Chinese Service Research Articles

Future Eldercare Planning Among Chinese Aging Families in Hong Kong

In environmental gerontology, the home and the neighborhood have always been of particular interest for empirical research. Issues such as orientation and safety, place attachment and biographical bonding, have proven to be important for community dwellings older adults and for those living in care homes. However, with Covid-19, the seemingly stable person-place-relationships have been challenged. This symposium provides a set of applied research contributions that demonstrate the persistent salience of the environment by examining person-place-relationships in the old and the new normal in private homes and care homes. Contributions draw from ideas of “precarious ageing” (Grenier & Phillipson) and “pandemic precarity”, for instance to understand housing insecurity, while concepts from environmental gerontology are used to explain processes of environmental agency and belonging. The first contribution by Mahmood and colleagues introduces an environmental audit tool for people at risk of homelessness to assess built environmental features of housing and neighborhood that support housing stability in the face of insecurity. Second, Wanka provides data from people framed as ‘risk-groups’ through the Covid-19 pandemic and how they dealt with contact restrictions, showing the role of intergenerational neighborhood relations to mediate risks of pandemic precariousness. Third, Elkes examined mobility and wayfinding challenges for residents in a long-term care home and subsequent environmental interventions to improve orientation. Forth, Leontowitsch and colleagues present findings from long-term care home residents during the pandemic to gain understanding of their experiences of social isolation and a biographical sense of resilience. Finally, Amanda Grenier will serve as the session’s discussant.

The Impact of Digital Economy on Total Factor Productivity of China’s Service Industry

As a kind of integrated economy, digital economy has an important impact on the economic growth and production and lifestyle of multiple countries and regions, and plays a significant role in promoting the reconstruction of the international economic pattern. As an important industry of China’s national economy, the service industry is crucial to China’s economic growth. This paper measures the development level of digital economy in provinces and cities through constructing digital economy index system, uses super efficiency SBM-Malmquist model to measure total factor productivity of service industry, and tests the influence effect of digital economy on total factor productivity of Chinese service industry. Finally, the optimization path of digital economy on China’s service industry is proposed.

China's financial services market in the post-pandemic period 2020–2021: Trends and development prospects

Subject. The article addresses the development of the financial services market of China in the context of overcoming the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020–2021. Objectives. The focus is on the specific features, advantages and disadvantages of the complex of modern financial services in China; substantiating the reasons for the high efficiency of China's exit from the post-pandemic crisis in comparison with the leading economies of the world; forecasting the potential threats to the Chinese financial services market due to the active spread of a new strain of coronavirus in May?June 2021. Methods. The study employs the systems and comparative analysis, using the tabular, graphic and illustrative materials, and current statistical and reported data of international organizations, audit companies, consulting structures and rating agencies in major scientific Russian and foreign publications. Results. The paper underpins the difficulties of implementing a number of specific features of the financial services market in China from theoretical and practical point of view, presents a prognostic scenario of the Chinese financial services market development in the post-pandemic period. Conclusions. I conclude on high efficiency and effectiveness of support measures taken by the Chinese leadership to preserve the financial balance and facilitate the restoring of China's financial services in the post-pandemic period, prove the optimistic scenario for the development of China's financial services against the background of economic stagnation and a noticeable weakening of foreign competitors, describe potential threats and weaknesses in unstable global economy.

Risk factors for the frequent attendance of older patients at community health service centers in China: a cross-sectional study based on stratified sampling

BackgroundThis study aimed to investigate the characteristics of frequent attenders (FAs) among older patients in Shanghai, China, and explore the associated factors.MethodsThis cross-sectional study was conducted in six community health service centers in Shanghai, China, from August to December 2018 based on stratified sampling. On the basis of our preliminary study, FAs were defined as those attending at least four consultations in a month. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect the clinicodemographic data of the participants. Social support, pain severity, depression, and anxiety were evaluated using the Social Support Revalued Scale, six-point Behavioral Rating Scale, Patient Health Questionnaire–9, and Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale, respectively.ResultsThis study included 619 patients aged > 60 years. Among these patients, 155 (25%) were FAs to a community health service center, 366 (59.1%) had 1 or 2 chronic diseases, 179 (28.9%) had ≥3 chronic diseases, 313 (50.4%) opted for a family doctor service, and 537 (86.8%) chose a community health service center for the first consultation. The following were identified as independent risk factors for frequent attendance: widowed status, unmarried status, the presence of > 3 chronic diseases, first consultation at a community health service center, high medical expenses, frequent attendance of the spouses, long-term medication, the use of both traditional Chinese and Western medicine services, and depression.ConclusionsThis study summarizes the characteristics of older FAs to community health service centers in China and identifies 10 risk factors significantly associated with frequent attendance.

Chinese and Indian higher education students go abroad: listening to them to determine what their needs are

This paper voices the opinions of international students’ from China and India, and highlights the intentional process of integrating their perceptions of internationalization into a strategic service delivery plan. Data on those perceptions were analysed using a probabilistic model. We clustered 766 international students’ opinions into categories that enabled us to determine the main ideas that constituted their perceptions. The findings enabled us to draw comparisons between two major sending countries and to formulate a series of recommendations for stakeholders in higher education institutions that receive Chinese and Indian students, as well as for policymakers. Primary differences relate to factors such as learning and internship opportunities for Chinese students and service provision for Indian ones. In conclusion, this study offers the next step in the analysis of Chinese and Indian international students’ needs providing with an innovative way of determining students concerns with a view to empowering them within the internationalization process of higher education institutions.

Volunteers’ collective memory of Youth Olympic Games: macro-level contextual understandings

Knowledge about macro-level context differences in volunteering is critical. By adopting the notion of collective memory, consideration is given to how macro-level context constructs the volunteers’ memory of the experience at a sport mega-event such as the Olympic Games. A case study of the 2014 Nanjing Youth Olympic Games was selected. Thematic analysis of three focus groups reveals that volunteers’ memories are regulated by Confucian culture and socialist core value education (i.e. dedication, collectivism, and patriotism), contemporary political discourse (i.e. name card/image of China), as well as the construction of local volunteering culture (i.e. Little Lime). This study situates the Olympic volunteering in a dynamic interplay within the Oriental macro-system. It contributes to an increasingly studied demographic and essential subject for analysis on Occidental Olympic Games, especially when Chinese volunteer service is seriously impacted by the macro-level context and China will host the 2022 Winter Olympic Games after 2008 within a 14-year short interval.

Double-edged Sword of Global Demand Heterogeneity on the Performance of Service Multinationals

Drawing upon knowledge-based view and transaction-costs perspective, the study identifies customer relationship orientation and structural flexibility as the two key mechanisms that service multinationals can use to capture the benefits and mitigate the costs of global demand heterogeneity. Using a sample of Chinese service multinational firms, we show that one the one hand, customer relationship orientation amplifies the benefits of customer knowledge in the interaction between customer relationship orientation and global demand heterogeneity, resulting in a positive impact on internationalization performance. On the other hand, structural flexibility mitigates the costs of knowledge processing and routine adaptation in the interaction between structural flexibility and global demand heterogeneity, also contributing to the improved internationalization performance. Besides, production and consumption simultaneity strengthens the positive moderating effect of customer relationship orientation in the global demand heterogeneity–internationalization performance relationship. This study contributes theoretically and practically to our knowledge of how demand-side factors can shape firms’ internationalization performance.

Effect of customer involvement on co-creation of services: A moderated mediation model

The study explored the influence of customer involvement on co-creation directly and indirectly through three customer engagement dimensions, namely identification, interaction, and absorption from lens of customer-dominant logic and stimulus-organism-response framework. Data were collected from 211 Chinese service customers in Hong Kong. Results of IBM SPSS PROCESS models showed that customer involvement influenced co-creation directly and indirectly through absorption and interaction, but not identification. Customer involvement was found to exert a greater impact on co-creation of services for those with a high rather than low relation orientation. Thus, service providers should utilize mass media effectively to arouse customers’ feelings of relevance and important of services to them. They should also interact with customers continuously through social media that can be enhanced by various kinds of immersion technology.

A Multidimensional Approach to Explore the Experiences with Ethnic Matching amongst Chinese Social Service Practitioners in the Greater Toronto Area

Abstract In multicultural societies, social workers often work with people of diverse cultural backgrounds. As one of the strategies to facilitate social workers’ cultural competence in diverse settings, they are often matched with clients of the same or similar cultural backgrounds. This practice is called ethnic matching and is commonly utilised in ethno-specific and immigrant-serving organisations. This practice has been extensively studied in the literature and is believed to be beneficial to treatment acceptability and service quality. Nonetheless, most of the existing literature focuses on the practitioner–client dyad without taking the broader context into consideration. This study adopted a multidimensional cultural competence approach to examine Chinese practitioners’ lived experiences of serving Chinese immigrants in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). Six focus groups were conducted (n = 34), and data were analysed using a grounded theory approach. Results show themes across four levels: (i) personal: personal experience as a motivator; (ii) interpersonal: shared culture and language as a double-edged sword; (iii) organisational: service target shifts and increased difficulty to ethnically match and (iv) community: intracommunity heterogeneity and mismatch. This study provides recommendations for social workers, educators and policymakers to consider when applying ethnic matching in cross-cultural settings.

Cultural distance and customer orientation strategy of Chinese service MNEs under the belt and road initiative

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore mechanisms of cultural distance in the base of Chinese Service Multi-National Enterprise (MNE) settings. When attempting to enter overseas markets, many service MNEs face challenges caused by the cultural distance between the home and host countries. Culture distance attracts much attention in academia and industry. However, there are few empirical works to examine how cultural distance affects customer orientation strategies in a global supply chain. This paper aims to answer the following research question: How is the effect of cultural distance on customer acquisition and customer retention strategies, and the effect of customer orientation strategies on the performance of service-oriented MNEs controlled by Chinese capital along the Belt and Road Initiative?Design/methodology/approachThis paper examines the effect of cultural distance on the customer acquisition strategy and customer retention strategy, and the effect of customer orientation strategies on the performance of Chinese Service MNEs. A large-scale empirical study of Chinese Service MNEs operating in overseas markets is performed and questionnaires were distributed and collected. This paper uses Hofstede's method (Hofstede, 2010), Schwartz's method (Schwartz, 2003) and House et al.'s method (House et al., 2004) to calculate cultural distance. By using each kind of method, this study calculates the absolute culture distance and relative culture distance respectively.FindingsThe results suggest that cultural distance negatively affects customer orientation strategy, customer acquisition strategy positively affects performance and the interaction of customer acquisition and customer retention positively affects performance.Research limitations/implicationsThis study aims to contribute to the existing literature with a more fine-grained understanding of the inclusion of customer orientation strategy of Chinese Service MNEs in global supply chains.Practical implicationsThe findings outline several important implications that Chinese Service MNEs seeking to expand to overseas markets.Originality/valueThis paper contributes a novel, combined perspective of culture distance and customer orientation strategy.

TCM-ISP: A Comprehensive Intelligent Service Platform for Industry Chain of Traditional Chinese Medicines.

In order to promote information interaction, intelligent regulation, and scale management in Chinese medicines industry, in this paper, a Chinese medicines intelligent service platform with characteristics of flexibility, versatility, and individuation was designed under the guidance of theoretical model of intelligent manufacturing of Chinese medicines (TMIM). TCM-ISP is a comprehensive intelligent service platform that can be flexibly applied to all links of Chinese medicines industry chain, which realizes data integration and real-time transmission as well as intelligent-flexible scheduling of equipment in response to different demand. The platform took logical framework of data flow as the core and adopts the modular design in which microcontroller and sensor module are independent to obtain overall design scheme of TCM-ISP that contains the diagram of overall framework, hardware structure, and software technology. Then, on the groundwork of overall design scheme and modern science technology, TCM-ISP was successfully constructed with flexible, intelligent, and networked characteristics in which TTL-USB and TTL-RS485S were utilized to build unified interface between boards with supporting hot-plugging mode. The results of platform tests show that TCM-ISP can not only successfully realize the integration, real-time transmission, and display of data information but also well accomplish remote intelligent-flexible control of equipment and allow flexible configuration and expansion of sensors and devices according to the needs of each link in TCM's industry chain. It is of great practical significance to the pursuit of intelligent manufacturing of Chinese medicines and the promotion of modernization of Chinese medicines industry.

Liming Wang Comment on How China Managed the COVID-19 Pandemic

Liming Wang Comment on How China Managed the COVID-19 Pandemic

How can coproduction help to deliver culturally responsive disability support? A case study from Australia.

How to improve access and quality of social services to respond to cultural diversity is receiving increased attention. Yet no approach to cultural responsiveness has been widely accepted. Coproduction has been championed in many service fields for better service outcomes and has the potential to inform practices for cultural responsiveness. This study explored how coproduction can be used to deliver culturally responsive social services. We conducted a qualitative case study and examined how an Australian disability service organisation operated a programme to improve cultural responsiveness with Australian Chinese people with disability and their families. The findings suggested that coproduction enabled the organisation to identify that the people with disability and their families considered services were culturally responsive when the staff were competent and committed to person-centred services. The coproduction contributed to continuous improvement of the services and revealed the qualities that were valued by the Australian Chinese service users. This study enriches the knowledge on coproduction by demonstrating the influence of the process of coproduction on outcomes for service users and providers. The study also contributes to the knowledge on cultural responsiveness by highlighting the elements of culturally responsive services valued by the service users. Coproduction could be more widely used for service development given its capacity to identify and respond to service needs. Practical implications for culturally responsive social services are that workforce training could focus on the principles of person-centred services and skills for working effectively with people from culturally diverse backgrounds.

Indian consumers animosity level on Chinese products and services– impact of post galwan stand off

Indian consumers animosity level on Chinese products and services– impact of post galwan stand off

Unveiling the quasi-public-private partnership (QPPP): evidence from China’s environmental service sector

ABSTRACT Originating in neoliberal democracies, the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) is a common policy tool allowing governments to provide public service through collaboration. In some non-liberal societies, PPPs may take different forms and not squarely fit into the classic PPP category, which we label as ‘Quasi-PPPs’ (QPPPs). QPPPs provide important functions especially in economies in transition yet have received little academic attention. Here we propose a general definition of QPPPs as ‘partnerships between a government entity and a not-fully private entity’, and explore factors that influence the PPP-QPPP transition in non-liberal contexts, using the nascent Chinese eco-environmental service partnerships for a case analysis. Drawing on insights from a self-established dataset and interviews, we find that the PPP-QPPP transition involves two-steps: (1) the eco-environmental service partnerships, initially established as PPPs, became inoperable with inexperienced partners and unsupportive markets; (2) with state bailout, the private partner became a subordinated partner in an ‘SOE-private consortium’, and PPPs transitioned to QPPPs. QPPPs brought about two outcomes: hidden debts for the government and the private sector’s nationalization. We conclude that in a non-liberal society, when three critical PPP assumptions, namely competent partners, supportive market, and horizontal structure are violated, PPPs are more likely to transition to QPPPs.

Does Fiscal Transfer Improve the Equalization of Regional Public Health Service Evidence from a Spatial Panel-Data Analysis in China

Public health service is regarded a key social resource contributing to the national health and sustainable development. Its development gap, however, exists among regions in China due to the unbalanced regional economy, and is also affected by financial distribution. With the effect of tax reform, central fiscal transfer has become a strategic approach to narrow the regional gap of public health service and improve the regional development. This paper aims to evaluate provincial public health service levels in China by applying entropy method and shows that obvious spatial imbalance of public health service level exists in Chinese provinces and such imbalance is also consistent with that of average fiscal transfer from the central government to the regional ones. The current research also looks at, by adopting spatial panel model, a model developed from economic convergence model, whether central fiscal transfer effectively helps to lower the level of public health service difference in regions and the outcome depicts that central fiscal transfer, particularly fiscal transfer for specific purposes, accelerates Chinese public health service development especially in eastern, middle and western regions. From the perspective of spatial effect, neighborhood imitation effect exists to allow completion among neighboring regional governments and therefore more investment to public health service. Compared with the pace of economic development, central fiscal transfer’s limited effect is still seen in less developed regions particularly some midland and western areas, due to the inadequate investment rooted in government’s structured expenditure plan. The implication of this research is that, apart from the attention to economic growth, the government should, with the effort of fiscal transfer, financially focus more on the area of public health service.

공익광고 스토리 유형에 따른 메타포 콘텐츠 심층구조에 관한 연구 -중국 춘절 공익광고를 분석중심으로-

공익광고 스토리 유형에 따른 메타포 콘텐츠 심층구조에 관한 연구 -중국 춘절 공익광고를 분석중심으로-

Complaint Response Strategies in Interpersonally Sensitive Phone Interactions in Chinese Service

For any business organizations, it is of great importance to handle customer complaints effectively. This is particularly vital in the service industry as complaining customers are found not very collaborative and tend to be emotional in the process of complaining [1] and sometimes the exchanges between agents and complaining customers become interpersonally sensitive. Following Orthaber and Reiter’s [2] definition of “interpersonally sensitive exchange”, this study addresses two research questions: (1) what pragmatic strategies are employed by call center agents in interpersonally sensitive interactions in complaint responses? 2) and what are the effects of these strategies on interpersonal relationship in complaint responses? Based on a corpus of 42 outbound calls (approximately 7.5 hours) made by the agents in the Complaint Centre of one Chinese airline, four conventional and two unconventional complaint response strategies are found to be employed by the agents. These strategies produce positive outcomes in some cases while lead to opposite effects in others. An effective strategy can either enhance the rapport between the agent and the complaining customer, or benefit the progressivity of complaint handling. Conversely, it deteriorates the originally sensitive rapport and sometimes even leads to upgraded complaint.

Outpatient and Inpatient Service Use by Chinese Adults Living in Rural Low-Income Households

Background: This study applied the Andersen Model of Health Care Utilization to explore the variables associated with health service use among Chinese adults living in rural low-income households. Method: A survey of 2,429 adults living in 787 low-income households in Jiangsu, China was conducted. Respondents were asked the presence of outpatient service in the past one month and the amount of hospitalization in the past one year. Mixed effect logistic and negative binomial models were used to examine the relationship of individual-level and household-level characteristics with health service use. Results: Health condition was the predominant determinant of both outpatient and inpatient service use (Odds Ratio [OR] >1, p<0.001). Individuals living in a poor household were less likely to use outpatient service (OR=0.05, 95% confidence interval CI: 0.00, 0.71), and the longer in poverty status the less likely to use outpatient service (OR=0.92, CI: 0.86, 0.99). Age was associated with lower likelihood to use outpatient service (OR=0.93, CI: 0.93, 1.00), and this relationship was stronger for larger households (OR=1.01, CI: 1.00, 1.01). For inpatient service use, most household-level measures were insignificant. Conclusion: Rural Chinese health service use was influenced primarily by needs variables. Outpatient service use was constrained by household enabling variables. Older adults were at a disadvantage for using outpatient service when the family prioritized younger members in allocating resources. These results suggest the need for policy advocacy to expand insurance reimbursement and improve benefits for poor older adults.

Chinese Service Multinationals: The Degree of Internationalization and Performance

We investigate the degree of internationalization of Chinese service multinational enterprises (MNEs) and their performance relative to global peers operating in the same industries, using the benchmarking method with the industry financial data. Our theoretical development is based upon Verbeke and Forootan (2012)’s framework, grounded in “new” internalization theory, arguing that an MNE’s financial performance is fundamentally determined by its firm-specific advantages (FSAs). Here FSAs include not only conventional strengths in R&D and brand names, but also the recombination capabilities, which is a higher-order FSA. We theorize that Chinese service MNEs develop FSAs, which are built upon home country-specific advantages (CSAs) and thus their FSAs are home country-bound in nature. They have not yet been able to develop advanced management capabilities through recombination with host CSAs. We empirically examine the largest 500 Chinese service firms. We find that only 23 Chinese service firms are true MNEs, whereas the majority of them are purely domestic firms. The financial performance of Chinese service MNEs is poor relative to global peers. They internationalize mainly through acquisitions of foreign firms, which help them increase their foreign sales, but they are not able to achieve superior performance in overseas operations. We discuss the strategic implications of our findings for managers, public policy makers, and academic research.