Asian Studies Commons^™

"Ni Hao" Is The New "Aloha": Asia's Rise In Tourism, Julianne Binns

Marriott Student Review

Asia has become one of the fastest growing areas in terms of travel and tourism. When it comes to investing in tourism (in ay form) one should keep a watchful eye on the region. This paper addresses the evidence of growth, reasons behind the growth, and what to expect in the future. As the region strengthens in economic power and shines light on its positives, more travelers are making their way to (or around) Asia. With coronavirus now being quelled in the region, it is only a matter of time before the numbers pick back up again. No doubt, the …

Consumption, Investment, Integration And Digitalisation Lead Growth In Asia, Piyush Gupta, Havovi Heerjee Joshi

Asian Management Insights

An interview with Piyush Gupta, Chief Executive Officer and Director of DBS Group, about the Asia growth story and the future of banking.

Disasters And The Making Of Asian History, Chris Courtney, Fiona Williamson

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Environmental historians have often been drawn to disasters. They have unearthed the often-forgotten stories of erupting volcanoes, raging rivers and rainless skies, and in so doing have reminded their colleagues from more anthropocentric disciplines that the societies, economies and cultures they study are part of broader physical systems. In addition to highlighting the agency of nature, however, disasters have also helped to remind us that environmental history remains at heart a humanistic discipline. It should never be simply a lament for lost natural habitats, but also a discipline which offers a unique prism through which to study people. It is …

Cross-Border Regulation Of Securities Markets In Asean, Wai Yee Wan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

How does cross-border regulation of securities markets work in Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN)? How closely are the securities markets coordinated within ASEAN from the regulatory perspective? What is the optimal regulatory model of integration of securities markets that balances the economic benefits of integration and yet minimizes the risks of contagion and advances the state’s national goals? The issues posed by these questions are important against the background of strong growth of the Asian economies and Asian capital markets, and how the ASEAN states can take advantage of such growth to facilitate economic growth. According to the …

2019 Asia Insights: Building A Great Place To Work For All: The Untapped Power Of Gender Diversity In Asia, Richard Raymond Smith, Evelyn Kwek, Tyler Thorpe

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Through this study, we hope to increase understanding of the context, considerations and practices to leverage the amazing diversity of our region. We hope to learn more about what makes a strong workplace culture, particularly in Asia. We turn our attention to the topic of diversity and inclusion, with a focus on gender diversity in the Asian workplace. This is one of the largest studies in Asia to highlight gender differences and evaluate how psychological safety, inclusion and belonging result in strong teamwork which in turn contributes to building high performing great workplaces.

Infrastructure In Asia: The Reality, The Challenge, The Opportunity, Philip Charles Zerrillo

Asian Management Insights

While the urgency to build and improve infrastructure is always imminent, investing in it is a high stakes game for emerging countries. Investments these countries make should be well-prioritised to maximise the economic winds that fill their sails.

Sex Trafficking In Asia: The Impact Of Policy, Economic Opportunity, And Globalization, Emma C. M. Lavoie

Student Publications

This paper examines the prevalence of sex trafficking in Asia and considers factors that make it stand out among other regions of the world. It explains the consequences of poorly designed policy on sex trafficking, using the Chinese One Child Policy as an example. It also looks at the lack of economic opportunity in countries like Thailand and Cambodia, that can incentivize the selling of women to traffickers. Finally, this paper considers the role of globalization in making the transport of sex trafficking victims easier as well as the effect of modern communication technologies on trafficking.

Introduction: Understanding The Transformational Power Of China's Belt And Road Initiative, Yue Wah Chay, Thomas Menkhoff

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This book features several introductory readings about the “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI), a strategic development initiative launched by the Chinese Government under the leadership of President Xi Jinping in 2013 to jointly build an economic belt along the Silk Road. Some of the key objectives of BRI, previously known as One Belt, One Road (OBOR) or Silk Road Economic Belt, include promoting infrastructure development, trade and investments in Asia, Europe and Africa. BRI is a gigantic development initiative whose key components include the creation of several interconnected economic land corridors (=belts): China–Mongolia–Russia; China–Central Asia– West Asia, China–Pakistan, the China–Indochina …

Glocalised Constitution-Making In The Twenty-First Century: Evidence From Asia, Maartje De Visser, Bui Ngoc Son

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

How have Asian nations conducted, or how are they conducting, constitution-making in the face of pressures associated with globalization, and how do they balance those forces with domestic interests and realities? This article aims to develop an analytical framework that can capture this global-local interplay. It introduces the concept of “glocalized constitution-making” to denote the co-existence and relationship between the two governance levels as manifested in the forces, actors and norms pertaining to the process of drafting a new constitution as well as its substance. Glocalization permeates the entirety of a constitution-making episode, from the impetus to initiate the process, …

"The Chinese Animation Industry: From The Mao Era To The Digital Age", Stephanie Jones

Master's Projects and Capstones

Since the 1950’s the Chinese Animation industry has been trying to create a unique national style for China. The national style of the 1950’s and early 1960’s was one of freedom, fantasy, and creativity. With the success of “Heroic Little Sisters of the Grassland”/草原英雄小姐妹(1965), the government administration, namely Jiang Qing of the “Gang of Four”, demanded that all animation should follow specific guidelines based on Social Realism guidelines. This in turn, ushered in a new national style of animation during the Cultural Revolution(1966-1976). During this ten-year period government policies imposed strict restrictions on animators and cause a drain of creative …

Revisiting The Miller-Kanazawa Debate: Should Asia Be Afforded More Attention From Evolutionary Psychologists?, Sean Teck Hao Lee

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

A decade ago, Dr. Satoshi Kanazawa and Dr. Geoffrey Miller, two renowned evolutionary psychologists, participated in a debate on whether evolutionary psychologists should focus on Asia in their quest to establish a stronghold in the general field of psychology. Despite painstaking efforts to foster greater receptiveness among Western psychologists toward an evolutionary perspective of psychological phenomena, most still seem to be critically reserved toward it; favoring instead proximate sociocultural explanations of psychological phenomena as stipulated by the standard social science model. Facing such an inertia, Miller suggested that it may perhaps be wise to re-direct the field's efforts on the …

Hostile Takeover Regimes In Asia: A Comparative Approach, Umakanth Varottil, Wai Yee Wan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The market for corporate control is animportant corporate governance mechanism for the discipline of corporatemanagers. However, the process and substance of the regulation of hostiletakeovers differs remarkably among various jurisdictions. Existing andinfluential scholarship has focused on the differences in regulation between UnitedStates (US) and the United Kingdom (UK), with the explanations being founded ininterest group politics. Influential as it is, the question is whether thetheory can be extended outside of the US and the UK, particularly to theirlegal transplants in Asia? In the last few decades, many of the Asianjurisdictions have drawn heavily from the US and the UK when …

An Asian View On The Ceta Investment Chapter, Locknie Hsu

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The Canada-EU Free Trade Agreement (CETA) has been completed and awaits ratification against a backdrop of global economic uncertainty. The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), which includes five Asian parties among its signatories, has lost the support of the United States and its fate is uncertain as well. The CETA is significant for Asian countries given that one of its parties -- the EU -- has signalled strongly that it wishes to negotiate a number of free trade agreements in the Asian region. The agreement offers valuable insight into the thinking of the EU in terms of investment protection guarantees, its …

Disruptive Technologies And Sustainable Development: Implications For Southeast Asia, Ching-Fu Lin, Han-Wei Liu

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Disruptive technologies, including artificial intelligence, distributed ledger technologies, and the internet of things, are driving a transformative reorganisation of economic structures. If correctly harnessed, these emerging technologies have the potential to assist economies in creating new efficiencies, boosting productivity, and enhancing international trade. This paper explores the scope for these technologies to contribute to sustainable development, highlighting how they could be deployed and implications for Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, and Vietnam.

Government Intervention In Corporate Crises: An Asian Perspective, Augustine Pang, Paige Pei-Hua Tan

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Governments are expected to intervene in national crises like natural disasters (Rosenthal & Kouzmin, 1997). Less clear are corporate crises. In recent years, there have been several corporate crises in Asia where governments have intervened to restore confidence. The paper seeks to examine the roles and extent of Asian governmental intervention in corporate crises, particularly it examines the impact Asian governments – described as paternalistic (Shin & Sin, 2012) – have on corporate crises. Five high profile Asian corporate crises were analyzed through Winkler’s (1977) Theory of Corporatism. Impact was analyzed through Boin and ’t Hart’s (2010) nine crisis response …

Fear Of Violence During Armed Conflict: Social Roles And Responsibilities As Determinants Of Fear, Nathalie E. Williams, Dirgha Ghimire, Karen A. Snedker

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

This article investigates the prevalence and determinants of fear as a consequence of living through armed conflict. We use survey data from Nepal during the armed conflict (1996–2006) to examine how trauma, sex and gender, age, marriage, and household size affect fear of violence. We also disaggregate types of worry, and find substantial variance on whether respondents were more concerned about livelihood consequences of conflict than physical danger. We supplement quantitative analyses with discussion of in-depth interviews from the study area on these same topics. Overall, our results highlight the enduring impact of gender roles in Nepal and that conflict …

Taiwan – Community-Building, Civil Society, And Civic Activism: Promises And Predicaments, Anru Lee

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Innovations In Asia: Selected Case Studies, Institute Of Innovation And Entrepreneurship, Singapore Management University

Research Collection Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship

This book is a compilation of seven case studies written by faculty and staff of Singapore Management University (SMU) and has been edited in conjunction with the inaugural Asia Pacific Innovation Forum organised by the International Society for Professional Innovation Management (ISPIM) and hosted by SMU in December 2014. These cases have been carefully selected to illustrate the various challenges inherent in creating entrepreneurial and business innovations.

The first five cases are related to start-ups by experienced professionals and students. Jayashree is an excellent case that shows how an individual with very little education was able to design and implement …

Improving Connectivity Between Asean's Legal Systems To Address Commercial Issues, Locknie Hsu, Pearlie M. C. Koh, Man Yip

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This interim report on legal barriers to doing business in ASEAN coincides with the 50th Anniversary of ASEAN’s founding and the first year of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC). The team is privileged to be supported by, among others, the Canada-ASEAN Business Council (CABC), given that it is also the 40th anniversary of dialogue relations between Canada and ASEAN.

Despite occasional misgivings about the “ASEAN Way”, ASEAN economic integration has come a very long way. The number of member States has grown over the 50 years since ASEAN’s founding, and the joint efforts among these States driving economic growth and …

Toward A Theoretical Framework To Studying Climate Change Policies: Insights From Case Study Of Singapore, Ai Sian Ng, May O. Lwin, Augustine Pang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The world decided in December 2015 to take actions to reduce global warming. To contribute toward this goal, this research examines possible policy levers for inclusion in the climate change ratification plan. A case study of the measures taken by the Republic of Singapore, a low-lying 719.2 km2 island without natural resources in Asia, is conducted. Being vulnerable to climate change impact and yet having to balance her people’s needs and economic progress with limited resources, the measures taken by this small country could offer policy insights for small states and states without access to alternative energy sources. This research …

Cross Border Public Offering Of Securities In Fostering An Integrated Asean Securities Market: The Experiences Of Singapore, Malaysia And Thailand, Wai Yee Wan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In 2015, the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Economic Community was formally established and its aim was to achieve, among other things, an integrated securities market within ASEAN.

Before the formal establishment of the ASEAN Economic Community, in 2009, with a view towards achieving the objective of securities integration, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand adopted the ASEAN Disclosure Standards, a set of harmonized disclosure standards for issuers making cross-border initial public offerings (IPOs). These participating Member States also entered into a framework for the expedited review for cross-listings. However, more than 5 years later, there is no documented use of …

The Making Of A Successful Analytics Master Degree Program: Experiences And Lessons Drawn For A Young And Small Asian University, Michelle L. F. Cheong

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Singapore Management University's School of Information Systems is a young school within a young and small university in Asia. Being young and small, establishing a successful analytics master degree program required extensive landscape research, assessment of its own strengths and weaknesses, having a committed team, and having a clear vision to meet the ever-changing needs of the industry. The Master of IT in Business (Analytics) program, established since 2011, has grown from an annual intake of 16 to 128 students in six years. This article attempts to describe the design process, challenges faced, decisions made, and the key actions taken, …

What Does Successful Aging Mean? Lay Perception Of Successful Aging Among Elderly Singaporeans, Qiushi Feng, Paulin Tay Straughan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Objectives: We explore the culturally specific meaning of successful aging in Singapore, an ethnically diverse city-state in Asia. We aim to investigate lay perceptions of successful aging among the elderly individuals in Singapore and further examine variations of these perceptions. Methods: We applied a mixed-method research design. Firstly, we conducted qualitative interviews with 49 elderly respondents, generating 12 main subjective components of successful aging. Next, we did a national survey with a sample of 1,540 local residents aged 50 to 69 years, in which respondents were asked to evaluate the importance of each subjective component of successful aging. We used …

The Impact Of Arab Revolutions On Asia: A Study Of Diffusion Theory, Mohammad El-Sayed Selim, Gamal M. Selim

Political Science

يجيب هذا البحث عن أربعة أسئلة، هي: هل تنتشر الظواهر السياسية بالفعل من إقليم إلى آخر، وما العوامل التي تحدد المدى المكاني والزماني للانتشار، وما آثار هذا الانتشار، ولماذا تنتشر الظواهر الثورية في النظم الديمقراطية، ويجيب البحث عن الأسئلة من زاوية نظرية الانتشار مع اشتقاق فروض من تلك النظرية لاختبارها في حالة انتشار ظاهرة "الثورات العربية" إلى آسيا. ومن ثم يعرض البحث لأصول نظرية الانتشار وتطبيقاتها وأدبياتها، مع عرض الإطار النظري لمفهوم الانتشار. ومن هذا الإطار اشتق ثمانية فروض تدور حول محددات انتشار الظواهر، واختبرت تلك الفروض في حالة انتشار ظاهرة "الثورات العربية" في الدول الآسيوية منذ سنة 2011. وقد …

Gender, Everyday Mobility, And Mass Transit In Urban Asia, Anru Lee

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

The Making Of A Successful Analytics Master Degree Program: Experiences And Lessons Drawn For A Young And Small Asian University, Michelle L. F. Cheong

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Singapore Management University’s School of Information Systems is a young school within a young and small university in Asia. Being young and small, establishing a successful analytics master degree program required extensive landscape research, assessment of its own strengths and weaknesses, having a committed team, and having a clear vision to meet the ever-changing needs of the industry. The Master of IT in Business (Analytics) program, established since 2011, has grown from an annual intake of 16 to 128 students in six years. This article attempts to describe the design process, challenges faced, decisions made, and the key actions taken, …

Can Asians Be Creative?, Chua, Roy Y. J., Jerry Zremski

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

A crotchety American named Henry Ford invented a modern, fast and efficient way to manufacture automobiles and a Japanese man named Eiji Toyoda refined and perfected it. A series of innovators across the western world developed the television - and the tech specialists at Sony, Toshiba and a host of other Asian companies found ways to make TVs better, cheaper, faster. And an idiosyncratic Californian named Steve Jobs invented a company that made a smart phone for the masses - and then outsourced the manufacturing to China. If you detect a pattern here, you are not alone. Asia may be …

Invitation Strategy For Cutting Edge Industries Through Mncs And Global Talents: The Case Of Singapore, Kim Song Tan

Research Collection School Of Economics

Singapore presents an interesting case of how a country achieves dynamic economic development and innovation through the "invitation" strategy of a business hub. Despite being a small city-state with limited domestic market size and no meaningful hinterland or natural resources to speak of, Singapore has managed to transform its economy dramatically over the past 50 years by leveraging the strengths of other economies. Specifically, it has been able to attract (or "invite") various types of productive resources, including foreign capital, foreign technology and foreign workers (both skilled and unskilled) to make up for what it lacks. This has helped Singapore …

Grab Taxi: Navigating New Frontiers, Mei Lin, Christopher Dula

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In mid-2016, Anthony Tan, the CEO of Grab, an on-demand transportation-app company serving Southeast Asia, was locked in a high stakes struggle to win the hearts and minds of drivers, passengers and regulators alike. Valued at an estimated US$1.5 billion, Grab (known among consumers as ‘GrabTaxi’) had become one of Asia’s most successful start-ups.

Concepts And Measurement Of Vulnerability To Poverty And Other Issues: A Review Of Literature, Tomoki Fujii

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper reviews the growing body of literature on vulnerability. We first provide a survey of existing studies on the concepts and measurements of vulnerability to poverty by classifying them into welfarist, expected poverty, and axiomatic approaches. We then review a number of empirical studies on vulnerability to poverty in Asia and elsewhere. This review shows that poverty and vulnerability are related, but different, and that key determinants of vulnerability often include education and location. We also briefly review other areas of vulnerability analysis such as vulnerability to climate change and offer various policy implications arising from vulnerability analysis.