Asian Studies Commons^™

The Role Of A Non-Executive Director In Smes, Jiwei Wang

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

There are not many SMEs in Singapore which employ independent non-executive directors. SMU Associate Professor of Accounting Wang Jiwei advised that there are immense benefits that a non-executive director can bring to an SME as its business grows. These include the credibility that the person can bring to the management team, including the important and useful contacts, as well as different skill sets and experiences. “Understand your needs and then identify the right type of experienced individuals who possess the necessary expertise or business networks. There is a high possibility that your ‘perfect' non-executive director may be someone you already …

The Better-Than-Average Effect In Hong Kong And The United States: The Role Of Personal Trait Importance And Cultural Trait Importance, Kim-Pong Tam, Angela K. Y. Leung, Young-Hoon Kim, Chi-Yue Chiu, Ivy Yee-Man Lau, Al K. C. Au

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

People tend to make self-aggrandizing social comparisons on traits that are important to the self. However, existing research on the better-than-average effect (BTAE) and trait importance does not distinguish between personal trait importance (participants’ ratings of the importance of certain traits to themselves) and cultural trait importance (participants’ perceptions of the importance of the traits to the cultural group to which they belong). We demonstrated the utility of this distinction by examining the joint effects of personal importance and cultural importance on the BTAE among Hong Kong Chinese and American participants. Results showed that the BTAE was more pronounced for …

A Timely Look At Those ‘Other’ Issues, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

SMU Assistant Professor of Law and Nominated MP Eugene Tan wrote that there was something in the National Day Rally speech for different segments of Singaporeans. Furthermore, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong shared the presentation with three other government leaders, signalling a more inclusive style of leadership and encouraging openness to different perspectives.

Creating Access To Quality Legal Representation – The Queen's Counsel (Re)Appears In Singapore, Kwan Ho Lau

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Litigants coming up against a large banking institution or corporation in Singapore have not always been able to procure quality legal representation. The larger law firms there, with their established dispute resolution practices and stables of Senior Counsel, are often unable or unwilling to act in litigation against their institutional clients. This article investigates the extent of the problem and the Ministry of Law’s soluion of easing the criteria for ad hoc admission of Queen’s Counsel in Singapore. The author then looks, in some detail, at the factors that a court might consider in any foreign lawyer’s application for admission. …

China’S Strategic Futures: Debating The Post-American World Order?, William A. Callahan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This essay examines how China’s “harmonious world” foreign policy has unintentionally created opportunities for citizens to challenge elite discussions of foreign policy. Although they are relative outsiders, the essay argues that citizen intellectuals are a growing influence as a source of ideas about China’s future—and the world’s.

The Regime Legitimacy Of One-China: How The Vatican Can Make China Whole Again, Jonathan David Bradley

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Currently, the sovereign state of Vatican City does not formally recognize the People's Republic of China. Nor does the Vatican recognize the Chinese Communist Party as the legitimate regime over China. Instead the Vatican recognizes the Republic of China on the island of Taiwan. There are 23 countries in the world who share the Vatican's legitimization of the Republic of Taiwan. The largest concentration of those countries is in heavily Catholic Central America. This thesis looks at the dynamics of the Sino-Vatican relationship in three areas: political tension management of the Chinese people by the CCP, improved relations between the …

Changes Reflect A Maturing S’Pore’S Priorities, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

SMU Assistant Professor of Law and Nominated MP Eugene Tan wrote about the recent restructuring of socially oriented government ministries and the Cabinet reshuffle. “The changes demonstrate how the Government and governance in Singapore have to evolve since the... General Election. The Government is called upon to be more responsive and sensitive to the intangibles like society and community issues as they impact profoundly upon the well-being of Singaporeans”, he said.

All Good Things Must Come To An End: China Beat’S 1,000th Post, Maura Cunningham, Kate Merkel-Hess, Ken Pomeranz, Jeff Wasserstrom

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

With much gratitude, the China Beat editors say goodbye.

What a difference four years can make—for a blog, a country, and a planet. (“Blog, country, planet” might have made a nice coat of arms if we’d thought of it…) When China Beat launched early in 2008, blogs seemed like relatively new kids on the block, at least to academics. Four years later, the genre is old hat, sharing a landscape with newcomers like Tumblr, Twitter, and other microblogging platforms, and we’re increasingly catching up on China news not on computers but on devices that fit in our palms.

The blog …

Why Smes Should Aim At Becoming Exporters, Hian Teck Hoon

Research Collection School Of Economics

In the fortnightly series entitled 'Engage SMU profs', Professor Hoon Hian Teck, Associate Dean of the School of Economics, answers the questions: Should SMEs aim to become exporters rather than serve only the domestic market? What are the benefits to SMEs in doing so? Does the smallness in size limit their productivity growth? Are there any channels for SMEs to get assistance from the authorities, and what are these? He commented that if more of our local SMEs look towards the international marketplace and sell to foreign markets, not only will Singapore's GDP be boosted, local businessmen will also get …

Growth And Inequality In 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 saw increasing inequality and with it an underlying possibly diminished upward intergenerational mobility due to skill-biased growth processes, skill-biased parental influence, liberalization 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, the paternal influence on educational aspiration and attainment is more pronounced than the mother’s. Non-Chinese and youths from disrupted families are worse off …

Coalitions And Language Politics: Policy Shifts In Southeast Asia, Amy H. Liu, Jacob I. Ricks

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Why is it that some governments recognize only one language while others espouse multilingualism? Related, why are some governments able to shift language policies, and if there is a shift, what explains the direction? In this article, the authors argue that these choices are theproduct of coalitional constraints facing the government during critical junctures in history. During times of political change in the state-building process, the effective threat of an alternate linguistic group determines the emergent language policy. If the threat is low, the government moves toward monolingual policies. As the threat increases, however, the government is forced to co-opt …

Contract Law, Chee Ho Tham, Pey Woan Lee, Yihan Goh

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

No abstract provided.

Singapore Business And The Gulf: Un Tour D’Horizon, Caroline Yeoh, Wilfred How

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Never more newsworthy in business circles has been the Gulf Region than in recent decades; from the region's vast economic strength and meteoric development, to the events of the financial crisis and the ongoing 'Arab spring'. A rich environment in every way – business, cultural, and socio-political – the countries of the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) provide a fascinating subject for academic study from a wealth of perspectives. Some of these perspectives are well-explored; others, markedly less so, the business dimension of this unique and complicated market regrettably among them. While a favored subject of our own research, the comparative …

Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2011 Singapore Report, Olexander S. Chernyshenko, David Gomulya, Wei Ming J. Phan, Yoke Yong Lai, Moon-Ho R. Ho, Marilyn A. Uy, Kim Yan Chan, Olwen Bedford

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Independent of the stage of economic development, entrepreneurship plays a significant role for the expansion, job creation and overall economic health within a country. As a leading international indicator of entrepreneurial activity around the world, the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) provides valuable insight into the state of entrepreneurship within and across developed and developing economies. Knowing the entrepreneurial aspirations of country’s residents is particularly relevant in Singapore’s innovation-driven economy given that the country’s prosperity depends largely on the economic activities of its citizens. We describe the key definitions and terms used in the GEM as well as the stages of …

Book Review: A Passion For Facts By Tong Lam, Maggie Clinton

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Tong Lam’s engaging new study A Passion for Facts analyzes the processes by which modern modes of apprehending and ordering the social world were forced upon and ultimately embraced by Chinese political and intellectual elites during the late Qing and Republican periods. Lam focuses on the rise of the “social survey” (shehui diaocha) as a means of knowing and constituting a new object called “society” (shehui), as well as the epistemological violence of imperialism that rendered the social survey a seemingly natural way of investigating the world. By the time the Nationalists assumed state power in 1927, Lam argues, “seeking …

Book Review: Superstitious Regimes By Rebecca Nedostup, Stefania Travagnin

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Superstitious Regimes is an interdisciplinary work that sheds new light on the interaction between the state-body and the religion-body in early twentieth-century China, with a focus on the Nanjing Decade (1927-1937). Nedostup develops her analysis from both a diachronic and synchronic perspective. The author underlines shifts and continuities between a few historical periods: Sun Yat-sen’s time, the early years of the Nanjing Decade, the late years of the Nanjing Decade, and the post-Nanjing Decade.

Nedostup’s interdisciplinary study is of interest for a large readership: students and scholars of Chinese studies, Chinese politics, Chinese religions, and Chinese history would all benefit …

Public Health Regulation: The Impact Of Intersections Between Trade & Investment Treaties In Asia, Locknie Hsu

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

There has been an explosive growth of free trade agreements (FTAs) in recent years. The World Trade Report 2011 of the World Trade Organization (WTO) shows Asian members to be among the most active in signing preferential trade agreements. This unprecedented growth has attracted much academic and policy discussion on aspects such as their effects on trade liberalization, problems raised by specific trade and investment provisions, dispute settlement, and concerns over “regionalism”. Like such areas, public health regulation has been significantly affected by such treaties. FTAs, together with bilateral investment treaties (BITs), are rapidly forming a source of intersecting state …

Ambitions Of A Global City: Arts, Culture And Creative Economy In 'Post-Crisis' Singapore, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper chronicles some of the key policies pertaining to the arts and culture in post-independent Singapore. A brief summary is first provided of the early (1960s and 1970s) cultural policy focusing on the harnessing of arts and culture for nation-building purposes, followed by the subsequent (1980s) recognition that the arts and culture had tourist dollar potential. The paper then expands on the cultural/creative economy policy of the 2000s, in which arts, heritage, media and design are recognized for their economic value (beyond their role in tourism to include their export value and their importance in attracting global workers). The …

Sri Lanka's Informal Religious Economy: Evangelical Competitiveness And Buddhist Hegemony In Perspective, Orlando Woods

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Existing religious economy models maintain that as religious regulation increases, levels of interreligious competition decrease. But new understandings of the market dynamics of religious oligopolies necessitate new understandings of religious competitiveness. A relational model of competitiveness using the case of evangelical Christianity in Buddhist-majority Sri Lanka is proposed. In Sri Lanka the informal religious economy is defined by competitiveness among evangelical Christian groups and, although not recognized by the state, is closely regulated. The focus in this article is on the scalar determinations of evangelical competitiveness, patterns of secrecy and subterfuge, the formation of strategic extra-group networks that enable competitiveness, …

The Long-Term Impact Of War On Health And Wellbeing In Northern Vietnam: Some Glimpses From A Recent Survey, Bussarawan Teerawichitchainan, Kim Korinek

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

War is considered one of the most intransigent obstacles to development; yet, the long-run effects of war on individual health have rarely been examined in the context of developing countries. Based on unique data recently collected as a pilot follow-up to the Vietnam Longitudinal Survey, this study examines health status of northern Vietnamese war cohorts (those who entered adulthood during the Vietnam War and now represent Vietnam’s older-adult population). To ascertain whether and how war impacts old-age physical and mental health, we compare multi-dimensional measures of health among war survivors, including civilians, combatants, noncombatants, and nonveterans involved in militia activities. …