Utilization of CSR to build organizations’ corporate image in Asia: need for an integrative approach

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been found to be a strong predictor of a favorable corporate image [Gray, 1986. Managing the corporate image: The key to public trust. London: Quorum Books]. Websites have become an essential communication platform [Dawkins, 2004. Corporate responsibility: The communication challenge. Journal of Communication Management, 9(2), 108–119]. This study aims to investigate how CSR can be used in enhancing organizational corporate image. Content analyses of 150 corporate websites of organizations in Asia headquartered in Singapore were conducted, followed by in-depth interviews with public relations (PR) practitioners to examine the motivations behind their CSR engagement. Findings showed that organizations utilized CSR as a means to enhance corporate image via four ways: Engaging in two-way conversations with stakeholders, adopting an inside-out communication approach with employees, recognizing the relevance of other CSR communication channels, and communicating CSR with authenticity. However, some organizations hesitate to use CSR communication to enhance their corporate image because they wanted to avoid being seen as using CSR as a promotional tool.     

Counterspaces for women of color in STEM higher education: Marginal and central spaces for persistence and success

Counterspaces in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) are often considered “safe spaces” at the margins for groups outside the mainstream of STEM education. The prevailing culture and structural manifestations in STEM have traditionally privileged norms of success that favor competitive, individualistic, and solitary practices—norms associated with White male scientists. This privilege extends to structures that govern learning and mark progress in STEM education that have marginalized groups that do not reflect the gender, race, or ethnicity conventionally associated with STEM mainstream success, thus necessitating spaces in which the effects of marginalization may be countered. Women of color is one such marginalized group. This article explores the struggles of women of color that threaten their persistence in STEM education and how those struggles lead them to search out or create counterspaces. It also examines the ways that counterspaces operate for women of color in STEM higher education, particularly how they function as havens from isolation and microaggressions. Using a framework of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and intersectionality theory and drawing on interview data from 39 women of color about their STEM higher education experiences, we describe five ways in which counterspaces operate: in peer‐to‐peer relationships; mentoring relationships; national STEM diversity conferences; STEM and non‐STEM campus student groups; and STEM departments. Whereas most research has discussed counterspaces as racially or ethnically homogeneous social groups of peers at the margins, our research found that counterspaces vary in terms of the race/ethnicity, gender, and power levels of participants. We found that counterspaces can be physical settings, as well as conceptual and ideological. Additionally, we identified counterspaces both at the margins and at the center of STEM departments. Thus, our research expands the existing understanding of the types and functions of counterspaces and broadens the definition of what locations can be and should be considered counterspaces. © 2017 The Authors. Journal of Research in Science Teaching Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of National Association for Research in Science Teaching. J Res Sci Teach 55: 206–245, 2018     

Why Singapore Trumps Iceland

The article explores how a National Institute of Health policy of racialization-as-inclusion in research informs the building of Asian DNA databases at Biopolis, an emerging biomedical hub in Singapore. Citing variability in DNA and populations in the Asian region, Singaporean biostatisticians challenge DeCode Genetics of Iceland as an exemplary model of genomic research. They claim that genetic traits among populations in Asia that are relatively new to medical genomics – and being gathered ‘in the wild’ – gain value from being calculated and databased. The infrastructure deploys the ethnic heuristic in different registers. First, the network of ethnicity becomes a supple membrane coextensive with the network of genetic data points. Second, ethnicity is rendered an immutable mobile that circulates databases beyond tiny Singapore, making the infrastructure at once situated, flexible, and expansive. Third, the ethnic signifier carries affective value that enhances a sense of what is at stake in the building, mobilization and implications of such Asian databases. In short, the origami-like folding together of multiple, flowable, and perfomative data points shapes a unilateral topological space of biomedical ‘Asia.’     

Surviving a re-entry: second-career academics in business schools in Malaysia

Educational Research for Policy and Practice - Recently, the re-entry of business executives into academia as second-career academics has become increasingly common. However, very few studies have...     

Novel AR-based interface for human-robot interaction and visualization

Intuitive and efficient interfaces for human- robot interaction （HRI） have been a challenging issue in robotics as it is essential for the prevalence of robots supporting humans in key areas of activities. This paper presents a novel augmented reality （AR） based interface to facilitate human-virtual robot interaction. A number of human-virtual robot interaction methods have been for- mulated and implemented with respect to the various types of operations needed in different robotic applications. A Euclidean distance-based method is developed to assist the users in the interaction with the virtual robot and the spatial entities in an AR environment. A monitor-based visualization mode is adopted as it enables the users to perceive the virtual contents associated with different interaction methods, and the virtual content augmented in the real environment is informative and useful to the users during their interaction with the virtual robot. Case researches are presented to demonstrate the successful implementation of the AR-based HRI interface in planning robot pick-and-place operations and path following operations.     

Mothers’ beliefs about risk and risk-taking in children’s outdoor play

Research studies have shown that educational programmes such as camps and field trips can develop affective and social relationships through personal exposure to outdoor experiences among students. This study will illustrate the outcome of a social emotional learning camp organized for 93 Secondary Two students (mean age 14.1) in Singapore. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were carried out during camp to assess students’ social emotional competencies (SECs) such as their self-awareness, social awareness, self-management and relationship management and responsible decision-making. Students were found to have improved in all SECs from the pre–post test questionnaire. From their camp activities and their reflections, students were found to have greater self-awareness, relationship management and self-management skills. However, teachers’ observations showed that students scored lowest in relationship management skills. Students’ self-awareness, social awareness, self-management and relationship management were found to be predictive of responsible decision-making, with 71% of the variance explained. The implications of the findings will be discussed to assist schools in enhancing students’ SECs.     

Automated impact device with non-synchronous impacts: a practical solution for modal testing during operation

Previous study has shown that synchronization of phases between impacts and the cyclic load component should be avoided to improve the effectiveness of operational modal testing, i.e. impact-synchronous modal analysis in obtaining a cleaner frequency response function (FRF) estimation with fewer number of averages. However, avoiding the phase synchronization effect is rarely achievable with the current manual impact hammer because of the lack of control of the impact timing. We investigate how to improve FRF estimation in the presence of harmonic disturbances, such as those present in operating rotating machines. An auto impact device is therefore introduced to replace the manual impact hammer. This device ensures that impact intervals can be applied at non-synchronous instances with respect to the harmonic disturbance. We demonstrate that this new device is a viable option for operational modal testing. It allows significant improvement in FRF estimation and shows good correlation of modal extraction data with benchmark experimental modal analysis results.     

Factors affecting school choice: What do Malaysian Chinese parents want?

Aiming to explore factors affecting Malaysian Chinese parents in sending their children to either national secondary schools or Chinese independent schools, 494 parents were surveyed using a questionnaire. Results showed that parents who sent their children to Chinese independent schools have different priorities compared to those who sent theirs to national secondary schools—the former are concerned with teachers’ quality, chances of learning the Chinese culture and Mandarin while the latter are concerned with tuition fees and strategic location. In general, the finding that Malaysian Chinese parents take cultural and language factors into account when choosing a suitable school for their children is interesting because both are seldom listed as important.