Leaders In Taiwan Research Articles

Health risks associated with group package tour: implications from a study on tour leaders in Taiwan

ABSTRACT Group package tour (GPT) is more popular among Asia than in other regions. To visit multiple attractions with a group of people within limited time at low costs, GPT is associated with some potential health hazards, including restricted meal time and long periods of time on ground transportation. Tour leaders are a good target for assessing the associated health outcomes, and we conducted a questionnaire survey on tour leaders in Taiwan. In addition to 152 tour leaders, we recruited office staff of tour agencies as references. Tour leaders were more likely to have peptic ulcer/gastritis, gastroesophageal reflux disease, and lower back pain. The risks of these conditions increased as working on the job longer, indicating a causal relationship. The results suggest that restricted meal time and long periods of time travelling on ground transportation vehicles are potential health hazards associated with GPT and may lead to certain health outcomes.

A Blueprint of Leadership Development for Female Marriage Migrants: A Pilot Exploration in Taiwan

In 2020, more than 560,617 female marriage migrants (FMMs) live in Taiwan. For over three decades, they have been victims of social, gender, and cultural discrimination and have been considered as an inferior group of “desirable others” from “undeveloped countries.” Until today, literature about FMMs has focused on the problems and challenges they encountered, whereas there is no literature on their leadership development (LD) in Taiwan. By exploring 10 FMM leaders and their LD, this study charts their journey to success. The research has the following aims: (a) to explore life experiences as a pathway to LD, (b) to find an LD blueprint for FMMs, and (c) to bridge the literature gap for FMMs’ LD and provide implications to adult learning (AL) and human resources development (HRD) practitioners in planning and conducting training programs for FMMs’ LD. The theory of transformative learning (TTL) was applied as a theoretical framework whereas the qualitative research design was utilized as the methodology to explore 10 FMM leaders in Taiwan. The LD blueprint was built with seven themes derived from individual interviews and three themes from the focus group discussion. Resilience was found as the salient marker of building a successful mental model in FMMs’ LD. Implications are provided.

Patient perceptions of students in a longitudinal integrated clerkship in Taiwan: a qualitative study

BackgroundLongitudinal integrated clerkships (LICs) are a model of clinical education growing rapidly in Western contexts. LICs use educational continuity to benefits students’ clinical learning and professional identity formation. Patient-centered care is a core component of medical professionalism in the West. To support patient-centered care, education leaders in Taiwan restructured clinical education and implemented the first longitudinal integrated clerkship in East Asia. We aimed to investigate patients’ perceptions of longitudinal relationships with the LIC students within Taiwan’s Confucian cultural and social context.MethodsWe invited patients or their family members who were cared for longitudinally by a LIC student to participate in the study. Participating patients or their family members undertook semi-structured interviews. We analyzed data qualitatively using a general inductive approach to identify themes in the patients’ descriptions of their experiences interacting with the LIC students.ResultsTwenty-five patients and family members participated in interviews: 16 patients and 9 family members. Qualitative analysis of interview transcripts identified three themes from patients’ experience receiving care from their LIC students: care facilitation, companionship, and empathy. To provide care facilitation, LIC students served as a bridge between the physicians and patients. Students served patients by reminding, consulting, tracking disease progression, and researching solutions for problems. To provide companionship, students accompanied patients interpersonally like a friend or confidant who listens and provides a presence for patients. To provide empathy, patients reported that students showed sincere concern for patients’ experience, feelings, and mood.ConclusionIn our study, Taiwanese patients’ perspectives of LIC students suggested the value of care facilitation, companionship, and empathy. We discuss these themes within the context of Confucian culture and the Taiwanese context of care.

Workplace sexual harassment: exploring the experience of tour leaders in an Asian context

Sexual harassment is a prominent issue in the workplace; it presents a particular challenge with regard to this sensitive area in the Asian context due to the Asian cultural value. Tour leaders are one of the main components of the tourism industry workforce and are expensive to train in terms of both time/experience accumulation and financial investment. The potential risk of sexual harassment in the hospitality and tourism workplace remains unknown. The purpose of this study was to investigate tour leaders’ experiences of sexual harassment at work and their awareness of the organizational polices/regulations relating to sexual harassment in the workplace. A survey was conducted on the tour leaders in Taiwan and results of the study suggested that gender sexual harassment and seductive harassment behaviour were found to occur more frequently than sexual bribery, sexual coercion and sexual assault. Asian tours leaders tend to adopt extremely passive coping strategies in dealing with sexual harassment incidents. More than half of the tour leaders in the current study were ‘unsure’ whether their affiliated travel agencies had a sexual harassment policy.

A Factorial Analysis on Organizational Power Construction — From the Perspectives of School Leaders in Taiwan

A Factorial Analysis on Organizational Power Construction — From the Perspectives of School Leaders in Taiwan

English

This qualitative study explores the preparation and practice of school leaders in Taiwan based on in-depth interviews and observations with six Taiwan school directors serving geographically diverse student populations. The journey leading to school leadership and the challenges that this representative group of educational leaders face are discussed and also compared to the preparation of American school leaders and the challenges that U.S. counterparts experience. As educational systems around the globe work toward educating more students to higher standards of achievement in order to increase national productivity, the insights gained through this study can be used to inform conversation regarding the restructuring of school leader preparation programs to answer the persistent question of “How are great school leaders developed?” within specific cultural contexts. Key words: Principal preparation, school leadership, Taiwan.

The contribution of Buddhist wisdom to management development

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present selected Buddhist concepts that are useful to leaders of business and to those that want to increase the performance of their businesses and of their organisations implementing practical wisdom from a Buddhist perspective. Design/methodology/approach – The design is to present relevant Buddhist concepts and their application. The methodology used is to consider their logic and rationality, the experiences of Buddhist business leaders in Taiwan and Thailand, and my experience of explaining and applying the concepts. The approach is to present the concepts such a way that the reader can determine if these concept merit further study and trying them out. Findings – Finding Buddhist wisdom concepts that can be applied to management development often require reformulation from the original texts. The original information is vast and requires selection to those concepts that can be readily understood by non-Buddhists. Research limitations/implications – At a high level of abstraction core Buddhist concepts are the same but not in detail. In the paper two types of Buddhism have beeb referred to, Theravada and Tibetan traditions, and not for example Zen. Practical implications – Special emphasis is placed on how to see to it that the values a company describes in its mission, values and business principles statements are practiced. There is always a gap between intentions and results. Where is the gap, how big is it, what can be done about it? Social implications – Buddhism like all spiritual traditions aims to increase the well-being of all. Buddhist concepts can contribute to reduce conflicts and increase happiness by influencing healthy motivations and intentions, and strengthening self-discipline. Originality/value – The Buddhist wisdom concepts have been selected together with the scholarly monk Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, with profound knowledge of Tibetan Buddhism and with the scholarly monk and abbot of the Nyanavesakavan temple, P.A. Payutto, one of the most brilliant Buddhist scholars in the Thai Buddhist history.

Taiwan’s science miracle

In the past two decades, a flourishing economy and maturing infrastructure have Taiwanese physicists both staying home more and engaging internationally.

Tour Leaders’ Knowledge of and Attitudes toward Rabies Vaccination, Taiwan

Tour Leaders’ Knowledge of and Attitudes toward Rabies Vaccination, Taiwan

Whither Taiwanization? The Colonization, Democratization and Taiwanization of Taiwan

AbstractOther than during the Civil War of 1945–1949, Taiwan has never been part of a Chinese state ruled by Han Chinese in Mainland China. With the arrival of the Dutch in 1624, Taiwan underwent a succession of six foreign colonial rulers: the Dutch (1624–1662), the Spanish (in northern Taiwan, 1626–1642), the Cheng family (1662–1683), the Manchus (1683–1895), the Japanese (1895–1945), and the Chinese Nationalists (1945–1988). Only with democratization, beginning in 1988, have the people of Taiwan been able to rule themselves. With democratization, the people of Taiwan have increasingly identified as Taiwanese, an identification that is explicitly not Chinese. China's racial appeals to Taiwan are scientifically inaccurate and have no place in the modern world. In order to gain international support, Taiwan's leaders and people need to avoid the Chinese framework of ‘independence’ versus ‘unification’. Rather, they should emphasize Taiwan's decolonialization, a process that Taiwan shares with much of the world.

Medical Leaders in Taiwan During Japanese Colonization

Japan established the medical system in Taiwan during its 50 years of occupation, which evolved into the present National Taiwan University Hospital system. This paper summarizes the biographies of 97 Japanese leaders in various medical disciplines during the Japanese occupation of Taiwan. These leaders were among the elite of Japan, with superior intellectual, social and economic status, who helped to establish the important attributes of medical professionals in Taiwan, such as a good academic background, heritage, and research skills.

A comparative study of educational leadership in Taiwan and the USA

This research study employed a casual comparative approach to investigating transformational leadership practices of educational leaders in Taiwan and the USA. Convenient samples of 50 educational leaders from each culture were selected as two sample groups to draw cross-cultural comparisons. The instrument selected to measure exemplary leadership practices was Kouzes and Posner’s Leadership Practice Inventory-Self (LPI-Self). The ANOVA results revealed that significant differences existed on three components of leadership practices: Modeling the Way, Inspiring a Shared Vision and Challenging the Process. Self-perceived leadership practices of educational leaders between the two cultures suggested culturally specific interpretations. The impact of culture on educational leadership practices was discussed. Findings of the study have implications for the body of research in a number of related disciplines, such as development, selections of educational leaders, and cross-cultural research on educational leadership. Key words: Transformational leadership, exemplary leadership practices, Chinese paternalistic leadership, sampling comparability, normality assumption.

The relationship between emotional intelligence and leadership practices

PurposeThis paper seeks to explore the relationship between the emotional intelligence (EI) and transformational leadership practices of academic leaders in Taiwan and the USA. It aims to investigate whether cross‐cultural differences exist in academic leaders' EI, leadership practices, and the relationship between them.Design/methodology/approachThe study employs a casual‐comparative approach to draw cross‐cultural comparisons. Convenience samples of 50 academic leaders in Taiwan and 50 in the USA were selected as two comparison sample groups. Two instruments were selected to measure emotional intelligence and leadership effectiveness.FindingsResults of the correlational analyses indicate that Taiwanese participants' overall EI was found to be positively correlated in a statistically significant manner with all five areas of leadership practice. The US participants were found to have statistically significant positive relationships between overall emotional intelligence and all areas of leadership practice except Challenging the process, and Inspiring a shared vision. ANOVA results reveal that significant differences exist in distinct areas of EI and distinct areas of leadership practice as a function of cultural difference.Research limitations/implicationsAn important limitation of the present study is the probability of response bias resulting from self‐reported data.Originality/valueThe study has significance in three aspects. First, it investigates a less understood and explored issue: cross‐cultural differences in the relationship between emotional intelligence and leadership practices. Second, findings of the study make contributions to the body of research in a number of related disciplines, such as leadership effectiveness, emotional intelligence, cross‐cultural research on leadership, and cross‐cultural studies of emotional intelligence. Third, the results of the study bring significant insights into the field of cross‐cultural leadership development in the academic context.

Surviving a life‐threatening crisis: Taiwan’s nurse leaders’ reflections and difficulties fighting the SARS epidemic

This study explored Taiwan's nurse leaders' reflections and experiences of the difficulties they encountered and survival strategies they employed fighting the severe acute respiratory syndrome epidemic and the background context framing these phenomena. On several continents in 2002-2003, the highly infectious severe acute respiratory syndrome overwhelmed health care systems and health professionals who had to provide care in situations involving high personal risk and stress, some becoming infected and dying. Nurse leaders in Taiwan had to develop new strategies and support systems for nursing care. A two-step within-method qualitative triangulation research design. Focus group in-depth interviews held with 70 nurse leaders from four Northern Taiwan hospitals involved in the severe acute respiratory syndrome epidemic. Participants then completed an open ended questionnaire. Content analysis was undertaken with data and stages and themes generated. Data were then analysed using Hobfall's concepts of conservation of resources to further discuss participants' reactions and actions in the severe acute respiratory syndrome crisis. Participants worked under incredible stress to lead the profession through a period of crisis. Five stages arose in the participants' involvement against severe acute respiratory syndrome over 12 weeks: facing shock and chaos; searching for reliable sources to clarify myths; developing and adjusting nursing care; supporting nurses and their clients; and rewarding nurses. Nurse leaders become important executors of intervention in this health disaster, requiring emotional intelligence to manage their internal conflicts and interpersonal relationships effectively. They developed sociopolitical and analytical abilities and crucial requirements for planning and implementing strategies in areas where none previously existed. Building support systems was an important resource for managing conflicts between familial and professional roles. Relevance to clinical practice. Findings will assist nurse leaders to prepare themselves and the profession to better deal with disaster management in similar infectious outbreaks in the future.

Nursing Directors' Leadership Styles and Faculty Members' Job Satisfaction in Taiwan

Nursing leaders in Taiwan seldom receive the leadership training necessary to lead an academic organization. As a result, leaders may experience burn out, and dissatisfaction among faculty may increase. This study examined nursing faculty members' perceptions of nursing directors' leadership and their job satisfaction levels to understand how perceptions of leadership styles related to job satisfaction in Taiwan. This descriptive, correlational, cross-sectional study used self-administered questionnaires. Transformational leadership theory supported the research framework. Nine schools with nursing programs awarding diplomas to students participated in this study. A total of 175 questionnaires were returned (72% response rate). The findings indicated that Taiwan's nursing directors tend to display transformational leadership more frequently in their workplaces and that Taiwan's nursing faculty members are moderately satisfied in their jobs. In addition, nursing faculty in Taiwan are more satisfied with directors who practice the leadership style of attributed idealized influence.

China's good neighbor policy and its implications for Taiwan

Chinese leaders in recent years have been following a coherent policy toward Asia that emphasizes moderation and accommodation while preserving core PRC interests. China's prevailing ‘good neighbor’ policy approach—backed by improvement in US–China relations—provides important opportunities and challenges for Taiwan. It clearly inclines the PRC leaders to avoid more aggressive or harder‐line tactics in the mix of carrots and sticks that makes up China's recent approach toward Taiwan. To follow a more disruptive course would undermine the influence and advantage Beijing has been seeking with its ongoing moderate approach toward the United States and other Asian powers. The main challenge for Taiwan is how to deal with the current balance of carrots and sticks in China's policy. Much depends on the ability of Taiwan's leaders and populace to turn the prevailing balance in PRC policy to Taiwan's advantage. This presumably will involve reviving their economy, promoting effective governance and prudent defense, while consolidating relations with the United States and managing tensions in cross‐Strait relations to the advantage of Taiwan's future security and development. Unfortunately, there is no political consensus on Taiwan to mobilize domestic resources and opinion in a concerted effort to protect Taiwan's future as an entity independent of PRC control. Those outsiders who have followed with positive interest Taiwan's remarkable development over the past decades hope that Taiwan makes good use of the opportunities posed by China's good neighbor policy to adopt prudent and concrete measures beneficial to Taiwan's long range prospects.

Taiwan's Maritime Security (review)

Reviewed by: Taiwan's Maritime Security Steven E. Phillips (bio) Martin Edmonds and Michael M. Tsai, editors. Taiwan's Maritime Security. London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003. xxiii, 184 pp. Hardcover $114.95, ISBN 0-415-29736-2. Due to the increasing militancy of Taiwan's leaders, the growing impatience of China's rulers, and the improving capabilities of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), understanding the military balance and scenarios for armed conflict in the Taiwan Strait becomes more important each day. The problem is not discovering the facts or finding analysis that fits one's predisposition, but rather separating the wheat from the chaff in this extremely active field. Taiwan's Maritime Security, edited by Michael M. Tsai and Martin Edmonds, offers both hard data and insight into a key aspect of the possible war between Taipei and Beijing. Along with two other volumes edited by Tsai and Edmonds, Defending Taiwan: The Future Vision of Taiwan's Defense Policy and Military Strategy and Taiwan's Security and Air Power, the present volume represents the intersection of academic analysis, expert opinion, party politics, and policy advocacy.1 Tsai, a Democratic Progressive Party member who served in the National Legislature and then became the Deputy Representative at the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States, is credited with organizing the conferences that resulted in two of the three volumes. Both editors and many of the authors are actively involved with Taiwan Defense Affairs (Guofang zhengce pinglun ), a recently established bilingual journal from the Institute for Taiwan Defense and Strategic Studies. Tang Yiau-Ming, Taiwan's Minister of Defense, lays out the agenda of the volume: "I hope the publication of this book will prompt the Taiwanese people to attach greater importance to the island's national security and sea power development, while rendering even more support and encouragement to the ROC Armed Forces" (p. xiii). Two questions unify these essays: to what extent can the Republic of China (ROC) resist a PLA attack or blockade today, and can the ROC keep pace with the mainland's naval modernization program? The four brief chapters of part 1 focus on the PLA Navy (PLAN). Chen Te-Men, Director of the Research and Publishing Office at Taiwan's National Defense University, begins with an overview of PLAN modernization, which seeks to transform the force from a brown-water to a green-and eventually a blue-water navy capable of deterring if not defeating the United States. He also introduces the weapon systems and vessels of this naval-modernization effort. Part 1 also has a very brief article by prolific scholar Andrew Scobell on "China's Strategy toward the South China Sea." He characterizes the PRC strategy in the context of a "slow intensity conflict" where the Chinese gradually move from asserting sovereignty to physical control over the course of decades. Such a description reflects the [End Page 330] ideas in his well-received recent book examining case studies of PLA war fighting, China's Use of Military Force: Beyond the Great Wall and the Long March.2 Next is a broad overview on the impact of PLAN modernization on regional security by Sam Bateman and Chris Rahman of the Centre for Maritime Policy at the University of Wollongong in Australia. This chapter points out that security issues involve more than warships and also "include a large global shipping fleet, vast shipbuilding capacity, and a major role in the management of regional oceans and seas and their resources" (p. 15). Bernard D. Cole evaluates the impact of PLAN modernization on Taiwan's security. Cole, author of The Great Wall at Sea: China's Navy Enters the Twenty-First Century,3 paints a less than glowing picture of PLAN capabilities, but posits that "the future promises a degree of Chinese air superiority that may cancel out any Taiwan naval superiority" (p. 72 ). The conclusions drawn in the Bateman-Rahman and Cole chapters suggest that the three volumes edited by Tsai and Edmonds should be read (or, better yet, published) together in order to highlight the multidimensional nature of the cross-Strait military balance. Given the backgrounds of these authors, part 2, which...

Goodwill and Proactive Exchange Policy: How Taipei manages the cross-strait relations

Dynamic developments within both Mainland China and Taiwan have compounded the uncertainties looming across the Taiwan Strait. Since mid-2000, the cross-strait relationship has evolved into a mixture of four elements: lingering, though less confrontational, political stalemate; growing and even accelerating economic exchanges; rapidly expanding social interactions; and heightened military competition. Since July 1999, four distinct periods have marked Beijing's tactical operations toward Taiwan: military intimidations and verbal threats (9 July‐21 September 1999); verbal threats (21 September 1999‐18 March 2000); passive observation (18 March‐20 June 2000); and the two-pronged campaign (20 June‐present). Beijing's two-pronged campaign is well-coordinated and full-scaled. One soft prong aims at winning 'the hearts of Taiwanese people'. The soft prong includes the following elements: softening of rhetoric without concrete change of behavior; escalated efforts to invite opinion leaders in Taiwan; mentioning preferential treatments for Taiwanese investors on the Mainland; and allowing a dramatically increased number of Mainland visitors to Taiwan since July 2000. On the other hand, the hard prong seeks to put 'appropriate pressure' on Taipei to accept Beijing's precondition of resumption of cross-strait talks, and eventually Beijing's terms on unification. The hard prong includes the following elements: continuing to conduct military exercises with no reduction in frequency and scale; continuing strangulation of Taipei's international living-space with a new twist of diplomatic war in Africa; mobilizing Chinese overseas globally to oppose Taiwanese independence; escalating Beijing's pressure on Washington not to include Taiwan in the theater missile defense program, and not to transfer arms to Taiwan. The new Taiwan government has adopted much continuity in its cross-strait policy from the previous one. The new administration seeks a structured and constructive cross-strait relationship, holds no precondition for the resumption of cross-strait talks, continues to express maximum goodwill, exercises absolute restraint to avoid being seen as provocative, and takes a proactive approach on promoting socio-economic exchanges across the Taiwan Strait.