A Comparative Study or Western and Japanese Practices Geared Towards Improved Learning and New Product Performance

Increasingly, the long‐term success of a company resides in its ability to develop and market successful new products in a cost‐and time‐effective manner. In general, Japanese companies have outperformed their Western counterparts in bringing new products to market over the last 10 to 20 years. This has given them a substantial advantage in long‐term economic development. The authors hypothesize that the differences between the dominant models of corporate culture in Japan and the U.S. account for the Japanese advantage. In comparison to U.S. companies, Japanese companies tend to emphasize long‐term leadership, decentralized decision making, a flatter work structure using cross‐functional work teams, and rewarding teams for the ability to learn from mistakes. As a result of these differences, Western companies are more likely to utilize “single, loop” learning, where new products are developed using established (and unquestioned) procedures. Conversely, Japanese companies rely on “double‐loop” or “deutero” learning styles, which encourage employees to leverage their past experiences when proposing new product innovations. The authors conclude by outlining a research program for testing their as‐gumptions about the relations among nationality, corporate culture, learning styles, and new product success.     

An IT Bachelor Degree Using Modern Technologies to Illustrate Core Concepts and Principles and Building Generic Skills

Information Technology (IT) changes very quickly and influences business, industry and the public in an enormous manner. Outsourcing of IT jobs to cheaper overseas labor and globalization of IT companies become a common practice. Graduates of IT university courses must be well prepared to address the needs and expectations of business, industry and every day life. Many factors in an Information Technology curriculum influence graduates’ professional preparation and image. The most important of them is to reflect technology change, the current state of knowledge of computing, business and industry demands and students’ expectations. The aim of our project was to develop a new Bachelor of IT curriculum that satisfies these requirements. In this report we concentrate our attention on two critical aspects of IT curriculum content, the modern technologies to be used to illustrate basic concepts and principles of computing, and the generic skills that each graduate is expected to acquire to get a job in Australia.     

日本信息技术外包项目的决策过程

日本企业采用信息技术外包进行项目开发正成为趋势,但采用项目外包的决策是一个审慎的过程。这也就要求日企首先对项目是否适合外包进行分析判断,在确定适合外包的项目和项目内容之后,建立强有力的外包管理部门,选定技术实力强、业务交流能力较高的接包公司,以确保项目顺利完成。     

Teachers’ skill ratings of children with learning disabilities: A comparison of the United States and Japan

This study compared U.S. and Japanese grade school teachers’ perceptions of the strengths and weaknesses of children in their classrooms identified as fitting commonly used criteria for a learning disability. U.S. teachers identified 4.0 percent of their children as meeting the criteria and Japanese teachers identified 1.5 percent. The teachers then rated these children’s abilities in the areas of listening, speaking, reading/writing, reasoning, mathematics, social, and study skills. Overall, U.S. and Japanese teachers’ rating patterns were similar on 70 percent of the skills. In most areas where significant differences were found—listening, speaking, reading/writing and study skills—U.S. teachers rated higher percentages of their children as “weaker” than Japanese teachers. A noteworthy exception was the area of social skills where Japanese children received higher percentages of “weak” ratings. U.S. and Japanese teachers also differed in their perceptions of causative factors leading to their children’s learning difficulties. We discuss the findings in terms of U.S.-Japanese differences in writing systems and cultural expectations.     

Japanese and United States Preschool Children's Responses to Conflict and Distress

Japanese and U.S. preschool children's responses to hypothetical interpersonal dilemmas were examined as a function of culture, gender, and maternal child-rearing values. U.S. children showed more anger, more aggressive behavior and language, and underregulation of emotion than Japanese children, across different contexts of assessment. Children from the 2 cultures appeared more similar on prosocial and avoidant patterns, though in some contexts U.S. children also showed more prosocial themes. Girls from both cultures expressed more prosocial themes and sometimes more anger than boys. Maternal encouragement of children's emotional expressivity was correlated with anger and aggression in children. It was more characteristic of U.S. than Japanese mothers, while emphasis on psychological discipline (reasoning; guilt and anxiety induction) was more characteristic of Japanese than U.S. mothers. The relevance of a conceptual framework that focuses on differences in Eastern and Western cultures in self-construals regarding independence and interdependence is considered.     

李娜网球技战术发展趋势

通过对李娜参加2007年澳大利亚网球公开赛、2008年澳大利亚网球公开赛、2009年美国网球公开赛女单比赛的技术指标的比较分析,揭示其技术的发展变化趋势,为未来训练、比赛提供科学的依据.结果表明：李娜的整体技战术质量提高明显.一发得分率、破发率、接发球质量有所提高,但发球能力和网前能力有待于进一步提高.     

Regional networks in education: a case study of an Austrian project

This case study presents the development of networks in education, using the Austrian IMST (Innovations Make Schools Top) project as illustration. The regional networks are coordinated in every Austrian federal province by groups made up of teachers, representatives of the educational authorities, and members of academia. In the framework of the IMST project, all networks are monitored by a team of the Institute of Instructional and School Development at the University of Klagenfurt. This article presents theoretical concepts, network structures and network activities, as well as evaluation data. The overall challenge in trying to enable sustainable development of learning of those involved might be described as keeping momentum between network structures and network processes or, in other words, between stability and flow.     

美国高科技企业并购成败分析及对我国的启示

通过分析美国高科技企业并购成功和失败的典型案例,对国内高科技企业走并购发展之路提供有益的借鉴:技术和智力资源的有效整合是成功并购的必由之路,文化冲突和收购价值分歧会让并购走向失败。     

Mothers' parenting cognitions in cultures of origin, acculturating cultures, and cultures of destination

Japanese and South American immigrant mothers' parenting cognitions (attributions and self-perceptions) were compared with mothers from their country of origin (Japan and Argentina, respectively) and European American mothers in the United States. Participants were 231 mothers of 20-month-old children. Generally, South American immigrant mothers' parenting cognitions more closely resembled those of mothers in the United States, whereas Japanese immigrant mothers' cognitions tended to be similar to those of Japanese mothers or intermediate between Japanese and U.S. mothers. This study provides insight into the nature of parenting cognitions generally and those of immigrant mothers specifically and therefore the parenting climate in which immigrant children are reared.     

新时代商务日语写作课程建设

商务文书可以体现企业、团体的层次和教育水平.尤其是对于重要的商务文书,如果出现了错误,会被对方怀疑公司实力,错失商机.所以无论是内容上还是形式上大量的规范练习对于日语学习者来说是必不可少的.本文以中国日语学习者为对象,提出在新形势下商务日语写作课程的一些看法.     

THE SCHOOL AS AN EXCEPTIONAL SPACE: RETHINKING EDUCATION FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE BIOPEDAGOGICAL

A bstract .  In this essay, Tyson Lewis theorizes current lockdown practices, zero-tolerance policies, and No Child Left Behind initiatives in U.S. schooling by drawing on Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben's analysis of the concentration camp and the state of exception. Agamben's theory of the camp provides a challenging, critical vantage point for looking at the ambiguities that emerge from the complex field of disciplinary procedures now prevalent in inner-city, low-income, minority schools, and helps to clarify what exactly is at stake in the symbolic and sometimes physical violence of schooling. Key to understanding the primary relation between camp and classroom is Agamben's framework of the biopolitical, which paradoxically includes life as a political concern through its exclusion from the political sphere. Here Lewis appropriates Agamben's terminology in order to theorize the biopedagogical, wherein educational life is included in schooling through its abandonment. For Lewis, the theory of the camp is necessary to recognizing how schools function and, in turn, how they could function differently.     

The disposition toward critical thinking of high school and university science students: an interintra Israeli-Italian Study

The California Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory (CCTDI) was used to assess the disposition of Israeli and Italian high school and university science students toward critical thinking. The study sought to establish base-lines for these groups as well as quantifying the differences between two national populations. Significant differences between the Israeli and Italian high school science students in the total score and those of five subscales of the CCTDI have been found, the largest on the OpenMindedness and Self-Confidence subscales. The overall scores of high school and university science students on the CCTDI in both countries were essentially the same, with quite a similar pattern in the corresponding disposition profiles. Although the CCTDI can be reliably used for establishing base-line differences between science student populations, the effect of a specific approach to teaching (e.g. HOCS-orientation vs traditional) on the stability or change of this aspect of critical thinking remains an open question.     

北约与欧盟:全球化嬗变下的美欧分歧

北约与欧盟之间的关系实质上体现了美欧之间的关系。在冷战时期,互为盟友的这两大组织共同构筑了西欧政治和安全的格局。冷战结束后,北约与欧盟的扩张将经济、政治和军事影响力扩展到了全球区域。但由于各自倚重的利益与目标不同,美欧之间在诸多问题上都出现了分歧,其实质反映了谋求单极世界霸权与多极世界的两种不同价值观的取向。尽管此分歧会以欧洲的妥协而暂时弥合,但美欧分歧表明,试图以美国化取代全球化的策略取向只能是乌托邦式的幻想。     

中山建华管桩公司企业文化建设案例分析

中山建华管桩公司10年内从一个小公司发展到全国知名大企业，“以人为本”的企业文化建设构成了其成功的坚实基础。分析其企业文化建设的特点，以期为处于发展关键时期的我国其他企业提供借鉴。     

基于PCA的安徽省上市公司经营业绩分析

现有文献对上市公司的经营业绩评价主要强调财务指标,而较少涉及反映企业成长特征的非财务指标。本文在重视财务指标的基础上,强调影响企业长期经营业绩的非财务指标的作用,利用2010年安徽省60家上市公司的经营数据进行了实证分析,得出的结论为:安徽省上市公司的盈利能力整体不高,还有较大的上升空间;从企业生长周期来看,安徽省的上市公司仍处于成长阶段,但资产管理能力较好。     

简析低价竞争战略的成功模式

以低价占领市场、吸引顾客，是企业竞争中最常用的模式之一。概括而言，低价竞争的成功模式主要有：凭借资源要素的成本优势低价取胜，凭借职能领域的成本优势取胜，凭借价值链管理的成本优势低价取胜和凭借业务流程创新低价取胜等四种。通过剖析分属于上述四种模式的比亚迪、格兰仕、沃尔玛和戴尔的经验，可以为我国企业提供很多启迪。     

The Educational Aspirations and Expectations of Japanese Immigrant Mothers: Narratives of Raising Bicultural Nikkei Children in the Post-1965 Diaspora

This qualitative case study analyzed the diverse narratives of 10 Japanese immigrant mothers who reared their second-generation children in a midsize metropolitan community in the Midwest. The primary research questions are as follows: How have Japanese immigrant mothers envisioned academic success in relation to contemporary interpretations of diasporic Nikkei identity? How have the participants made sense of and negotiated their educational aspirations against the expectations of U.S. K–12 schools? Based on focus groups, individual interviews, and narrative analyses, this study captured the multiple ways by which Japanese immigrant mothers facilitated opportunities for their children to maintain a distinct but flexible Nikkei or diasporic Japanese identity (Nukaga, 2012; Takamori, 2010) that was centrally focused on rearing academically successful children who also exhibited cultural competence and confidence as bicultural Americans.     

Levers of Management in University-Industry Collaborations: How project management affects value creation at different life-cycle stages of a collaboration

This paper reports a longitudinal multi-case research project encompassing 38 semi-structured interviews conducted in 2011 and 2012 with four students, 12 researchers and 22 companies relating to a total of 25 university–industry collaborations. The interviews covered the collaboration type, the initiation of the collaboration and details concerning the planning of the collaboration. In addition, the interviews focused on the relationships between the people involved in the collaboration and the effects of project management. We distinguish between project management success and project success, and identify potential good practice. The paper concludes that, whereas project management success was not found to be causally related to project success, there seems to be a clearer link between project management success and ensuring effective use of resources in both companies and universities. There is also evidence that it is problematic when corporate managers think they can run research projects like lean production companies.     

The importance of computer experience,learning processes,and communication patterns in multicultural networking

This paper reports on a case study which was undertaken to study issues fundamental to a computer-assisted, multicultural education. During the study, a group of Asian American middle-school students corresponded with culturally dissimilar students using telecommunications. The data reported reflect the Asian American students' experience. Results concerning three themes of the research are discussed: computer knowledge, learning processes, and communication patterns. Findings indicate that students of different ethnic backgrounds may have different attitudes about and knowledge of computers, cross-cultural communication patterns, and learning processes when working with computers. These differences should be taken into account when planning a computer-assisted, multicultural curriculum. The authors wish to thank Andy Xiong for his invaluable assistance on this project. We would also like to thank the three teachers for their contributions to the research. This research was supported by a grant from the Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement, College of Education, University of Minnesota.     

Causal attribution of performance in university examinations: A Filipino investigation

Causal attributions for success and failure at a forthcoming examination by 246 Filipino college freshmen, 64 male and 182 female, are examined. Although there is no data with which to compare the results of this study, it would appear that these young Filipinos generally possessed adaptive patterns of attribution. They ascribed possible success somewhat more to internal rather than external sources but attributed possible failure almost equally to these factors. Luck was perceived as being only of relatively minor importance. Internal success attribution was found to correlate significantly with satisfaction with success in three out of four cases. Effort attribution correlated significantly with the students' ratings of how hard they had tried. Contrary to U.S. research, the female respondents if anything possessed more adaptive patterns of attribution than their male peers. It is suggested that this has been a neglected area of cross-cultural research but one that should be of concern to all developing countries.