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Having started in Great Britain in the late 1970s, privatization has swept rapidly across the world and become one of the most important business phenomena in the modern economy. Although the initial success in the privatization of state-owned enterprises (SOEs), such as increased profitability, improved economic efficiency and enhanced national welfare and growth, has motivated many governments to push the privatization process further, there is not a universal model for the privatization of SOEs to follow. However, a range of specific elements influence the likely success of privatization in individual countries, for example the legal framework, the level of competition, and the depth of capital markets. In China, with its vast territory, population and a diverse and still developing economy, the influence of these elements is amplified. This dissertation focuses on the Chinese telecommunications industry and explores how the privatization process will affect this industry. First, it reviews the relevant theoretical and empirical studies and examines the various elements that complicate the privatization process. It examines the reforms that have taken place in the Chinese telecommunications industry and identifies some important issues which may impede further reform. By examining the process and outcomes of the privatization of British Telecom, which like its Chinese counterpart was a monopolized industry, we are able to identify a range of important success factors, such as corporatization before privatization and the need for customised models of privatization, together with the importance of market and legal restructuring to foster a competitive environment during the process of privatization. Some recommendations for the Chinese telecommunications industry are outlined, which may also be applied to the privatization process in other developing economies.

PurposeIt is believed that the effectiveness of public service announcements (PSAs) in persuading recipients to engage in the advocated behavior may be influenced by the content of PSAs, the recipient and the context in which the recipient is exposed to the PSA. The purpose of this study is to illustrate the persuasive process of PSAs with respect to these three aspects. Specifically, how the normative appeals used in PSA, affective priming and self-construals of recipients influence the recipients' behavioral intention is investigated.Design/methodology/approachBetween-subject experiments were conducted to collect data. The proposed hypotheses were verified by analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Process macro.FindingsResults show that participants with sad emotional experiences exhibit significantly higher behavioral intention after exposure to PSA compared to those with joy primed. However, the difference in behavioral intention between participants with guilt and neutral emotional experiences was insignificant. Concerning normative appeals, descriptive norms are more persuasive than injunctive norms. In addition, participants' self-construals moderate the relationship between normative appeals and behavioral intention.Research limitations/implicationsFirst, this study selected a group of college students as participants and used "Empty Your Plate" campaign as stimulus. Future research should test this mechanism with different samples. Second, this study only tested the effect of print advertising. Future research may examine whether these findings still work with advertisement in different formats. Moreover, future research should investigate the impact of priming guilt that is related to the PSA themes on PSAs' persuasive outcomes. Finally, this study only explored the moderating role of self-construals. Other personal traits were not investigated in current study need to be further explored.Practical implicationsThe findings of this study provide a more comprehensive understanding of the factors that influence the effectiveness of PSA and have practical implications for PSA practitioners. Firstly, descriptive norms can be used more frequently to improve the effectiveness of PSAs. Secondly, negative emotion exerts a positive influence on persuasive outcomes, so PSA practitioners can arrange media planning more rationally. Furthermore, they can adapt their normative appeals to the self-construal characteristics of their primary audiences to achieve their communication goals more effectively. This study reveals the effectiveness mechanism of PSA in the Chinese context, and thus meets practical needs.Social implicationsThis research will help improve the effectiveness of PSAs to protect the public interest and alleviate social problems by optimizing media planning strategies and increasing the willingness of viewers to change their behavior.Originality/valueThis study enriches theory in PSAs about persuading individuals to engage in prosocial behaviors and provides evidence from China that is rarely seen. In addition, this study contributes to optimizing PSA practice by restoring the actual PSA delivery context in the experimental situation.

We drew on the literature addressing servant leadership and job crafting, self-determination theory, and the job demands–resources model, and hypothesized that employees who are supported by servant leadership would craft their own jobs to stay engaged and perform well. Chinese
employees (N = 544) working in various organizations participated in a survey. We found that servant leadership, as evaluated by employees, predicted work engagement and that job crafting played a partial mediating role in this relationship. Results of structural equation modeling offered
strong support for the proposed model. Specifically, empowering promoted employees' absorption through task crafting, and emotional healing promoted employees' vigor through relational crafting. Our findings enrich the literature on positive organizational behavior and will help with identifying
practical considerations around promoting work engagement.