Search results

The Asian values debate has been long on speculative advocacy but short on empirical validation, with statistical tests emerging only lately. This study explores two questions: whether Asians indeed hold distinct cultural attitudes when compared with non-Asians and whether these cultural attitudes and beliefs identified as Asian values form coherent dimensions among Asians. The study first identifies four dimensions of Asian values based on a review of various Asian values discourses: familism, communalism, authority orientations, and work ethic. The findings from the empirical analysis based on multilevel models and factor analysis return mixed support for the Asian values hypothesis. Although East Asian respondents do exhibit strong work-related values compared with those from other regions, commitment to familial values and authoritarian orientations are actually lower among East Asians. Also, while preference for strong leadership and parental duty do turn out to form distinct sets of attitudes among South and Southeast Asians, the four dimensions do not constitute a clear value complex in the minds of East Asians.

Mertonian norms of science have long been subject to various criticisms, one of which concerns a 'story book image' of science that those norms portray for science to justify the independence of science from social control. Despite much criticism of Merton's work on the normative structure of science, little research has been undertaken on the degree to which practicing scientists indeed hold onto such norms. This study presents an empirical analysis of Mertonian norms using the survey of 633 Korean scientists. The Korean scientific community offers a strategic research site. With predominantly US-educated researchers, it contains a sizeable membership of academic scientists who have become sensitised to ethical and normative problems due to Dr Hwang's notorious research fraud scandal. Our empirical analysis analyses scientists' endorsement of Mertonian norms based on a framework incorporating demographic factors and the socialisation into science. Among the four Mertonian norms, we find communalism to be strongly influenced by professional conditions such as size of research funding, professional network and involvement of non-academic affairs. This finding confirms the growing concerns with the norm of communal ownership of scientific output in the face of increasing academic commercialisation.

Climate change has emerged as one of the most important issues of the twentyfirst century. Recent opinion polls show rising public awareness of climate change. Yet considerable cross-national variation exists in the intensity of public concern and in public willingness to pay for addressing climate change. Drawing on twelve multinational surveys, we examine two aggregate conditions—a country's affluence and its vulnerability to climate risks—as key factors underlying cross-national differences in public support for and commitment to costly climate policies. In contrast to the post-materialism thesis, we find "strong" concern about climate change to be higher in developing countries. Contrary to expectation, climate vulnerability had little effect on public concern, but did have significant impact on some measures of personal commitment and support for climate policies. The analysis indicates that, in most countries examined, high concern about climate change is only beginning to translate into personal commitment to action.

Although it is conventional wisdom that innovation requires free mind, diversity, or creativity all of which are closely associated with political and organizational decentralization, it is in fact more politically centralized countries in East Asia that successfully capitalized on innovation to catapult their economies onto the growth trajectory. Scholars have thus wondered if this is an exception rather a rule. Are more centralized countries innovative? Existing empirical research has produced mixed results. This study introduces a new perspective on this issue. Rather than the degree of centralization found in formal institutions, we focus on non-institutional or informal dimensions of centralization particularly associated with culture. Using Hofstede's cross-national dataset capturing national culture, we explore how different dimensions of national culture are linked to national innovative capacity as proxied by patents. Our preliminary findings from the analysis of 34 OECD member states based on the patent data extracted from the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) database suggest that non-institutional dimensions of centralization account more for the variations in national rates of patents per capita than more formal aspects of centralization measured by traditional political datasets such as POLCON. While cultural aspects have been examined in technology management at the individual and the firm level, this study fills a gap in the existing literature by exploring their relationship at the national level. More research is clearly needed to explore the roles of non-institutional features facilitating or hampering innovation.

Objective: The purpose of the current study was to determine whether an augmented reality instruction method would result in faster task completion times, lower mental workload, and fewer errors for simple tasks in an operational setting. Background: Prior research on procedural work that directly compared augmented reality instructions to traditional instruction methods (e.g., paper) showed that augmented reality instructions can enhance procedural work, but this was not true for simple tasks in an operational setting. Method: Participants completed simple procedural tasks on spaceflight hardware using an augmented reality instruction method and a paper instruction method. Results: Our results showed that the augmented reality instruction method resulted in faster task completion times and lower levels of mental and temporal demand compared with paper instructions. When participants used the augmented reality instruction method before the paper instruction method, there was a transfer of training that improved a subsequent procedure using the paper instruction method. Conclusion: An off-the-shelf augmented reality head-mounted display (HoloLens) can enhance procedural work for simple tasks in an operational setting. Application: The ability of augmented reality to enhance procedural work for simple tasks in an operational setting can help in reducing costs and mitigating risks that could ultimately lead to accidents and critical failures.

Objective: We evaluated three interface input methods for a simulated manned-unmanned teaming (MUM-T) supervisory control system designed for Air Mission Commanders (AMCs) in Black Hawk helicopters. Background: A key component of the U.S. Army's vision for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is to integrate UAVs into manned missions, called MUM-T (Department of Defense, 2010). One application of MUM-T is to provide the AMC of a team of Black Hawk helicopters control of multiple UAVs, offering advanced reconnaissance and real-time intelligence of flight routes and landing zones. Method: Participants supervised a (simulated) team of two helicopters and three UAVs while traveling toward a landing zone to deploy ground troops. Participants classified aerial photographs collected by UAVs, monitored instrument warnings, and responded to radio communications. We manipulated interface input modality (touch, voice, multimodal) and task load (number of photographs). Results: Compared with voice, touch and multimodal control resulted in better performance on all tasks and resulted in lower subjective workload and greater subjective situation awareness, ps < .05. Participants with higher spatial ability classified more aerial photographs ( r = .75) and exhibited shorter response times to instrument warnings ( r = −.58) than participants with lower spatial ability. Conclusion: Touchscreen and multimodal control were superior to voice control in a supervisory control task that involved monitoring visual displays and communicating on radio channels. Application: Although voice control is often considered a more natural and less physically demanding input method, caution is needed when designing visual displays for users sharing common communication channels.