Asian Studies Commons^™

My Body, Their Choice: Childbearing Attitudes And Practices In Jamkhed, Maharashtra, Sienna Sewell

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Understanding the beliefs and practices of women and their families during pregnancy and childbirth is fundamental to the creation of successful public health interventions that target maternal and infant mortality. This study explores the childbearing practices of women in rural Jamkhed, as well as the social and economic factors that influence family planning, reproductive health-seeking, and delivery. Interviews and quantitative surveys were conducted with women in villages that have partnered with the Comprehensive Rural Health Project (CRHP) to examine how and why women access prenatal care during pregnancy. The influence of CRHP’s “Jamkhed Model” on healthcare access is considered in …

Unfair Standards: Media Influence On The Fairness Paradigm In India, Sahana Heiderscheidt

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This paper aims to study the fairness paradigm in India and how the media influences women’s perceptions of beauty. It aims to answer a main question: How does the media influence the cultural obsession with fairness and ultimately perpetuate a market for dysmorphic beauty ideals among women in India? The paper is structured to discuss three topics: How has fairness as a beauty ideal evolved? How does advertising and the film industry portray women? How do they influence young girls’ perceptions of beauty and self? While most studies have focused on college-educated, middle class women, this study focuses on women …

Exploring Mobility Help-Seeking Behavior Among People With Physical Disabilities: A Case Study Of Jaipur Foot, Alex Podell

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

It is estimated that as many as 90 million people living in India experience some sort of disability (The World Bank, 2007). As India’s population keeps growing and aging, not only will the medical aspects, but also the societal impacts of disability need to be brought to the forefront of discussion, developmental strategy, and policy implementation. This study sought to analyze factors influencing the process of seeking help from formal and informal sources for people with physical disabilities. Data was collected from 10 people with physical disabilities receiving a variety of mobility aids from the NGO, Bhagwan Mahaveer Viklang Sahayata …

Impacts Of Anthropogenic Waste On Tasmanian Pacific Gull (Larus Pacificus) Diet, Anne Bartlett

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Plastic pollution is one of the foremost environmental issues that the world is currently experiencing. The effects of plastic pollution are great and range from leaching of hazardous chemicals into the environment to ingestion of plastic waste by wildlife, including seabirds. Due to the high rates of plastic consumption by seabirds, many recent studies have been performed to determine the biological impacts of plastic consumption on various seabird species. The Pacific Gull (Larus pacificus) is the world’s largest sea gull and the only gull endemic to Australia, yet very limited information exists on this species. This study examines the impacts …

Social Support And Discrimination: The Experiences Of Recovering Heroin Addicts In Kunming, China, Phoebe Li

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Opioids have had a long, complex position in Chinese society, dating all the way back to the Ming dynasty. In 1949, 5% of the overall Chinese population and 25% of the population in Yunnan smoked opium regularly, which led to societal collapse and economic downturn. Since then, the Chinese government has used many different methods to attempt to control drug use and trafficking, including registering all users, executing traffickers, and using Compulsory Rehabilitation Centers. Starting in 2008, the government switched to a harm reduction approach and began to invest in methadone clinics, community support groups, and needle exchange programs. Because …

Is Technology The Key To Prevention Of Falls Among The Elderly In Rapidly Aging Societies? A Case Study Of Kunming, China, Phoebe Kiburi

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

As the aging society rapidly becomes more dominant in the world, there is a pressing need for different stakeholders to tend to the needs of the aging sufficiently. This is crucial in ensuring the robustness of the healthcare system as a whole; given that it can only be as strong as its weakest link. This study focuses on one of the areas of need of the ageing society: fall prevention.

Numerous studies have been done on interventions by the government, private entities, elderly people and their caregivers to prevent occurrence and recurrence of falls. However, most of these have been …

When Crayons Meet Tibetan Living Room Walls: Early Childhood In Exile, Emma Hart

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This study aims to understand early childhood caregiving among Tibetan refugees living in Nepal. Due to the brain’s enormous developmental plasticity from ages zero to three, children’s experiences during this period are extremely important to explaining their future learnings in school, interactions with people, and engagements with their surroundings. Through interviews and observations, Tibetan parents shared their conceptions of early childhood, parent-child interaction norms, dreams for their children, and how their status as refugees in Nepal affects these. Research was conducted in two Pokhara district Tibetan settlements and one settlement in Mustang. Connected by the flow of children and adults …

Voices Unheard: Women And Their Children In Nepal’S Incarceration System, Aune Nuyttens, Mikayla Rose

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This research project focused on women in Nepal’s incarceration system. Our goal was to hear and share their stories with the hopes of humanize and de-stigmatize perceptions of female prisoners in and outside of Nepal. A central component to these stories, as we learned, was also the story of prisoner’s children and the NGOs who provide assistance to this vulnerable group of women and their children. The researchers travelled to the east and west of Kathmandu to visit rural and urban prisons in Nepal, and visited various children homes, however the research was based out of Kathmandu, where many of …

An Analysis Of Z-Scores And Performance: Manufacturing Companies In Hong Kong, S.L. Foo, Shaakalya Pathak

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Hong Kong is a key leading economy in the Asia Pacific region. This study examines the relationship between the financial health, as measured by the Altman Z-Score, and corporate performance, as measured by the Return on Equity (ROE), of listed manufacturing companies in this market. A linear regression has been conducted between these variables to determine the magnitude and direction of their relationships. The trends of Z-Scores over a five-year period have also been analysed. The analysis covers the period from 2013 to 2017 (inclusive) and yields a statistically positive correlation between ROE and the Z-Score for the market. Hong …

Dare To Be Different? Conformity Versus Differentiation In Corporate Social Activities Of Chinese Firms And Market Responses, Yanlong Zhang, Heli Wang, Xiaoyu Zhou

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Building on the literature on optimal distinctiveness, this study explores the effects of conformity and differentiation in corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices on the evaluations by security analysts and the responses of the financial market in general. We develop the argument that while conformity in CSR scope enhances analyst coverage, differentiation in CSR emphasis leads to more-favorable analyst recommendations and higher market value. This suggests that firms may be able to simultaneously conform in CSR scope and differentiate in CSR emphasis to achieve optimal distinctiveness. To further enhance our understanding of the variation in the relationship between conformity/differentiation and the …

Mapping Cultural Tightness And Its Links To Innovation, Urbanization, And Happiness Across 31 Provinces In China, Roy Y. J. Chua, Kenneth Huang, Mengzi Jin

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We conduct a 3-y study involving 11,662 respondents to map cultural tightness—the degree to which a society is characterized by rules and norms and the extent to which people are punished or sanctioned when they deviate from these rules and norms—across 31 provinces in China. Consistent with prior research, we find that culturally tight provinces are associated with increased governmental control, constraints in daily life, religious practices, and exposure to threats. Departing from previous findings that tighter states are more rural, conservative, less creative, and less happy, cultural tightness in China is associated with urbanization, economic growth, better health, greater …

Review Of China’S Peasant Agriculture And Rural Society, Qian Forrest Zhang

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Jan Douwe van de Ploeg, Jingzhong Ye and their colleagues have written an important book that will rekindle old debates and spark new discussions in the fields of critical agrarian studies and China studies. The book is a collection of 12 chapters, each coauthored by members of the research team. The two editors are also the key authors, with de Ploeg involved in all 12 chapters and Ye in eight. Together, the chapters provide a comprehensive coverage of topics central to the rural economy and livelihoods in China, and to theories in critical agrarian studies.

Building An Equitable And Inclusive City Through Housing Policies: Singapore’S Experience, Sock Yong Phang

Research Collection School Of Economics

Inequality is an age-old concern. In recent years, the rise of income inequality has received worldwide media and policy attention, beginning with the Occupy movement of 2011-2012 and a wave of notable scholastic books such as Stiglitz (2012), Piketty (2014), and Atkinson (2015). Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century, an unlikely bestseller, contained a vast amount of data showing that the rich are taking rising shares of income and wealth in the advanced economies. Piketty’s approach towards capital and wealth is an aggregative one, and he does not treat real estate or land as a different or distinct form of …

Enlarged Panels In The Court Of Appeal Of Singapore, Kwan Ho Lau

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

For many years the Court of Appeal of Singaporegenerally sat with no more than three judges to hear cases. Since 2014, however, quintets have increasingly been constituted in that court. This articleconsiders the recent practice in Singapore and, drawing on comparisons with theposition in some other Commonwealth jurisdictions, offers a few thoughts on its possible operation in the future.

Text Analytics Approach To Examining Corporate Social Responsibility, Nurul Asyikeen Binte Azhar, Gary Pan, Poh Sun Seow, Andrew Koh, Wan Ying Tay

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This research article explores a text analyticsapproach to assess the prominence of corporate social responsibility in 554Singapore-listed firms through a content analysis of the news. Instead ofrelying on publications by the firms, third-party news coverage is used toreduce potential biases due to over-reporting. A dataset of news articles onthe included firms published during fiscal years 2015 and 2016 is crawled, andthe articles’ content is parsed to search for information related to corporatesocial responsibility. Graph theory is subsequently used to create acollaborative network of listed firms’ corporate social responsibilityactivities. The results highlight a more automated and scalable means ofassessing the prominence …

Deterrence Under Nuclear Asymmetry: Thaad And The Prospects For Missile Defense On The Korean Peninsula, Inwook Kim, Soul Park

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The 2016 decision to deploy Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) to South Korea has generated multitude of intensely politicized issues and has proved highly controversial. This has made it challenging to alleviate, let alone clarify, points of analytical and policy tensions. We instead disaggregate and revisit two fundamental questions. One is whether THAAD could really defend South Korea from North Korean missiles. We challenge the conventional “qualified optimism” by giving analytical primacy to three countermeasures available to defeat THAAD–use of decoys, tumbling and spiral motion, and outnumbering. These countermeasures are relatively inexpensive to create but exceedingly difficult to offset. …

The Myanmar Business Environment Index 2020: Measuring Economic Governance For Private Sector Development, Malesky Edmund, Dean C. Dulay, Jon Kesssecker

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The Economic Governance Index (EGI) is a tool that has become widely accepted by governments to understand economic growth, attract investors, and engage in public-private sector dialogue. EGIs have been used in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Kosovo, El Salvador, Cambodia, Mongolia, and Vietnam to offer crucial insight into governance and help guide reform efforts. The Myanmar Business Environment Index (MBEI) follows in this tradition by adapting the EGI model to the Myanmar context. The MBEI is designed to provide Union and state/region government leaders, as well as stakeholders such as business managers, with a tool to understand and address the …

East Asian Low Marriage And Birth Rates: The Role Of Life History Strategy, Culture, And Social Status Affordance, Jose Yong, Norman P. Li, Peter K. Jonason, Yi Wen Tan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Although economic development is broadly associated with low fertility, countries with a predominantly East Asian cultural population exhibit the lowest fertility rates in the developed world. This study (N = 243) examined social status affordance (SSA) as a novel factor underlying cultural variations in marriage and childbearing attitudes. Drawing from a life history perspective, we argue that SSA reflects the availability and ease of attaining social status from the environment, which then influences people's reproductive motivations. We found that strong competition for prestigious jobs in developed East Asian countries, which is hypothesized to be an outcome of their collectivistic nature …

Disjunctures Of Belonging And Belief: Christian Migrants And The Bordering Of Identity In Singapore, Lily Kong, Orlando Woods

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Migration results in people that are different from one another living in closer physicalproximity. Proximity increases the chances of encountering difference, and can lead to boththe formation of new communities, and the strengthening of old. As a religion that claims tointegrate people into a trans-ethnic, trans-territorial faith community, Christianity encouragessuch encounters, whilst Christian groups play an important role in mediating them.Disjunctures of belonging and belief are the outcomes that arise from encounters withdifference within spaces of Christianity. Drawing on 100 interviews conducted betweenAugust 2017 and February 2018, this paper unravels these disjunctures through a focus on theinterplay between migrant and …

Nature, Identity, And Pastoralism: Changing Landscapes And Shifting Paradigms In The Mongolian Taiga, Jessica Vinson

Theses and Dissertations

The traditional environment of pastoralism is under assault from land degradation, rangeland conservation, and development paradigms that alter the everyday lives of Tsataan Dukha reindeer herders in the Mongolian taiga. This paper seeks to analyze the ways in which identity is shaped through experiences of or relationships with particular nonhuman places and beings, and how the Tsataan Dukha renegotiate their individual and collective identities with changing local landscapes that exert considerable pressures upon the social, political, and economic organization of Dukha life. Senses of place and of space are intimately tied to a sense of self, so disruption in environmental …

Oral History Interview With Lily Kong (Part 2), Lily Kong

Oral History Collection

The interview covered:

• Research - Capacity building
• Teaching & Curriculum - Postgraduate professional programs
• Presidents - Internal and external role
• Presidents - Garden metaphor
• Leadership styles, group dynamics
• Challenges & Future - A relatively young university
• Concept & Values - Making a difference in higher education
• Challenges & Future - Healthy competition, cooperation and collaboration
• Personal Reflection - As a woman in senior management
• Advice for Students - Dare to dream
• Presidents - Learning & delegating
• Personal Reflection - Getting a different perspective
• Advice for Students - Know yourself and find a good fit

Islam And Buddhism: The Arabian Prequel?, Anna Akasoy

Publications and Research

Conventionally, the first Muslim-Buddhist encounters are thought to have taken place in the context of the Arab-Muslim expansions into eastern Iran in the mid-seventh century, the conquest of Sind in 711 and the rise of the Islamic empire. However, several theories promoted in academic and popular circles claim that Buddhists or other Indians were present in western Arabia at the eve of Islam and thus shaped the religious environment in which Muhammad’s movement emerged. This article offers a critical survey of the most prominent arguments adduced to support this view and discusses the underlying attitudes to the Islamic tradition, understood …

Customer Satisfaction Index Of Singapore 2018: Full Year Overview, 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. The fourth quarter results mark the end of measurement for CSISG 2018. Singapore’s 2018 national score was computed using the data collected during these four quarters.

Public Interest Litigation & Women’S Rights: Cases From Nepal & India, Jordan E. Stevenson

2019 Symposium

As a complex, diverse and dynamic region with diverging, constantly changing constitutional and jurisprudential contexts as well as lasting legacies of patriarchy, South Asia’s traditions of public interest litigation are one of the most well-studied institutions by Western audiences due to their contradictory progressive and innovative nature. Particularly in India, where public interest litigation gives ordinary citizens extraordinary access to the highest courts of justice, questions have been raised as to the effectiveness of public interest litigation as a tool to address gender disparities across the region. Although Supreme Court justices have been a key ally in eliminating legal barriers …

Establishing An Asia-Pacific Cryptocurrency Hub, Arnat Leemakdej, Chiyachantana N. Chiraphol

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Asia is leading the way in digital asset markets, but individual countries are taking markedly different paths toward regulation and management in establishing themselves as cryptocurrency hubs, balancing innovation and regulation. Investors should be vigilant about the risks associated with alternative capital-raising methods.

Catch Me If You Can: Claiming Jurisdiction Over An Overseas Defendant: Shanghai Turbo Enterprises Ltd V Liu Ming [2019] Sgca 11, Aaron Yoong, Nguyen Sinh Vuong

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The appellant, Shanghai Turbo Enterprises Ltd (“Shanghai Turbo”), is a Singapore-listed company that owns Hong Kong-incorporated Best Success (Hong Kong) Ltd, which in turn owns China-incorporated Changzhou 3D Technological Complete Set Equipment Ltd (“CZ3D”). The respondent, Liu Ming (“Liu”), owned approximately 30% of the shares in Shanghai Turbo. He was also a director of all three companies, and held other management positions there. In April 2017, Shanghai Turbo fired Liu from all his positions in the companies, allegedly because of declining levels of profit under his management. Subsequently, Shanghai Turbo filed a suit against Liu for breaching his service agreement …

Reviewing The Oecd's And The Eu’S Assessment Of Singapore's Development And Expansion Incentive, Frederik Boulogne

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

This paper analyses and describes which norms can be derived from the OECD’s and the EU’s work on preventing harmful taxation that influence how Singapore should design and administer its Development and Expansion Incentive (‘DEI’). This analysis is relief upon in reviewing the Forum on Harmful Tax Practice’s conclusion that the DEI is not harmful and the decision not to place Singapore on the EU’s list of non-cooperative jurisdictions; a decision that suggests that the Council of the European Union considers Singapore to have adequately implemented the minimum anti-BEPS standards, of which BEPS Action 5 is one. These verdicts are, …

The Impact Of Double Tax Treaties On Inward Fdi In Asean Countries, Yue Dong

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

This study aims to assess the impact of double taxation treaties (DTT) on FDI inflows in 10 ASEAN countries from 1989 to 2016. There are two objectives of double taxation treaties. The first one is to alleviate the problem of global double taxation, which has a stimulating effect on FDI. The second objective is the sharing of information between governments, which can prevent tax evasion and thus discourage FDI. The findings suggest that new DTTs in ASEAN have a positive but insignificant impact on the FDI inflows into the region. However, the impact of old DTTs on FDI is significantly …

A Step Forward For Tax Dispute Resolution Between China And Asean Countries Under The Belt And Road Initiative, Diheng Xu

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

China has a closer business relationship with Southeast Asian countries under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). To ensure tax certainty for the investment, it is necessary to establish an effective and efficient tax dispute resolution mechanism. The mutual agreement procedure (MAP) is the primary means, but it has its limitations, especially for countries in this region. Arbitration could be a powerful complementary to the MAP. China has established a new BRI Court-connected and Mediation Centre (Centre) that aims to resolve commercial disputes in this region. It seems like a new alternative for resolving tax disputes since it combines mediation …

Academia-Industry Alliance Can Boost Accountancy In Laos, Clarence Goh, Sanva Saephan

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Surrounded by Myanmar, Cambodia, China, Thailand, and Vietnam, the landlocked nation of Laos has often struggled to escape from the shadows of its larger neighbours. However, Laos has steadily opened its doors to the world over the past few decades and has developed ambitious plans to grow its economy. ... It was in the spirit of deepening collaboration that we embarked on a recent study trip to the Laotian cities of Vientiane and Luang Prabang with 29 undergraduate students from Singapore Management University (SMU).