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Aghajari, N., and A. A. Senin. 2014. "Strategic orientation and dual innovative operation strategies: Implications for performance of manufacturing SMEs." Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Administration 6 (2):127-47.
doi: 10.1108/APJBA-07-2013-0075.
Purpose - The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, to address a key but neglected area of research in operation and strategy that is the association between strategic orientation of the firm and its innovation emphasis on the current and future operation initiatives. Second, to explore and examine respective performance implications of these two kinds of operation strategies. Design/methodology/approach - Data from a carefully designed and conducted survey of Malaysia manufacturing SMEs were analysed using a structural equation modelling approach. Findings - Findings suggest that strategic innovation is strongly associated with both types of innovative operation strategies and they bring about different operational and market performance outcomes for the firm. This sheds light on a new framework for understanding the strategic architecture of innovation in operation strategies. Research limitations/implications - This study was limited to the small manufacturing firms in Malaysia. As a result, to assess its generalizability it can be replicated in other sectors and also other countries. Practical implications - Several managerial implications emanate from this research. Most notably is the notion that strategic orientation is a key antecedent of innovation in operation strategies and in particular, it affects both current and future related innovative initiatives. This indicates that executives of manufacturing firms must align their innovative moves with their strategic mind-set to achieve their desired outcomes both operationally and financially. Originality/value - To the best of knowledge of the author and based on a comprehensive review of past research, this study is original in two ways: first it is the first research that links strategic orientation with dual innovative operation strategies and second it is the first attempt to investigate respective operational and financial outcomes of these associations separately. This framework adds new insights and original value to several bodies of knowledge. Copyright © 2014 Emerald Group Publishing Limited. All rights reserved.
Akita, T., and M. S. Pagulayan. 2014. "Structural changes and interregional income inequality in the Philippines, 1975-2009." Review of Urban and Regional Development Studies 26 (2):135-54.
doi: 10.1111/rurd.12024.
The Philippines has undergone gradual, but substantial, changes in industrial structure over the past few decades, and these have been associated with changes in the geographical distribution of economic activity. This study analyzes changes in the determinants of regional income inequality in the Philippines associated with these structural changes from 1975 to 2009. This is accomplished by using the bidimensional decomposition method. The reduction of the disparity between the National Capital Region (NCR) and the rest of Luzon is essential to decreasing Luzon's high within-region inequality and overall interregional inequality. However, this is not easy to accomplish, as service sectors have enjoyed agglomeration economies that the NCR has nurtured under economic liberalization and globalization. Decentralization has been one way to ameliorate the disparity, but its effects are ambiguous. Another option would be to relocate some manufacturing activities to areas outside the NCR where they could enjoy localization economies. © The Applied Regional Science Conference (ARSC)/Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd 2014.
Al-Amin, A. Q., and W. L. Filho. 2014. "A return to prioritizing needs: Adaptation or mitigation alternatives?" Progress in Development Studies 14 (4):359-71.
doi: 10.1177/1464993414521487.
This study empirically explores climate change-related impacts on rice farming by using global circulation models together with crop modelling. The approach uses a bottom-up strategy which focuses on agricultural production loss under various climatic conditions following observational records of precipitation and warming climatic factors up to the year 2090. The study provides a wide range of potential climate outcomes and assesses the comparative advantages of both mitigation and adaptation alternatives concerning prioritizing requirements to reduce scenario vulnerabilities in rice agriculture. Utilizing scenario vulnerabilities, this study visualizes alternative guidelines and some of the potential paths policymakers could take with their planning strategies. The issue considered in the present study could be used as a reference for developing climate change and global warming-related agricultural policies in Malaysia and other places with similar ecological conditions. © 2014 SAGE Publications.
Al-Amin, A. Q., and A. H. Jaafar. 2014. "An alternative approach to identify key industries: Issues to selection criteria." Journal of Business Economics and Management 15 (3):577-98.
doi: 10.3846/16111699.2012.734327.
Within a process of modeling exercise, this study aimed to understand appropriate selection criteria to identify key industries. There are many key sector identification linkage measures in the subject matter and sensitivity issue among them can be tricky because many of these measures differ only slightly but can result in outcomes that are quite dissimilar. With this background, we proposed an alternate approach that helps to resolve this issue. The proposed approach utilizes in this study by five sub-methods and high degree of the frequency of their occurrences in sub-methods to determine the key sectors. The study approach is applied to Malaysia as the public sector investment remains a large share in the national economy, like other developing countries, and the correct identification is still a challenge for sectoral planning. The experiences from this study can be used to guide appropriate public investment in Malaysia and elsewhere with similar economic forms. © 2014 Copyright © 2014 Vilnius Gediminas Technical University (VGTU) Press Technika.
Ali, Dhakir Abbas, Fuadah Johari, and Mohammad Haji Alias. 2014. "Tracing the J-curve effect in Halal and non-Halal beverages industry in Malaysia." Asian Social Science 10 (13):222-30.
doi: 10.5539/ass.v10n13p222.
Some studies have tried recently to assess the causes of Malaysia's substantially increasing trade in non-Halal beverages. However, no study assessed the dynamic effects of real exchange rate movements, known as the J-Curve theory. To have a comparative basis for the analysis, we assess the theory in both Halal and non-Halal beverages between Malaysia and five of its largest trading partners independently for the period 1994-2012. Using ARDL approach to cointegration, and ECM model we find that: (1) Malaysia's trade in beverages in the short-run is affected by exchange rate movements in most of the cases, (2) Most importantly, Malaysia's trade in non-Halal beverages seems not to be affected by none of the economic explanatory variables used in the study in the long-run, and (3) Among the ten cases of five partners and two sectors, we find support for the J-Curve in the case of bilateral trade with the UK in Halal beverages.
Alimi, Moh Yasir. 2014. "Islam as Drama: Wedding Rites and the Theatricality of Islam in South Sulawesi." Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 15 (3):265-85.
doi: 10.1080/14442213.2014.915875.
This article discusses the prominence of wedding rituals in South Sulawesi to illuminate Islamic development in post-Suharto Indonesia and theatrical expressions of Islam through dramaturgical and social drama analysis. Theatre metaphors help explain the theatricality of Islam and the centrality of wedding rites in social and religious life in South Sulawesi, two social facts not easily understood by people outside this region. Through the performance of wedding rites, Muslims know themselves as Muslims, display social status and transform local politics. Analysis of wedding rites illustrates not only the importance of theatricality in the expression of Islam for the Bugis Makassar Muslims, but also how massive social and religious transformation is structured around a particular life-cycle ritual, namely weddings. Giving emphasis to theatricality, this article nuances recent studies about contemporary Islam, which largely focus upon the importance of discourses in the life of contemporary Muslims. © 2014 © 2014 The Australian National University.
Al-Obaidi, K. M., M. Ismail, and A. M. Abdul Rahman. 2014. "Design and performance of a novel innovative roofing system for tropical landed houses." Modern Language Quarterly 85:488-504.
An innovative roofing system (IRS) is designed to deliver an abundant and uniform amount of cool natural light from the roof with reduced heat gain effect for tropical residential buildings (3 m height) in Malaysia. Studies revealed that several passive and active solar techniques can be integrated to form a roofing system to separate solar heat from useful natural light at the attic zone before heat reaches the occupied space. The IRS design is specified and proposed by using glazing technology (polycarbonate), pigment technique (reflective and radiative), as well as ventilation process (hybrid turbine ventilator) applied at the attic zone to represent a new model of sustainable roofing design. The aim of this research is to demonstrate the effectiveness of the design concept without the need for any chemical, complex, or expensive solar design techniques. The methodology was conducted on a series of field studies in a standard room model at Universiti Sains Malaysia. Three different roofing systems are investigated to identify the IRS performance in both dark and daylight conditions to determine the effect of natural light on the indoor environment. The outcomes of the design show that the IRS was able to reduce the indoor air temperature compared with conventional roofing system by approximately 2.1 °C under daylight condition. Results showed that the difference in the IRS (daylight-dark) condition was 0.31 °C compared to that in the conventional roofing system at 0.8 °C. Furthermore, the level of mean radiant temperature compared with indoor temperature under daylight condition was 2.61 °C for the IRS, whereas 4.05 °C for conventional roof. Moreover, the IRS successfully delivered an acceptable range of natural light below 2000 lux (Green Building Index) at daytime with a minimum level of 86% compared with 78% for conventional roofing design. As a result, these findings indicated that the IRS with light materials and without any insulation can separate solar heat from useful natural light under the climatic conditions in Malaysia. The system provides a new design paradigm based on the requirements of the Malaysian Green Building Index. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Athukorala, P. C. 2014. "Industrialisation through state-MNC partnership: Lessons from Malaysia's national car project." Malaysian Journal of Economic Studies 51 (SPEC. ISSUE):113-26.
This paper examines the growth trajectory and the current state of the Malaysian automobile industry, with emphasis on the fate of the national car (Proton) project. The cause of the tragic ending of the Malaysian dream of building an internationally competitive national automotive industry was rooted in the very conception of the project. The project was designed primarily with an intrinsic import-substitution bias. The subsequent attempt to expand exports failed because of lack of a firm commitment on the part of its joint-venture partner, Mitsubishi. Given the export failure, Proton continued to remain a high cost producer whose survival depended crucially on government support through tariff protection, tax concessions, and other preferential treatments, including periodic capital injection on concessionary terms.
Ayelazuno, J. A. 2014. "Neoliberalism and Growth without Development in Ghana: A Case for State-led Industrialization." Journal of Asian and African Studies 49 (1):80-99.
doi: 10.1177/0021909613478787.
Ghana witnessed decent economic growth in the last three decades of implementing neoliberal policy prescriptions. Indeed, this growth promoted it to a low middle income country in 2010. Paradoxically, the wellbeing of most Ghanaians in the subaltern classes has not improved significantly, and they still suffer grinding poverty. How to understand this paradox of growth without development? This paper argues that the failure of Ghana to diversify its economy into industrialization, particularly manufacturing, explains the paradox. With its relatively good politics and open economy, the Ghanaian state should spearhead industrialization, as South Korea and Malaysia did, by supporting selective manufacturing firms with capital, technology, and protective tariffs. © The Author(s) 2013.
Aziz, J., H. Hashim, and F. Ibrahim. 2014. "Malaysian film industry in transformation: Challenges and potential." Jurnal Komunikasi: Malaysian Journal of Communication 30 (1):37-51.
The aim of this paper is to discuss the challenges and potentials of the Malaysian film industry from the perspective of the industry players such as filmmakers and producers. Malaysian film industry is a relatively small industry that caters to the need of a population of only about 27.5 millions. In the context of globalization, this small local market presents a challenge for the government in promoting the industry as part of a creative industry with great economic potential. With the influx of films from abroad, especially from Hollywood, the industry is struggling to the hilt to survive, as the bigger portion of the audience prefers Hollywood to local productions. For the government, one way of achieving this is to promote local films at the international level. To understand this situation from inside the industry itself, this paper, using data from in-depth interviews with 10 industry players, discusses the challenges faced by the respondents and how they perceive the potential of Malaysian films to travel globally.
Azizan, S. A. M., and N. M. Suki. 2014. "The potential for greener consumption: Some insights from Malaysia." Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences 5 (16):11-7.
doi: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n16p11.
Consumers' consumptions are the major component for the economy of a country. The main purpose of this study is to determine the factors that lead Malaysians towards their intention to purchase greener products. Self-administered questionnaires were distributed to a total of 431 respondents at several states in Malaysia including Sabah, Sarawak and Federal Territory of Labuan. Empirical results via multiple regressions indicate that Environmental Attitude is the most important factor for green purchase intention followed by Health Consciousness and Environmental Knowledge whereas Environmental Labelling was found to be insignificant. The study suggests that understanding of environmental problems is not enough without a positive behaviour towards preserving the environment. This study also identifies the needs to increase awareness about green labelling on the product.
Azman, H., A. Salman, N. A. Razak, S. Hussin, M. S. Hasim, and M. A. Hassan. 2014. "Determining digital maturity among ICT users in Malaysia." Jurnal Komunikasi: Malaysian Journal of Communication 30 (1):23-35.
With the fast development in ICT, the need for digital maturity becomes increasingly important. Measuring ICT maturity has always been on the infrastructural, applications, and ICT Policy. Taking a different orientation, the present study views ICT maturity of the individual users vis a vis the ICT tools as a solid foundation for successful digital maturity in a digital economy. This paper aims at determining the level of digital maturity among ICT-Mobile Phone (smart phone and internet) users by looking at the intensity of usage of smart phone applications (apps) and functions and the level of indispensability of internet and its related characteristics and functions. A nationwide survey was conducted among 2124 respondents based on the population ratio of the main ethnic groups in Malaysia. Data were analysed using SPPS 20.0 and both descriptive and inferential analysis are applied to analyse the data. The results revealed that the smart phone functions, facilities, and apps which are mostly used include social media (Facebook/Twitter), instant messaging (WhatsApp/Viber/Skype), Wi-Fi, downloading apps from 'Play Store' or 'App Store' and camera. The findings also indicated that a fast internet service, availability of internet at anytime and anywhere and the access to internet content without limit are the most indispensable characteristics and functions of internet for the users. The results implied that the respondents are above average in digital maturity in terms of intensity of usage of ICT-Mobile Phone functions, facilities, and apps. Meanwhile, their ICT-Mobile Phone engagement seemsto be high in digital maturity for the indispensable characteristics and functions of internet. The findings of this study have implications on ICT system and apps providers on the needs of the users. This is crucial in order to achieve digital maturity which will prepare the grounds for digital inclusion in a digital economy.
Ba, A. 2014. "Institutional divergence and convergence in the Asia-Pacific? ASEAN in practice and in theory." Cambridge Review of International Affairs 27 (2):295-318.
doi: 10.1080/09557571.2014.889082.
This paper gives attention to the geopolitics related to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as an alternative model of regionalism in theory and practice. Offering a rough periodization of ASEAN in IR theory, it considers interacting theoretical and empirical developments, and their geopolitics as one way to think about, first, ASEAN, its defining dynamics and processes of change, and, second, ASEAN's relationship to a larger IR theory literature defined by US preoccupations and the institutional trajectory of the European Union. Three periods are considered: a Cold War period, when ASEAN norms and practices developed relatively insulated from great power expectations and theorizing about ASEAN was minimal; the 1990s, when constructivist theorizing encouraged new thinking about alternative institutional models; and the 2000s, a period characterized by correlating great power pressures and a 'functional' turn in academic and theoretical debates about ASEAN. Special attention is given to the United States as a major, leading actor in both world politics and the institutionalization of international relations as a discipline, as well as the possibilities and constraints of institutional divergence in theory and practice. © 2014 © 2014 Centre of International Studies.
Bakker, Laurens, and Jaap Timmer. 2014. "Justice in Indonesia: The Social Life of a Momentous Concept." Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 15 (4):293-301.
doi: 10.1080/14442213.2014.922122.
In this article we argue that efforts in Indonesia to improve access to justice for the disadvantaged would greatly benefit from a pragmatic approach that takes local circumstances of custom, values and social relations into account at least as much as legal reform and bureaucratic transparency. We maintain that in post-Suharto Indonesia 'justice' can be conceptualised as the inverse of injustice and is manifested in terms of sovereign interests. Ideal justice, such as associated with rule of law implementing programs, assumes a functioning of government and judiciary that might bring about such results. Building on our own research as well as on the articles in this special issue we argue that engaging with the role and meaning of justice should involve solid ethnography of justice-seekers' life-worlds, understanding of the strategies and institutions that provide justice, and paying attention to the networks and interactions that connect actors in an ever moving field. © 2014 © 2014 The Australian National University.
Balli, F., H. O. Balli, and M. N. Luu. 2014. "Diversification across ASEAN-wide sectoral and national equity returns." Economic Modelling 41:398-407.
doi: 10.1016/j.econmod.2014.05.035.
This paper examines the effects of local and global shocks on the sector indices and national returns of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) by using the univariate AR-GARCH model. We find that regional and global shocks have different influences on the ASEAN-wide sector and national equity indices. There is evidence that the ASEAN-wide sectoral returns are mostly driven by local shocks, except for the insurance and technology sectors. The volatility of Singapore's and Vietnam's national returns mostly results from their own shocks rather than local and global shocks. Applying the trend spillover model, this paper also shows that the effects of regional and global shocks on return volatility have been decreasing for almost all ASEAN-wide sectors' equity indices, while the trend for the volatility spillover effects of those shocks are positive and significant for the production and industries group sectors, as well as the food and beverage sector. Comparing the variance ratios of ASEAN sectoral and national returns, it is evident that the percentage of national equity returns belonging to their own shocks is higher than that of sectoral returns, indicating that investors might be better off diversifying their assets across countries rather than sectors in ASEAN area. This finding is consistent with the results of the mean-variance frontiers, as the portfolio composed purely of ASEAN national returns has a stronger efficiency frontier than a portfolio of all ASEAN-wide sector equity returns. By using the spanning and intersection tests, the paper also indicates that adding ASEAN national equity returns might improve the efficiency frontiers of investors' holding portfolios. © 2014 Elsevier B.V.
Barral, S. 2014. "Paternalistic supervision of labour in indonesian plantations: Between dependence and autonomy." Journal of Agrarian Change 14 (2):240-59.
doi: 10.1111/joac.12063.
On large estates, labour control has two dimensions: control of work itself and control of workers' private lives, including that of their families. Historically, plantation companies have always provided accommodation for their workers, and as a result play a central role in the supervision of the domestic sphere. This paternalistic aspect of labour relations has evolved from being coercive during the indenture system, through a progressive loosening. This paper analyses the history of paternalistic labour relations in Indonesia and Indonesian labour laws. It includes a description of compounds in Indonesian oil palm plantations, where thousands of permanent workers and their families are housed. The compounds are characterized by comprehensive and continuous supervision. Although they generally accept paternalistic labour relations as conferring them with a high degree of security, inhabitants also manage to develop particular ways of negotiating control and asserting autonomy. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Bekhet, H. A., and L. L. Ivy-Yap. 2014. "Highlighting energy policies and strategies for the residential sector in Malaysia." International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy 4 (3):448-56.
Energy is an important catalyst for development. Malaysia is very fortunate to be endowed with oil reserves. However, these reserves are finite and not renewable. Being cognizant of this, the Malaysian government had implemented various energy policies and strategies to manage and safeguard its oil reserves for better energy security as well as to promote prudent use of energy. This paper aims to highlight the electricity sector in Malaysia and the various policies and strategies implemented thus far. By reviewing the existing energy policies and strategies as well as their implications, this paper suggests prospective policy and strategy options towards achieving better energy efficiency and emission reduction in the residential sector. The trends of electricity consumption and underlying factors influencing the growth of electricity consumption are also discussed.
Belloni, R. 2014. "Building civil society in Lao PDR: The Decree on Associations." Development in Practice 24 (3):353-65.
doi: 10.1080/09614524.2014.899995.
Since 2006, international organisations in Lao PDR have worked closely with local actors in order to foster the creation of an enabling environment for civil society. By conceiving of civil society development as a system involving a number of closely-connected actors and levels, international actors have been able to contribute to both the adoption of a Decree on Associations, which for the first time in Lao history regulates the civil society sector, and to the organisational strengthening of the few existing domestic organisations. This paper evaluates the impact of international actors' initiatives and assesses civil society's prospects for engaging in human rights work. © 2014 Taylor & Francis.
Binh, N. B., and A. Terry. 2014. "Meeting the Challenges for Franchising in Developing Countries: The Vietnamese Experience." Journal of Marketing Channels 21 (3):210-21.
doi: 10.1080/1046669X.2013.845642.
While business format franchising is the industry standard for developed countries, it remains an aspiration for many developing countries. Despite the attraction for developing countries of systems, training, and support and despite the economic and regulatory infrastructure being in place for the development of business format franchising, a range of commercial and socio-cultural factors may conspire to prevent its full expression. This paper addresses franchising development in Vietnam, a developing country. It considers strategies to bridge the gap between Vietnamese franchise practice and franchising best practice. It proposes that in Vietnam's current state of development, the product and trade name model may be the appropriate starting point with a move to the business format model only when, and in places where, the socio-cultural, commercial, and economic factors and the legal environment can accommodate more sophisticated business format franchise arrangements. © 2014 Copyright Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
Brahmana, R., C. W. Hooy, and Z. Ahmad. 2014. "The role of weather on investors' monday irrationality: Insights from Malaysia." Contemporary Economics 8 (2):175-90.
doi: 10.5709/ce.1897-9254.139.
Evidence supporting the weekend effect, also known as Monday Irrationality, has shown that conventional finance is unable to follow a rational behavior assumption. Many scholars have proposed a behavioral approach to explain this phenomenon; however, few studies have investigated this effect empirically. Interestingly, literature on weather patterns and the preliminary results of our study have identified a particular weather cycle that occurs on Mondays, when the temperature in Malaysia is higher compared with other days. Therefore, this paper aims to investigate the role of weather on investors' Monday irrationality. By analyzing the market index and size-based portfolio formation model from 1999 to 2010, this research study found that the weather influenced investors' mood, causing anomalous conditions in the market. Our findings conclude that the mood of investors plays an important role on investment decisions and the resulting Monday irrationality of investors.
Bunsom, T. 2014. "Lost in transition: An analysis of post-colonial dilemma and national identity in three contemporary novels from East and Southeast Asia." Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences 5 (15):615-21.
doi: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n15p615.
After several centuries of being colonised by European powers, East and Southeast Asian countries were struggling to come to terms with their post-colonial national identities. Post-independent dilemmas were rooted in the core issues of cultural fragmentation and individualistic alienation in which formerly-colonised citizens felt at loss spiritually within their newlydemarcated political borders. Not knowing which cultural direction their countries were going to take, people faced the quandary of straddling the opposite world of East and West. This alarming issue has become a focal point in a lot of contemporary literature from East and Southeast Asia, reflecting the people and countries' ongoing quests to find their places in the modern global society. This paper analyses such dilemmas and their unremitting search of identity through three contemporary novels from Macau, Indonesia and Singapore. The Bewitching Braid (Macau) by Henrique de Senna Fernandes explores the unknown fate of independence faced by the Chinese, Macanese and Portuguese alike. Abdoel Moeis's Never the Twain (Indonesia) is an allegory for Indonesia in a political transition and a struggle towards a national identity. Mammon Inc. by Hwee Hwee Tan deals vigorously with the Singaporean society, torn between the Taoist values of the Eastern world and the technological advance of its Western counterpart.
Caballero-Anthony, M. 2014. "Understanding ASEAN's centrality: Bases and prospects in an evolving regional architecture." Pacific Review 27 (4):563-84.
doi: 10.1080/09512748.2014.924227.
There have been a number of articles about ASEAN's centrality in the regional security architecture of Asia. Yet, the notion of centrality remains undefined and under-operationalised. Implicit in the discourses of centrality is the idea of ASEAN's leadership, which in turn raises questions about ASEAN's ability to do so, given its limited capacity. This article defines ASEAN's centrality from the perspective of social network approach and argues that ASEAN's structural position in the density of networks that it has established and those that it has linkages with explains ASEAN's centrality. Despite its lack of material power, ASEAN has been able to claim centrality because of its position as a node in a cluster of networks, and this condition of 'high betweenness' allows ASEAN to exercise influence in regional processes with the tacit acceptance of major powers. However, while centrality may have been achieved, maintaining centrality in a rapidly changing regional environment compels ASEAN to address challenges to its centrality. This would necessarily include its ability to maintain consensus, carry out collective action and achieve its stated goals. © 2014 Taylor & Francis.
Cabanes, J. V. A. 2014. "Multicultural mediations, developing world realities: Indians, Koreans and Manila's entertainment media." Media, Culture and Society 36 (5):628-43.
doi: 10.1177/0163443714532979.
In this article, I examine the mediation of multiculturalism in the developing world city of Manila, the Philippines. Drawing on both a thematic analysis of the Manila-centric Philippine entertainment media and six focus group discussions with the city's local Filipinos, I reveal that this instance of mediation is entangled with the broader discourses of the Philippine postcolonial nationalist project. For one, the mediation of multiculturalism in Manila tends to symbolically marginalize the city's Indians and Koreans and, in so doing, reinforces existing negative discourses about them. I contend that this is linked to the locals' preoccupation with establishing a unifying cultural identity that tends to make them elide the issue of their own internal cultural diversity, as well as of the increasing diasporic population of the city. Second, the said mediation also tends to valorize the lighter-skinned Koreans over the darker-skinned Indians. I posit that this is related to how the locals' discourse of cultural homogeneity has resulted in their continued reluctance to publicly discuss the persistence of their unspoken skin-tone-based racial hierarchy not only of themselves, but also of their cultural others. © The Author(s) 2014.
Carlsson, F., O. Johansson-Stenman, and P. K. Nam. 2014. "Social preferences are stable over long periods of time." Journal of Public Economics 117:104-14.
doi: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2014.05.009.
We measure people's pro-social behavior, in terms of voluntary money and labor contributions to an archetypical public good, a bridge, and in terms of voluntary money contributions in a public good game, using the same non-student sample in rural Vietnam at four different points in time from 2005 to 2011. Two of the observed events are actual voluntary contributions (one in terms of money and one in terms of labor), one is from a natural field experiment, and one is from an artefactual field experiment. Despite large contextual variations, we find a strong positive and statistically significant correlation between voluntary contributions, whether correcting for other covariates or not. This suggests that pro-social preferences are fairly stable over long periods of time and contexts. © 2014.
Chang, L., I. Basnyat, and D. Teo. 2014. "Seeking and Processing Information for Health Decisions among Elderly Chinese Singaporean Women." Journal of Women and Aging 26 (3):257-79.
doi: 10.1080/08952841.2014.888881.
Information behavior includes activities of active information seeking, passive acquisition of information, and information use. Guided by the Elaboration Likelihood Model, this study explored elderly Singaporean women's health information behavior to understand how they sought, evaluated, and used health information in everyday lives. Twenty-two in-depth interviews were conducted with elderly Chinese women aged 61 to 79. Qualitative analysis of the interview data yielded three meta-themes: information-seeking patterns, trustworthiness of health information, and peripheral route of decision making. Results revealed that elderly women took both systematic and heuristic approaches to processing information but relied on interpersonal networks to negotiate health choices. Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
Chao, En-Chieh. 2014. "'Not Fanatical': The Evolution of Sociable Piety and the Dialogic Subject in Multi-religious Indonesia." Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 15 (3):242-64.
doi: 10.1080/14442213.2014.913672.
In Indonesia, the politics of 'sociable piety' has been reinvigorated by local Islamic sermon groups opposed to a range of public behaviours labelled as 'fanatik'. United by an intra-Muslim alliance self-identified as being 'not fanatical', members of urban middle-class sermon groups shrewdly redraw moral boundaries across the long-term 'traditionalist' and 'modernist' divides. As revealed by my fieldwork between 2009 and 2012, the improvisation of 'sociable piety' is so prominent that not only optional rituals such as tarawih but obligatory prayers such as salat can be negotiated contextually. Using the multi-religious city of Salatiga as a window to see the broader religious trends in many religiously pluralistic Indonesian cities, this paper contends that the general appeal of Islamic self-cultivation in Indonesia has been simultaneously an individual ethical cultivation and social, even national, improvement. Theoretically, this study of the everyday Indonesian strategies to deal with the tension between piety and sociality is a modest attempt to rethink subjectivity that moves beyond either the docile or the deliberative self and towards the dialogic subject in a world of conflicting heterogeneity. © 2014 © 2014 The Australian National University.
Chia, N. C. 2014. "Uniquely Singapore's budgetary system and social protection financing schemes." Singapore Economic Review 59 (3).
doi: 10.1142/S0217590814500246.
This paper examines Singapore's fiscal position and its unique way of financing targeted welfare programs. We examine how reserves are accumulated through fiscal discipline during times of phenomenal economic growth in Singapore and when Singapore was enjoying demographic dividend. The existence of the large accumulated reserves has resulted in particular features of the Singapore's budgetary process, such as fiscal rules, which govern the utilization of revenues from the reserves. Innovative budget implementation, such as Block Budgeting, has helped Singapore to ensure fiscal sustainability. The accumulation of reserves throughout its economic history has afforded Singapore a unique way to fund social protection through special transfers and funds, without having to raise taxes. © 2014 World Scientific Publishing Company.
Chua, B. H. 2014. "Navigating Between Limits: The Future of Public Housing in Singapore." Housing Studies 29 (4):520-33.
doi: 10.1080/02673037.2013.874548.
The People's Action Party government of Singapore, which has been in power without discontinuity since 1959, is committed to a national housing program with universal provision of 99-year leasehold homeownership for all its citizens. Since 1961 to 2013, the Housing and Development Board, the public housing authority, has built more than one million high-rise housing units, accommodating approximately 90 per cent of the citizens and permanent residents, of which more than 85 per cent of the resident households are homeowners. This close to universal provision system has generated a set of perennial competing demands. Among them are (i) in view of the absence of a national pension scheme, the need to enable homeowners to monetize their public housing property to finance the retirement years, (ii) in order to facilitate retirement funding, public housing flats must be allowed to increase in asset values, to keep up with inflation and rising costs of living and (iii) new subsidized flats must be kept affordable for new entrants into the housing market. The management of these competing demands requires constant monitoring and intervention by the state in order to maintain a balance and sustainable system. © 2014 Taylor & Francis.
Chua, S. C., Y. W. Lim, T. T. Ter, and S. B. Chew. 2014. "Efficiency wage theory: Evidence for Singapore manufacturing sector." Singapore Economic Review 59 (3).
doi: 10.1142/S0217590814500210.
This paper attempts to test whether there is econometric evidence in support of the efficiency wage theory in Singapore's manufacturing sector. Two of the possible ways to account for efficiency wages are to show that higher wages have resulted in reduced shirking by workers, and to show that higher wages have resulted in an increase in worker productivity. We find evidence in support of efficiency wages for three out of 18 industries within the manufacturing sector in Singapore based on both ordinary least square (OLS) and 2SLS regression results, and for another two industries based only on OLS and yet another two industries based only on 2SLS. © 2014 World Scientific Publishing Company.
Clifton, J., and D. Díaz-Fuentes. 2014. "The OECD and "The Rest": Analyzing the Limits of Policy Transfer." Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice 16 (3):249-65.
doi: 10.1080/13876988.2013.877674.
Prompted by the rise of the emerging economies and the growing importance of the G20, the OECD has formally announced its intention of establishing itself as a key actor in global policy coordination. As part of this ambition, it has embarked on cultivating closer relations with five G20 countries it designated as key partners through the so-called "Enhanced Engagement" programme: Brazil, China, India, Indonesia and South Africa. This article mobilizes concepts from the policy transfer literature to explain why the OECD's attempts to increasingly involve all five countries in its policy have fallen short of its original ambitions, and also why the transfer of its policy work has been uneven across policy and country issue. © 2014 The Editor, Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice.
De Castro, R. C. 2014. "Philippine Strategic Culture: Continuity in the Face of Changing Regional Dynamics." Contemporary Security Policy 35 (2):249-69.
doi: 10.1080/13523260.2014.927673.
Philippine strategic culture has traditionally been characterized by its emphasis on internal security through asymmetrical warfare in confronting military challenges and a reliance on alliance in addressing the country's strategic inadequacies. Philippine strategic culture is rooted in the country's archipelagic geography and isolation from continental Asia, its colonial history, and liberal-democratic political system. It is a culture long shaped by the strategic decisions of a small group of elites - about 400 families that have dominated local politics, economy, and society since the Philippines became independent in 1946. Their preferences have been reflected in the Armed Forces of the Philippines' (AFP) seven-decade campaign against insurgent groups, lack of conventional capabilities, low defence budget, and dependence on the United States for military assistance and security guarantees. The changing dynamics of security in the Asia-Pacific region and strained Philippine-China relations due to the South China Sea dispute suggest the possibility of erosion of these strategic preferences. The doctrinal shift from internal security to territorial defence has gained momentum. Careful analysis of the Aquino administration's efforts to refocus the AFP from internal security to external defence shows greater continuity than discontinuity in Philippine strategic culture. Despite grand claims, government plans to acquire a new weapons system and to build up the navy and the air force are designed only to achieve a modest deterrence posture. Philippines policy remains consistent with deeply embedded strategic cultural orientations. © 2014 Taylor & Francis.
Decherney, P. 2014. "Fair Use Goes Global." Critical Studies in Media Communication 31 (2):146-52.
doi: 10.1080/15295036.2014.921321.
For 150 years, fair use was a solely American doctrine. But in the 1990s and 2000s, the Philippines, Israel, and South Korea all adopted American-style fair use. Since then, debates have erupted over whether or not to introduce fair use into the copyright laws of a half dozen additional countries, including the Netherlands, Canada, the United Kingdom, Japan, and Australia. Why is fair use going global? What do innovators, scholars, and legislators see in the fair use doctrine? And what is tipping the scale in favor of or against fair use? We don't yet know whether the global fair use movement will fizzle out or take over world intellectual property regimes. But looking at the debates over the global spread of fair use, even at this early stage, tells us a lot about digital media's challenge to the regulation of both technological innovation and online expression. © 2014 National Communication Association.
DeDominicis, B. E. 2014. "Nationalism and international relations education: 'International relations' as a political actor." Management Education 13 (2):13-28.
The Cold War and its end had a powerful impact on the social sciences and the educational socialization of succeeding generations of international relations scholars. The assumption of successful US containment of an expansionist USSR is supported by the vast network of vested bureaucratic organizational interests created during the Cold War. Their command over extensive research, educational and career resources promotes this view of recent world history. It also serves as a justification for the global expansion and institutionalization of American hegemony into regions hitherto divided into US and Soviet spheres of influence. The assumption of the benignity of this hegemony is problematic because of US opposition to some nationalist movements challenging their regional political status quo. Specific US evaluation of these movements depended largely on their perceived role in facilitating Cold War "containment" of Soviet imperialism. Some nationalist movements, such as Zionism, succeeded in intensifying US support partly because of the perceived Soviet alliance with 'rejectionist' Arab regimes in Egypt, Syria and Iraq. Third World nationalist movements including political Islam tended to be seen with trepidation because of their opposition to the post-colonial order. These international client states and regimes were creations of the British and the French, critical European US allies during the Cold War. Nationalism's nature requires sovereign independence for the nation, but US failure to perceive this imperative led to Cold War tragedies such as the Vietnam War. The predominance of neorealism in international relations theory reflects this legacy and the vested interests that developed around it which thrive today. © Common Ground, Benedict DeDominicis, All Rights Reserved.
Detenber, B. H., M. Cenite, S. Zhou, S. Malik, and R. L. Neo. 2014. "Rights Versus Morality: Online Debate About Decriminalization of Gay Sex in Singapore." Journal of Homosexuality 61 (9):1313-33.
doi: 10.1080/00918369.2014.926769.
This article presents a quantitative content analysis of 10,473 comments from two opposing online petitions related to the legal status of a section of the penal code in Singapore used to ban sex between men. Results indicate numerous significant differences in how the two sides discussed the law and its significance. In particular, they used different types of arguments to support their views and expressed different kinds of concerns over the potential impact of changing or maintaining the law. The patterns of language use seem to reflect distinctly different approaches to the debate and suggest the difficulty of finding common ground amid this contentious social issue, but they also reveal similarities to how Western cultures have framed the debate. © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
Diepart, J. C., and D. Dupuis. 2014. "The peasants in turmoil: Khmer Rouge, state formation and the control of land in northwest Cambodia." Journal of Peasant Studies 41 (4):445-68.
doi: 10.1080/03066150.2014.919265.
Over the past 15 years, northwest Cambodia has seen dramatic agrarian expansion away from the central rice plain into the peripheral uplands fuelled by peasant in-migration. Against this background, we examine the nature of relations between the peasantry and the state. We first show the historical continuities of land control processes and how the use of violence in a post-conflict neoliberal context has legitimised ex-Khmer Rouge in controlling land distribution. Three case studies show the heterogeneity of local level sovereignties, which engage the peasants in different relations with authority. We examine how these processes result in the construction of different rural territories along the agricultural frontier and argue that, in this region of Cambodia, the struggles between Khmer Rouge and neoliberal modes of land control are central to state formation processes. © 2014 Taylor & Francis.
Dilaver, O., M. Bleda, and E. Uyarra. 2014. "Entrepreneurship and the emergence of industrial clusters." Complexity 19 (6):14-29.
doi: 10.1002/cplx.21525.
Innovation and entrepreneurship are the most important catalysts of dynamism in market economies. While it is known that entrepreneurial activities are locally embedded, mutual effects of entrepreneurs and their local regional environment have not been adequately addressed in the existing literature. In this article, we use agent-based simulation experiments to investigate the role of entrepreneurship in the emergence of regional industrial clusters. We present fundamental extensions to the Simulating Knowledge Dynamics in Innovation Networks model (Ahrweiler et al., Industry and Labor Dynamics: The Agent-based Computational Economics Approach; World Scientific: Singapore, 2004; pp 284-96) by using a multilevel modeling approach. We analyze the effects of changing entrepreneurial character of regions on the development industrial clusters in two simultaneously simulated regions. We find that an increase in the entrepreneurship of one region has a negative effect on the other region due to competition for factors of production and innovative outputs. The major policy implication of this finding is the limitation it posits on regional innovation and development policies that aspire to support clusters in similar areas of industrial specialization. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Dina, T., and J. Sato. 2014. "Is Greater Fishery Access Better for the Poor? Explaining De-Territorialisation of the Tonle Sap, Cambodia." Journal of Development Studies 50 (7):962-76.
doi: 10.1080/00220388.2014.909027.
The general tendency for states in South East Asia is to claim exclusive rights over natural resources at the cost of impoverishing the people who depend on them for subsistence. However, contrary to what one might expect, the government of Cambodia initiated unconventional intervention: it cancelled the fishing lots system, the de facto property rights that had granted exclusive access to certain aquatic resources to licence holders. These interventions, focused on Cambodia's largest lake, question the rationale behind such state measures to forfeit control. This paper demonstrates that political interests such as garnering election votes and circumventing certain bureaucratic agencies explain this radical shift in policy. Opening up previously exclusive lot areas to the communities won immediate support from the poor fishermen. However, now that the lake is under a more diverse, if obscure, system of governance managed by multiple agencies, the environmental and social consequences of the policy shift deserve a fuller examination. © 2014 © 2014 Taylor & Francis.
Dinda, S. 2014. "Climate Change and Trade Opportunity in Climate Smart Goods in Asia: Application of Gravity Model." International Trade Journal 28 (3):264-80.
doi: 10.1080/08853908.2013.877361.
This article highlights the export potential trade gap in climate smart goods (CSG) in Asia in 2008. Using the trade gravity equation, this article estimates trade value and measures potential trade gap. This potential trade gap suggests that there is a scope to increase the export of CSG. This study identifies individual trade partners and focuses on the trade opportunity in CSG in Asia. © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
Djuranovik, L. 2014. "The Indonesian macroeconomy and the yield curve: A dynamic latent factor approach." Journal of Asian Economics 34:1-15.
doi: 10.1016/j.asieco.2014.06.001.
We develop a fine representation of the term structure of interest rates in Indonesia and create a link between the yield curve and macroeconomic fundamentals. We construct a state-space representation of the yield curve as a function of three time-varying parameters: level, slope, and curvature factors. The model is then expanded to include three macroeconomic variables: real activity, inflation, and interest rates. We find that the dynamic latent factor model provides a very good fit to characterise the Indonesian yield curve in terms of the statistical properties for each maturity, and in terms of the properties of three latent yield-curve factors. With regards to the relationship to the macroeconomy, we find that there is a large amount of idiosyncratic variation in the yield curve movements. Therefore, macroeconomic variables can only explain small dynamics in the yield curve. © 2014 Elsevier Inc.
Downes, N. K., and H. Storch. 2014. "Current Constraints and Future Directions for Risk Adapted Land-Use Planning Practices in the High-Density Asian Setting of Ho Chi Minh City." Planning Practice and Research 29 (3):220-37.
doi: 10.1080/02697459.2014.929835.
The need to integrate adaptation efforts into land-use planning policies has been only recently recognized in Ho Chi Minh City. The city's latest planning guidance addresses both flooding resilience and mitigation of urban heat. This paper outlines the development contexts and the current barriers for adapted land-use planning within the city. The key challenge for land-use planning is communicating the important functions and services of open and natural urban spaces and effectively guiding the mainly individual developer-driven development. As the realization of non-structural adaptation measures is in strong contrast to the current market-driven private and short-term developer interests, the main development trajectories are questioned and synergies identified. © 2014 Taylor & Francis.
Duong, L. 2014. "Gender, affect, and landscape: wartime films from Northern and Southern Vietnam." Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 15 (2):258-73.
doi: 10.1080/14649373.2014.911456.
Examining two Vietnamese films, one made in the North in 1959, and another produced in the South during the American War in 1971, this article contends that Vietnam's landscape serves as an affective site for a gendered construction of nationalism within key moments in Vietnamese history. In analyzing the attachments that the Vietnamese and Vietnamese diaspora feel towards their country, I explore a topic rarely discussed in US film scholarship and historicize these filmmaking efforts to demarcate a different way of viewing Vietnam in film. This study demonstrates the importance of understanding how gender and affect are projected onto landscapes in a national cinema like Vietnam's. More exactingly, it emphasizes that affects underlying Vietnamese nationhood and war are undergirded by the political economy of film and filmmaking. My arguments point to the modes of production and circulation of film, which shape the making of affect in Vietnam War discourse. My analyses are framed by the questions: how is affect inscribed in Vietnamese film, and what are its effects on notions of belonging and nationhood? In what ways has affect traveled about Vietnam in the past and present moment? Who is able to access such representations, and why does this matter?. © 2014 © 2014 Taylor & Francis.
Emmers, R. 2014. "Indonesia's role in ASEAN: A case of incomplete and sectorial leadership." Pacific Review 27 (4):543-62.
doi: 10.1080/09512748.2014.924230.
Indonesia is often regarded as the natural leader of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in light of its geographical dimensions, large population, strategic position and natural resources. The country has felt entitled to a position of leadership and has generally been recognized by the other ASEAN members as first among equals. While the de facto leadership of Indonesia has traditionally been accepted as conventional wisdom, little attention has been given to the extent to which Jakarta has actually succeeded in exercising leadership in ASEAN and how its attempt to do so has been perceived by the other Southeast Asian states. The paper explores this question by focusing on Indonesia's ability to provide international public goods in the areas of security and economics, engage in conflict management and promote institution building. It argues that the country has sought to establish a stable and autonomous security environment, to conduct conflict meditation efforts in the Cambodian conflict and the South China Sea disputes, and to develop institutional mechanisms to promote security, democracy and human rights among other issues. Still, Indonesia's leadership in ASEAN has been incomplete due to resistance from some members to its preference for an autonomous regional order and in recent years a democratic form of domestic governance. Its leadership has so far also been limited to the political and security spheres, leaving other sectors, like the economy, to others. © 2014 Taylor & Francis.
Gálik, M. 2014. "My journey through sixty years of international literary sinology (1953-2012)." Asian and African Studies 23 (1):60-88.
Research into the Chinese Humanities in our global age and their development is not possible without looking back and without a broad Sino-Western dialogue and mutual cooperation. In his 80th year the writer of this essay looks back at his life-long experience and brings forward his and his colleagues results of study and common endeavours from China and the West from October 1953 up to our times in different spheres of scholarly research. The different aspects of modern Chinese literature, creative, critical and comparative, intellectual history mostly of Sino-Western orientation, the development of Sinology in his student years in Prague and Peking (1953-1960), the best years of the Prague School of Sinology and the beginning of the study of modern Chinese literature in the West (1961-1968), Western and European Studies in modern Chinese literature in the years of the so-called Cultural Revolution and its aftermath (1969-1979), Western and European studies in the 1980 and the new beginning in China, the end of the 20th century and the beginning the 21st century. This essay also comprises other realms of study such as traditional literature, and researches into the comparative history as well as biblical studies in relation to China. Many of his teachers, colleagues and friends from former Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union (Russia), Western Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia, Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao and Singapore are part and parcel of this long journey. To all of them he is indebted for their help, sympathy, criticism and understanding.
Games, A. 2014. "Violence on the Fringes: The Virginia (1622) and Amboyna (1623) Massacres." History 99 (336):505-29.
doi: 10.1111/1468-229X.12064.
Two events, both labelled massacres by the English who suffered death at the hands of their rivals, took place within the space of a year on opposite sides of the globe and in widely different overseas contexts. The first episode took place in Virginia in March 1622, when Opechancanough and his soldiers killed one-third of the English colonists in a surprise attack. The second episode transpired in February 1623 in the Spice Islands, when Dutch East India Company officials in Ambon suspected English East India Company employees of conspiring with Japanese soldiers to seize the trading post, interrogated and tried them, and executed twenty-one men. This episode, known in England by 1624 as the 'Amboyna massacre', endured as a meaningful frame of reference well into the eighteenth century. This article explores the particular contexts of each episode and analyses what violence meant to different participants. It investigates how each event became a 'massacre' to survivors and to observers in England. In both Virginia and Amboyna, the English were victims, not perpetrators, of violence, and thus these events offer an opportunity to explore how victims of violence deployed their ordeals, in pamphlets, images, plays, and songs, to further their own ends. Labelled as massacres, these two episodes acquired a meaning apart from the actual course of events, helping the English to reassess their overseas goals, to re-evaluate their prospects and to define themselves anew. © 2014 The Historical Association and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Halim, M. A. S. A., Z. Zakaria, A. C. Hamid, and M. K. A. Khalid. 2014. "Fostering micro-entrepreneurship as panacea to poverty eradication in the Malaysian economy: A conceptual perception." Asian Social Science 10 (13):287-92.
doi: 10.5539/ass.v10n13p287.
Entrepreneurs not only create benefits through the expansion and the development of economic and business industry, it also creates challenges for emerging micro-entrepreneurs to effectively compete in an environment characterised by multitude of challenges. The question is whether the development of micro-entrepreneurship industry is a progressive approach that can motivate the small and medium entrepreneurs to eradicate poverty. This paper is a deliberate attempt to revisit the essential concept and practice of micro-entrepreneurship in small and medium industry as well as its role in eradicating poverty in Malaysian. The Malaysian government has launched the New Economic Policy to eradicate hardcore poverty, restructuring employment and developing the rural area of Malaysia. It has been determined that the development of micro-entrepreneurship significantly contributed to small and medium industry and poverty eradication. Furthermore, the success of poverty eradication has significantly created awareness among micro-entrepreneurs in small and medium industry. In this paper, a comprehensive model of micro-entrepreneurship strategy in small and medium industry in eradicating poverty has been constructed with the aim of assisting the Malaysia government in developing their socio-economic policies.
Hariri, H., R. Monypenny, and M. Prideaux. 2014. "Leadership styles and decision-making styles in an Indonesian school context." School Leadership and Management 34 (3):284-98.
doi: 10.1080/13632434.2013.849678.
School leadership has been well researched in developed countries. However, in Asia, particularly in Indonesia, school leadership has not been well explored. Using survey data from a sample of 475 teachers in six Lampung school districts, this paper examines the relationships between school principal leadership styles and school principal decision-making styles in an Indonesian school context. Findings are that most of the relationships between school principal leadership styles and school principal decision-making styles are significant. These findings suggest that teachers perceive that principals should exhibit much more transformational leadership style and rational decision-making style but avoid laissez-faire leadership style and avoidant decision-making style. © 2014 Taylor and Francis.
Hasan, A. R., and P. L. Nair. 2014. "Urbanisation and growth of metropolitan centres in Malaysia." Malaysian Journal of Economic Studies 51 (1):87-101.
Malaysia has undergone rapid urbanisation amidst the shift from agricultural to an industrial based economy. Urbanisation and modernisation have inevitably led to profound social and economic changes. Economic growth not only has brought about a rapid increase in the number of towns and urban centres, but has also resulted in the expansion of major towns outwards to sprawl into the peripheries. This paper highlights the growth of towns in Malaysia based on the 1980, 1991, 2000 and 2010 Population and Housing Censuses. The data reveal a surge in the number of towns from 72 in 1980 to 228 in 2010. The sharp increase in the number of urban centres and the urbanisation process is the result of spatial re-distribution through migration, partly in response to various government measures to restructure society for a more balanced development.
Hassan, H., N. Yusof, and R. A. Hashim. 2014. "Resistance in the 'say no to smoking' campaign." Jurnal Komunikasi: Malaysian Journal of Communication 30 (1):75-95.
The study aims to identify the relationship between the characteristics of innovation and resistance towards the 'Say No to Smoking' campaign. By using cluster sampling, a total of 396 respondents were selected from eight secondary schools in the northern states of Peninsular Malaysia. Data were collected through a survey method data and were analyzed using the Pearson correlation statistical analysis. The results showed that there was a significant relationship between innovation characteristics i.e., relative advantage, compatibility, complexity and trialbility with the existence of resistance towards the 'Say No to Smoking' campaign. This study also showed that factors such as the characteristics of innovation which could lead to one more innovation may fail to get disseminated. In fact, this study can help decision makers to identify the causes of rejection of new innovations in health campaigns that are being introduced to the community in an effort to improve public's receptiveness of future health campaigns.
Haug, Michaela. 2014. "Resistance, Ritual Purification and Mediation: Tracing a Dayak Community's Sixteen-Year Search for Justice in East Kalimantan." Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 15 (4):357-75.
doi: 10.1080/14442213.2014.927522.
In recent discussions on access to justice in Indonesia, little work has been done that illuminates the processes of conflict which inevitably arise in attempts to obtain justice based on informal actions and results, rather than on recourse to institutions. While many scholars and donor agencies tend to create the impression that non-institutional processes of justice-seeking are entirely unpredictable or ungoverned by regularities, in this article I seek to fill this gap by exploring patterns of conflict in East Kalimantan that are associated with Amartya Sen's realisation approach to justice-seeking. I will look into a conflict between a group of Dayak villagers and an oil palm company in East Kalimantan which started sixteen years ago with the establishment of three oil palm estates on customary land, causing complex changes to local people's lives as well as several injustices. The villagers pursued a variety of strategies to gain redress, which I describe as active resistance, ritual purification and mediation. In the analysis I draw upon Turner's concept of social dramas. I show that considering the long-lasting conflict in East Kalimantan as social drama helps to refine socio-legal approaches to conflict and access to justice as processual. The article will contribute to models of justice-seeking that can be associated with Amartya Sen's model of justice as realisational. © 2014 The Australian National University.
He, Kai, and Huiyun Feng. 2014. "China's Bargaining Strategies for a Peaceful Rise: Successes and Challenges." Asian Security 10 (2):168-87.
doi: 10.1080/14799855.2014.914496.
Applying bargaining theory of international conflicts, we examine the successes and challenges of China's strategic choices in its ascent after the Cold War. We suggest that China needs to alleviate information and commitment problems in order to rise peacefully. Since 2008, China's "peaceful rise" strategy has faced serious challenges because of its "assertive turn" in diplomacy. We argue that China has not alleviated or settled these two problems successfully because of its ambiguous "core interest" diplomacy and undecided attitude regarding multilateral institutions in resolving the maritime disputes. China should engage in rule-based, institution building, such as a security community between China and ASEAN, to reinforce its peaceful rise commitments. Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
Hearne, D., and B. Powell. 2014. "Too much of a good thing? Building social capital through knowledge transfer and collaborative networks in the southern Philippines." International Journal of Water Resources Development 30 (3):495-514.
doi: 10.1080/07900627.2014.898579.
Meaningful engagement of diverse stakeholders is essential for ensuring support for science-based responses to complex watershed challenges. A collaborative network in the Davao river basins, in the Philippines, provides evidence of an approach that enabled integration of science into local decision making and increased bonding social capital between shared-interest groups. Insufficient attention towards bridging and linking social capital allowed bottlenecks between policy and implementation to persist. This 'dark side' of social capital was evidenced by entrenched sector positions and lower levels of trust between different interest groups. A social-learning approach is recommended to create new spaces for productive 'bridging' relationships. © 2014 Taylor & Francis.
Hill, H. 2014. "Is there a southeast Asian development model?" Malaysian Journal of Economic Studies 51 (SPEC. ISSUE):89-111.
The 10 states of Southeast Asia have combined to form the developing world's most successful and durable regional grouping, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, ASEAN. Economic integration among them is high and increasing. The ambitious ASEAN Economic Community is scheduled to take effect from December 2015, and should further accelerate this integration. But the socio-economic and institutional disparities among them are also very large. This paper therefore asks the question, does it make sense to contemplate a 'Southeast Asian development model'? Given this diversity, such a model obviously does not yet exist. But over time, these countries are converging with respect to their openness, their macroeconomic management and some aspects of their social policy. The poorer countries are generally growing faster than the richer ones, suggesting gradual convergence. There are also important spillover and demonstration effects evident from the region's leaders to its followers. Whether these developments will lead to the adoption of some sort of coherent regional development strategies remains to be seen.
Hillenbrand, E., P. Lakzadeh, L. Sokhoin, Z. Talukder, T. Green, and J. McLean. 2014. "Using the Social Relations Approach to capture complexity in women's empowerment: using gender analysis in the Fish on Farms project in Cambodia." Gender and Development 22 (2):351-68.
doi: 10.1080/13552074.2014.920992.
Gender-analysis frameworks and tools provide a pre-designed methodology which can be used for the purposes of monitoring, evaluation, and learning, as well as for research undertaken for other reasons by planners, practitioners, and academic researchers. This article focuses on the use of Naila Kabeer's concept, the Social Relations Approach, to frame a baseline gender analysis of a food security project undertaken in Cambodia. The Fish on Farms project was designed to establish evidence of the impact of homestead food production, which included fishponds, on nutritional status, food security, food intake, and livelihoods. Integral to the objectives was the need to understand how the project activities affect gender equality and the empowerment of women. The Social Relations Approach was chosen to explore gender relations in context, and to understand better the subjective meanings of empowerment and the pathways to it. © 2014 Oxfam GB 2014.
Hoang, K. K. 2014. "Competing Technologies of Embodiment: Pan-Asian Modernity and Third World Dependency in Vietnam's Contemporary Sex Industry." Gender and Society 28 (4):513-36.
doi: 10.1177/0891243214523122.
This article illustrates how the circulation of capital and culture in Asia produces divergent embodied gendered ideals of national belonging through the case of Vietnam's global sex industry.Introducing the concept of competing technologies of embodiment, I show how sex workers' surgical and cosmetic bodily projects represent different perceptions of an emerging nation's divergent trajectories in the global economy.In a high-end niche market that caters to local elite Vietnamese businessmen, sex workers project a new pan-Asian modernity highlighting emergent Asian ideals of beauty in a project of progress that signals the rise of Asia.Women who cater to Western men, in contrast, embody Third World dependency, portraying Vietnam as a poverty-stricken country in need of Western charity.By comparing multiple markets, I illustrate how individual agents in the developing world actively reimagine their nation's place in the global economy through their embodied practices.© 2014 by The Author(s).
Howell, S. 2014. "No RIGHTS-No REDD: Some implications of a turn towards co-benefits." Forum for Development Studies 41 (2):253-72.
doi: 10.1080/08039410.2014.901241.
REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries) is a new and very ambitious global programme which seeks to create a financial value for the carbon stored in forests, offering performance-based payment to reduce CO2 emissions from forested lands. From an initial perception of REDDF+ as a relatively straightforward forestry project, it has turned into one that is increasingly focusing on the rights of the people who live in the forests. This is largely due to pressure from international and national environmental and human rights NGOs. A result of their activities is that several of the original co-benefits to REDD+, such as alleviating poverty, tenure reform, improving local livelihoods and forest governance, and protecting rights have become major concerns. The introduction of REDD+ in Indonesia is used as an example to highlight some challenges encountered in its implementation. © 2014 © 2014 Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI).
Hugo, G. 2014. "The changing dynamics of ASEAN international migration." Malaysian Journal of Economic Studies 51 (1):43-67.
South-east Asia is becoming increasingly significant in global international migration. This paper summarises recent changes in patterns of immigration and emigration in ASEAN countries. These data, however, do not detect the complexity of South-east Asia's migration system, and this is demonstrated by focusing on the ASEAN-Australia migration corridor. ASEAN migration relationships with other countries are complex, multi-directional and reciprocal, although this is not evident in traditional data. There are significant opportunities for international movement to play a role in economic development and poverty reduction in South-east Asia.
Hui, E., P. Yam, J. Wright, and K. Chan. 2014. "Shall we buy and hold? Evidence from Asian real estate markets." Journal of Property Investment and Finance 32 (2):168-86.
doi: 10.1108/JPIF-09-2013-0059.
Purpose: The purpose of this study is to verify whether the trading strategy can beat the "buy-and-hold" strategy for the securitized real estate indices of six Asian economies: Hong Kong, China, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand and Malaysia. Design/methodology/approach: This paper constructs a trading strategy from the Shiryaev-Zhou index and tests the strategy on the securitized real estate indices of six emerging Asian economies: Hong Kong, China, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand and Malaysia. The authors compare the resulting profits from using the trading strategy with the resulting profits from using the "buy-and-hold" strategy. The authors consider three cases: no transaction costs, 0.1 percent transaction costs, and 0.2 percent transaction costs. Findings: The results show that the trading strategy the authors constructed generally outperforms the "buy-and-hold" strategy even in the presence of transaction costs. In particular, the authors have a new finding as follows: Thailand and Malaysia's securitized real estate indices fell drastically during the period of observation. However, applying the trading strategy to these two securitized real estate indices can still earn a profit. Practical implications: The trading strategy is particularly useful in protecting investors from huge loss in adverse market conditions. The results can be applied to the field of finance/investment that investors can construct a trading strategy similar to the authors to earn more profits. Originality/value: This study will consider cases where both buying and selling costs exist, so the scenario is more like stock transactions in real-life equity markets. Furthermore, in this paper, for each securitized real estate index, the authors plot a graph to show the holding and non-holding periods under the trading strategy. This would help the authors explain the resulting profit under the trading strategy. This kind of graphical analysis was neglected by Hui and Yam. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
Ishihara, S. 2014. "A likelihood ratio-based evaluation of strength of authorship attribution evidence in SMS messages using N-grams." International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law 21 (1):23-49.
doi: 10.1558/ijsll.v21i1.23.
An experiment in forensic text comparison (FTC) within the likelihood ratio (LR) framework is described. The experiment attempts to determine the strength of author- ship attribution evidence modelled with N-grams, which is perhaps one of the most basic automatic modelling techniques. The SMS messages of multiple authors selected from the SMS corpus compiled by the National University of Singapore were used for same- and different-author comparisons. The number of words used for the N-gram modelling was varied (200, 1000, 2000 or 3000 words), and then the performance of each set was assessed. The performance of the LR-based FTC system was assessed with the log likelihood ratio cost (Cllr). It is shown in this study that N-grams can be employed within an LR framework to discriminate same-author and different-author SMS texts, but a fairly large amount of data are needed to do it well (i.e. to obtain Cllr < 0.75). It is concluded that the LR framework warrants further examination with different features and processing techniques. © 2014, EQUINOX PUBLISHING.
Joseph, C. 2014. "Boundaries, work and identity practices: being 'Asian' migrant educational workers." Globalisation, Societies and Education 12 (3):420-35.
doi: 10.1080/14767724.2014.916198.
This article draws on the concept of boundaries in understanding the identity practices of a group of Malaysian skilled migrant women working in the Australian education sector. Drawing on in-depth interviews with these women on their migration and work experiences, the author explores the concept of boundary work within an educational framework. The findings of this qualitative study indicate that these migrant women negotiate discourses of cultural binaries to explain their migration experiences and at the same time rework these discourses of cultural binaries. They draw on multiple cultural and educational resources in negotiating social and symbolic boundaries. In this process, their identities as transnational educational workers are located at the interplay of structure and agency. © 2014 © 2014 Taylor & Francis.
Julsrud, T. E., and M. D. G. Z. Roldan. 2014. "Mobile phones and business networks among Malaysian micro and small enterprises: A comparative network approach." Asia-Pacific Social Science Review 14 (1):21-42.
Malaysia has experienced significant economic growth, and mobile telephony has now reached a large majority of the population. This paper explores how different types of Malaysian micro and small enterprises use the mobile phone to sustain and support their work relations. This study is a comparative case study, combining personal qualitative interviews with a quantitative study of individual call patterns. Findings show that the mobile phone serves as the most frequently used media and communication tool for both managers and employees within the retail, farming, and professional sectors; and that the popularity of the hand phone goes beyond business sector boundaries. The study reveals the gaps that exist between employees and managers in different business areas. Insights on how mobile communication technology influences relationships and social networks are crucial for policymakers who intend to improve the efficiency and livelihood of the micro and small enterprises. © 2014 by De La Salle University Publishing House.
Kaartinen, Timo. 2014. "Perceptions of Justice in the Making: Rescaling of Customary Law in Post-Suharto Maluku, Indonesia." Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 15 (4):319-38.
doi: 10.1080/14442213.2014.927521.
This article questions how successful neo-traditional law has been in providing access to justice to Kei Islanders of Maluku, Eastern Indonesia during recent political transitions. It describes the prevailing model of justice in which traditional law draws some of its authority from the state but provides its own normative framework for addressing community disputes. After the fall of Suharto's New Order regime, people began to apply neo-traditional law to ethnic and resource conflicts, arguing that it took precedence over state law in these emerging domains. Although the neo-traditionalist revival affirmed the autonomy of traditional legal institutions, actual legal procedures and outcomes depended on the response of state authorities and national publics to newly activated traditional normative frameworks. The politics of legality in post-Suharto Indonesia have produced increasingly state-oriented models of justice, but legal outcomes still determine the choice between different normative frameworks. © 2014 The Australian National University.
Kasim, A., D. Gursoy, F. Okumus, and A. Wong. 2014. "The importance of water management in hotels: A framework for sustainability through innovation." Journal of Sustainable Tourism 22 (7):1090-107.
doi: 10.1080/09669582.2013.873444.
This paper highlights the global phenomenon of the crisis in the quality and quantity of water supplies and how tourism generally and hotels specifically may have contributed to the situation. The major internal and external barriers for Small Medium Enterprises adopting Environmental Management Systems, including water, are listed. The paper proposes a water management framework for hotels and other types of accommodation that leverages on the concept of innovation. Taking into account the various levels of knowledge and technological capabilities in water management, the framework is developed based on the commonly known 3R approach in environmental management, with the addition of another R (Reaching). It is proposed that hotels can innovate and enhance their water management approaches under these 4Rs: Innovative Reducing, Innovative Reusing, Innovative Reaching and Innovative Recycling. The framework offers examples and strategies about how hotels of different sizes, with differing financial, technical, knowledge and managerial capacities could address the challenge of implementing water management and obtain commercial benefit. A detailed case study is provided of a gray and black water recycling system in a Malaysian resort. Other examples of a range of water management methods are also discussed. © 2014 Taylor & Francis.
Kassim, A. 2014. "Recent trends in transnational population inflows into Malaysia: Policy, issues and challenges." Malaysian Journal of Economic Studies 51 (1):9-28.
Malaysia's foreign population increased rapidly in the last three decades. In 1980, of a population of over 13 million, 0.49 per cent were noncitizens. In 2010, the number of non-citizens increased to 2.3 million, making up 8.3 per cent of a total population of 28.4 million. The majority is low skill workers, both legal and irregular. There are also other groups comprising expatriates, international students, participants of the 'Malaysia My Second Home' programme, and asylum seekers/refugees whose numbers are relatively small. The inflows which contribute significantly to economic development have their attendant problems. This paper takes a comprehensive view of all the major inflows, taking a cue from state policy towards them. The inflows are divided into two categories: welcome and problematic inflows. It then outlines how each inflow emerged and expanded, state responses towards them and discusses related issues and challenges. All categories of migrants have both positive and negative impacts, but the low skill workers (including asylum seekers and refugees) are the most challenging especially in relation to the economy, border security, and internal order. The paper concludes with a discussion on the urgent need to review the foreign worker policy including Malaysia's stand on asylum seekers/refugees to address the problems related to migrants.
Kaur, A. 2014. "Plantation systems, labour regimes and the state in Malaysia, 1900-2012." Journal of Agrarian Change 14 (2):190-213.
doi: 10.1111/joac.12061.
Plantation production systems, plantation labour regimes and a foreign workforce typified European investment in the large-scale agricultural sector in colonial Malaya. Analogous structures and trends continue to be influential in Malaysia's contemporary commercial agricultural sector. Initially, the politics and organization of the East India Company and the pursuit of tropical commodities corresponded with the facilitation and channelling of Indian migrant labour for coffee and sugar cultivation in Malaya. The subsequent development of the rubber industry represented the first major transition to more highly capitalized large-scale farming for international markets. In the 1990s, oil palm replaced rubber as the premier crop in a second agrarian transition, consistent with Malaysia's economic and political imperatives, social policy and the global demand for palm oil. There are important continuities in the rubber and oil palm agricultural transitions. These include comparable plantation structures, labour systems and a continuing reliance on migrant labour, despite the growth of the national labour force. The correlation between plantation systems and Malaysia's foreign labour policy should be viewed through the prism of challenges to large-scale agricultural production and countervailing forces that might be acting on the Malaysian state. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Khalfan, M. M. A., T. Maqsood, and M. A. Noor. 2014. "Relationships among supply chain participants: The case of Australia and Malaysia." International Journal of Procurement Management 7 (4):376-90.
doi: 10.1504/IJPM.2014.063167.
In the context of supply chain management (SCM) in construction, this paper discusses how relationships are maintained, it examines the implementation of SCM and how it can be used to identify and resolve problems, create better relationships and the understanding between trades and suppliers of services for construction projects. Maintaining long-term relationships are not generally considered a priority in both Australia and Malaysia, therefore, the possible advantage of the benefits of such relationships is not taken. The contracting structures and styles significantly affect the relationships between organisations and that procurement techniques and contractor selection is an imperative process in keeping strong relationships for the duration of the project or contract works. Through SCM, the above can be incorporated into construction projects as a new method of project delivery. SCM is an emerging concept in the construction industry and this paper found that the participants in the industry had little to no understanding of SCM principles. It is crucial for organisations to move away from traditional procurement and project delivery methods to promote SCM framework in order to stay competitive in the ever changing industry environment. Copyright © 2014 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.
Lachmann, R., and L. Mitchell. 2014. "The Changing Face of War in Textbooks: Depictions of World War II and Vietnam, 1970-2009." Sociology of Education 87 (3):188-203.
doi: 10.1177/0038040714537526.
How have U.S. high school textbook depictions of World War II and Vietnam changed since the 1970s? We examined 102 textbooks published from 1970 to 2009 to see how they treated U.S. involvement in World War II and Vietnam. Our content analysis of high school history textbooks finds that U.S. textbooks increasingly focus on the personal experiences of soldiers, rather than presenting impersonal accounts of battles, and are increasingly likely to focus on soldiers' suffering rather than glorify combat. This shift is greater for Vietnam than for World War II. We also find increasing attention in textbooks to the fact, but not the substance, of protests against the Vietnam War. These changes provide more support for theories that view textbooks as sites of contestation or expressions of a world culture of individualism rather than purveyors of a hidden curriculum of nationalistic militarism. Future research on textbook production and comparisons of U.S. versus other countries' textbooks might show how much of the change is particular to the United States, perhaps due to the Vietnam War, or attributable to global changes in military conscription, tolerance for casualties, and attitudes toward individual rights and group obligations. © American Sociological Association 2014.
Lantis, J. S. 2014. "Strategic Cultures and Security Policies in the Asia-Pacific." Contemporary Security Policy 35 (2):166-86.
doi: 10.1080/13523260.2014.927676.
Reflecting the culturalist turn in security studies, this special issue shows how one of the most powerful tools of security studies illuminates the origins and implications of the region's difficult issues, from the rise of China and the American pivot, to the shifting calculations of other regional actors. Strategic culture sometimes challenges and always enriches prevailing neorealist presumptions about the region. It provides a bridge between material and ideational explanations of state behaviour and helps to capture the tension between neoclassical realist and constructivist approaches. The case studies survey the role of strategic culture in the behaviours of Australia, China, Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, and the United States. They show the contrast between structural expectations and cultural predispositions as realist geopolitical security threats and opportunities interact with domestic elite and popular interpretation of historical narratives and distinctive political-military cultures to influence security policies. The concluding retrospective article devotes special attention to methodological issues at the heart of strategic cultural studies, as well as how culture may impact the potential for future conflict or cooperation in the region. The result is a body of work that helps deepen our understanding of strategic cultures in comparative perspective and enrich security studies. As disputes intensify over territory and resources, as regional militaries develop and leaders adjust their strategic calculus and defence commitments, the dovetailing of culture and politics in the Asia-Pacific shows through. © 2014 © 2014 Taylor & Francis.
Lean, H. H., and R. Smyth. 2014. "Dynamic interaction between house prices and stock prices in Malaysia." International Journal of Strategic Property Management 18 (2):163-77.
doi: 10.3846/1648715X.2014.925006.
This paper examines the dynamic linkages between house price indices, interest rates and stock prices in Malaysia using cointegration and Granger causality testing. For Malaysia as a whole, we find that house prices, stock prices and interest rates are not cointegrated. For Kuala Lumpur, Penang and Selangor we find that house prices, stock prices and interest rates are cointegrated for 40% of the house price indices. When there is evidence of cointegration in these regions, we find that stock prices lead house prices. While there are alternative potential reasons for this finding, such as slow adjustment of house prices in response to a shock in the fundamentals, it is consistent with a wealth effect. A likely explanation for this result is that in these states, compared with the Malaysian average, housing is expensive, income is high and real estate is used much more as an investment vehicle by both wealthy Malaysians and foreigners leveraging of the share market. © 2014 Vilnius Gediminas Technical University (VGTU) Press Technika.
Lee, C. 2014. "Competition law enforcement in Malaysia: Some recent developments." Malaysian Journal of Economic Studies 51 (SPEC. ISSUE):77-88.
The enactment of the Competition Act 2010 represents a significant step forward in the implementation of competition policy in Malaysia. The Malaysian Competition Commission has been fairly successful in its enforcement activities, especially in price fixing cases involving trade associations. It has also investigated and issued proposed decisions in a number of high profile cases involving MAS, AirAsia, and Megasteel. Future challenges are likely to involve investigation into more complex anti-competitive cases, review of government regulations with impact on competition, possible introduction of merger controls and regional integration.
Lee, R. 2014. "A Politician, Not an Icon: Aung San Suu Kyi's Silence on Myanmar's Muslim Rohingya." Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 25 (3):321-33.
doi: 10.1080/09596410.2014.913850.
In Myanmar (also known as Burma), the Rohingya are a persecuted Muslim minority living mainly in northern Rakhine State. Aung San Suu Kyi, the iconic leader of Myanmar's opposition party the National League for Democracy (NLD), is championed as the voice of the people. However, on the matter of the Rohingya's persecution she has been notably silent. This article examines the possible reasons for Suu Kyi's silence and argues that Buddhist-Muslim political relations in Myanmar are central to understanding the reasons behind Suu Kyi's position on the Rohingya. It is suggested that various factors, including the history of the Rohingya in Myanmar, the NLD's attitude towards the Rohingya, Suu Kyi's sense of obligation to her father's political legacy, and Suu Kyi's views on ethnicity, are creating a political environment in which Suu Kyi is presented with pragmatic political reasons for staying silent. Given Suu Kyi has the potential to become a future national leader, an understanding of her behaviours towards a sizeable persecuted Muslim minority is important. This is particularly the case when consideration is given to the contemporary pressures on Muslims to embrace radical politics and the implications this could have for Myanmar and the region. © 2014 University of Birmingham.
Lee, S. P., and M. Isa. 2014. "Stock market integration and the impact of the subprime financial crisis: A Malaysian perspective." Asian Journal of Business and Accounting 7 (1):29-54.
Using weekly data over the period 2002-2011, we examine market integration among 22 international markets from the viewpoint of Malaysian investors. We also analyse the impact of the subprime financial crisis of 2007-2008 on the linkages of these markets. In general, our results indicate a lack of cointegration in all market groups. We find that the subprime crisis has resulted in a temporary cointegration in the groups during the peak of the crisis, but cointegration is weak or absent in the pre- and post-crisis periods. We also find that cointegration is strongest in the Malaysian and European market groups and surprisingly weak in the group involving Malaysia and its neighbouring emerging markets. The results of the causality and variance decomposition analyses strongly indicate that Malaysia is largely unrelated with other markets. Overall, our evidence points towards the possibility for diversification benefits to local investors.
Lin, M. W., and C. Yu. 2014. "Can Corruption Be Measured? Comparing Global Versus Local Perceptions of Corruption in East and Southeast Asia." Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice 16 (2):140-57.
doi: 10.1080/13876988.2013.870115.
Since Transparency International first released its annual Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) in 1995, the CPI has quickly become the best known corruption indicator worldwide. The CPI has been widely credited with making comparative and large-N studies of corruption possible, as well as putting the issue of corruption squarely in the international policy agenda. Despite its enormous influence on both academic and policy fronts, the CPI is not without critics. One often noted critique is that the CPI relies solely on surveys of foreign business people and the expert assessments of cross-national analysts; as such, the CPI mainly reflects international experts' perceptions, not the perceptions of each country's citizens. This study examines the above critique in closer detail. Data from the Asian Barometer Survey is employed to analyze whether international experts' corruption perceptions were similar to those of domestic citizens. The Asian Barometer Survey is a public opinion survey on issues related to political values, democracy, and public reform in 13 different areas around East and Southeast Asia (Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mongolia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam). Data analysis indicates that global and local perspectives are only moderately aligned in the 13 areas studied. International experts and domestic citizens differ, to varying degrees, in their evaluation of the extent of public sector corruption in several areas, suggesting the presence of a corruption perception gap. Four implications about the existence of this gap can be drawn for future corruption measurement. © 2014 © 2014 The Editor, Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice.
Liu, D., M. Y. L. Tan, A. Y. Y. Lim, C. M. Chu, L. J. Tan, and S. H. Quah. 2014. "Profiles of needs of children in out-of-home care in Singapore: School performance, behavioral and emotional needs as well as risk behaviors." Children and Youth Services Review 44:225-32.
doi: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2014.06.019.
Describing the needs and strengths of children residing in out-of-home care is essential to aid decision-making, to inform case planning, and to prioritize intervention in order to effectively meet the needs of these children. A cross-sectional study of 654 children between the ages of 5 and 17. years residing in Foster Care and Voluntary Children's Homes in Singapore was conducted using the Child and Adolescent Strengths and Needs (CANS) tool. Forty-one percent of children had school performance needs. The prevalence of behavioral and emotional needs was lower (0 to 12%). Children in the older age group had significantly higher overall school, behavioral and emotional, as well as risk behavior needs as compared to the younger age group. Children placed in residential care had higher overall needs than children in foster care. The presence of school performance needs was related to higher overall behavioral and emotional needs, as well as risk behavior needs. Implications of these findings are discussed in terms of appropriate intervention and service planning for children in out-of-home care. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd.
Loke, W. H., and S. Y. Tham. 2014. "Vertical specialisation and backward linkages: Reconsidering malaysian manufacturing development." Malaysian Journal of Economic Studies 51 (SPEC. ISSUE):57-76.
Malaysia has undergone substantial transformation, shifting from primary commodity to manufacturing production in about five decades since independence. The government is currently concerned with shifting from a middle to high income economy. The Tenth Malaysia Plan (2011-2015) has identified 12 key drivers of economic activities that will serve to propel the country toward a high income economy. Of these 12 activities, only palm oil and related products, electrical and electronics (e&e) and information and technology (IT) sub-sectors are related to manufacturing, while others are services. The objective of this paper is to identify manufacturing sectors that can be further developed to facilitate economic growth. Using Hummel's vertical specialisation index and Rasmussen's backward linkage index, we divide the manufacturing sector into four main groups, using the 2005 Input-Output table of Malaysia. Identifying these groups of industries will enable the government to focus not just on the palm oil and related products, e&e and IT sub-sectors alone, but to diversify to other subsectors that have a great potential to facilitate the shift to a highincome economy.
Lynn Ng, W., S. Mofrad, and I. Uba. 2014. "Effect of birth order on the differential parental treatment of children." Asian Social Science 10 (14):132-7.
doi: 10.5539/ass.v10n14p132.
This study investigated the effect of birth order on the differential parental treatment of children. Respondents of the study include 122 adolescents (33 males and 89 females) from the Klang Valley, Malaysia aged 13-17years (M=16years, SD = 1.05). The Sibling Inventory of Differential Experience (SIDE) was used to measure differential parental treatment. Findings of the study revealed significant differential parental control between first and last born children. Future studies may examine the number of siblings in a family as a factor in differential parental treatment.
Mellor, D., M. Fuller-Tyszkiewicz, M. P. McCabe, L. A. Ricciardelli, H. Skouteris, and A. J. Mussap. 2014. "A test of the resource security and the body mass index reference point hypotheses of body dissatisfaction amongst adolescents in eight countries." Ethnicity and Health 19 (5):548-64.
doi: 10.1080/13557858.2013.857761.
Objective. This study aimed to identify cultural-level variables that may influence the extent to which adolescents from different cultural groups are dissatisfied with their bodies.Design. A sample of 1730 male and 2000 female adolescents from Australia, Fiji, Malaysia, Tonga, Tongans in New Zealand, China, Chile, and Greece completed measures of body satisfaction, and the sociocultural influences on body image and body change questionnaire, and self-reported height and weight. Country gross domestic product and national obesity were recorded using global databases.Results. Prevalence of obesity/overweight and cultural endorsement of appearance standards explained variance in individual-level body dissatisfaction (BD) scores, even after controlling for the influence of individual differences in body mass index and internalization of appearance standards.Conclusions. Cultural-level variables may account for the development of adolescent BD. © 2013 Taylor & Francis.
Menéndez, L. G. 2014. "Language, writing and attachment in Kim Thúy's work." Cedille (10):181-92.
The writing of Kim Thúy, Quebec author originally from Vietnam, represents a place of attachment against exile. The protagonist in Ru (2009), her first work, rebuilds herself and builds her relationship with others in an autobiographical story where the tragic journey of the boat people articulates an almost intimate personal chronicle, which does not focus on exile but on rebirth and reconciliation. À toi (2011), which was written in tandem with Pascal Janovjak, author of Swiss nationality and French-Slovakian descent, is a hybrid work mixing epistolary novel and correspondence between writers across an ocean and sixtime zones. Even while staging the nomadism and exile of the co-authors, this work highlights the roots and represents writing as a celebration of words.
Michaels, J. H. 2014. "Helpless or Deliberate Bystander: American Policy towards South Vietnam's Military Coups, 1954-1975." Small Wars and Insurgencies 25 (3):560-83.
doi: 10.1080/09592318.2014.913546.
The USA's role in fomenting and responding to military coups remains an understudied and politically contentious subject despite it being a recurring foreign policy problem exemplified most recently in both Egypt and Mali. To the extent this topic has been addressed in any depth by scholars, it is mainly limited to an examination of a small number of coups that occurred during the Cold War that the CIA was accused of sponsoring. However, this emphasis on well-known cases to the exclusion of lesser-known cases has resulted in a biased view of omnipotent US power. This limitation is reflected in the case of South Vietnam, in which the focus has been placed on the 1963 coup that overthrew President Ngo Dinh Diem, whereas the numerous other coups that occurred have received little or no attention. In this article, a more inclusive approach will be taken in which US policy will be examined with respect to all of the main coups and coup attempts that occurred during the period 1954-1975. © 2014 © 2014 Taylor & Francis.
Mohd Yusoff, S. N., and B. R. A. Hassan. 2014. "National day logo and its communicative implications: A research note." Jurnal Komunikasi: Malaysian Journal of Communication 30 (1):207-27.
In today's highly sophisticated world together with its increasingly rapid communication, the role of the logo is very important to a company, product, organizations, societies or even the nation. Thus, the logo should be carefully and creatively designed so that the identity or image represented can be prominently displayed, meaningful and interesting. Typically, it became an icon and a symbol of all that it represents. Logo plays a very important role in the campaign so that all integrity, concepts and motifs that are planned can be appreciated by the target group. For example, in a campaign celebration International Women's Day, Earth Day, the Olympics or the Visit Malaysia Year. The study is focused on Malaysia's Independence Day logo. Therefore, the research on the controversial tilt design the official logo used during the celebration of the 55th Independence Day in 2012. This is the first time a Malaysian society is seen as responsive to a spatial design logo especially in the digital public. Using social semiotic perspective and critical media discourse analysis, this study aims to examine the functions, impacts and implications of communicative logo and slogan Independence Day featured generic 1Malaysia icon, in the daily life of the country.
Mohd-Saleh, N., and N. Omar. 2014. "CEO duality, family-control and goodwill impairment." Asian Journal of Business and Accounting 7 (1):143-79.
Deterioration in performance may increase the likelihood of the recognition of goodwill impairment in firms. It is believed that the magnitude of discretion given in the new accounting standards FRS 136- Impairment of Assets gives managers an additional incentive to manage the perception of users of financial statements using the impairment of goodwill item, particularly during the transition period. This problem can be exacerbated when there is a high concentration of family ownership and when family owners have control over the management and Board of Directors at the same time. This paper argues that the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Chairman role duality, particularly in family-controlled firms, could enhance the effect of entrenchment and expropriation activities. This study uses a sample of 948 firm-years observations of public firms listed on Bursa Malaysia from years 2006 to 2008 to examine whether the combined effect of CEO duality and family-controlled firms is related to goodwill impairment. This study finds evidence that the combined effect of CEO duality and family-controlled firms have significant effect on the recognition of goodwill impairment.
Molaei, Hamideh. 2014. "The prospect of civility in Indonesians' online polarized political discussions." Asian Journal of Communication 24 (5):490-504.
doi: 10.1080/01292986.2014.917116.
This paper aims to investigate the level of civility of Indonesians' political discussions on Facebook. Civility, which has always been an important concept in online political discussion, is particularly significant when there is diversity of opinions and disputation. While previous studies have focused more upon factors such as anonymity's role and its relevance to civility, this paper proposes two further important factors: (1) diversity of opinion and disagreement in discussion and (2) the cultural context of the country and how it determines civility and politeness in online debate. Qualitative content analysis of Indonesians' political discussions on Facebook revealed that polarized political views and the people's politeness culture were two significant factors underpinning the high level of civility in political discussion. © 2014 AMIC/SCI-NTU.
Montsion, J. M. 2014. "Chinese ethnicities in neoliberal Singapore? State designs and dialect(ical) struggles of community associations." Ethnic and Racial Studies 37 (9):1486-504.
doi: 10.1080/01419870.2013.774034.
Since the late 1990s, Singaporean state authorities have been increasingly marketing the city state as a knowledge-based hub between mainland China and western societies. Their focus on Mandarin-speaking mainlanders contrasts with Singapore's historical Chinese roots. By investigating the daily activities of Hokkien and Teochew community associations, I argue that these associations are finding ways to adapt to state initiatives that market a China-centric identity and target mainlanders. These dialect-based associations try to profit from state designs, while at the same time reclaiming their own historical distinctiveness. Drawing on qualitative work, I document the temporal practices of local dialect-based associations in reaction to neoliberal state initiatives that reduce Chineseness to a de-historicized skill set and stress how state-community interactions shape evolving Chinese ethnicities of the city state. © 2014 © 2014 Taylor & Francis.
Munir, Q., and S. C. Kok. 2014. "Does malaysian gold bullion coin prices follow mean reversion or random walk?" Journal of Applied Economic Sciences 9 (1):76-87.
Mainly past studies used security prices to test the random walk theory. Not much attention is given to gold bullion coin prices. Furthermore, past literature emphasised on the developed countries' markets to test the random walk theory for gold prices. However, the evidence for developing countries' markets is lacking. In addition to this, several important events happened in the past decade seem to have affected the gold prices. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to test for the presence of a random walk in the series of Malaysian gold bullion coin (1oz) daily prices, ranging from July 18th 2001 to May 11th 2012, by incorporating the structural break in the series. Past studies on testing the random walk theory of gold prices used tradition unit root tests without incorporating structural breaks. In contrast, this study applies Zivot and Andrews (1992) one-break and Lumsdaine and Papell (1997) two-break unit root tests. Furthermore, we also provided the empirical evidences based on traditional unit root tests to compare the results with the prior studies on this topic. The main finding is that Malaysian gold bullion coin prices follow mean reversion, implying that the market is inefficient and the impact of shocks is transitory. We also capture important break dates in the series. The finding has implications for econometric modelling, in particular forecasting and structural breaks. The structural breaks captured in the series reflect that investors are responsive to market sentiment. Furthermore, as our empirical results show mean reversion, therefore, investors can exploit past price trend to get abnormal profit. This paper adds to the literature on random walk theory of gold prices, by providing the evidence on Malaysian gold bullion coin prices. In our knowledge, no previous research tested the random walk theory of gold prices on Malaysia, by using structural break unit root tests.
Myers, B., R. Fisher, S. Pickering, and S. Garnett. 2014. "Post-project evaluation of the sustainability of development project outcomes: A case study in eastern Indonesia." Development in Practice 24 (3):379-89.
doi: 10.1080/09614524.2014.899320.
The extent to which project outcomes are sustained years after development projects have ended is not routinely investigated. This study assessed the long-term impacts of a fire management project in eastern Indonesia seven years after the funding ended. Post-project evaluation increased understanding of the factors determining sustainability of project outcomes and links to development impacts. The continuation of community fire management and agroforestry groups was linked to demonstration of benefits to farmers and multi-level engagement. Activities had ceased where ownership was disputed. Some long-term impacts were outside the original aims of the fire project, including district government agencies applying fire mapping skills to other development issues. © 2014 Taylor & Francis.
Nair, H. A. P., D. Kumar, and S. Sri Ramalu. 2014. "Organizational health: Delineation, constructs and development of a measurement model." Asian Social Science 10 (14):145-57.
doi: 10.5539/ass.v10n14p145.
The present study examines Organizational Health (OH) for the definition that has been inexplicably characterized and about whose significance has been a high level of variability in academician's and practitioners understanding hitherto. The purpose of this paper is to develop constructs and factors influencing OH within the context of the system theory in order to create a measurement model that can be used to measure business performance with Organizational changes. Data is consolidated using the Delphi technique with the opinions of experts from diverse fields within Malaysia. The study identified an OH measurement model consisting three multilevel constructs such as Culture & Change Capacity, Goal Alignment and Competence Adequacy. There are 28 factors which collectively influence the degree of OH in an Organization. These factors are itemized to convert the model into a survey based instrument of measure. The measurement enables practitioners to identify potential deterioration of health conditions in the organization well in advance and vaccinate through appropriate and timely Organizational Development interventions.
Nguyen, H. V., T. T. Vu, and H. N. Pham. 2014. "Factors associated with drug use among male motorbike taxi drivers in urban vietnam." Substance Use and Misuse 49 (10):1287-95.
doi: 10.3109/10826084.2014.891624.
A cross-sectional study was conducted on a sample of 291 male motorbike taxi drivers (MMTDs) recruited through social mapping technique in Hanoi, Vietnam, for face-to-face interviews to examine factors associated with drug use among MMTDs using Information-Motivation-Behavioral skills (IMB) model. Among 291 MMTDs, 17.18% reported drug use sometime in their lives, 96% of whom were drug injectors. Being depressed, being originally borne in urban cities, currently residing in rural areas, having a longer time living apart from their wives/lovers, using alcohol, following Buddhism, and reporting lower motivation of HIV prevention predict significantly higher odds of uptaking drugs. © 2014 Informa Healthcare USA, Inc.
Nhuan, M. T., L. T. T. Hien, N. T. H. Ha, N. T. H. Hue, and T. D. Quy. 2014. "An integrated and quantitative vulnerability assessment for proactive hazard response and sustainability: A case study on the Chan May-Lang Co Gulf area, Central Vietnam." Sustainability Science 9 (3):399-409.
doi: 10.1007/s11625-013-0221-9.
A natural factors-based approach was developed to examine proactive responses to hazards and improving sustainability on the Chan May-Lang Co Gulf area, Central Vietnam. The approach was based on a weight-of-evidence method within an integrated and quantitative vulnerability assessment in which the spatial relationship between a set of evidential factors (lithology, distance to the coastline, altitude, slope, aspect, drainage, wind speed during storms, and land use and cover) and a set of hazard locations was combined with the prior probability (total vulnerability) to obtain the posterior probability of hazard occurrence. The result showed that 44.3 % of the study area had high to very high total vulnerability, due to the high density of vulnerable objects and frequency of severe damage from typhoons, floods, landslides, and erosion. The result also demonstrated that the contribution of natural factors was directly proportional to total vulnerability in approximately 75 % of the study area, indicating a high dependence of vulnerability on natural factors. In the remaining areas, low contributions were found in the high and very high vulnerability areas dominated by high anthropogenic activities. In contrast, natural factors were important contributors to total vulnerability in areas characterized by dense vegetation, consolidated rocks, and altitude greater than 300 m, reflecting high natural resilience. The present study demonstrated that a proactive approach may provide appropriate measures to mitigate hazards and to increase the sustainability of the study area. © 2013 Springer Japan.
Nizam Osman, M., S. Zobidah Omar, J. Bolong, J. Lawrence D'Silva, and H. Azril Mohamed Shaffril. 2014. "Readiness of young Malaysian fishermen to use global positioning system within the fishing operation." Asian Social Science 10 (14):1-7.
doi: 10.5539/ass.v10n14p1.
Global Positioning System or GPS is an advanced tool that has been widely used in a number of industries including fisheries industry. The main attempt of the present study has much to do with GPS as it aims to identify young Malaysian fishermen readiness to use GPS within their fishing operation. The study is quantitative in nature where a developed questionnaire was used to collect the required data. A total of 240 young fishermen aged between 15 to 40 years old from four fishing areas in Malaysia were selected as the respondents. Overall, it can be concluded that young Malaysian fishermen are ready to use GPS within their fishing operation. However, their readiness can be further improved if aspects such as financial affordability, number of agencies staff, availability of workshop repairing dysfunction GPS and access to GPS are considered by the related agencies.
Noh, A. 2014. "Malaysia 13th General Election: A short note on Malaysia's continuing battle with ethnic politics." Electoral Studies 34:266-9.
doi: 10.1016/j.electstud.2013.09.003.
Malaysia's Barisan Nasional (a coalition of mainly ethnic-based parties) secured a narrow win in the country's recent election. Reacting to the dismal result, Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak blamed his party's losses on the "Chinese Tsunami", which he described as the overwhelming support of Chinese voters for the opposition party - the Pakatan Rakyat (PR). This note believes that the debates on "Chinese Tsunami" highlight a larger imperative; Malaysians' constant struggle with race relations and what constitutes the character of Malaysia's political economy. Improving Malaysia's ethnic relations in the next five years remains daunting. The BN's weaker mandate and the PR's eagerness to assume leadership threatens to recycle more populist policies that can do more damage to Malaysia's ethnic relations. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd.
Nor Hakimin Yusoff, M., and F. Anwar Zainol. 2014. "The public business support services: Does it really works?" Asian Social Science 10 (14):106-13.
doi: 10.5539/ass.v10n14p106.
The establishment of business entity, especially among Malays ethnic, experienced a rapid development since Malaysia has gained independence from British colonial in 1957. In 1970 the government has launched a New Economic Policy (1970-1990) which aimed to increase Malays ownership in economic activities without sidelining other races. However, at the end of the period, the targeted figure of 30% Bumiputera (indigenous) ownership is far from achieved. The government was alerted and has conducted a substantial program to overcome the problems. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the factors that hinder SMEs from using the services, hoping that the awareness is no more a key issue. This study is also to assess non-users perception of firms' performance in the absence of the government support services. The study used cross sectional data from database of national SME supervisory body. The respondents are Malays SMEs all over Malaysia.
Nurkholis, M. H. Sani Mohamad, and S. Ismail. 2014. "The effect of regulation and goal orientation on performance measurement utilisation: Evidence from Indonesian local governments." Asian Journal of Business and Accounting 7 (1):81-105.
This study examines how regulation of performance measurement and goal orientation affects the utilisation of performance measurement in the context of a developing country's local governments. This study is based on a cross-sectional survey participated by 163 managers of local government agencies in East Java, Indonesia, using a structural approach in data analysis. The results show that the imposition of regulation on performance measurement directly affects performance measurement adoption. The adoption of performance measurement and goal orientation mediate the relation between the regulation and the actual implementation of performance measurement. The likelihood of the actual implementation of performance measurement becomes stronger when there is strong goal orientation. The unique contribution of this study is that it offers a model of regulatory-based performance measurement utilisation under result-based management from a developing country's perspective, depicting that imposed regulation on performance measurement will likely lead to its actual implementation when there is strong goal orientation.
Oba, M. 2014. "ASEAN and the Creation of a Regional Community." Asia-Pacific Review 21 (1):63-78.
doi: 10.1080/13439006.2014.925200.
After the ASEAN Concord II called for the building of an ASEAN Community in 2003, the creation of an ASEAN Community became a concrete part of the political agenda for the nations of Southeast Asia, and an ASEAN Community is scheduled to be created in 2015. However, it will all be for naught if the ASEAN Community that is established does not truly contribute to the stability and prosperity of the region. From this point of view, the article will attempt to evaluate the development of an ASEAN community concept and efforts to create it. To clarify the ideal of a true community, this article will take up Karl Deutsch's concept of "pluralistic security communities" and reconsider what a community requires. The article will state that the efforts to create an ASEAN Community should not be underestimated, and the blueprints for the creation of the ASEAN Community outline the formation of a true regional community. It will, however, conclude that in reality there exist factors within the ASEAN region that may shake the development of an ASEAN Community. It has to be said that the fostering of a sense of community at the level of ordinary people, as well as the creation of a community in which fundamental values and norms are shared, are distant propositions. © 2014 Institute for International Policy Studies.
Ortiga, Y. Y. 2014. "Professional problems: The burden of producing the "global" Filipino nurse." Social Science and Medicine 115:64-71.
doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2014.06.012.
This paper investigates the challenges faced by nursing schools within migrant-sending nations, where teachers and school administrators face the task of producing nurse labor, not only for domestic health needs but employers beyond national borders. I situate my research in the Philippines, one of the leading sources of migrant nurse labor in the world. Based on 58 interviews with nursing school instructors and administrators, conducted from 2010 to 2013, I argue that Philippine nursing schools are embedded within a global nursing care chain, where nations lower down the chain must supply nurse labor to wealthier countries higher up the chain. This paper shows how this process forces Filipino nurse educators to negotiate an overloaded curriculum, the influx of aspiring migrants into nursing programs, and erratic labor demand cycles overseas. These issues create problems in defining the professional knowledge needed by Filipino nurses; instilling professional values and standards; and maintaining proper job security. As such, these findings demonstrate how countries like the Philippines bear the burden of ensuring nurses' employability, where educational institutions constantly adjust curriculum and instruction for the benefit of employers within wealthier societies. My interviews reveal how such adjustments undermine the professional values and standards that define the nursing profession within the country. Such inequality is an outcome of nurse migration that current research has not fully explored. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd.
Pallas, C. L., and A. Uhlin. 2014. "Civil Society Influence on International Organizations: Theorizing the State Channel." Journal of Civil Society 10 (2):184-203.
doi: 10.1080/17448689.2014.921102.
The literature on transnational civil society tends to treat civil society organizations (CSOs) as independent actors, accomplishing policy change largely through moral force or popular pressure. However, a significant portion of CSO successes in policy advocacy actually utilizes alliances with state actors. To understand the implications of this 'state channel' of CSO influence, we develop a new model of CSO use of state influence. We identify four factors that determine whether the state channel is accessible for CSOs to use and is likely to produce more effective CSO influence than direct CSO engagement with the international organization (IO): the porousness of the targeted states and IOs, the availability of contacts, the possibility for alignment of interests, and the relative power of aligned state and IO contacts. We illustrate this theory using four case studies of civil society engagement: two case studies involving the World Bank and two involving the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Our analysis suggests that the factors determining CSOs' successful use of the state channel currently tend to favour a small number of well-resourced, reformist CSOs from porous and powerful states. © 2014 © 2014 Taylor & Francis.
Panennungi, M., R. Pulungsari, E. Fitriani, L. Tjahjandari, Surjadi, and P. Wicaksono. 2014. "Analysis of issues development in Asia-Pacific economic cooperation." Asia-Pacific Social Science Review 14 (1):1-20.
This study aims to analyze the determinant factors that affect issues development within APEC, map out those issues during the period 1993-2010, and show the relation of those issues with the APEC Summit Agenda 2013 in Indonesia. The analysis is based on secondary data, literature review of APEC meeting documents, interviews, and focus group discussions. Some interesting findings suggest that, firstly, issues development in APEC has been shaped by responses of APEC to opportunities and challenges related to economic, social, political and security conditions within APEC and the world. It is not only government agencies that are involved in issues development but other agents as well, such as the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council, the Association Southeast Asian Nations, the World Trade Organization, APEC Business Advisory Council, and APEC Study Centers Consortium. In the past and at present, the Eminent Persons Group and the Pacific Business Forum, which were set up for a specific time by APEC, continue to play vital and influential roles. Secondly, this study finds that there are four big groups involved in issues development in APEC. All issues are part of the development issues in APEC economies. Even though the issues are very broad, encompassing economic and non-economic matters, these are nonetheless focused on economic integration of APEC, with Bogor Goals being in the nucleus of issues. The development of the range of issues, which APEC has pursued to respond to challenges and opportunities in the APEC economies, is intended to support and secure economic integration. Thirdly, the Indonesian APEC Summit Agenda 2013 emphasized three specific agenda items: attaining the Bogor Goals, sustainable and inclusive growth, and connectivity. All these are inter-related issues of developments that have been discussed since the establishment of APEC. © 2014 by De La Salle University Publishing House.
Phang, S. Y., D. Lee, A. Cheong, K. F. Phoon, and K. Wee. 2014. "Housing policies in Singapore: Evaluation of recent proposals and recommendations for reform." Singapore Economic Review 59 (3).
doi: 10.1142/S0217590814500258.
The Singapore housing market is unusual in its high homeownership rate, the dominance of HDB housing, and the extensive intervention of the government in regulating housing supply and demand in both the HDB and private housing sectors. Recent rapid population increases in a low interest rate and high global liquidity environment has resulted in accelerated house prices increases in Singapore. Earlier this year, the government launched "Our Singapore Conversation" of which discussion on housing policies constitutes one major component. This "conversation" comes in the wake of several consecutive rounds of measures to stabilize housing prices using various instruments. This paper evaluates the main policy changes proposed and makes recommendations for housing market reforms: (i) the government need to clarify goals of housing policies and make available more detailed data on the foreign component of our population for better analysis of housing markets; (ii) the housing supply regime should target an overall effective vacancy rate that encompasses both the Housing and Development Board (HDB) and private sector; (iii) policy makers need to monitor carefully excess demand indicators for housing in addition to housing affordability indicators over the entire spectrum of incomes and household types; (iv) housing REITs should be established to provide an alternative investment option as well as to develop an efficient and affordable rental sector; and (v) in addition to macroprudential measures, owner-occupancy requirements and fiscal measures such as stamp duties and property taxes could be further utilized to reduce the foreign demand for Singapore housing and real estate. © 2014 World Scientific Publishing Company.
Phua, K. L., S. W. H. Ling, and K. H. Phua. 2014. "Public-Private Partnerships in Health in Malaysia: Lessons for Policy Implementation." International Journal of Public Administration 37 (8):506-13.
doi: 10.1080/01900692.2013.865647.
The government of Malaysia, an early and enthusiastic supporter of the concept of privatization of public services, can also be considered as being highly supportive of more recent strategies such as "public-private partnerships" (PPPs) in the delivery of social services. It established a Public-Private Partnership Unit (UKAS) in 2011. This discussion of Malaysia's experience with health care PPPs is based on a literature review. The record is mixed, with successes and failures. Critical factors for success include regulation, transparency, clear policy guidance and clarity on operational procedures and responsibilities, proper evaluation mechanisms, sustained financial support, especially for NGO partners, and unwavering commitment from policy-makers. © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
Pisani, E. 2014. "Indonesia in pieces." Foreign Affairs 93 (4).
Pow, C. P. 2014. "License to travel: Policy assemblage and the 'Singapore model'." City 18 (3):287-306.
doi: 10.1080/13604813.2014.908515.
In the world of 'fast policy transfer', stylized models of 'successful' paradigmatic cities have been assembled and circulated widely around the world, providing supposedly 'best practices' and 'tried and tested' policy solutions for a variety of problems. Far from being neutral and objective, these traveling models and policy assemblages are deeply embedded in power relations and animated by urban imaginaries of 'good places' to live and work. Both in rhetoric and form, the purported 'Singapore model', driven by the entrepreneurial zeal of state agencies as well as private developers, has been exported to many cities in the global south. Yet how does this self-stylized Singapore model possess the representational power and 'license to travel'? What role does urban materiality play in the circulation and flow of the Singapore model? To this end, this paper argues that the Singapore model rests on the seductive narratives of a self-orientalized 'Asian success story' that is enacted and materialized through an assemblage of policy artifacts. On the whole, however, rather than converging towards a unified singular policy narrative, the Singapore model is consumed in highly differentiated and uneven ways, thus underscoring the contradictions and friction that underpin the process through which mobile policies and neoliberal urban models are assembled and circulated around the world. Beyond the empirically grounded analysis of assemblage theory and policy mobility, this paper attends to the diverse urbanisms that are being assembled and produced both within and beyond the global south. © 2014 © 2014 Taylor & Francis.
Rajabi, E., and J. Muhammad. 2014. "Does the government size cause economic growth? empirical evidence from selected ASEAN countries." Ikonomicheski Izsledvania 23 (1):3-20.
This paper investigates the link between government size and growth in the long run for an unbalanced panel of seven ASEAN-3 countries (N=7) with annual data for the period 1980-2012 (T=33).The relation between government expenditure and economic growth has been extensively investigated by the use of different models. The model used is the pooled mean group, mean group and dynamic fixed effect model. By examining both short run and long run effects, the empirical results demonstrate a positively significant influence of government expenditure on economic growth on the long run. Furthermore, average error-correcting speed is approximately 0.04% per annum, which shows that a country converges to the common steady-state income path extremely slow.
Raman, A., Y. Don, R. Khalid, and M. Rizuan. 2014. "Usage of learning management system (Moodle) among postgraduate students: UTAUT model." Asian Social Science 10 (14):186-92.
doi: 10.5539/ass.v10n14p186.
The application of a learning management system (LMS) Moodle is learning and teaching platform in Universiti Utara Malaysia. To examine the level of acceptance of this technology, the UTAUT (Unified theory of acceptance and use of technology) Model is used to infer individual students' technology acceptance by explaining the variants in Behavior Intention (BI). This study is conducted on 65 postgraduate students pursuing their study at UUM. The students are all studying the same course and they are exposed to the application of LMS known as 'Moodle UUM Learning Zone'. A set of questionnaire, in the UTAUT Model which is developed by Venkatesh et al. (2003), is used to collect data which is then descriptively analyzed by using IBM SPSS Statistics Version 20 and SmartPLS 2.0. The findings of the study found that Performance Expectancy (PE) (β=0.418, p<0.01), Social Influence (SI) (β=0.238, p<0.01) and Facilitating Conditions (FC) (β=0.120, p<0.01) have positive influence towards 'Behavioral Intention' (BI). The value R2 = 0.520 showed that 52.0% of the variants in the application of Learning zone can be explained by Behavioral Intention (BI). Consequently, the result related to moderator influence in terms of gender showed that all the four UTAUT Model constructs failed to reject HO5. The results also showed that moderator influence in terms of gender with PE, EE, SI and FC does not have significant positive influence towards BI. The findings of this study which are hoped to help encourage instructors and students to use this technology in their learning and teaching processes, have proven that LMS 'Moodle' is beneficial and effective for learning and teaching processes.
Renwick, N. 2014. "China's role in Burma's development." IDS Bulletin 45 (4):70-84.
doi: 10.1111/1759-5436.12094.
China has been a long-standing partner for Burma (Myanmar), providing important political, military and economic support. Burma's reform process poses new questions and challenges for China. China's interests in Burma are primarily economic-driven by its need for strategic resources and are highly controversial. This study argues that China's approach to Burma's development is determined by its own national economic interests. Beijing's view is that this is a 'win-win' situation. This is a view under critical review in Burma as it seeks to re-balance its foreign relationships. This article details the critical point at which Sino-Burmese relations now stand, explains Burma's current development profile, outlines Chinese involvement in Burma and explains China's development approach to Burma in terms of China's national economic, political and security interests. © 2014 The Author. IDS Bulletin © 2014 Institute of Development Studies.
Reyes, R. S. M. 2014. "A deleuzian reading of the EDSA revolutions and the possibility of becoming-revolutionary today." Asia-Pacific Social Science Review 14 (1):59-74.
This paper presents a Deleuzian re-thinking of the three EDSA Revolutions in the Philippines. Its frame is limited to contemporary and critical studies found in books, journals, and newspapers. Initially, I elucidate the nature of 1986 EDSA I Revolution, to be followed by an articulation of the concepts of assemblage and difference for a re-configuration of the 1986 revolution. I highlight and explain how the Epifanio Delos Santos Avenue (EDSA) transfigured into an arena of collective and dynamic action of various assemblagic relations. The rhizomic interaction of heterogeneous forces in the said highway undeniably exterminated the privileging of numerous traditional representations in the Philippine society. Furthermore, I explain the transition from the EDSA I revolution going to the EDSA II with a principal thrust on the principle of the eternal return as the return of the different, and the paradoxical ever-recurrence of political tyranny. Lastly, I explicate the narrative on how the Filipino assemblage is always caught in the web of ressentiment and identity, based from the EDSA I, II, and III. Due to these degenerate consequences, this essay recommends the conception of a new brand of revolution that is critical of molar and fascist political representations-the possibility of becoming-revolutionary today. © 2014 by De La Salle University Publishing House.
Rigg, J., T. A. Nguyen, and T. T. H. Luong. 2014. "The Texture of Livelihoods: Migration and Making a Living in Hanoi." Journal of Development Studies 50 (3):368-82.
doi: 10.1080/00220388.2013.858130.
Through the experience of 30 rural migrants to Hanoi, this paper reconstructs their livelihood histories, linking the experience of our migrant subjects with wider transformations in Vietnam's economy and society. We argue for an 'everyday' political economy that recognises the fluid connections between the state, society and economy, and the individual. While highlighting the indeterminacy and contingency of life, we recognise the wider context that contributes to the production of the livelihood textures we discern. The characteristic livelihood pathways of the migrant households are shown to echo research undertaken in rural, often less economically vibrant, contexts. © 2014 Taylor & Francis.
Ross, C. 2014. "The tin frontier: Mining, empire, and environment in Southeast Asia, 1870s-1930s." Environmental History 19 (3):454-79.
doi: 10.1093/envhis/emu032.
This article investigates the interactions between culture, technology, and environmental change during the tin mining boom in colonial Southeast Asia, the world's dominant tin-producing region in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It approaches the explosive growth of the industry-above all in western Malaysia and the "tin isles" of the Netherlands Indies-as a variation on the concept of the commodity frontier: namely, one whose topography comprised not just the surface landscapes over which it expanded but also the various grades and depths of ore beneath them. Like most commodity frontiers, this one presented a series of resource windfalls tapped by successive waves of entrepreneurs producing for a rising international market. But beneath these overarching commonalities, two interrelated factors lent it a distinctive dynamic: first, the central role of new technologies in repeatedly pushing the frontier into new underground strata and types of terrain, and second, the ways in which this three-dimensional expansion was animated by colonial ideologies of nature, race, waste, and industry that were deeplyembedded in the project of European imperialism. © The Author 2014.
Rosser, Andrew, and Jayne Curnow. 2014. "Legal Mobilisation and Justice: Insights from the Constitutional Court Case on International Standard Schools in Indonesia." Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 15 (4):302-18.
doi: 10.1080/14442213.2014.916341.
Analysis of the role of courts in shaping access to justice in Indonesia has emphasised the role of judges and the incentives created for them by courts' institutional design. Alternatively, it has focused on individual justice-seekers and their capacities to choose between alternative pathways through the legal repertoire. In this paper, we suggest that 'support structures for legal mobilisation' (SSLMs) have also played an important role in shaping access to justice by influencing both the potential for legal mobilisation and the type of justice sought. In making this argument, we focus on a recent Constitutional Court case on 'international standard schools'. In this case, a group of parents were able to mobilise for legal action only because NGOs provided the required technical expertise and financial resources while the central involvement of an anti-corruption NGO in the SSLM shifted the focus from parents' concerns about discrimination to corruption. © 2014 The Australian National University.
Said, R., A. Adair, S. McGreal, and R. Majid. 2014. "Inter-relationship between the housing market and housing finance system: Evidence from Malaysia." International Journal of Strategic Property Management 18 (2):138-50.
doi: 10.3846/1648715X.2014.912691.
The Malaysian housing market and associated housing finance system have expanded significantly as a result of rapid urbanisation since the late 1980s. The key aspect of this paper is to analyse the inter-relationship between the housing market and housing finance system in Malaysia. The paper employs Vector Autoregressive approach and Granger Causality test to empirically investigate this inter-relationship. In Malaysia, no housing studies has actually looked into or used this approach to identify the inter-relationship between these two elements. The key findings show that there is a strong inter-relationship between the housing market and housing finance system. The direction of causality shows that there is a bi-directional relationship between the housing market and housing finance system. These inter-relationships provide evidence that sound performance of the sub-markets within the housing finance system is a determinant prerequisite of the robustness of the housing finance system, if a healthy performance of the housing market is to be achieved. © 2014 Vilnius Gediminas Technical University (VGTU) Press Technika.
Sakellariou, C., and Z. Fang. 2014. "The Vietnam reforms, change in wage inequality and the role of the minimum wage." Economics of Transition 22 (2):313-40.
doi: 10.1111/ecot.12037.
The Vietnam 'renovation' reforms were implemented during the 1990s, but their full effect was only felt several years later. We present evidence on the developments in real wage growth and inequality in Vietnam from 1998 to 2008. Using a variety of approaches (traditional measures of inequality, comparison of density functions, decomposition of the change in real wage by sector as well as a detailed decomposition of the change in the Gini), we present a consistent picture: contrary to what one might have expected given the nature of the reforms, inequality declined sharply in the private sector (but not in the state sector). This study links these developments to the policy of aggressively increasing the minimum wage over the past several years, differences in implementation by sector as well as variation in the over-time changes in minimum wage. © 2014 The Authors Economics of Transition © 2014 The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Salam, W. N. W., N. Mansor, M. Ahmad, S. H. Ibrahim, H. N. I. Jamaludin, and Z. Mamat. 2014. "Let's talk and let's go global: A unique approach in language learning." Asian Social Science 10 (13):40-5.
doi: 10.5539/ass.v10n13p40.
Language learning for English, the second language in Malaysia has taken numerous transformation in order to cater to the demands of the industry which is to be proficient in English. Since the first language is Bahasa Melayu, subsequently, language of interaction is done mostly in mother tongue. Therefore, it proves to be quite challenging for non-native English learners to practice the second language in the local environment. In order to improve the current English language learning especially starting from school, incorporating modern language teaching and learning tools and reducing class sizes to smaller classes are essential for teachers to have more quality instructional time and students to fully benefit from language learning process. The unique factors of language learning practice in any setting are based on authentic value, interactive, challenging factor that allows growth in language acquisition and at the same time adding significance to language learning as it uses familiar medium. Social interaction and communicative approach using the target language are also vital to the progress of an individual language learner in improving his or her proficiency level. Major benefits can be seen as the result from reductions in class size to 20 pupils to one teacher which increases individualized attention and interactions between students and teacher in the class. The findings from Let's Talk and Let's Go Global program indicate that incorporation of social media, smaller class size and authentic communicative approach should be taken into consideration as the basis for English language learning.
Sale, J. P., and A. B. Sale. 2014. "Changes in Philippine labour relations policy: Convergence or divergence of productivity, flexibility and welfare?" Economic and Labour Relations Review 25 (2):327-52.
doi: 10.1177/1035304614537173.
In the first decade of the present century, a succession of changes to Philippine labour law and jurisprudence sought to contribute to productivity and social welfare by introducing greater industrial relations flexibility, based on collective bargaining and voluntary dispute settlement. The article examines whether these changes actually resulted in any shift from a rights-based system for resolving industrial disputation to a system based on workplace-level interest-based negotiation, and whether they were accompanied either by higher labour productivity or by improved social welfare. The analysis draws on a conceptual framework that identifies coherent national labour regulation systems as being based on a convergence of three institutional approaches - to the operation of labour markets, of labour relations and of social security. Broadly, such labour regulation systems can be classified as either civil law or common law based. The Philippine labour regulation system is shown to have a hybrid basis, whose origins are briefly traced by identifying the legacy of the colonial and post-colonial phases, the martial law era and the restoration of democracy in 1986. Whereas Australia, another hybrid system, appears to have achieved some coherence in changes to the regulation of industrial relations, labour markets and social welfare, in the Philippines, such changes have not converged. In the 1990s, efforts to mitigate the traditional legalistic and adversarial character of industrial relations through liberalisation of restrictions on the right to organise were cross-cut by the effects of the growing labour market flexibility that resulted from integration into the global economy. Legal changes between 1999 and 2011 have not fostered voluntary self-organisation of distributive bargaining at enterprise level. Union membership, collective bargaining coverage and numbers of workers involved in notified or actual industrial action have declined, while reliance on compulsory arbitration and monetary compensation claims has remained high. Labour productivity has not improved. Within the context of globalisation, the labour market is increasingly characterised by numerical flexibility and a prevalence of small enterprises. High unemployment levels and a large informal sector indicate divergence between the systems for regulating labour and welfare. © The Author(s) 2014.
Sarjeant, C. 2014. "Mental templates and ceramic manufacture at Neolithic An Son, Southern Vietnam." Cambridge Archaeological Journal 24 (2):269-87.
doi: 10.1017/S0959774314000468.
The 1000-year Neolithic occupation of An Son in southern Vietnam consists of ceramics that belong to a tradition that was potentially ancestral to those in many other regions of mainland Southeast Asia. The forms, dimensions, modes of decoration and fabrics of the An Son ceramics throughout the site's occupation have been studied in detail. The morphological dimensions were analysed with coefficient of variation (CV) calculations and the fabrics were characterized using scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive spectrometry (SEM-EDX), in conjunction with statistical applications such as principal components analysis (PCA), cluster analysis and canonical variate analysis (CVA). The results suggest that a coherent method of manufacture and a mental template was applied in the manufacture of each major rim form that existed throughout the occupation of An Son. These vessel forms had a continuous evolution with evidence for conservatism in the shape and raw materials, while innovation and variation was observed in the decorative variables. The established mental templates indicate that the organization of ceramic production at An Son was linked to tradition and function in the community. Copyright © The McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research 2014.
Scheidel, A., K. N. Farrell, J. Ramos-Martin, M. Giampietro, and K. Mayumi. 2014. "Land poverty and emerging ruralities in Cambodia: Insights from Kampot province." Environment, Development and Sustainability 16 (4):823-40.
doi: 10.1007/s10668-014-9529-6.
Rural change in Cambodia manifests itself in rapidly declining land availability for the smallholder sector, posing the question of how farmers may be able to deal with limited access to land. In this paper, we discuss with a case study village and household livelihood strategies of smallholders currently operating under land-constrained conditions. Based on an integrated assessment of a smallholder village in Kampot province, we illustrate in quantitative terms how land shortage is creating problems of surplus generation and liquidity issues in monetary and non-monetary flows. At the household level, livelihood diversification based on the involvement of productive resources other than land may play an increasing role, particularly in the future, when levels of land shortage may increase. At the village level, smallholder may respond through institutional innovation, in particular through the establishment of a community banking system and a paddy rice bank to provide money and rice credits to overcome transitory shortages and to cover investment costs for additional productive resources. Thus, in this case, we observe the emergence of new patterns of livelihood in rural areas, based on the integration of non-land-based economic activities and new institutional settings. © 2014 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.
Semedi, P. 2014. "Palm oil wealth and rumour panics in West Kalimantan." Forum for Development Studies 41 (2):233-52.
doi: 10.1080/08039410.2014.901240.
The expansion of palm oil cultivation to the hinterlands of West Kalimantan has brought new wealth at an unprecedented rate, but has recently been accompanied by a spread of moral panic, especially among the Dayak. Poverty is the devil's closest companion ancient wisdom tells, although increased material affluence creates its own social problems as well. For the Dayak, the growth of wealth through oil palm plantations is achieved through difficult and painful social processes of losing traditional land, a rapid rise of consumerism, leaving them feeling marginalized in this new economic setting. The promised wealth of palm oil may have materialized, but the old pain is not forgotten, which drives people to ensure that they will always get a share of the wealth by reducing other people's access to it. Enormous wealth can also choke people if the society is not equipped with the proper paths to channel the wealth back to the production system. Combined with long collective memories of real and imagined violence, these problems can lead to the re-emergence of moral panic, one that appears in an old form, but is triggered by new causes. © 2014 © 2014 Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI).
Semedi, Pujo, and Laurens Bakker. 2014. "Between Land Grabbing and Farmers' Benefits: Land Transfers in West Kalimantan, Indonesia." Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 15 (4):376-90.
doi: 10.1080/14442213.2014.928741.
Rapid growth of oil palm cultivation in West Kalimantan, Indonesia has increased both the pace and size of land transfers from farmers to big companies and city-based investors. This process has been widely conceptualised as 'top-down land grabbing' but this perspective largely neglects the agency of the farmers. This paper seeks to shed light on the agency of farmers with respect to how they respond to land transfer schemes. Through a study of land transfers under nucleus estate schemes (NES), schemes that were introduced by the Indonesian government in which smallholding farms are integrated parts of a modern, large size plantation company, we will show that agrarian dynamics are shaped by notions of what is 'fair' and 'just'. © 2014 The Australian National University.
Sern, T. J., and H. Zanuddin. 2014. "Affirmative religious response culture to HIV and AIDS: Understanding the public relations role of JAKIM in curbing the epidemic among young muslim couples in Malaysia." Asian Social Science 10 (13):8-16.
doi: 10.5539/ass.v10n13p8.
In regards to containing the spread of the deadly disease namely HIV/AIDS, it is particularly troublesome that the culture of information sharing in terms of sexuality still remains as a private subject and taboo for discussion not only among the Muslim communities but among the Asian communities as well. Despite the fact that Islam is concerned in placing a high value on chaste behaviour, prohibiting sexual intercourse outside marriage and homosexuality, the HIV/AIDS infection will not suppress just because of these strict Islamic doctrines are mostly adhered by fellow Muslims. While the HIV/AIDS scourge is disastrous in disregard of the religious, signaling a dire need to understand the role of religious response in curbing the disease so as to reach out to the target audiences effectively. This study is specifically to explore the responsibility of Jabatan Kemajuan Islam Malaysia or the Malaysia Department of Islamic Development (JAKIM) in respect to how they convey the accurate information to the Muslim communities in general and among the young Muslim couples in specific. Therefore, semi-structural elite interview with the officer was conducted in order to dwell into the plight of how the religious institution addresses the epidemic. The study found that JAKIM has conferred striking benefits to the Muslim community in curtailing the spread of HIV/AIDS through its publication on "Manual on HIV/AIDS in Islam" and the Premarital HIV Screening Programme. The fantastic contribution of JAKIM therefore can maintain links between the religious group, government, media, and stakeholders on fighting the HIV/AIDS issues.
Shaban, M., M. Duygun, M. Anwar, and B. Akbar. 2014. "Diversification and banks' willingness to lend to small businesses: Evidence from Islamic and conventional banks in Indonesia." Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 103:S39-S55.
doi: 10.1016/j.jebo.2014.03.021.
This is the first study to provide a comprehensive analysis of banks' willingness to lend to small businesses (SBs) by differentiating between conventional and Islamic banks' behaviour in Indonesia. In our initial analysis we examine the determinants of banks' willingness to lend to SBs and in the second part we investigate the Granger-causes of diversification towards SB lending and banks' efficiency and ex-post risk. Our results reveal that large banks are less interested in SB lending compared to small banks. Profitability is an important determinant for Indonesian banks to lend to SBs. Islamic banks, however, benefit more from lending to SBs given the substantial improvement in their net interest margin and lower capital compared to conventional banks. Our findings signal overpricing behaviour by Islamic banks, represented by a relatively high unadjusted rate of return given the risk exposure of their products. It is also evident that Islamic banks' managers seem to hold less capital, counting on the benefits of portfolio diversification towards SBs lending. As expected the moral hazard hypothesis is only evident for Islamic banks in terms of loan and income portfolio diversification. © 2014 Elsevier B.V.
Slunge, D., and T. T. H. Tran. 2014. "Challenges to institutionalizing strategic environmental assessment: The case of Vietnam." Environmental Impact Assessment Review 48:53-61.
doi: 10.1016/j.eiar.2014.05.005.
Building on new institutional theory, this paper develops an analytical framework for analyzing constraints to the institutionalization of strategic environmental assessment (SEA) at four different institutional levels. The framework is tested in an empirical analysis of the environmental assessment system in Vietnam, which is a frontrunner among developing countries regarding the introduction and use of SEA. Building on interviews with Vietnamese and international experts, as well as an extensive literature review, we identify institutional constraints which challenge the effective use of SEA in Vietnam. We conclude that commonly identified constraints, such as inadequate training, technical guidelines, baseline data and financial resources, are strongly linked to constraints at higher institutional levels, such as incentives to not share information between ministries and severe restrictions on access to information and public participation. Without a thorough understanding of these institutional constraints, there is a risk that attempts to improve the use of SEA are misdirected. Thus, a careful institutional analysis should guide efforts to introduce and improve the use of SEA in Vietnam and other developing countries. The analytical framework for analyzing constraints to institutionalization of SEA presented in this paper represents a systematic effort in this direction. © 2014 Elsevier Inc.
Sofian, M. R. M., and A. Hussin. 2014. "Qualitative framing analysis on the reports of the controversial thanksgiving dinner in DUMC by the star and utusan Malaysia newspapers." Jurnal Komunikasi: Malaysian Journal of Communication 30 (1):117-45.
The study was conducted to examine on the controversial religious issues reported by The Star and Utusan Malaysia. The aim of the study was also to compare the reports between the two newspapers. The religious issue related to the study was the reporting of the raid conducted by the Enforcement Division, JAIS on a Multiracial Thanksgiving Dinner organized by the Harapan Komuniti at the Damansara Utama Methodist Church (DUMC) on the 3rd of August 2011. Thus, this study finds it interesting to examine the difference in the way that the issue was reported between the major printed media companies in the country. The objectives of this study are to determine the news frame used by both press in reporting this issue as has been introduced by Robert Entman in 1993. The results showed that both press had framed this issue by emphasizing on political conflicts in the coalition party (Pakatan Rakyat), especially on the approach that was taken by PAS in addressing the issue. These newspapers however, had shown differences in the framing of the issue with; The Star newspaper focusing on the moral ethics as its framing, while Utusan Malaysia had framed the issue from the perspective of the constitution.
Song, L. 2014. "Who shall we help? the refugee definition in a chinese context." Refugee Survey Quarterly 33 (1):44-58.
doi: 10.1093/rsq/hdt022.
China faced refugee-related problems at least four times in the past four decades, namely the Indochinese refugee crisis in the late 1970s and the early 1980s, the entry of the North Korean escapees since the mid 1990s, and the influx of displaced Kokangs and Kachins from Myanmar in 2009 and 2011, respectively. However, how China defines a refugee remains behind the bamboo curtain. There are no domestic, legislative, or administrative provisions governing the definition of refugees or procedures of refugee status determination; the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, to which China has been a party since 1982, has not been incorporated into Chinese law to become fully enforceable domestically. This article examines China's definition of a refugee. First, it explores the relevant legal and policy framework. Second, it looks at China's practice with refugees and asylum-seekers. Third, it discusses a few factors affecting how China defines a refugee. © Author(s) [2014].All rights reserved.
Stanford, R. J., B. Wiryawan, D. G. Bengen, R. Febriamansyah, and J. Haluan. 2014. "Enabling and constraining factors in the livelihoods of poor fishers in West Sumatra, Indonesia." Journal of International Development 26 (5):731-43.
doi: 10.1002/jid.2990.
Despite a growing national economy and a raft of initiatives designed to improve livelihoods, 39% of fishers in West Sumatra are poor. In this paper, we present the results of interview-based research with stakeholders in 25 fishing communities in West Sumatra, Indonesia. Thirty-one enabling and constraining livelihood development factors are identified and classified according to the Sustainable Livelihoods Analysis. We recommend that these factors form a basis from which decision makers ensure that future livelihood improvement programs adequately recognize the integrated nature of poverty amongst poor fishers. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Stanton, Pauline, and Hana Thi Pham. 2014. "Managing employee performance in an emerging economy: perceptions of Vietnamese managers." Asia Pacific Business Review 20 (2):269-85.
doi: 10.1080/13602381.2013.825975.
This qualitative study explores employee performance management (PM) in Vietnam from the perspectives of Vietnamese managers in three case study organizations: a state-owned enterprise, a joint venture and a private Vietnamese company. Findings suggest that western PM practices and techniques are being utilized in all three organizations and that PM is seen as an essential and strategic component of human resource management policy. These findings suggest an increasing awareness of PM in Vietnamese enterprises and a desire to improve competitiveness by developing a highly skilled and high-performing workforce. © 2014 © 2013 Taylor & Francis.
Stubbs, R. 2014. "ASEAN's leadership in East Asian region-building: Strength in weakness." Pacific Review 27 (4):523-41.
doi: 10.1080/09512748.2014.924229.
Despite none of its members being a major economic or military power, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has played a leading role in building East Asia's regional institutions. In exploring this apparent puzzle, the analysis reviews the literature on state leadership at the regional and international level, asks why the region's major powers ceded leadership on the question of regional institution building to ASEAN, and assesses the consequences for East Asia's regional architecture of ASEAN's leadership role in institution-building. The conclusion is that leadership at the state level entails a state, or a group of states, proposing, executing and getting others to agree on a course of action to deal with a specific problem or challenge. The analysis also underscores the point that, while ASEAN has been the leader in East Asian institution-building, the Association and its members should not automatically be expected to play a leadership role on all issues preoccupying the region. © 2014 Taylor & Francis.
Subramaniam, A., A. Al Mamun, P. Yukthamarani Permarupan, and N. Raihani Binti Zainol. 2014. "Effects of brand loyalty, image and quality on brand equity: A study among Bank Islam consumers in Kelantan, Malaysia." Asian Social Science 10 (14):67-73.
doi: 10.5539/ass.v10n14p67.
The objective of this study is to investigate how brand loyalty, brand image, and perceived quality affect the brand equity of Bank Islam, based on the evaluation and prioritization of brand equity dimensions from the customers' viewpoint. This study employed a cross-sectional design and used a self-administered questionnaire and collected data from 200 clients of Bank Islam from Kelantan, Malaysia. Findings of this study noted that brand loyalty and brand image has a significant positive contribution to brand equity. Bank Islam should, therefore, focus on designing products and services that benefit clients more than or equal to the conventional banks, within the borderline of Islamic Banking practices.
Sugden, F., and S. Punch. 2014. "Capitalist expansion and the decline of common property ecosystems in China, Vietnam and India." Development and Change 45 (4):656-84.
doi: 10.1111/dech.12103.
This article identifies some of the multiple processes of capitalist development through which access to common property resources and their utility for communities are undermined. Three sites in upland Asia demonstrate how patterns of exclusion are mediated by the unique and selective trajectories through which capital expands, resulting in a decline of common property ecosystems. The process is mediated by economic stress, ecological degradation and political processes such as state-sanctioned enclosure. The first case study from Shaoguan, South China, indicates how rapid capitalist industrialization has depleted the aquatic resource base, undermining the livelihoods of fishing households yet to be absorbed into the urban working class. At the second site, in Phu Yen, Vietnam, capitalist development is limited. However, indirect articulations between capitalism on the lowlands and the peasant economy of the uplands is driving the commercialization of agriculture and fishing and undermining the utility of communal river and lake ecosystems. In the third site, Buxa in West Bengal, India, there is only selective capitalist development, but patterns of resource extraction established during the colonial period and contemporary neoliberal 'conservation' agendas have directly excluded communities from forest resources. Restrictions on access oblige them to contribute subsidized labour to local enterprises. The article thus shows how communities which are differentially integrated into the global economy are excluded from natural resources through complex means. © 2014 International Institute of Social Studies.
Syazwan Ab Talib, M., A. Bakar Abdul Hamid, M. Hafiz Zulfakar, and A. S. Jeeva. 2014. "Halal logistics PEST Analysis: The Malaysia perspectives." Asian Social Science 10 (14):119-31.
doi: 10.5539/ass.v10n14p119.
Halal logistics is a global business, and the objective of this study is to analyse the general environment of Halal logistics in Malaysia by using the PEST Analysis. This study is exploratory in nature and applies literature survey and the External Factors Evaluation (EFE) Matrix methodology. The results generated 20 factors that externally influencing the Malaysia Halal logistics scene. Plus, from the analysis, the opportunities and threats are also showcased. This study is the first attempt to analyse the external environment of Malaysia Halal logistics industry, and it is hoped that this study will be a platform or future reference for more academic and professional research in Halal industry.
Tan, E. C. 2014. "Malaysia's economic growth and development: Challenges and the way forward." Singapore Economic Review 59 (3).
doi: 10.1142/S0217590814500234.
The paper reviews the economic growth and development experience of Malaysia since her early independence years against the major economic policy initiatives that she has undertaken over the years. It then tries to link those policy initiatives to the various economic growth theories. Subsequently, it dwells upon the various challenges faced by Malaysia to join the ranks of high income nations. © 2014 World Scientific Publishing Company.
Tan, G. K. R. 2014. "The relationship between employment and earnings in Singapore: 1991-2012." Singapore Economic Review 59 (3).
doi: 10.1142/S0217590814500222.
Since its formation in 1972 under the leadership of its founding chairman, Professor Lim Chong Yah, the NWC has been a major force in ensuring the stability of the labor market. A key recommendation which the NWC pushed for as a means of saving jobs in the recessions has been the reduction of the cost of labor to employers. The underlying assumption was that the reaction of demand to reduced labor costs would be large enough to justify such an approach. The main aim of this paper is to derive estimates of the elasticity of demand for labor using a suitable time-series econometric approach. The estimates imply that the elasticity of demand for labor in Singapore is less than but close to being unitary in magnitude. © 2014 World Scientific Publishing Company.
Tang, C. F. 2014. "The effect of real wages and inflation on labour productivity in Malaysia." International Review of Applied Economics 28 (3):311-22.
doi: 10.1080/02692171.2013.872084.
This study examines the relationship between labour productivity, real wages and inflation in Malaysia using the bounds testing approach to cointegration and also the Granger causality test. The findings of this study suggest that inflation is negatively related to labour productivity. However, the effect of real wages on labour productivity is non-linear and the two have an inverted-U shape relationship. From a policy viewpoint, the Granger causality test shows that real wages Granger-cause labour productivity, but there is no evidence of reversal causation. Hence, the Malaysian dataset supports the claims by the efficiency wage theory. Moreover, we find that inflation and labour productivity in Malaysia have bilateral causality in the short- and the long-run. © 2014 Taylor & Francis.
Tey, N. P. 2014. "Inter-state migration and socio-demographic changes in Malaysia." Malaysian Journal of Economic Studies 51 (1):121-39.
Internal migration has an important role in population redistribution and development. It is instrumental in the redistribution of human resources and productivity improvements. Migration is multi-dimensional in nature, involving temporal and spatial dimensions. This paper uses the 2 per cent sample data from the 1991 and 2000 population censuses to examine the levels and patterns of inter-state and inter-regional migration, characteristics of migrants, the reasons for migration and the pull factors that drive migration. The paper concludes with a discussion of the impact of migration on sociodemographic changes and its policy relevance.
Thai, T. Q., and E. M. Falaris. 2014. "Child Schooling, Child Health, and Rainfall Shocks: Evidence from Rural Vietnam." Journal of Development Studies 50 (7):1025-37.
doi: 10.1080/00220388.2014.903247.
We study the effect of rainfall shocks on child schooling outcomes and on standardised height for age (a measure of child health) in rural Vietnam. We find that adverse rainfall shocks during pregnancy adversely affect children's school entry delay and progress through school. Adverse rainfall shocks in the third year of life adversely affect both schooling and child health. These effects differ by region, as a result of constraints that reflect regional economic heterogeneity. We predict that policies that help rural families smooth income shocks will result in increases in human capital and in substantial cumulative returns over a worker's working life. © 2014 © 2014 Taylor & Francis.
Than, N. T. 2014. "Current problems of human trafficking-related crimes' counteraction in Vietnam." Criminology Journal of Baikal National University of Economics and Law (2):217-20.
The author studies problem of human trafficking-related crimes' counteraction in Vietnam. Due to this type of crimes' development, complicated criminal situation dangerous for security both in Vietnam and South-east region and world in a whole the topic is quite important. Having analysed Ministry of public security of Vietnam data, the author concludes that since 2005 till 2013 human trafficking-related crimes increased by 50% and its victims number increased 3 times comparing to period 1997-2005. In 2012 and 2013 approximately 700 crimes involving 1100 offenders were registered and 184 cases were initiated in Southern provinces of Vietnam. Analysing the latest statistics, the author revealed certain aspects of human trafficking, its routes and main reasons of its increase. The author defined that 60% of the crimes were committed through the Northern border with China and further human trafficking to Taiwan, South Korea, Malaysia, Hongkong and other countries: 10% to Cambodia, 30% to other countries (i.e. Russia, Laos, Czech Republic, UK, Canada, Angola etc.). Basing on analysis of related criminal situation, the author suggests recommendations on human trafficking-related crimes' counteraction, including social, economical and legislative. The author also provides suggestions on law-enforcement agencies activity improvement, especially preliminary investigation bodies.
Thomas, F. 2014. "Addressing the Measurement of Tourism in Terms of Poverty Reduction: Tourism Value Chain Analysis in Lao PDR and Mali." International Journal of Tourism Research 16 (4):368-76.
doi: 10.1002/jtr.1930.
Although tourism obviously contributes to the economic growth of developing countries, the idea that it can be an efficient tool to alleviate poverty does not always receive unanimous support. The absence of a consensual methodology to measure the employee pro-poor income impact of tourism has had a negative impact on two major levels: on research, to begin with, and on the acknowledgement of tourism as a tool to alleviate poverty. This paper discusses two recent tourism value chains, which allow the use and then the comparison of different poverty measures and then show that tourism impact strongly depends on the chosen poverty threshold. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Tiatco, S. A. P. 2014. "Theatre, entrapment, and globalization in welcome to intelstar." Humanities Diliman 11 (1):57-84.
This essay reflects on globalization as a phenomenon that connects and influences the world's socio-cultural and political spheres, similar to how some academics explore the nature of the global. In particular, the essay interrogates how globalization is mediated in the theatre. The motivation in the inquiry is based on a presumption that theatre artists are also actively participating in defining what globalization means. At the same time, it comes from an assumption that theatre artists are also actively performing what it means to be global. Many artists engage with the global by either collaborating with artists of different nationalities or using globalization as a central theme to their theatre works. In reflecting on globalization, the essay analyzes Chris Martinez's monodrama Welcome to IntelStar, staged at the Studio Theatre of the Cultural Center of the Philippines in 2006. This play proposes that globalization is a trap. In this alignment of globalization and "the trap," the entrapment brings forth a dichotomy: the global and the local. This dichotomy is strongly imagined in the staging of IntelStar, where the local is presented as the prey or the victim in the entrapment. But in the f inal analysis, the performance mediates the sociality between the local and the global and ultimately performs an entanglement of the local and the global as a reference to an attraction and repulsion to globalization. However, in such treatment of globalization, the Studio Theatre also becomes a model of the trap where artists become the hunters and the audience members, the victims.
Tran, K. V. 2014. "Social construction of disability and its potential impacts to welfare practice in Vietnamese contexts." SpringerPlus 3 (1):1-10.
doi: 10.1186/2193-1801-3-325.
From the survey responses and the policy analysis, the initial findings on this paper present some aspects of knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) on disability which are presented as following: Firstly, there is a significant changes in legal documents and social policies related to disability in Vietnam, especially from 2006, in terms of its name and contents for improving the life of PWD with inclusive approach, however the meaning of disability is not clear in policies. Secondly, the understanding on disability is mainly based on medical/individual model which focuses on the disability's causes in words of health or individual problem rather than viewing the social causes in aspects of the social barriers and restriction, in addition almost policies focus on the problems of PWD rather than the social aspects. Thirdly, social attitude toward disability and PWD seems to be very empathetic, however it is less regard to CWD's ability as well as there are more attitudes on charity giving and supporting than helping them to be independent in their life. Finally, in spite of positive knowledge and attitudes on disability, there is still limitation on practical activities towards CWD/PWD from society in daily life. © 2014 Tran; licensee Springer.
Trifković, N. 2014. "Governance Strategies and Welfare Effects: Vertical Integration and Contracts in the Catfish Sector in Vietnam." Journal of Development Studies 50 (7):949-61.
doi: 10.1080/00220388.2014.903245.
Using an original dataset from the Vietnamese catfish sector, we study the impact of vertical coordination options on household welfare and the implications of different stages of vertical coordination for the success of the whole sector. The welfare gain from contract farming and employment on processor-owned estate farms is estimated using a maximum simulated likelihood estimator. Our results show positive welfare effects from participating in contract farming, but not from employment on processor-owned estate farms. The results imply that contract farming presents opportunities for economic growth, but additional effort is required to make the contracts more accessible to smallholders. © 2014 © 2014 Taylor & Francis.
Truong, V. D., C. M. Hall, and T. Garry. 2014. "Tourism and poverty alleviation: Perceptions and experiences of poor people in Sapa, Vietnam." Journal of Sustainable Tourism 22 (7):1071-89.
doi: 10.1080/09669582.2013.871019.
This paper examines the perceptions and experiences of poor people in Sapa, Vietnam, regarding tourism as a means of poverty alleviation. Participant observations and semi-structured interviews were conducted with local people and key informants. The paper indicates that local people perceive poverty as a lack of rice and/or income and attribute it to both internal and external causes. The local tourism sector has primarily benefited the non-poor and tour operators, resulting in conflicts of interest among community members. However, more local people consider tourism a contributor to poverty alleviation than those who do not. All interviewees wish to become homestay owners or tourist guides. The most important barrier to the former is the lack of capital, while foreign language proficiency is the main hindrance to the latter. It is concluded that while an appropriate approach is required to involve local people in tourism, alternative livelihoods other than tourism are also needed. The study suggests that poor people's interpretation of poverty may be substantially different from that of academics and policy-makers. It argues that by valuing the perspectives of those experiencing poverty we can establish more meaningful approaches to alleviating poverty through tourism that are more likely to succeed. © 2014 Taylor & Francis.
van Voorst, Roanne. 2014. "The Right to Aid: Perceptions and Practices of Justice in a Flood-Hazard Context in Jakarta, Indonesia." Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 15 (4):339-56.
doi: 10.1080/14442213.2014.916340.
Regular floods impact negatively on the health and wellbeing of slum dwellers in Jakarta and it is understandable that the victims seek access to justice. Fieldwork in one of Jakarta's most flood-prone neighbourhoods, Bantaran Kali, reveals that riverbank settlers there access what they perceive to be justice by engaging in a number of different social networks that are neither formal nor informal-they feature in between civil society and the state. In this article I explore the network ties that are used by individual slum dwellers to access justice. I will show that in the context of extreme flood risk and related uncertainty, this form of social capital makes a significant difference to the community and to households, and with respect to individuals' resilience. By exploring this particular avenue of access to justice, I show that a sense of justice is achieved not through the formal agencies of government but by means of social networks in a space that fits uneasily in the dichotomy of state and non-state. © 2014 The Australian National University.
Vergani, M. 2014. "Neojihadism and Muslim-Christian Relations in the Mindanao Resistance Movement: A Study of Facebook Digital Narratives." Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 25 (3):357-72.
doi: 10.1080/09596410.2014.902182.
Religion is surely not the most important factor in explaining the conflict in the Southern Philippines. Economic, political and criminal issues also contribute to explaining the violence in the country. Yet the religious narrative influences the narration of the conflict, impacting on its frame of understanding both within the country and from the perspective of global audiences. This study presents the results of field research on three Facebook pages in English (and therefore addressed to global audiences) related to resistance movements in Southern Philippines, notably BIFF and MNLF, which openly include neojihadist symbols and contents in their narratives. How do these narratives depict and affect Christian-Muslim relations within the local movement and the local society in Mindanao? And how does the local version of the global neojihadist narrative contribute to shaping Christian-Muslim relations in the global Muslim public sphere? This article shows the potential impact of the neojihadist ideology on the narration of the resistance movement, highlighting the consequences for the negotiation of Christian and Muslim identities. © 2014 University of Birmingham.
Vu, H. S., S. Schuler, T. A. Hoang, and T. Quach. 2014. "Divorce in the context of domestic violence against women in Vietnam." Culture, Health and Sexuality 16 (6):634-47.
doi: 10.1080/13691058.2014.896948.
This paper examines obstacles for women who face domestic violence in making decisions about divorce and in seeking and securing support for a divorce. The research was undertaken in the context of a project in one district of a coastal province in Vietnam that sought to reduce gender based-violence and mitigate its effects. Data from in-depth interviews and focus-group discussions are used to examine abused women's attitudes, strategies and behaviours and the responses of people in their communities and in the support system established by the project. The findings show that social norms supporting marriage discourage abused women from seeking divorce and, in some cases, any kind of support, and discourage community-based support networks, police and local court systems from providing effective assistance to these women. © 2014 © 2014 Taylor & Francis.
Wan Lee, J., and T. Brahmasrene. 2014. "ICT, CO2 Emissions and Economic Growth: Evidence from a Panel of ASEAN." Global Economic Review 43 (2):93-109.
doi: 10.1080/1226508X.2014.917803.
This study examines relationships among information communications technology (ICT), carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and economic growth. The panel annual data are constructed from 1991 to 2009 for nine members from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. The study examines the long-run equilibrium relationship using cointegration techniques and the short-run relationships using cointegrating regression estimation methods. Test results indicate a long-run equilibrium relationship exists among these variables. Among these relationships, ICT shows significant to highly significant positive effects on both economic growth and CO2 emissions. Significant to highly significant inverse bidirectional relationships between economic growth and CO2 emissions are found in the region. Based on these empirical findings, further policy implications for economic growth, ICT and CO2 emissions are discussed. © 2014 © 2014 Institute of East and West Studies, Yonsei University, Seoul.
Warner, K., and T. Afifi. 2014. "Where the rain falls: Evidence from 8 countries on how vulnerable households use migration to manage the risk of rainfall variability and food insecurity." Climate and Development 6 (1):1-17.
doi: 10.1080/17565529.2013.835707.
Up to present, research relating environmental change to human mobility has found out that environmental factors can play a role in migration without being conclusive. Further, in the context of climate change, scholarly literature on migration ranges across a host of climatic stressors and geographies, making it difficult to date to solve the debate whether migration is a form of adaptation or an indicator of limits to adaptation. To address both of these debates, original research was undertaken to answer the question 'under what circumstances do households (HHs) use migration as a risk management strategy when facing rainfall variability and food insecurity?'. This research administered a HH survey (n = 1300) and participatory research (n = 2000 respondents) in districts in eight countries (Guatemala, Peru, Ghana, Tanzania, Bangladesh, India, Thailand, and Vietnam). The findings reveal that the answer to how climatic stressors affect migration decisions and the degree to which migration improves the adaptive capacity of those HHs lie in the vulnerability of the HH and its sensitivity to climatic factors. The data reveal for the first time in a comparable global study distinct HH profiles of 'resilience' and 'vulnerability'. At the same time, the article distinguishes between 'content' migration - rather associated with resilient HHs - and 'erosive' migration - rather associated with vulnerable HHs. However, the article also highlights that there are not always clear cuts but very often grey areas and overlaps among the HHs of the study when applying these typologies. Moreover, the article relates these profiles to an agent-based modelling approach applied in the Tanzania case to explore under what scenarios rainfall variability and food security have the potential to become significant drivers of human mobility in particular regions of the world in the next two to three decades. © 2013 © 2013 The Author(s). Published by Taylor & Francis.
Wijers, G. D. M. 2014. "Navigating a river by its bends: A study on transnational social networks as resources for the transformation of Cambodia." Ethnic and Racial Studies 37 (9):1526-45.
doi: 10.1080/01419870.2013.782058.
This article explores in what ways first-generation Cambodian French and Cambodian American returnees create and employ the social capital available in their transnational social networks upon their return to Cambodia. The triangular interdependence between the returnees, their overseas immigrant communities and homeland society is taken as a starting point. The central argument is that Cambodian French and Cambodian American returnees build different relationships to Cambodia due to: (1) the influence of their immigrant communities in the countries of resettlement; and (2) the contexts of their exit from Cambodia. Findings in this multi-sited case study bring forward that ideas of return held by the three parties involved, may force re-migrants into transnationalism in both host and home countries. Findings also demonstrate that social capital may be seen as a resource or a restraint in the lives of returnees. © 2014 © 2014 Taylor & Francis.
Wise, A., and S. Velayutham. 2014. "Conviviality in everyday multiculturalism: Some brief comparisons between Singapore and Sydney." European Journal of Cultural Studies 17 (4):406-30.
doi: 10.1177/1367549413510419.
This article considers the question of conviviality in everyday multiculturalism. It elaborates the concept of 'convivial multiculture' through case studies from Sydney and Singapore. In comparing these two contexts, the article considers what underpins conviviality across three themes: spatial ordering, where consideration is given to the role of built environment and material furnishings of place in shaping encounters with difference; connecting and bridging work, where we discuss the concept of 'transversal enablers', and intercultural gift exchange; and intercultural habitus, where disposition, habit and linguistic accommodation are discussed. It closes with some reflection upon larger forces that mediate local encounters, and the necessity to consider the full range of interactions, patterns, behaviours and meanings at work, and the interconnection between 'happy' and 'hard' forms of coexistence. © The Author(s) 2013.
Ybiernas, V. A. S. 2014. "The politics and economics of recovery in colonial Philippines in the aftermath of World War I, 1918-1923." Asia-Pacific Social Science Review 14 (1):75-85.
Record Philippine trade with the United States during the World War I period led to increased public revenue collection, which in turn influenced the revision of the country's economic development program from a neoliberal to a state-led framework. After the end of war and the institution of "economic normalcy" in the United States, the state-led development framework in the Philippines came under serious scrutiny. Governor Leonard Wood's administrative priority as part of his "reform" agenda was to reverse the state-led development framework back to the previous neoliberal policy. The reversal was vehemently opposed by influential Filipino leaders in government for political and economic reasons. The conflict over development policy reached its climax in 1923 when all the Filipino members of Wood's cabinet resigned their positions in protest of the chief executive's perceived obstinacy. © 2014 by De La Salle University Publishing House.
Yip, P. S. L. 2014. "The risk of property bubbles in Hong kong and Singapore: Another aftershock crisis of the global financial Tsunami?" Singapore Economic Review 59 (3).
doi: 10.1142/S021759081450026X.
This paper first provides a brief review of the global financial tsunami. It then explains why the quantitative easing in the US and the unique characteristics of the Asian property markets have contributed to the formation of property bubbles in some Asian economies. Thereafter, it discusses the possibility of a bursting of property bubbles in Hong Kong, Singapore or another Asian economy a few years from now, and highlights that the bursting of the property bubble in that economy could trigger severe corrections of property prices in this region through the contagion effect. After pointing out that the implied crisis could be more severe than that during the Asian Financial Crisis, it (i) discusses policies that could mitigate the damages of the potential crisis and (ii) draws important lessons and conclusions that could pre-empt similar disasters in the future. © 2014 World Scientific Publishing Company.
Zakaria, M., M. N. Rajpar, H. V. Moradi, and Z. Rosli. 2014. "Comparison of understorey bird species in relation to edge-interior gradient in an isolated tropical rainforest of Malaysia." Environment, Development and Sustainability 16 (2):375-92.
doi: 10.1007/s10668-013-9482-9.
Forest fragmentation results in a loss of forest interior and an increase in edge habitat. As a result, these changes may affect the bird species distribution and composition. We studied how understorey bird community composition and habitat variables changed along an edge-to-interior gradient in a fragmented lowland rainforest in Peninsular Malaysia. Birds and environmental variables were recorded at each of the 93 sampling points distributed along the 14 parallel transects that were systematically placed across the gradient of distance from the forest edge to the forest interior. Species composition was different along the edge-interior gradient, although only a few species were strictly confined to either edge or interior habitat. Based on bird-habitat associations along the edge-interior gradient, some of these edge-preferred species occurred in high numbers at the matrix surrounding the patch. In contrast, the interior-specialist group, mainly terrestrial insectivores, avoided the forest edge and was positively associated with humidity, canopy cover, the number of dead trees, percentage of litter cover, and depth of the litter layer. Species endemic to the Sunda subregion were more abundant in the interior of the forest. From a conservation perspective, forest remnants in the lowlands of Peninsular Malaysia that have a deep leaf litter layer, dense canopy cover, high number of dead trees, and high relative humidity are able to support understorey bird species that are sensitive to edge effects. The forest has important conservation value even though it is fragmented and isolated. © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.