Quality management effectiveness in Asia: The influence of culture

Institutional design of public agencies and coproduction: A study of irrigation associations in Taiwan

Conversion of China's monetary and fiscal systems to a silver standard led to a doubling in the value of silver in China vis-a-vis the rest of the world by the early sixteenth century. Heightened profit opportunities induced an unprecedented surge in silver production in Spanish America and in Japan. Destined ultimately for China, tens of thousands of tons of silver passed through Europe via long-distance maritime and overland trade routes. Fifty tons of silver annually also reached China via the Pacific Ocean after the founding of the Spanish city of Manila in 1571. Japan exported huge quantities of silver to China until the late seventeenth century. New American crops were also introduced to Chinese agriculture via the Manila galleons, contributing to a doubling or more of Chinese population in the eighteenth century. Silver demand grew along with China's population, which in turn led to a fifty percent silver price premium in China. Largely in response to buoyant demand, more Mexican silver was produced during the eighteenth century than had been produced by all of Spanish America during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries combined. Subsequently, during the second half of the eighteenth century, a "tea and opium cycle" propelled British fortunes in Asia. Economic, environmental, and demographic histories must not be viewed as independent phenomena. It is a mistake to view societies around the world as independent of or weakly connected to global forces. All heavily populated continents have been deeply connected since the sixteenth century.

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Cycles of Silver: Global Economic Unity through the Mid-Eighteenth Century

Purpose – This paper aims to examine the concept of “consumer animosity”, model its antecedents, and assess its influence on intention to purchase.Design/methodology/approach – Survey questionnaires were distributed by a quasi‐random sample of school pupils across Taiwan to an adult member of their household, for completion and return. A return rate of 70 percent yielded 456 usable questionnaires, the data from which were analysed by the LISREL structural equation modelling software.Findings – The results suggest that perceived personal economic hardship and the normative influence of members of a consumers' reference group have a positive impact on the phenomenon of consumer animosity, which in turn negatively affects the intentions of consumers in Taiwan to purchase products originating in mainland China and Japan. Contradicting previous studies, consumer animosity was found to be dependent on judgments of product quality.Research limitations/implications – The research model was built from data collect...

Consumer animosity, economic hardship, and normative influence: how do they affect consumers' purchase intention?

In 17th and 18th century China, Buddhists and Confucians alike flooded local Buddhist monasteries with donations As gentry numbers grew faster than the imperial bureaucracy, traditional Confucian careers were closed to many; but visible philanthropy could publicize elite status outside the state realm. Actively sought by fund-raising abbots, such patronage affected institutional Buddhism. After exploring the relation of Buddhism to Ming Neo-Confucianism, the growth of tourism to Buddhist sites, and the mechanisms and motives for charitable donations, Timothy Brook studies three widely separated and economically dissimilar counties. He draws on rich data in monastic gazetteers to examine the patterns and social consequences of patronage.

Praying for Power: Buddhism and the Formation of Gentry Society in Late- Ming China.

This text on representative bureaucracy covers topics such as: bureaucracy as a representative institution bureaucratic power and the dilemma of administrative responsibility and representative bureaucracy and the potential for reconciling bureaucracy and democracy.

Taiwan: A New History

Racism has existed throughout the world for centuries and has been at the root of innumerable conflicts and human tragedies, including war, genocide, slavery, bigotry, and discrimination. Defined broadly, racism has had many forms and effects, from caste prejudice in India and mass extermination in Tasmania to slavery in the Americas and the Holocaust in Europe. Put simply, racism has been one of the overriding forces in world history for more than a millennium. This book provides a global perspective of racism in its myriad forms. Consisting of twelve parts and fifty-one articles, it focuses on racism worldwide over the past thousand years. It includes three types of articles: original documents, scholarly essays, and journalistic accounts.

The Other Taiwan : 1945 to the present

Introduction: The Many Meanings of Identity P.A.Katz & M.A.Rubenstein On the Origins and Transformation of Taiwanese National Identity C.Maukuei Shifting National Identities in Public Spheres: A Cultural Account of Political Transformation in Taiwan D.Tsai Popular Media and the Promotion of Identity on Taiwan M.Y.T.Rawnsley Puppet Theatre and Taiwanese Cultural Identity W.Su-mei The Quest for Difference Versus the Wish to Assimilate M.Rudolph Identity Politics and the Study of Popular Religion in Postwar Taiwan P.A.Katz Mazu in China-Wide Perspective J.Bosco Popular Religion in a Southern Taiwanese Community F.Aello Martial Cults in Southwestern Taiwan A.Boretz Questions of Religion and Identity P.S.Sangren

Murray A. Rubinstein

Papers

Taiwan: A New History

The Other Taiwan : 1945 to the present

Religion and the formation of Taiwanese identities

The Protestant community on modern Taiwan : mission, seminary, and church

Taiwan Under Japanese Rule, 1895-1945: The Vicissitudes of Colonialism