Detailed summary in vernacular field only.

Using Chinese listed companies as research setting, this paper constructs a measure of corporate competing culture through textual analysis on firms’ management discussion and analysis disclosures, and examines the impact of corporate competing culture on environmental investment. The results show that competing culture has a significant and positive impact on firms’ environmental investment, and the results remain robust to a battery of robustness tests. Moreover, the mediating analysis indicates that competing culture promotes corporate environmental investment through enhancing firms’ internal control (...) quality. Furthermore, the heterogeneity results show that the positive impact of corporate competing culture on environmental investment is more pronounced in firms with larger size, stronger corporate governance, in high-polluting industry, and located in less developed regions. Our findings shed light on the importance of corporate competing culture and provide practical implications for corporate sustainable development. (shrink)

Studies have shown that internal whistleblowing could be utilized as an effective way to stop an organization’s unethical behaviors. This study investigates the relationship between ethical leadership and internal whistleblowing by focusing on the mediating role of employee-perceived organizational politics and the moderating role of moral courage. An analysis of data collected at three phases indicates that employee-perceived organizational politics partly mediates the relationship between ethical leadership and internal whistleblowing. Also, moral courage is found to moderate the effect of employee-perceived (...) organizational politics on internal whistleblowing and the indirect effect of ethical leadership on internal whistleblowing via employee-perceived organizational politics. Theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed. (shrink)

The coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) has badly affected the social, physical, and emotional health of workers, especially those working in the healthcare sectors. Drawing on social exchange theory, we investigated the effects of participative leadership on employees’ workplace thriving and helping behaviors among frontline workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, we examined the moderating role of a leader’s behavioral integrity in strengthening the relationship between participative leadership, and employees’ workplace thriving and helping behaviors. By using a two-wave time-lagged design and (...) data collected from 244 healthcare workers, a moderated hierarchal regression was implemented to test the proposed hypotheses. As hypothesized, participative leadership predicted employees’ workplace thriving and helping behaviors. The leader’s behavioral integrity strengthened the relationship between participative leadership and employees’ thriving and moderated the relationship between participative leadership helping behaviors. Implications for research, theory, and practice are discussed. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on education worldwide. The disease first hit China and numerous Chinese cities then started to conduct online courses. Therefore, this study aims to explore the effect of the Shanghai students’ emotional intelligence, learning motivation, and self-efficacy on their academic achievement when they participated in online English classes during the latter phase of the pandemic in China. Furthermore, the research also examines whether the students’ emotional intelligence can influence their academic achievement through the (...) mediation effect of their learning motivation and self-efficacy. Social Cognitive Theory and the social cognitive Expectancy-Value Model were employed to build the research framework, and the method of structural equation modeling was utilized to conduct the model verification. Ten universities in Shanghai, China were selected for sampling. In total, 450 students were surveyed of which 404 questionnaires were valid. The results show that the students’ emotional intelligence did not directly affect their academic achievement. Nevertheless, the students’ emotional intelligence had a positive effect on their learning motivation and self-efficacy. In addition, mediation analysis showed that the relation between emotional intelligence and academic achievement was sequentially mediated by learning motivation and self-efficacy. (shrink)

Previous research has shown that parenting style is intricately linked to cyber-aggression. However, the underlying mechanisms of this relationship remain unclear, especially among young adults. Guided by the social cognitive theory and the ecological system theory, this study aimed to examine the effect of parenting style on cyber-aggression, the potential mediating role of moral disengagement, and the moderating role of moral identity in this relationship. Participants comprised 1,796 Chinese college students who anonymously completed questionnaires on parenting style, moral disengagement, moral (...) identity, cyber-aggression, and demographic variables. After controlling for sex and age, parental rejection and over-protection were positively related to cyber-aggression; however, parental emotional warmth was non-significantly related to cyber-aggression. Mediation analysis revealed that parenting style was related to cyber-aggressive behavior through moral disengagement. Moderated mediation analysis further indicated that the indirect effect of parenting style on cyber-aggression was much stronger in college students with higher moral identity. The study carries important practical implications for parents and educators concerned about the destructive consequences of cyber-aggression. (shrink)

IntroductionWith the normalization of COVID-19 prevention and control, a large number of intergenerational audiences with different cognition preferences and value orientations have started to pour into non-acquaintance virtual communities to address their social needs by disclosing their own thoughts, feelings and experiences toward certain topics. To avoid the negative impacts of self-disclosure, this study introduced the concept of social integration into cyber society among non-acquaintance VCs, such as the topic-based VCs. Our theoretical model considers both the psychological antecedents and consequences (...) of VC audiences’ social integration and our findings have implications for public online social life. Moreover, this research could play a guiding role in improving VC audiences’ social integration status in future online learning and telecommuting scenarios.MethodTo assess the theoretical model constructed in this manuscript, we conducted an online survey in two different topic-based VCs among Microblog and yielded 472 useable responses from intergenerational audiences, among which 28.81% were born before 1985, 26.67% were born from 1985 to 1995, and 48.52% were born after 1995. Our sample consisted of 208 individuals from Health Regimen VC and 264 individuals from Star Chasing VC, 200 were men and 272 were women.ResultsOur structural equation model indicated that individuals’ self-disclosure in topic-based VCs might not directly guide them to acquire social integration. However, intimacy and cognitive communion derived from VC audiences’ self-disclosure might not only enhance their social integration, but also improve their psychological well-being. In addition, VC audiences’ social integration mediated the relationship between intimacy and psychological well-being, and the relationship between cognitive communion and psychological well-being. Moreover, VC audiences’ intimacy was found to have a direct influence on their cognitive communion.ConclusionIn the context of topic-based VCs, audiences’ self-disclosure could significantly foster their intimacy and cognitive communion with others, and both intimacy and cognitive communion are conductive to VC audiences’ social integration. Thus, audiences in topic-based VCs who wish to improve their psychological well-being need to disclose themselves and build corresponding psychological foundations to enhance their social integration. Meanwhile, topic-based VCs should pay attention to the cultivation of intimacy and cognitive communion among audiences while encouraging them to reveal themselves. (shrink)

In 2012, China officially declared, as a national strategy of governance, the development of ecological consciousness, the promotion of what has been called “eco-civilization,” and the development of “ecological citizens.” In this paper, we argue that the concept of green burial reflects a number of the values underlying “eco-civilization” and ecological citizenship: respect for nature, respect for humanity, and the ecologically-sensitive rational awareness of the “harmony between nature and humanity, as in the saying “天人合一” Tian Ren He Yi = “Nature (...) and human beings combine into an integral whole”). The practice of green burial can play a valuable role in promoting the construction of an eco-civilization, although many people in China—and elsewhere—may be reluctant to accept it. One reason for this may be that the concept and practice of green burial are so new that it does not yet have a place in the ecological awareness of China’s citizens, who are the main subjects of the construction of eco-civilization. In our view, it is necessary to increase citizen awareness of green burials and their value, and to encourage people to participate in the practice. This is a reflection of the values that underlie ecological citizenship, but also serves to promote these values. While our proposal in this paper is to argue for green burial as an element in realizing this model of “eco-civilization” in China, its relevance clearly extends beyond the Chinese context. (shrink)

With the rapid development of information age, various social groups and corresponding institutions are producing a large amount of information data every day. For such huge data storage and identification, in order to manage such data more efficiently and reasonably, traditional semantic similarity algorithm emerges. However, the accuracy of the traditional semantic similarity algorithm is relatively low, and the convergence of corresponding algorithm is poor. Based on this problem, this paper starts with the conceptual structure of language, analyzes the depth (...) of language structure and the distance between nodes, and analyzes the two levels as the starting point. For the information of a specific data resource description frame type, the weight of interconnected edges is used for impact analysis so as to realize the semantic similarity impact analysis of all information data. Based on the above improvements, this paper also systematically establishes the data information modeling process based on language conceptual structure and establishes the corresponding model. In the experimental part, the improved algorithm is simulated and analyzed. The simulation results show that compared with the traditional algorithm, the algorithm has obvious accuracy improvement. (shrink)

This paper affords a Lotmanian cultural semiotic analysis of the inner workings of ritual embodying the mechanism of cultural memory. In this intersectional study, we propose treating ritual as an integral semiotic system in which the community follows a prescribed collective process to create religious or social meanings and to regulate the mechanism of cultural memory through concrete symbols in the forms of behavior, speech, gestures, objects, spatial structures, and so on. Three semiotic properties of ritual in relation to cultural (...) memory are identified, namely, continuity, concreteness, and integrity, which are jointly responsible for the efficacy of ritual in cultural memory making, or to be specific, in the preservation, retrieval, and even reproduction of cultural memory. With these properties, ritual helps construct and maintain socio-cultural order and group identity in the community, by repeating itself and thus creating a sense of continuity through the preservation and retrieval of cultural memory. The key components in ritual are its diverse and polysemous symbols, which are seldom confined to a specific context, although they are indeed subject to the dominant symbol and the dominant meaning in a ritual when necessary. With an extraordinary degree of autonomy and not bound to any fixed context, ritual symbols can enter a ritual situation as its components but retain the freedom of leaving the ritual context at any time, like an unchained “spectator,” and permeating multiple contexts as self-contained units. It is precisely through these transferrable ritual symbols that the fragments of cultural memory are randomly dispersed in the semiosphere and carried to unexpected socio-cultural contexts, bridging the past, the present, and the future and creating new cultural memory. (shrink)

Pioneering work in the 1940s and 1950s suggested that the concept of chunking might be important in many processes of perception, learning and cognition in humans and animals. We summarize here the major sources of evidence for chunking mechanisms, and consider how such mechanisms have been implemented in computational models of the learning process. We distinguish two forms of chunking: the first deliberate, under strategic control, and goal-oriented; the second automatic, continuous, and linked to perceptual processes. Recent work with discrimination-network (...) computational models of long- and short-term memory (EPAM/CHREST) has produced a diverse range of applications of perceptual chunking. We focus on recent successes in verbal learning, expert memory, language acquisition and learning multiple representations, to illustrate the implementation and use of chunking mechanisms within contemporary models of human learning. (shrink)

Philosophy & Social Criticism, Ahead of Print. This paper reconsiders liberal nationalism in light of the current autocratic nationalist threat. I argue that liberal nationalism cannot redress the social ailments which acclimatize people to the sorts of no-holds-barred political contestation favoured by autocratic nationalists – excessive polarization. I then argue that liberal nationalists do not recognize the degree to which ‘in-group’ racial solidarity motivates members of the racial/ethnic majority to preserve their status, and that the liberal nationalist approach to defending (...) minorities’ rights therefore risks either emboldening the majority to embrace autocracy or consolidating social hierarchies between the majority and minorities. On these bases, I show that democrats must seek to not only detach race/ethnicity from nationality but also redress those problematic racial/ethnic hierarchies. This suggests the need to develop liberal nationalism into multiculturalist nationalism. Multiculturalist nationalism, however, promises a sort of bounded solidarity that does not include all citizens: it makes use of targeted political antagonism against anti-democrats like White supremacists and Identitarians to help diffuse any social antagonism that might exist among minorities, inclusive members of the majority, and cultural conservatives. (shrink)

Shepard's exponential law provides a functional explanation of generalization. The account complements the more common mechanistic models. The elegant and powerful analyses answer one of Tinbergen's (1963) four whys of behavior: a benefit conferred on the animal by generalizing in this way. A complete account might address evolutionary and developmental questions in addition to mechanistic and functional ones. [Shepard].

In this paper I will investigate Nāgārjuna's approach to the problem of the existence of God. Nāgārjuna lived in the second century A.D. and founded Mādhyamika Buddhism. 1 He is considered to be one of the greatest thinkers of India 2 and his philosophy, ‘the central philosophy of Buddhism’. 3 Although there have been some systematic studies and presentations of Nāgārjuna's writings among Eastern and Western scholars during the past six or seven decades, 4 many aspects of his teachings have (...) not been adequately treated. One of these aspects is his examination of the concept of God or deity. (shrink)

This writing addresses a direct response to as well as shares a careful reflection with Ed Casey and Bob Neville, two of my longtime good friends, whom I invited to a panel I organized for Plenary Section 1, 11th East-West Philosophers’ Conference entitled “Place”, East-West Center, Honolulu, Hawai’i, May 25, 2017. It starts with the question of understanding the meaning of place for humanity and human development. To understand place as the birthplace of life and humanity is essential to understanding (...) what a place is, because a place has to link to other places and to the whole of space as a totality of places. Places are developed historically and transferred to us with their values just like our own life comes to us in the development of our histories and cultures. This leads to the idea of a place as not separable from time. I have only addressed time to some extent in this paper, but I have introduced time as an essential part of our defining characterization of humanity and its resources. This then leads to our deep understanding of humanity as the creative product of time and space, which is derived from a common life origin: creativity. Throughout, I have also elaborated my thinking on the complex issue of “deep roots” and “shallow roots” of Confucianism, in light of inspirations from Bob Neville, who has raised important questions. (shrink)