tax rate is 0.8 for married women.

Communicating Crisis: How Culture Influences Image Repair In Western And Asian Governments, Yvonne Siew‐Yoong Low, Jeni Varughese, Augustine Pang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to seek to understand the differences in image repair strategies adopted by two governments that operate in the Western and Asian societies when faced with similar crises. Design/methodology/approach: Textual analyses are presented of communication of Hurricane Katrina and Typhoon Morakot by the Taiwanese and US governments, respectively. Findings: Faced with similar accusations of slow response, the Asian culture, represented by the Taiwanese Government, used predominantly mortification and corrective action strategies. The Western culture, represented by the US Government, used predominantly bolstering and defeasibility and a mixed bag of other strategies such as shifting …

The Transformation Of China’S Agriculture System And Its Impact On Southeast Asia, Phoebe Mingxuan Luo, John A. Donaldson, Qian Forrest Zhang

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The increased role for agribusiness and larger scale production in China’s agricultural system is limited by China’s severe lack of arable land. The Household Responsibility System provides farmers a measure of power, hampering agribusiness from acquiring land needed for expansion. Some Chinese companies have sought cheaper and often more accessible land in nearby regions, including Southeast Asia. While such investments have the potential to deliver benefits, including increased productivity, structural constraints such as weak land ownership and environmental laws, highly unequal distribution of land and underdevelopment of peasant organizations prevent many poorer farmers from benefiting from these investments.

Oral History Interview With David Montgomery: Conceptualising Smu, David Montgomery

Oral History Collection

The interview covered: first involvement with SMU, business school dean, school re-organisation, faculty recruitment, Wharton School, balanced excellence, Centre for Teaching Excellence, first SMU graduates, conferences, future of tertiary education.

Biography:

Dean, Lee Kong Chian School of Business, SMU, 2003–2005

Professor David Montgomery served as the second dean of the Lee Kong Chian School of Business from 2003 to 2005. It was a period of rapid growth for the school—hiring faculty, building a research atmosphere, developing professional degrees, and continuing to make SMU better known in the academic community. Professor Montgomery is known for his use of the phrase 'balanced …

The Final Twist In Common Intention? Daniel Vijay S/O Katherasan V. Public Prosecutor, Siyuan Chen

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

It was only in 2008 that the Court of Appeal made a seminal restatement of the law on common intention, particularly with respect to liability in so-called ‘twin crime’ situations. The question posed then was posed again recently in Daniel Vijay: what exactly is the required mens rea for the secondary offender in such situations? In 2008, the Court of Appeal said that the secondary offender had to subjectively know that one in his party might likely commit the collateral offence in furtherance of the common intention of carrying out the primary offence. Now, in Daniel Vijay, the Court …

Explaining Contractual Remoteness In Singapore, Yihan Goh

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The Singapore Court of Appeal (the Court of Appeal) has in MFM Restaurants Pte Ltd v Fish & Co Restaurants Pte Ltd rejected Lord Hoffinann's assumption of responsibility test (articulated in The Achilleas) to determine whether damages are too remote in a contractual claim. The Court of Appeal, however, retained assumption of responsibility as a concept to explain the orthodox test for remoteness as embodied in Hadley v Baxendale. To that extent, it expressly accepted Lord Hoffmann's approach in The Achilleas in so far as the concept of assumption of responsibility is already incorporated or embodied in both limbs of …

The Incompatibility Of Materialism And The Desire For Children: Psychological Insights Into The Fertility Discrepancy Among Modern Countries, Norman P. Li, Lily Patel, Daniel Balliet, William Tov, Christie N. Scollon

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

We examined factors related to attitudes toward marriage and the importance of having children in both the US and Singapore. Path analysis indicated that life dissatisfaction leads to materialism, and both of these factors lead to favorable attitudes toward marriage, which leads to greater desire for children. Further analysis indicated this model"We examined factors related to attitudes toward marriage and the importance of having children in both the US and Singapore. Path analysis indicated that life dissatisfaction leads to materialism, and both of these factors lead to favorable attitudes toward marriage, which leads to greater desire for children. Further analysis …

Holding To A Moral Compass Against The Pull Of Profits, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Assistant Professor Eugene Tan writes that as Singapore society becomes more complex, our law schools cannot just produce good legal technicians but are challenged to produce lawyers who are innovators and can utilize the law creatively to produce effective and efficient outcomes, and solutions infused with social justice and fairness. Today, the first batch of SMU law students comprising 106 LLB and 17 Juris Doctor degree students graduates.

The Lines Are Starting To Blur, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Eugene Tan, Assistant Professor of Law at SMU, argues that the public service and civil society are beginning to collaborate more. This co-creation creates better quality solutions that benefit society as a whole.

Growth, Opportunity, And Inequality: Some Empirics From Singapore, Kong Weng Ho

Research Collection School Of Economics

While the strategy of openness had earned Singapore rapid economic growth, upward social mobility, and possibly decreasing inequality in the early years of development, the more recent years has seen increasing inequality. With this inequality comes an underlying possibly diminished upward inter-generational mobility, due to skill-biased growth processes, skill-biased parental influence, liberalisation in the education industry, and structural changes in the society, which hurt the human capital accumulation of children in families under economic and intra-household stresses. In particular, paternal influence on educational aspirations and attainment is more pronounced than maternal influence. Non-Chinese and youths from disrupted families are worse …

Oral History Interview With Howard Hunter: Conceptualising Smu, Howard Hunter

Oral History Collection

The interview covered: first involvement with SMU, roles and responsibilities, tuition fees, autonomous university, law school, Juris Doctor program, undergraduate education, marketing, SMU pedagogy, curriculum, university library,

Biography:

Professor of Law, SMU, 2004–present
President, SMU, 2004–2010

Described as a passionate educator who truly believes in multidisciplinary education, Professor Howard Hunter served as SMU’s third president from September 2004 to August 2010. During the course of his presidency the university continued its rapid growth—moving to the city campus, opening the law school, expanding postgraduate programmes, building the endowment, and doubling the number of students and faculty. While at SMU he emphasized …

Tort Law, Kumaralingam Amirthalingam, Gary Kok Yew Chan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The Court of Appeal decision in Chan Cheng Wah v Koh Sin Chong Freddie and another appeal [2012] 1 SLR 506 ("Chan Cheng Wah (CA)") concerned the nature of defamatory meaning and the defences of justification and qualified privilege. The dispute arose from two allegedly defamatory statements published in the minutes of meeting of a management committee of a club ("current MC") concerning the actions of the previous management committee ("previous MC"). Four members of the previous MC sued the defendant, the president of the current MC, in respect of the statements.

Cosmopolitan Nation-Building: The Institutional Contradiction And Politics Of Postwar Japanese Education, Hiro Saito

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The education system has been a quintessential state apparatus of nation-building since the emergence of the modern nation-state; however, recent comparative studies demonstrate the growing presence of cosmopolitanism in education policies and school curricula around the world. This trend indicates that the education system now operates according to two different institutional logics, nationalism and cosmopolitanism. To understand how the education system negotiates the potential contradiction between nationalism and cosmopolitanism, in this paper, I analyze the case of postwar Japanese education. Theoretically, I synthesize studies of institutional logics and social movements: while the former shed light on a contradiction between different …

Adverse Selection And Corporate Governance, Charlie Charoenwong, David K. Ding, Vasan Siraprapasiri

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper examines the impact of corporate governance on the adverse selection component of the bid-ask spread of stocks listed on the Singapore Exchange. These companies have been identified by Credit Lyonnais Securities Asia (CSLA) with the highest level of corporate governance among 25 emerging markets. We measure corporate governance by several criteria: discipline, transparency, independence, accountability, responsibilities, fairness, and social awareness. The results show that corporate governance has an inverse relationship with adverse selection. However, only the transparency dimension exhibits a significant inverse relationship with adverse selection. In addition, Government-Linked Companies (GLCs) are shown to have a smaller adverse …

An Analysis Of Japanese Earnings Forecast Revisions With Application To Seasoned Equity Offerings, Gary L. Caton, Justin S. P. Chan, Jeremy C. Goh, Sheng Yung Yang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Using the bootstrap method, we explore the characteristics of revisions in Japanese earnings forecast data. We find that forecast revisions exhibit a downward trend over time as the actual earnings announcement date approaches, and are serially correlated with three significant lags. Using these characteristics we develop a model to estimate abnormal forecast revisions, and illustrate the model's use with a sample of Japanese companies announcing seasoned equity offerings (SEOs). In contrast to results obtained by studies using American data, our findings indicate significant positive upward revisions when Japanese firms announce an SEO.

Disproportional Ownership Structure And Pay-Performance Relationship In China, Jerry Cao, Xiaofei Pan, Gary Tian

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper examines the impact of ownership structure on executive compensation in China's listed firms. We find that the cash flow rights of ultimate controlling shareholders have a positive effect on the pay-performance relationship, while a divergence between control rights and cash flow rights has a significantly negative effect on the pay-performance relationship. We divide our sample based on ultimate controlling shareholders' type into state owned enterprises (SOE), state assets management bureaus (SAMB), and privately controlled firms. We find that in SOE controlled firms cash flow rights have a significant impact on accounting based pay-performance relationship. In privately controlled firms, …