Asian Studies Commons^™

On Coupling And Coordination Evaluation Of Land-Sea Trade Channels In The Belt And Road, Xiaolin Lan, Guozheng Lan

Bulletin of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Chinese Version)

The Belt and Road is a road of land-sea linkage. Trade channels are the key to land-sea linkages, and it is of great practical significance to study the coupling and coordination of them. Taking the nine provinces and cities along the Belt and Road in China from 2007 to 2018 as samples, this work empirically studies the coupling and coordination of land-sea trade channels, and evaluates and analyzes their development level, development speed, and regional differences. Research shows that:the land and sea areas of most provinces and cities are unevenly affected by the Belt and Road Initiative, and there are …

Popular: Still Singapore’S Favourite Bookstore, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

Popular is evolving into an omni-channel retailer to improve its customer experience

The Global Chinese Consumer, Rane Xue, Xiaolei Gu

Asian Management Insights

At the forefront of growth in the luxury goods market.

Asia Embraces Digital Currency And Cryptocurrency, David Kuo Chen Lee

Asian Management Insights

A decade ago, everyone was sceptical about cryptocurrency. Today, Asian governments are harnessing its technology to raise payment efficiency and improve financial inclusion. Initially, the technology was advocated and harnessed by ‘cypherpunks’, that is, individuals who advocate the use of cryptography and other strong encryption technologies to promote social and political change. At that time, being a cypherpunk meant standing on the opposite side of the government; today, I see cypherpunks, otherwise more appropriately known as cryptopunks, working closely with governments.

Smart Manufacturing And Its Implications For Singapore's Smes, Thomas Menkhoff, Surianarayanan Gopalakrishnan

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

While Covid-19 and the climate catastrophe continue to make headlines, local small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are quietly setting the gears of Smart Manufacturing in motion with a strategic focus on digitising and automating production processes powered by "Industry 4.0" (I4.0) ready business models. A shared view among several interviewees we talked to recently in the context of an ongoing study on the impact of I4.0 on the business models of local manufacturers is that Industrial Internet-of-Things (IIoT), machine learning, visual computing, automation and digital twining are deemed of great importance for the long-term competitiveness of Singapore's manufacturing ecosystem on …

Accounting And Finance Lessons In The Time Of Covid-19: Views From The Pacific Basin: Part 2, Kuan Yong David Ding, Julie Harrison, Martien Lubberink, Chris Van Staden

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The global COVID-19 pandemic is now in its second year, and we are fast approaching the third. The year 2021 has brought some hope that vaccination will lead to the end of the pandemic. But it has also brought a more infectious variant of COVID-19 and multiple waves of surging cases that show no immediate sign of disappearing. As the pandemic continues to impact global societies and economies, it is imperative that we study its impact to try and understand how it will affect us in both the short-term and long-term. While the longer-term impacts are still unknown, there is …

Urbanization Policy And Economic Development: A Quantitative Analysis Of China's Differential Hukou Reforms, Wen-Tai Hsu, Lin Ma

Research Collection School Of Economics

The household registration system (hukou system) in China has hampered rural-urban migration by posing large migration friction. The system has been gradually relaxed in the past few decades, but the reforms have been differential in city size. We find a striking contrast in migration patterns between years 2005 and 2015; rural people tended to move more to large cities in 2005, but more to small- and medium-sized cities in 2015. We calibrate a spatial quantitative model to the world economy in both years with China divided into rural, mega-city, and other-city regions. We find that alternative urbanization policies that are …

Cashing In On Disruptions From Covid-19, Dennis Ng

Asian Management Insights

Promoting cashless payments at Singapore’s hawker centres

China Meets Digital Currency: E-Cny And Its Implications For Businesses, Heng Wang

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

China is likely to be the first major economy to issue central bank digital currency (CBDC). China’s CBDC, e-CNY, may lead to a new ecosystem that would profoundly affect business, product offerings and business practice. E-CNY is likely to affect both local and international businesses, particularly those with a presence in China or those who commonly transact with Chinese actors. There is also the possibility of e-CNY use outside of China. If China’s CBDC practice and standards affect international practice (such as through standard making), e-CNY has the potential to affect the broader businesses community. This article discusses the following …

Technology Lends A Hand To Green E-Commerce, Hao Liang, Sin Mei Cheah

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The world has witnessed an e-commerce boom in the past 2 decades, and Asia-Pacific is now driving the latest wave of growth. The Covid-19 pandemic has further accelerated consumers' growing preference for online consumption, with the Asia-Pacific region raking US$230 billion in online retail sales in 2020. This article is adapted from the authors' teaching case study - Alibaba Cainiao's Smart Green Logistics Strategy: Good for the Earth, Good for the Business.

Making Money From Cryptocurrency? The Taxman May Call On You, Hern Kuan Liu, Vincent Ooi

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Miners, forgers, hobbyists, traders – different rules apply. Just don’t assume crypto investment is somehow immune to taxation.

Online Patriarchal Bargains And Social Support: Struggles And Strategies Of Unwed Single Mothers In China, Xiaoman Zhao, Sun Sun Lim

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Patriarchal bargains have been studied in many settings as a strategy that helps women circumvent constraints and forge spaces for individual empowerment. Despite the growing use of mediated communication, little is known about how patriarchal bargains are enacted and realized within online interactions such as in discussion forums. By analyzing how Chinese unwed single mothers renegotiate the state’s oppressive population control and gender policies through their online activity, this study proposes the concept of “online patriarchal bargain” to extend patriarchal bargain theory to women’s Internet use. It further explores linkages between social support and patriarchal bargain to elucidate how support …

Cultural Diplomacy And Co-Operation In Asean: The Role Of Arts And Culture Festivals, David Ocon

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Beyond their traditional role as entertainment, form of expression and meeting spaces within local communities, arts and culture festivals can perform various functions. They can serve as showcases of artistic pride, signal openness towards cultural diversity, support the local economy, contribute to reducing political tension and provide grounds to consolidate international relationships. On occasion, such festivals function as tools to support the vision of a multilateral co-operation institution, as is the case of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Through a comprehensive review of the arts and culture festivals curated in ASEAN, this article investigates the festivals’ ulterior motivations. …

The Challenges Faced By University Educators In Singapore When Referring Students To Counsellors: An Instrumental Case Study, Poh Yaip, Steven Ng, Yee Lin Chung

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This study examines the difficulties faced by two university professors working in a public, autonomous university in Singapore, when referring students to counselling services. Educators typically observe how students interact and behave in class, and may refer students to counselling services. However, there is little research into how educators experience and view this role, particularly in higher education in Asia. Two university professors who had referred students to their university’s counselling centre took part in semi-structured interviews for the study. From these interviews, the study revealed educators can face a range of challenges in their referral role, such as lack …

Burnout Isn’T Just Exhaustion: Workers Can Also Feel Cynical Or Inadequate, Tina Li Yi Ng, Andree Hartanto

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Employers, take note: There’s more to burnout which corporate wellness initiatives alone cannot solve, say SMU researchers. The huge wave of resignations spurred by the pandemic has forced companies to confront burnout, implementing “burnout breaks” to curb the loss of productivity that comes with working too much. Though initiatives like “mental health weeks” are widely appreciated, they merely scratch the surface and do not solve the issue. To truly put out the flames of burnout, a precise diagnosis of the problem is critical. This is especially true in Singapore, the world’s most fatigued country where one in two workers feels …

Emigrants’ Citizenship In China, Jiaqi M. Liu

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Scholars have examined closely how China’s citizenship regime, namely, the household registration (hukou) system, manages domestic population movements. However, how China’s citizenship regime regulates emigrants abroad remains largely unexplored. In this study, I throw into sharp relief the external dimension of hukou through a genealogical investigation of China’s citizenship policies towards emigrants abroad over the past seven decades. I argue that the otherwise domestically oriented hukou regime also governs emigrant citizenship by first deregistering emigrants who have obtained foreign residency and then selectively restoring those who seek to return to China. This combination of de- and reregistration processes leads to …

Japanese-English Code-Switching By Postwar Speakers In Contemporary America, Andre John Shepherd

Dissertations and Theses

In her examination of Japanese-English bilingualism in Toronto, Nishimura (1995b) demonstrated that second-generation Japanese-Canadians varied their speech dependent on the audience they were addressing. According to her, the Japanese-Canadians spoke primarily in English to fellow second-generation speakers, while maintaining conversations in Japanese with those who had spent their formative years in Japan. However, when addressing audiences composed of both groups, they switched back and forth evenly between the two languages.

Following research done by Woolard (1989) on the effects of societal influences on language, the state of the Japanese-Canadians can be related to the breakup of the ethnic enclaves in …

The Discourse/Pragmatic Functions Of Japanese Okkē, Peter Fodor

Dissertations and Theses

Okay is one of the most commonly used words in the English language. It is also one of the most commonly borrowed English-origin loanwords across all of the world's languages. Although there is a wealth of research on the communicative functions of English okay, there is comparatively little research on the many borrowings of the word in various other languages. In order to address this gap in the literature, this study explores the differences in discourse/pragmatic function between the English word okay, and the Japanese borrowing of the word, okkē.

Extensive research in discourse analysis, pragmatics, and …

Space And Defense – Volume Twelve – Number Two – Summer 2021, Space And Defense Journal

Space and Defense

No abstract provided.

The Unknown Benefits Of Black Markets, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

Research on the license plate market in China’s capital finds that black markets can potentially serve as an auction mechanism to redistribute limited resources to those in need

Strategies To Build An Impactful Institutional Repository: A Case Study Of Singapore Management University, Pin Pin Yeo

Research Collection Library

An institutional repository (IR) was launched in 2010 for a young university in Singapore. The motivations of setting up an IR were to dissemination the research output through open access, to promote the university and researchers, and to help increase their research impact. A review was conducted on the strategies to build the IR. Some quantitative and qualitative performance indicators were selected and used to measure the success of the IR. The findings of the review were presented and strategies that were successful in building the IR were having a workflow process between the research information system and the repository, …

Fica: What Checks & Balances Are Needed Against Powers Being Used Inappropriately?, Tan K. B. Eugene, Benjamin Joshua Ong

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

COMMENTARY: "The key question is not whether the state should have powers to take countermeasures, but rather whether there are adequate checks against the risk of those powers being inappropriately used."

The New Law On Foreign Interference – What’S Next For Businesses, Tan K. B. Eugene, Benjamin Joshua Ong

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In a joint commentary, SMU Associate Professor of Law Eugene Tan and SMU Assistant Professor of Law Benjamin Joshua Ong discussed what the Foreign Interference (Countermeasures) Bill (Fica) means for businesses. They opined that businesses could have disclosure policies for themselves and their stakeholders, akin to conflict of interest disclosures. They also noted that more can be done to clarify the limits to government powers under Fica, and pointed out that conversations about foreign interference must go beyond Fica.

Decree Power In Parliamentary Systems: Theory And Evidence From India, Madhav Shrihari Aney, Shubhankar Dam

Research Collection School Of Economics

Decree powers are common to presidential systems; they are rarely found in parliamentary ones. We analyze decree powers in one such rare setting: India. We show that bicameral minority governments in India systematically use ordinances to circumvent parliament and prosecute their legislative agendas. They promulgate more ordinances, enact less legislation, and often repromulgate lapsed ordinances. These patterns suggest that, with bicameral minority governments, the locus of lawmaking shifts to the executive branch. While both majority and minority governments invoke ordinances, the latter do so systematically to get around their parliamentary deficit. In the hands of minority governments, then, the mechanism …

Local Political Corruption And M&As, Chun Liu, Yang Chen, Shanmin Li, Liang Sun, Mengjie Yang

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

We examine the relation between local political corruption and firms' cross-province M&As using provincial-level data on corruption in China. The results show that firms in more corrupt regions are less likely to engage in cross-province M&As. Further analyses reveal that the effects of local corruption on the probability of cross-province M&As are stronger when corrupt officers have greater impeding benefits or lower impeding costs. Meanwhile, Both ex-ante intervention and ex post punishment are important channels through which corrupt officers hinder firms' cross province M&As. Moreover, informal institutions, such as social capital and informal networks can help to alleviate the negative …

Exploring The Impact Of Industry 4.0 On The Business Models Of Small And Medium-Sized Manufacturing Enterprises In Singapore, Surianarayanan Gopalakrishnan

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Triggered by the ongoing transformation of Singapore's manufacturing industries towards 'smart(er)' manufacturing with a focus on digitising and automating production processes and more competitive business models, this study contributes to the limited Asian management literature about the readiness and impact of 'Industry 4.0' (I4.0) on the business models of Singapore's Small and Medium-sized manufacturing Enterprises (SMEs). I4.0 encompasses adopting opportunities from end-to-end digitalisation with connected computers and increasingly autonomous automation systems equipped with intelligent machine learning algorithms that control robotics with minimal human input. As the traditional manufacturing model is increasingly replaced by advanced, high-value manufacturing technologies such as the …

Compensation For Frivolous Or Vexatious Prosecution, Benjamin Joshua Ong

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

According to section 359(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code, an acquitted accused person may receive compensation if the prosecution was “frivolous or vexatious”. In Parti Liyani v Public Prosecutor, Singapore’s High Court – for the first time – comprehensively discussed what section 359(3) means and how it is to be applied. This article aims to outline and comment on the High Court’s decision, and to highlight several issues which may be explored in future.

The New Law On Foreign Interference: What's Next For Businesses?, Tan K. B. Eugene, Benjamin Joshua Ong

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The Foreign Interference (Countermeasures) Bill (Fica) was passed in Parliament on Monday after about 10 hours of impassioned debate. Despite the government agreeing to several amendments proposed by the Workers' Party, the substance was not changed in any significant way. Although the government provided more details on how Fica is to operate, more details will be unveiled when it comes into operation. What does all this mean for businesses?

What Are The Four Traits Of Digitally Mature Organizations?, Clarence Goh, Gary Pan, Poh Sun Seow, Yuanto Kusnadi, Gek Choo Shirlena Tan

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

A study conducted by Deloitte Southeast Asia and the Singapore Management University said there are four traits that could identify digitally mature organisations based on how they manage the governance, risk, and compliance aspects of digital transformation.

Covid-19 One Year On: Security And Privacy Review Of Contact Tracing Mobile Apps, Wei Yang Ang, Lwin Khin Shar

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic caused 3.8 million deaths since December 2019. At the current vaccination pace, this global pandemic could persist for several years. Throughout the world, contact tracing (CT) apps were developed, which play a significant role in mitigating the spread of COVID-19. This work examines the current state of security and privacy landscape of mobile CT apps. Our work is the first attempt, to our knowledge, which provides a comprehensive analysis of 70 CT apps used worldwide as of year Q1 2021. Among other findings, we observed that 80% of them may have handled sensitive data without adequate …